Popularity of Life Tap and Mana Tap

[Requimortem]

I love life tap, it is one of the few remnants of the 'blurred line between life and mana' fantasy originally used to describe warlocks.
Still, I can't deny that life-tapping can be a chore at times.
Lifetap could probably be improved or changed, but I do not want it removed.

Uh, what? Life Tap does not add to the fantasy of the class at all nor does it make up any significant part of it. All it has ever been is a burden to warlocks and healers.

[Sylar Hao]

Life Tap only fits the fantasy of Affliction Warlocks, specially because of Drain Life. A spec that that causes suffering and pain over time to their foes, even to the warlock him/herself to get empowered (getting more mana gamewise), by the use of DoTs and draining their life and their very soul. This duo of spells fantasy is reinforced now that Drain Life is the main filler for Affliction. It matches perfectly the fantasy of toying with health, mana and power.

But it doesn't fit that match for Demonology, and definitely it doesn't fit AT ALL for Destruction. Same goes for Soul Shards. They might fit for Demonology somehow, although in my opinion it would be better if Demonology gets a different version of Shards, some like Demonic Stones; seriously, you drain the soul of your foes to be able to summon a meteor that brings Imps inside? It feels odd. And it's worse for Destruction: steal some soul to unleash chaotic spells...? Burning Embers hands down.
But whatever... Demon Hunters can use different resources per spec, Mages can use 2 (Arcane, charges and mana) or none (Fire and Frost, they "use" a mana bar that never drops below 95%), Moonkins get a new one, but when it comes to warlocks, the class that has the most solid both mechanically and thematically resource, Burning Embers, suddenly it is a problem and we're back to SS because they want us to be homogenized in an unique resource.. meh... Blizzard logics.

Destruction plays with chaotic powers he tries to control to burst down whatever he/she pleases. Life Tap doesn't fit this thematic, and what their trying to do with Drain Life, specially through the arctifact trait, is really disappoiting. "Hey, I'm gonna stop tossing at you my hard hitting abilities to suddenly start channelling and siphoning a small amount of your life (even if it's empowered through the trait)". Drain Life should be a tool you use from time to time, but I forsee it is gonna be our main filler spell specially in PvP, instead of Incinerate. Which is lame and sad.

About Mana Tap: as a player that has been playing feral and destro for 10 years, getting a new Savage Roar in Mana Tap... no thanks. I've hated SR ever since it was introduced, the maintain-a-buff mechanics is annoying plain and boring, and even if Mana Tap is less painful to keep than SR, I don't want it. I definitely will never use it, even if it turns out to be superior to the other two options in that row. If it was an extrad CD you can't maintain 100% of the time, I may consider it.

Affliction seems really solid in alpha. Demonology seems a bit awkward at the moment but it's new and refreshing. But although we still haven't seen much of Destruction so far, I feel sad for what they're doing to my beloved spec. I know they won't reconsider Burning Embers and Chaotic Energies back, but here's to hope...

Finally I'd like to add: Demonic Circle Baseline or riot!

[zvvl]

I can't think of any gameplay less compelling than managing something (mana or a damage buff) when literally all thought that goes into it is "I need to hit this single button every x seconds or while moving." Especially when it interrupts the 'flow' you sort of get into while in combat.

Class fantasy is a terrible design scapegoat. Especially when the thought process moves away from "how can I make this FUN?" to "How can I make this fit the class fantasy despite that buzzphrase never being used before in the past 10 years?"

[Deleted]

Uh, what? Life Tap does not add to the fantasy of the class at all nor does it make up any significant part of it. All it has ever been is a burden to warlocks and healers.

I disagree, sacrificing health for power is one of the core mechanics of being a warlock. I would love to see someway to drain health from allies to power us. Perhaps they can rework mana tap to insted of draining our mana; draining health from nearby allies.

[Baconeggcheese]

Class fantasy is a terrible design scapegoat. Especially when the thought process moves away from "how can I make this FUN?" to "How can I make this fit the class fantasy despite that buzzphrase never being used before in the past 10 years?"

I'd disagree with that, if they were more concerned with class fantasy a lot of things wouldn't exist in the current specs. I'd say warlocks spec* fantasy has been pretty good in mop / wod, and they're moving away from that in legion for some reason.

[Requimortem]

I disagree, sacrificing health for power is one of the core mechanics of being a warlock. I would love to see someway to drain health from allies to power us. Perhaps they can rework mana tap to insted of draining our mana; draining health from nearby allies.

