New warlock, few questions

[Deleted]

Hello fellow warlock masters, I would like to ask you few questions:

I am leveling from scratch (not using the insta 90 level boost, because I want to learn my class) and I am leveling as affliction.

1. my voidwalker and other pets are too squishy, I cant keep him alive with more than 3 mobs, is it normal, or will it get better? I am full doting the mobs and than I have to health funnel my void else he dies quickly.

2.Is alchemy+herbalism good for me? For perspective gold making and for WOD?

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BTW I have 0 heirlooms.

[Scutshakes]

It will get better. Your demons will scale with your item level, but also as you level up you will unlock more abilities to keep your tank alive. Using crowd control like Fear and Shadowfury can help give your voidwalker some breathing room. You can also give him a constant buffer with talents like Soul Leech and Soul Link, but only as long as you are dealing damage. If you choose these talents, I'd recommend getting the Glyph of Health Funnel and using it on cooldown in conjunction with the aforementioned CC spells.

As Affliction, you are more able to use the unglyphed version of Health Funnel and just letting your demon and DoTs do all the damage while leveling, though the former healing method is the best at a high level IMO.

[Avikur]

Yeah it definitely gets better, I'd recommend when you get to lvl 30 if you can dual spec go for Destruction, and make the switch at lvl 42 when you get chaos bolt and ember tap, you'll find mobs go down well before they can do much damage to your voidwalker.

As for professions, there will be no damage perk so it's a personal choice, I like Tailoring, from time to time you can make a bit of gear (you usually outgear it pretty quick) and gold making from bags is always pretty strong. Yes Alchemy and Herbalism will be fine, you'll be able to make your own flasks so that'll be good, you can also sell any excess herbs, just remember that everyone will have access to a few herbs each day (regardless of professions) in their garrisons so you may find the AH price of herbs drops a bit

[Deleted]

What is with my pet's abilities that I cant use? Seduction is in my spellbook as passive and I cant "use" it? I am lvl 26.

[Avikur]

drag missing pet spells to your pets action bar, you can't put pet abilities on your own bars, and passive abilities you can't 'use' so i'm not really sure what you mean?

[Deleted]

Seduction of sucubs, was always a active spell , why cant I use it?

[Baneleaf]

Welcome to purple power. As a leveling warlock running affliction you would to well to use an old practice called Drain Tanking. Dont use your voidwalker as a pet, use the imp or succubus. You tank the mobs with full dots on them and use drain life as a filler. You can also use fear kiting for tougher mobs. Affliction will not preform well in dungeons because your group will have people in heirlooms that kill things before your dots can tick. Either way you are playing the class that is the most fun in the game and if anyone tells you different they are full of crap, or they play a paladin.

[Deleted]

Yes, I can feel that in the dungeons I cant even put all my dots on target, and the target is alrdy on 30%

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BTW Whats going on with dmg numbers in dungeons not showing? It is so anoying, once it shows once not.

[Scutshakes]

There should be an option to show/hide all of the different floating text/numbers somewhere in the Interface menu.

Affliction in dungeons is pretty poor until the 60s. At level 60 you get Seed of Corruption, Haunt at 62. I think in the 70's somewhere you get Fel Flame. In level 60-80 you will adopt a completely different playstyle in dungeons.

Spread Seed of Corruption either manually or through soul swap
Haunt should be used as often as possible, you have plenty of mobs to use Drain Soul on to replenish your shards.
Fel Flame for quick damage
Full dots -> Haunt -> Malefic Grasp/Drain Soul on single-target/boss

If you are able to spread DoTs, I would recommend you use Unstable Affliction. It has the best damage-duration ratio and requires no ramp up time. Corruption is instant, but weak.


Note that you shouldn't play like this in current content, this is just performing at your best when you are in Rambo dungeon groups.

[Deleted]

I know about the on/off fucntion of floating combat text but the problem is, it stops sometimes working in dungeons, I have no addons.

Any glyphs recommendations?

[Scutshakes]

Unsure about that glitch if you don't have any add-ons to interfere. Distance certainly is not a factor because I see my DoTs rolling on enemies half a battleground away.

Some glyph recommendations below. You don't have a whole lot of options that scream "pick me!", but they have their uses.

- Demon Training (For solo play. This will give you a stronger tank. I think that with the Imp it is a very slight practical damage increase in certain situations because it makes the damage more bursty rather than constant. Like in PVP or on adds that die quickly, for example. but you probably won't notice it and I think there is still some debate as whether it is an actual DPS increase or not)

- Health Funnel (For solo play, keeping the tank alive)

- Healthstone (General glyph recommended for any content, works best with Dark Regeneration as an oh-crap button)

- Eternal Resolve (General glyph for dungeon/raid content where you want a passive damage resistance against any indirect damage like environmental, DoT, AoE, etc. Also common in PVP)

- Soulstone (Might only get to use it once or twice in a BG. Generally used in dungeons or raids just in case things go crazy and you need to rez the tank or the healer)

- Fear (Might want it for convenience in solo play. Generally used in group content if, for some reason, you want to use Fear in group content below the level cap. people are going to AoE anyway. some people use it in raids or any tough encounters in general if the warlock is the designated CC person, though.)

- Imp Swarm (For demonology only. Generally used in PVP for burst but it can be fun and effective in dungeons as well. DPS loss in a raid, i believe)

- Demon Hunting (For demonology only. Pretty fun glyph for solo play and experimental fun in PVP. Basically a pseudo-tank stance. Not recommended for dungeons or raids except for experimental value. Going away soon, get it while it's hot)

- Conflagrate (For destruction only. Recommended glyph for PVP only)

- Unstable Affliction (For affliction only. Generally used in PVP but can be used in general if you have no other desirable options)

[cptaylor38]

Unsure about that glitch if you don't have any add-ons to interfere. Distance certainly is not a factor because I see my DoTs rolling on enemies half a battleground away.

