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09-08-2006, 12:45 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-08-2006, 12:58 PM by Brista.)
I'd be interested to see what more experienced raiders feel as we are currently undergoing a battle of wills in my guild over warlocks life tapping between pulls. I'm a healer and I want them to drink (which some do)
My objections are as follows:-
1) There is no appreciable gain. Spending 5 seconds tapping then 10 seconds eating or bandaging is the same downtime as spending 15 seconds drinking
2) They almost always get healed. This means that there is a slim chance that a healer will be tossing off a heal right at the start of a pull before any tank has aggro. Generally the tanks are forward of the casters and will get a sunder in before either healer or warlock enters combat
3) They almost always get healed. Over-healed in fact. This means that if it's a tough pull where the healers will be going oom it's a real shame to have wasted several thousand points of healing just before the pull. It's a real concern that healers are starting pulls on 95% mana - players die because of this
4) If the healer has time to deal with it before the pull it's a lot of extra work for the healer. We drink, stand, heal the locks, drink again. Then run out of water and have to pester the mages. It feels like they're transferring their convenience into our inconvenience
5) Because we don't always know whether or not to heal them sometimes they die because the heal is a fraction slow coming. If a mage suddenly goes down to 50% you don't (as a healer) need to look at the mage or the situation, you just heal fast because they have aggro and need it. If it's a lock and you don't want to heal them if they're tapping then you have to pan around and check whether there is combat and only then begin to heal. This is too slow to save a clothie being pounded on by a raid mob
6) As a healer my job is to watch life bars and make sure everyone is going to survive. So if I see a lock on 30% just before the pull, I still have to worry about him. Because when he's still on 30% 20 seconds in is he low because he tapped or because he's in trouble? When healing 40 people, it's distracting when people aren't on full life and whether you feel it is noobish of me or not I've had tanks die because I've healed a lock, only to realise seconds later that the lock had no aggro and no danger. They make our job harder
Our Warlocks have bitterly defended their right to tap, accusing me of whoring up my healing meter stats. Is there something I'm not seeing in this method of regenerating mana? I do have a level 48 Warlock which I play mainly solo and I've found that there's so little to choose from between drinking and eating that I may as well just go with whatever I have handy so I drink if I've looted drinks off the mobs I've been killing and eat if i've looted some food
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Tell your warlocks that they need to learn cooking or first aid if they want to lifetap. After that you tell the healing corps to not heal them unless the tank has established aggro.
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Just don't heal them. If they pull aggro with 30% health and they die its their problem.
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At most, they get one HoT thrown on them. Other than that, they're on their own if they are lifetapping. Don't let the warlocks use you as a mana battery. Let them die often enough and they'll either learn a more appropriate time to lifetap (for example, not around AoEing critters, but between pulls instead) or will learn to take care of themselves better. It's usually pretty easy to tell from watching their lifebars to know when they are tapping and when they are getting pounded on - watch for similar sized chunks of life being taken out in the same timing as the universal cooldowns. No need to see the lock himself/herself. You can also listen for the sound if you happen to be near them.
Intolerant monkey.
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09-08-2006, 02:28 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-08-2006, 02:36 PM by Monkey.)
Quote:Our Warlocks have bitterly defended their right to tap, accusing me of whoring up my healing meter stats. Is there something I'm not seeing in this method of regenerating mana? I do have a level 48 Warlock which I play mainly solo and I've found that there's so little to choose from between drinking and eating that I may as well just go with whatever I have handy so I drink if I've looted drinks off the mobs I've been killing and eat if i've looted some food
Full Disclosure: The warlock was my first character, played from the first day of retail. I was a warlock raiding officer and trainer. In other words, I'm pro-warlock.
It's not clear from your post what your warlocks' perspective on tapping is or exactly what they're doing. But tapping can be a legitimately faster way to come back to full life and mana while out of combat. And in combat, it's flat-out necessary. Many warlock-specific pieces of equipment generate HP/time to boost natural warlock HP regen specifically for tapping.
Out Of Combat Tapping: Tapping until the two bars are even and then drinking and eating simultaneously is much faster than drinking alone. Tapping and bandaging is faster than drinking (a bandaging lock may become irritated if you waste your mana and his/her bandage with a heal). Tapping to full mana and then receiving a heal before a healer sits down (because they're going to drink anyway) can be cheaper in total cost with a negligible increase in time.
In Combat Tapping: Warlocks don't have big mana pools like Mages; they have medium mana pools, high stamina, and low spirit. They must tap to produce maximum damage during a fight. I know this can be disorienting; that person's life is dropping really really fast! But rest assured that any warlock worth his or her salt knows their lifebar very well and understands what they're doing.
Finally, if you see a warlock tapping, give them a renew or rejuvenation first. HoTs are a better response to tapping than a Gheal or Healing Touch, because it costs less total mana and better maps to their need.
