How to play a Warlock - A pro's insight

[Xpace]

- clicker (classic ui)
- addon (necrosis or others)
- special bar panel with keybinds

You won't see much changes to UIs in tournaments. Try streaming some mainstream stuff from Blizzcon and MLG and you'll know.

[Deezlar]

FFS. Get a dictionary. Pro, is short for professional. As in a profession. Occupation. The guy gets paid. No influence on skill or ingenuity. Just money. Thats what pro means. BTW this is quite a strange argument. Glad to end it .

you sir, fail miserably.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/professional

A skilled practitioner; an expert.
Having or showing great skill

"no influence on skill...."

anyway, after slaying this troll, ill add to this interesting topic!!

I personally used (yes used.. cancelled a while back) wasd for movement, E for the most used spell, i.e shadowbolt/incinerate, Q for my "get out of jail free" button like deathcoil, then alt E alt Q ctrl E crtl Q for other key skills and then other skills radiating out from the WASD focal point, depending on importance.

for ME this worked... since TBC, I can count on one hand the times I was out DPS'd (when it happened, it was by other locks that I had helped to train!!! go figure) and in PVP, I stood my ground but was in no way a master...

Do what feels comfortable to you!!! now that I know and love this key setup, evey MMO I play is done in the same way.... my E key doesnt even have a letter on it anymore from overuse!

[TwistedPower]

There is no reason to bind everything. Allot of the locks on the tournament circut dont bind even 80% of the keys. They have (besides the original binds) about 8-10 keybinds. Thats all you realy need.

[muttonchops]

I like this answer.
I would/might use my keyboard to atk stuff but i cant move with my mouse.. so i guess ill stick to clicking for now and use standard keyboard to move.

another good thing you pointed out was scrolling combat text. this stuff is awesome good. shows damage, dots, names and everything u need to know about you and the current target. grid/equivalent is also a good addon to go with this.

wat I would like to see is a list of suggested macro's that people use, the code an all, or the website in which you went to as reference.. (exact) eg: cast sequence, stop casting, target=notarget and so on.

might have to post my ui to show some peeps wat they are missing out on (to analyze another point of view)

Buy a new mouse. Seriously. Just buy one. You're probably on a laptop or single button lamo Mac. Buy a two button mouse and rejoice in the awesomeness. On second thought, buy a mouse with MANY extra buttons that you can bind to abilities. Preferably two in the thumb area so you can use them while moving. Then go change your pants.

I used to keybind AND use WASD to move. Yeah, I was a retard. My left hand became a twisted claw until I had to have surgery on my left shoulder and learned to use the mouse to move.

SO much easier

[AcidicRage]

i also like the classis UI, but i have some addons

as you can see in this picture, 4300 spell power

[Alexavia]

I wouldn't call myself a pro, but I've had a couple years experience with a warlock.

I always use the default UI because my "play style" rarely, if ever, changes. I've been in raiding guilds where most UI add-ons broke and people could not play until new versions of the add-ons were released (for example, when BC was released). It's embarrassing to play with people like that. It's also annoying to spend hours configuring a UI when it could be done in 3 minutes using the default. I also use the default UI for portability. I can log into any computer and nothing has changed.

I have the most-used actions key-bound. Fear, death coil, drain life, life tap, health funnel, curse of agony, curse of exhaustion, curse of tongues, etc. The only ones I don't have key-bound are actions like underwater breathing, my various armor spells, some of the rarely used curses or curses that are used in PvE with long reapplication times, etc.

As far as non-UI add-ons are concerned, I've used and prefer some, but nothing that I rely on. When Necrosis was all the rage (was it ever? I dunno), I just used it to count and remove my excess shards. I've used DoTimer. I like it.

But I guess none of this really matters for my warlock any more because she was killed by Arthas and risen as a death knight... RP! RP!

[Erionn]

Ui is TPZui from Wowinterface. I'm sure you can see from the screen shot I keybind just about everything.

[DeadlyDoll]

Key binds:

1: CoE
Alt + 1: CoD
2: Immo
3: Conflag
4: CB
5: Incin
6: DS
7: SoC
8: RoF
9: Death Coil
0: Fear
-: Howl of Terror
=: Lifetap

Everything else that I don't use as much can just be clicked. I like to keep my keybinds simple like this because I have my action bars hidden during raids to give me more space to see what is going on. The simpler my keybinds are, the easier it is to remember them.

As for addons, I use Xperl, DBM, Omen (a must for me), ForteXorcist, Quartz, and Bartender.

I used Pitbull and liked it very much, the only problem was it made me lag quite a bit in some fights which I really hated so I went back to using Xperl instead. Also, I used to run with Recount until I couldn't stop myself from making sure I was always on the #1 spot in DPS and Damage Done. I felt it took most of my concentration away from the fight so I took it down and will now only use it to practice on dummies... >_<

[Mirabelalock]

Playing every class good starts with binding all your abilities instead of clicking them and to move with your mouse.

EDIT: starts instead of stars :P

Not true. I click and hotkey combo, mainly click while dps'ing, and mainly hotkey when I use to heal. I like to move with my keyboard, and side strife, etc. It's all about how you click and where your buttons are. I also use Bartender 4. I can do just as well as anyone else in the same lvl of gear playing with binding.