Some glyph recommendations below. You don't have a whole lot of options that scream "pick me!", but they have their uses.

- Demon Training (For solo play. This will give you a stronger tank. I think that with the Imp it is a very slight practical damage increase in certain situations because it makes the damage more bursty rather than constant. Like in PVP or on adds that die quickly, for example. but you probably won't notice it and I think there is still some debate as whether it is an actual DPS increase or not)

- Health Funnel (For solo play, keeping the tank alive)

- Healthstone (General glyph recommended for any content, works best with Dark Regeneration as an oh-crap button)

- Eternal Resolve (General glyph for dungeon/raid content where you want a passive damage resistance against any indirect damage like environmental, DoT, AoE, etc. Also common in PVP)

- Soulstone (Might only get to use it once or twice in a BG. Generally used in dungeons or raids just in case things go crazy and you need to rez the tank or the healer)

- Fear (Might want it for convenience in solo play. Generally used in group content if, for some reason, you want to use Fear in group content below the level cap. people are going to AoE anyway. some people use it in raids or any tough encounters in general if the warlock is the designated CC person, though.)

- Imp Swarm (For demonology only. Generally used in PVP for burst but it can be fun and effective in dungeons as well. DPS loss in a raid, i believe)

- Demon Hunting (For demonology only. Pretty fun glyph for solo play and experimental fun in PVP. Basically a pseudo-tank stance. Not recommended for dungeons or raids except for experimental value. Going away soon, get it while it's hot)

- Conflagrate (For destruction only. Recommended glyph for PVP only)

- Unstable Affliction (For affliction only. Generally used in PVP but can be used in general if you have no other desirable options)

It gets better. I didn't have any issues leveling my lock but a lot of people do. For some reason I had far more issues with my rogue's survivability!

And I would advise against the glyph of demon hunting. You don't want to get used to having a fun solo ability that's getting removed in the pre-patch anyway.



I would just go demo for leveling at low levels at least anyway. Fel guard is a way better than void walker for that first bit. Void walker is decent on Timeless Isle at level 90, but even then it depends on the mob you're up against. The improved demon talent makes quite a bit of difference but it's really only a situational use at that point.

On the plus side demo runs a lot smoother on the ptr, it just doesn't have as good of damage as live. And destroy still remains king for easy rotation mastery and max dps. (But I haven't tried affliction on ptr and have never been good at it anyway. lol)

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I know about the on/off fucntion of floating combat text but the problem is, it stops sometimes working in dungeons, I have no addons.

Any glyphs recommendations?

And I think this is a bug. For certain wings of Siege I don't get any floating combat text at all. Seems it cuts off after the Vale of Eternal Sorrows wing.

[Deleted]

OK I have question related now to PVP. I feel like I am squishy too much, atm 31 lvl and rogues, hunters and warrios are ganging me so much. I am using healthstone, fears, mortal coil, all dost and soulburn life drain but they hit me for 300-500 dmg regularly (I have 2k hp) and they have about 4k hp, it just feels like I am training dummy, I cant even do enough dmg to hurt them, my dots are ticking for 70 dmg Any advice? Or will it get better?

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Rogue is killing me with 1200 ambush + 900 eviscerate, hunter is killing me with his insta "bombs" or smthg, and warrior charges me and than comes the unstoppable power of fast 300-400 hits

[Scutshakes]

PVP under the level cap is inherently unbalanced and unfair, unfortunately.

I did a lot of low level PVP on my warlock, primarily as Demonology. If you are able to get a few heirlooms and keep the other slots tidy with Blue quality gear from dungeons, it shouldn't be so bad. You will always run into those heirloom heroes, though.

It will definitely get better, but only once you reach current content. That is where everything is supposed to be balanced.

[Deleted]

Got question about twilight ward, I thought blizz was pruning spells like this, what is the purpose of this spell ? When do u use it ? Only in pvp against priests/paladins/ other warlocks? Or is there something else?

[DenniZ]

Every moment where you take shadow damage.

[Scutshakes]

Pretty much. At least 4 classes (Death Knight) deal shadow or holy damage, so it's worth keeping it up outside of combat or whenever you can spare a GCD.

At the current season there is a PVP set bonus that lets Twilight Ward absorb all schools of magical damage, so it's actually used quite a bit at level 90.

[Deleted]

I would like to ask also about your preferred addon for tracking dots of multiple targets, I know there are lots of em and everybody likes something esle, but what would u prefer for PVP? I mean in BG's I am loosing a track of my dots for more than 4 targets without addon. Or if there is some addon that shows MY dots on nameplates, if you know what I mean, above the health bar, does something like this exist?

[Scutshakes]

I use Tidy Plates. The Threat Plates theme specifically, but pick whichever you like the best. There should be an option to check your debuffs only.

I appreciate Tidy Plates for its large variety of themes and range of customization options. I keep mine pretty simple, though.

The only complaint I have with it is in PVE, really tall enemies will not show their nameplate unless you have your camera set to some wacky angle. Unsure if there is a fix for that.

[MatadorMedia]

At a certain point with Affliction, you probably don't even need a pet. If you're running with the self-healing glyphs / talents, you can dot up everything around you and laugh maniacally while they die slowly and you stay at full health. I always play Destruction because I prefer the big hits and I sacrifice my demon (but that's an upper level thing) unless I need him to tank a heavy hitting elite or something.