Edit: Added full disclosure
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Life tapping is one of the warlock's main skills and is what allows them to contribute high sustained damage to the raid. Let them use it. However, when I raided with my warlock I never expected heals. When I got a rejuv or renew tossed my way I was certainly grateful but it was never like I complained to our healers that I wasn't getting enough healing. If your warlocks are doing so, then there is something wrong.
Good warlocks know their limits and know how to utilize the tools of their class to make up the health. Bad warlocks learn pretty quick after the repair bills start to mount.:)
PROTIP: when the raid is wiping and you see warlocks lifetapping/hellfiring, they do not want heals!
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09-08-2006, 02:39 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-08-2006, 02:39 PM by Lissa.)
Quote:Life tapping is one of the warlock's main skills and is what allows them to contribute high sustained damage to the raid. Let them use it. However, when I raided with my warlock I never expected heals. When I got a rejuv or renew tossed my way I was certainly grateful but it was never like I complained to our healers that I wasn't getting enough healing. If your warlocks are doing so, then there is something wrong.
Good warlocks know their limits and know how to utilize the tools of their class to make up the health. Bad warlocks learn pretty quick after the repair bills start to mount.:)
PROTIP: when the raid is wiping and you see warlocks lifetapping/hellfiring, they do not want heals!
RTM has it right. I've gotten on our healers in the past for healing me when I'm life tapping. They reverse argued that they were bored and had nothing better to do. (I still don't like it to this day, and I know Bolty's going to jump on me about it, but that's my thought concerning it, I'd rather not see a healer giving me their mana when I can easily take care of the healing myself through a bandage.)
And as to RTM's protip, nothing pisses a Warlock off more than when the raid is wiping, they're lifetapping down to hellfire and some healers thinks that the raid can recover and starts throwing healing around.
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Quote:And as to RTM's protip, nothing pisses a Warlock off more than when the raid is wiping, they're lifetapping down to hellfire and some healers thinks that the raid can recover and starts throwing healing around.
Personally, I think you can suck up the repair costs like the rest of us. I run at hunters, too.
You don't know what you're talking about.
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My take on it as a healer is that, overall, lifetapping is fine. Just use some common-sense about it.
Tapping out of combat is fine, the warlock can restore all their mana for a tiny fraction of mine, so no problem. We all get to full mana faster. Not everyone feels this way though.
Tapping during combat is fine too - if you need mana then go for it. But be careful tapping too low, as our priorities are usually on healing tanks. DPS and other healers come after the damage sponges who are standing between us and the big bad evil guy.
Tapping *right* before a pull is a bad idea. But then doing anything nontrivial right before a pull usually is.
As for the hellfire no-durability thing, it's fine with me if you want to try to avoid the repair costs. But you can't blame a healer for healing. If we perceive that you are taking damage and that healing you could help us win, we heal. It's like instinct. I have unknowingly "resurrected" hunters who were only feigning and I will probably heal you from the "damage" you are taking if I don't realize that too.:)
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Sounds like much ado about nothing. If its a tough enough pull that wiping is a possibility, you probably should take an extra 10 seconds to set it up. That completly allows for both bandaging and healing. If it's not really a tough pull, live and let live. Heal them if you are watching meters, don't if they annoy you.
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For me as a paladin healer the choice got very simple.
EVERYONE in a raid can, if they want to, do more DPS than me. Priests don't believe me, but even without gear and talents smite is a 157 DPS spell. OK there will be some resists and such but there will be crits too. I can't do 157 DPS on my paladin in a raid even when I'm trying right now. And when I try I do actually start to suck my mana since it requires me to judge and reseal every 8 seconds.
That means that nothing is a better use of my mana than healing (OK judging and curing too). I actually quite like it when warlocks tap in combat when I'm on FFA healing because it means I know that I just turned that much more of my mana into DPS. I feel the same way when I heal a rogue or mage, I feel I just helped the raid tank when I heal a warrior. But with a warlock it's a bit different because they tapped, becuase they did the damage to themselves it's much more of a direct translation of my mana just became your mana you can do so many good tasty frothy killy things with it that I can't. :)
On my druid I would toss a HoT at the warlocks out of combat. Between combat I will heal them and try to do it before they can bandage. Two reasons. One they may need to tap and bandage in combat and there is a possibility that with the speed of pulling and stuff that they may need that bandage timer cleared sooner (I watch the recently bandaged debuff and I watch for HoTs when healing as well) than this will allow.
I can't say a tank has died because I healed a warlock. If I'm assigned to heal an MT I don't heal other people out of combat and if I heal anyone else during combat it has to be a good reason for me to not be healing that MT. That is what the FFA healers are for, to heal everyone else using their judgement. As an FFA healer if I start at 95% mana it doesn't matter I'm not likely to be healing before I'm at 100% anyway, as FFA I'll heal locks. If it is just before a boss fight the warlock should have tapped sooner (tap right at the end of combat not just before combat....) so yeah they probably won't get healed and I'll slap them if they bandage while the pull is happening too. Hi don't do things that cause aggro at bad times, K thanks.
Now for more full disclosure.