You're not gaining power, you're sacrificing health for mana; an act no other mana-using class has to do. There's no reason warlocks should have to and it's simply not iconic, it's an archaic mechanic that only serves as a burden. Drain Mana and having a bag of soul shards was more iconic than Life Tap.

[Deleted]

You're not gaining power, you're sacrificing health for mana; an act no other mana-using class has to do. There's no reason warlocks should have to and it's simply not iconic, it's an archaic mechanic that only serves as a burden. Drain Mana and having a bag of soul shards was more iconic than Life Tap.

Mana is power, and that no other class have a similar mechanic is only positive in my eyes.

In regard of drain mana and soulshards in bags I would like to see them both back, with the exception that I want soul shards to stack... alot... like 200/stack.

[PickleballAce]

I feel like Life Tap has always belonged in terms of class fantasy...no problems there for me.

The problem is mechanically, Life Tap has outlived its usefulness. Once other DPS stopped worrying about their mana (other than Arcane), the advantage we got from Life Tap was totally nullified. The only thing Life Tap does for us now is give us some sort of entitlement to increased survivability because we still have to cut ourselves when nobody else does.

It probably should just go at this point. I don't know if I'd mourn Life Tap, but I sort of mourn the time that it actually was an asset rather than a liability.

[Requimortem]

Mana is power, and that no other class have a similar mechanic is only positive in my eyes.

In regard of drain mana and soulshards in bags I would like to see them both back, with the exception that I want soul shards to stack... alot... like 200/stack.

Then your eyes are screwy because Life Tap is in no way beneficial to us and is in no way part of the "class fantasy". If we used it and got a noticeable damage buff then I might be willing to agree but I believe they tried that once and it went terribly.

[Baconeggcheese]

I'd rather it become a more literal "life for power" trade as opposed to being removed. A CD or what have you where you sacrifice life for some kind of spec appropriate buff or something would be fitting.

I do think its an iconic part of the warlock kit, I just think the mechanic itself is dated in its current form.

[striderZA]

Then your eyes are screwy because Life Tap is in no way beneficial to us

How is not being OOM so you can cast things in no way beneficial?

[Baconeggcheese]

How is not being OOM so you can cast things in no way beneficial?

The obvious response is *no other caster has to manage mana in such a way besides arcane mages*. I've never once thought about my mana on my spriest or my boomkin. They don't require you to press a button every so often just to be able to cast a spell at all.

What we really gain from life tap is the excuse to give us extra tankiness / self healing etc, the mana part is just dated.

[Jessicka]

The obvious response is *no other caster has to manage mana in such a way besides arcane mages*. I've never once thought about my mana on my spriest or my boomkin. They don't require you to press a button every so often just to be able to cast a spell at all.

What we really gain from life tap is the excuse to give us extra tankiness / self healing etc, the mana part is just dated.

On Mage, if you have to spellsteal it can get a pain in the ass; but usually this is spread amongst enough people that it's not a problem. Same with healing on SPriest or other hybrids. Those are things that comes in a lot more in PvP, which basically every PvEer never notices or cares about. It's also where that survivability that compensates for it comes in most strongly too.

[Baconeggcheese]

On Mage, if you have to spellsteal it can get a pain in the ass; but usually this is spread amongst enough people that it's not a problem. Same with healing on SPriest or other hybrids. Those are things that comes in a lot more in PvP, which basically every PvEer never notices or cares about. It's also where that survivability that compensates for it comes in most strongly too.

Yeah definitely, as evidenced by the utility change celestalon mentioned recently in the spriest thread about how they'll be changing the utility spells to be limited by mana instead of consuming insanity.

I'd disagree that the survivability bit isn't pronounced in pve though, I can't tell you how many jobs I've had on how many encounters over the last 2 xpacs specifically because warlocks could cheese from that survivability. Or how apparent that tankiness is on a lot of fights where the locks simply don't need the healing or care that other classes do. When a mage gots targeted with chains during wrought chaos on mythic archie progress(and even today tbh) they needed an external to have a realistic shot at surviving, where everyone breathed a sigh of relief when it went on a lock.

I do miss the days in mop though when a raid wiping mechanic would go out and the entire raid would get globaled except the tanks and the lock group sitting at 90% hp.

[Bridius]

I don't understand the argument against Life Tap. What's wrong with using mana as a resource? It makes sense from a design perspective and a flavor perspective...

You want Chaotic Regeneration or whatever the dumb thing Destro had? Then just remove mana altogether. As long as mana is part of the game Warlocks should be happy to have Life Tap.