Of course I've been playing this way for 3 yrs, changing to a binder now will just mess me up and slow me down.

[Badvibes]

Strictly pvp ui, the rest of my spells/abilities that don't have CDs are on hidden bartender bars. Not one unecessary keybind, Mouseturner, W is forward, A-D strafe.

[Emcee]

Keybindings are a must for me mostly because I tend to lead raids and as such like to know what is going on around me. I'm constantly using my mouse to look around so I could be like "so and so get out of the fire!"

This same thing applies to pvp, I need to be looking around to where the healer is going, or where the person i feared is, or where MY healer is, and it's just not as easy to do that if I need to click abilities with the mouse.

My setup is typical first person shooter setup, i rebound A and D to strafe. I turn around using mouse. This frees up q and e for much keybindings.
I use 1, 2, 3, 4, q, e, r and i use shift + those keys and alt + those keys. On both my DK and my lock, i rarely use shift 2,3,4 because 18 keybindings is enough for my playstyle. I try to keep themes the same between alts. Like alt+r is my trinket on every single toon. R tends to be a defensive ability. It's ibf on dk, demonic port on warlock for example. It took me a LONG time to get used to this setup (especially r since that used to be my reply button lol, when i first started using keybindings my main was a Pally. Can't count the number of times i used invuln instead of replying to a tell) but having started out as one and switched to the other, i can say that using keybindings and turning with your mouse has MANY clear and distinct advantages and will make most a better player. If you aren't a better player after a a few months of adapting to this playstyle, then i must say, there was no hope for you to begin with.

Fights I'm most annoyed with keyboard turners are fights that involve mobility and being aware of your surroundings. It's very annoying when the same person spawns gas clouds every time on yogg because he's a keyboard turner =(

[LeWiis]

Everyone has there own personal preference to how the ui is. Their is no pro way to play a char its just what you like the most. Personaly i have a fully custom ui made by myself, with addons i like to use. I also play with nearly all my ablities keybinded and move with my mouse but i do click things in fights like pots for example.

[McGnarlz]

you sir, fail miserably.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/professional

A skilled practitioner; an expert.
Having or showing great skill

"no influence on skill...."

anyway, after slaying this troll, ill add to this interesting topic!!

I personally used (yes used.. cancelled a while back) wasd for movement, E for the most used spell, i.e shadowbolt/incinerate, Q for my "get out of jail free" button like deathcoil, then alt E alt Q ctrl E crtl Q for other key skills and then other skills radiating out from the WASD focal point, depending on importance.

for ME this worked... since TBC, I can count on one hand the times I was out DPS'd (when it happened, it was by other locks that I had helped to train!!! go figure) and in PVP, I stood my ground but was in no way a master...

Do what feels comfortable to you!!! now that I know and love this key setup, evey MMO I play is done in the same way.... my E key doesnt even have a letter on it anymore from overuse!

1. following an occupation as a means of livelihood or for gain: a professional builder.
2. of, pertaining to, or connected with a profession: professional studies.





Damn. Same website you used too

[qsubt05]

i play only pvp im not "pro" warlock but here is my "know how" ;D
(have mouse with 2 side buttons.. B4 B5, B3=wheel)
WASD - move, ` - howl of terror, 1 - health funnel, 2 - drain life, 3 - teleport, 4 - soul drain, 5 - CoE, 6 - drain mana, Q - fear, E - shadow flame, R - CoA, T - CoEx, F - UA, G - CoT, Z - dead coil, X - corruption, C - haunt, V - life tap, alt+Q - focus fear, alt+W - focus banish, alt+E - focus CoT, B3 down - UD racial, mouse B3 up - insignie of horde, B3 push down - my dispel from felhunter, alt+B3 push: pet's self dispel, alt+B4 - create teleport, alt+B5 - shadow ward, B4 - spell lock (+focus spell lock), B5 - shadow bolt, alt+B3 down - second trinket "use", alt+B3 up - banish, ctrl+b3 up - immolate, caps lock - dispel to my teammate, F1 mount, F2 flying mount, F3 - cannibalize, F4 - selfbandage, alt+Z - seed of cor, alt+x shoot wand, its probable all.

[Dalco]

I don't need any addons to out do anyone.
I use questhelper and scale my ui down.
Other than that it's the classic ui.

[Woony]

I don't need any addons to out do anyone.
I use questhelper and scale my ui down.
Other than that it's the classic ui.

You can't say addons like affliction or spellalerter wouldn't help you, if you say so, you are a liar. The only excuse for not playing with addons is, if you are preparing your a tournament. Otherwise, you are limiting yourself, even if you are a 6 times glad and it "works fine" for you.

And even if you meant PvE, you are limiting yourself by not playing with addons, cause you can spend less attention on things like movement.


/edit
Oh and it helps noone, if you people post your keybinds. Even if you would copy the keyinds from a player like hydra, it would help noone, since everyone has to find keybinds, which work for HIM. And noone else. Some people play with keybinds i never, never could do, but it works for them. So its fine.

[Bananengurke]

doing no pvp at all:; here is my pve ui
its one of those compelte pro ui packages that only real skilled players use ;p
no, jk, I formatted my harddrive and forgot to back up my wow folder, so I thought, might as well go with a addon package instead of manually downloading those 160 addons again



A strafe left
D strafe right
S forward
X Back