I have a 56 warlock. In instances I tend to drink between combat if others are drinking. I tap and eat + drink if it is just me. Of course I do a lot of just 1 tap at a time. Being at full health isn't optimal for my regen. Since I don't look at my life as just life I look at it as base life + extra mana I don't mind being down 500-1000 health. If I wanted that as base health I would wear more stam or more int gear. :) But with how much better my health regen is thanks to gear and talents I OOC regen what I view as a single bar faster if I'm down on both. So I do a little tap here and a little tap there all the time. It generally keeps me under the healer radar and I'm fine. Especially if I have a pet out since I'm still demonologist I have soul link up which means I'm taking 30% less damage as is (putting my DR up there around a mail wearer with a shield). Even at L56 I can still be doing nearly 200 DPS while draining life as well. Sure drain isn't as much DPS as shadow bolts but it beats the wand. But that is just some personal notes from the odd way I play a lock (and since I took a resto druid, a protection paladin, a beastmaster hunter, and a retrib/holy paladin from 1 to 60 before the lock and then turned the druid feral, the hunter marks, and the paladin full holy I might have a different outlook). But so far the warlock has had survivability on par with the hunter. Both were behind the paladin. However the warlock survives and gets to kill the mobs that were a problem pretty quickly. The hunter survives but has to start the fight over. The paladin survives but doesn't hurt the adds at all. The warrior is the most likely to die. The druid is in between. But the warlock when you combine survivability with killing and killing speed is looking to just pwn all my other 60's.
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It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
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Actually, rejuvenation and renew are not that mana efficient - a most-efficient Greater Heal or Healing Touch will save more mana.
Mana is not that much of a healer issue in BWL, once druids and priests have their 3-piece set bonus and a decent amount of +heal and spirit/mana regen. A couple hundred mana becomes a thousand health easily. I don't normally drink a lot anymore, so if it saves the warlocks from having to stop and drink, no big deal.
There's a time and place for it though. I agree with people that life-tapping right before a pull is a bad idea.
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I've worked Life Tap into the in-combat routine for warlocks, while playing my Druid. I'll often call out "So-and-so, life tap" and nail them with a regrowth/rejuv combo. This keeps them at full health while tapping a steady stream of mana.
YMMV
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Isn't regrowth like the worst possible healing spell? I'm curious why you would use such an inefficient spell on a low priority target.
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Quote:Isn't regrowth like the worst possible healing spell? I'm curious why you would use such an inefficient spell on a low priority target.
Regrowth isn't bad as long as the HoT runs full duration. Normally that doesn't happen but if the warlock and druid work it right it can work very well. The other thing with regrowth, like rejuv and renew is that if you don't need to cast another heal and consider the healing + regen for efficiency it isn't that bad either. It's a situation spell for sure but it isn't as bad as it is always made out to be.
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It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
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09-09-2006, 09:10 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-09-2006, 09:11 AM by Zarathustra.)
Quote:Isn't regrowth like the worst possible healing spell? I'm curious why you would use such an inefficient spell on a low priority target.
I'm sitting on about +800 healing and a decent crit rate, and have Omen of Clarity which, when it procs, turns into a free Regrowth on any target, basically "because I can" for free. In my healing setup I rarely run out of mana during an encounter, and even when I do I have pots. Is it inefficient? Yes, relatively. But does it get the job done and lend 20 seconds of regeneration in the middle of a fight? You betcha.
The mana it costs me to cast is far less than the mana the warlock gains through life tap, and thus it's an overall gain for the raid. Factor in the low spirit of warlocks and they're not going to regenerate much otherwise. You'd be surprised at the jump in warlock dps when they're going through additional mana bars over the course of an encounter.
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There you have it. Overwhelming arguements pro-life tapping.
LT + Heals >> More DPS, less ETA mob death, less overall healing required.
Overall efficiency is greater with Tapping, and tapping + healing... because the healers can spare it.
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Quote:There you have it. Overwhelming arguements pro-life tapping.
LT + Heals >> More DPS, less ETA mob death, less overall healing required.
Overall efficiency is greater with Tapping, and tapping + healing... because the healers can spare it.
Point taken but my complaint wasn't really about tapping for extra dps. It's about tapping then standing around on 30% life watching everyone else drink
It does annoy me but it's an argument I'll stop trying to fight. I just unchecked the Warlock class in the CTRA raid display last night and found that I could raid perfectly well without Life Tapping bothering me in the slightest ;)
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Quote:Point taken but my complaint wasn't really about tapping for extra dps. It's about tapping then standing around on 30% life watching everyone else drink
It does annoy me but it's an argument I'll stop trying to fight. I just unchecked the Warlock class in the CTRA raid display last night and found that I could raid perfectly well without Life Tapping bothering me in the slightest ;)
Simple solution on that one: Hand those warlocks some cinnamon rolls.
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-Z
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Quote:There you have it. Overwhelming arguements pro-life tapping.
Hahaha, Pro-Lifetap. I like that. Anyone want to start a political party?:D
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