We rarely have to sit an eat/drink when soloing content because we can easily refill our mana pool and have easy ways to gain HP. In raids healers will just give back the HP we trade for mana. Ask any Mage, I'm sure they would be glad to trade Conjure Refreshment and Evocation for instant mana whenever they like.

[Requimortem]

How is not being OOM so you can cast things in no way beneficial?

That's an incredibly stupid question to ask. Obviously I'm not saying we should be left to run out of mana but no other mana-using class has to use an ability like this especially one the drains health.

[Fearsom1992]

I'd rather it become a more literal "life for power" trade as opposed to being removed. A CD or what have you where you sacrifice life for some kind of spec appropriate buff or something would be fitting.

I do think its an iconic part of the warlock kit, I just think the mechanic itself is dated in its current form.

Agreed I would rather see it as a cd or something, Bacon it feels weird having mana problems more than an arcane mage as affi xD

[FertsBlert]

I don't understand the argument against Life Tap. What's wrong with using mana as a resource? It makes sense from a design perspective and a flavor perspective...

You want Chaotic Regeneration or whatever the dumb thing Destro had? Then just remove mana altogether. As long as mana is part of the game Warlocks should be happy to have Life Tap.

We rarely have to sit an eat/drink when soloing content because we can easily refill our mana pool and have easy ways to gain HP. In raids healers will just give back the HP we trade for mana. Ask any Mage, I'm sure they would be glad to trade Conjure Refreshment and Evocation for instant mana whenever they like.

Sitting to eat\drink solo hasn't been a thing for any class (other than the occasional overpull) since Wrath, I have all classes at cap and have had so since BC.

Burning a global every so often to regain your mana is not a good choice, that burnt global is one where you are not casting and the mantra for caster DPS is "ABC, always be casting" it would be fine if other caster classes had to pause every so often to regain their resources, but they don't ever have to and warlock damage is no longer increased to make allowance for those non-casting pauses. Mana Tap just exacerbates this issue instead of a single global you are burning at least 2, maybe more, so falling further behind with every cycle. Sure they could tune it so that the damage buff will make up for those lost globals but then it becomes either a required talent and a required buff you MUST maintain at 100% or it is completely pointless since you would do the same damage without the buff by not losing those globals.

One possible way to make this talent not quite so problematical would be to completely remove the mana aspect of it (and have all warlocks go back to MoP style resource management) having the warlock directly turn health into a damage buff, it's still a choice you must make in that you could die due to the tapping but it doesn't make warlocks one of the only classes that has to manage multiple resources and it also fits quite nicely with the theme of warlocks.

[Deleted]

I think Warlocks and especially destro should get arcane's mastery. We warlocks are the mages that go outside the boundaries. We dare go where no mage will go and sacrifice EVERYTHING!!! for that power. We should be the casters that cast spells requireing so much mana, a regular caster would faint and die. We go full super-sayan and destroy stuff.

[Sylar Hao]

I don't understand the argument against Life Tap. What's wrong with using mana as a resource? It makes sense from a design perspective and a flavor perspective...

You want Chaotic Regeneration or whatever the dumb thing Destro had? Then just remove mana altogether. As long as mana is part of the game Warlocks should be happy to have Life Tap.

We rarely have to sit an eat/drink when soloing content because we can easily refill our mana pool and have easy ways to gain HP. In raids healers will just give back the HP we trade for mana. Ask any Mage, I'm sure they would be glad to trade Conjure Refreshment and Evocation for instant mana whenever they like.

There's nothing wrong with using mana as a resource. I actually like having to care about mana. But not at the cost of my own health. Specially if I like PvP too. That's why I like the energy-mana bar Destro has, in MoP you could actually go oom if you abused RoF or had a very bad luck with crits and had to wait 1 or 2 GCD to start casting again. From mid expansion and on haste on gear nullified this and you never run oom, but actually having to care about your mana without sacrifing your own health combined with the fast paced casting and fast energy-mana regeneration made the spec really special and fun. At least for me.

Destro's mobility went from acceptable in MoP to turret in WoD in PvP. And it looks it will be even worse in Legion. Go to any bg as destro and you'll notice that once any melee spots you, they forget what they were doing and you are instantly focused because they know you're basicly an immobile turret. So I don't really wanna help them kill me faster by using Life Tap. And try to channel Drain Life will all the interrupts and CC...

Finally: Health shouldn't be a resource. Some specs don't have a resource (fire and frost), some have 1 (most of the specs), some have 2 (arcane and energy specs) and warlocks in Legion will have 3: soul shards, mana and health. That's just overkill.