nobbie,Apr 30 2005, 08:06 PM Wrote:Afaik, Warlocks get really good near their max. levels (50-60).
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Warlock gameplay changes radically every 5-10 levels or so. I'll pretend I am a newbie all over again.
Level 1-3: Whooo! I got an imp. This is cute. Aww he blows #$%& up.
Level 4-6: Huh. Some dots. What're these for? They take a long time to cast.
Level 8: Fear. OMG the enemy runs away ahahahaha. You can't touch me! Neener neener neener!
Hey this Curse of Agony DoT is instant... and doesn't break fear so easily. I can kite! I think I can take on the world now, and without breaking a sweat.
Maybe I'll learn that I can cast this while running in 12 hours.
Level 10: Drain soul? Healthstone? Give me a few levels to figure this all out...
Hey! A new pet! He's beefy.
Level 12-16: 6 new skills... Um. How do these work? Life drain? Life tap? What's that? I'll figure it out later. I don't need mana. Everything dies too fast. Why would I want to make myself die earlier? Recklessness... huh? I don't get it. Health funnel? Maybe I need to heal my pet sometime. SP? Why do I want half a shadowbolt? I'm used to SB.
Level 20: Ritual of Summoning... oh. So that's what everyone's been talking about... now how do I do this? Rain of Fire is kinda neat, but my dots are better for multiple targets. It doesn't steal aggro to me. I might've learned about instant corruption now. Wheeee. Dot dot dot, fear fear fear. I'm inveeencible!
Level 28: Sheesh more skills.
Banish (kinda useless right now. I like fear better).. hey demons in desolace... Oh banish is neat after all.
Eye of Kilrogg's fun. Follow the bouncing ball!
Sense demons. Neato! These satyr quests are cake.
Drain mana (toy skill, not enough mana returned, and breaks before I get all mana back while enemy beats on me),
Curse of tongues just as useless. I'd much rather have agony on it. Die fiend!
Firestone: What's this for?
What's next?
Level 30: Enslave. Drool. Cool concept. Can't really use it yet. Demons too high level. They all resist and break and kill me! Why would anyone use this?
On a side note: Drain life is neato. Same with life tap. Cast cast cast dots, send pet, life tap life tap, drain life 2x. Yay! Everything's back. No drinking needed for me!
Soulstone: Neato! Can I soulstone my pet? Soulstone myself aha! You kill me? I'm back from the dead and will kill you!
Hey I can use 1H swords. Finally discovered undercity. Its not actually underneath Ogrimmar after all...
Hellfire. Gets me killed, gets interrupted. Total waste of mana. Won't use this. Curse of elements? Curse of agony does more damage. Waste!
32-38: Hmm. Getting near top tier talents now. Might have siphon life. I kinda like this. 4 dots on a feared target baby! and one gives me life back. Useless upfront though. Detect invis,underwather breathing, and other skills still useless. Got felhunter.. he's pretty dumb to use right now. Voidwalker's my main go-to guy. I did my warlock quests... oh boy were they long and hard. I got a neato robe that'll last me forever though. +10 stam +17 int on that chest baby! All I had to do is drag myself through hell and back 7 times, develop new tactics, accomplish the impossible and make other classes look easy.
Started using RoF and hellfire in scarlet monestary. Kinda useful sometimes. Definitely not a solo skill. Health funnel's incredibly useful for tanking.
Shadowburn: Finally tried it out. Drool. Finally! Some instant damage! Just what I needed. Fighting's so slow, and frustrating... but that's been ok with me. Slow and steady, but engaging many enemies at once and coming out ahead.
Level 40: Howl of Terror... eeep! Double fear powers! yesss! I've already mastered fear. Everyone else is dreadfully afraid of me using it. No one understands me. No one wants me specifically for instances yet. Dummies. I've used this for 32 levels now. Ugh. Curse of recklessness has been useful in SM against runners.
40-50:
Curse of shadow! Now we're talking. Curse of Agony still better most of the time, but this is working for me against ogre elites in Alterac.
Enslave demon finaly working. I read abotu Curse of Shadows before enslave demon. Yep. Enslave demons doesn't work until curse.
Shadow ward: Extremely limited use. No one uses shadow. booo
Curse of Weakness... is so weak. Only good keeping people off me for a little while.
Curse of Agony still better solo.
I hate when pets die. I'm so screwed when they are. I have no way of really running away, and had none from levels 1-20. If its a close battle, I can win it. I won't run away. 1-2x adds come, I live. 3x Adds come... well. Then I die. Now... I can handle adds 1-2x at a time, sometimes. Fear rocks! Still no real running away. Sacrifice is used when available. Good voidwalker.
I got dark pact! No more mana troubles. I can fight forever now. Ok, not with the voidwalker, he uses too much mana keeping aggro, but if I keep succubus or imp out, I can!
Death coil: Oh finally an instant! Gah 10 minute cooldown. I'll practically never use this skill... just like all the rest of my niche skills.
Oh yeah! I got my felsteed. Took all of 3 talks to two NPCs. Sigh of relief for placeholder quests. I deserve it. I summon people around the world. I think that justifies having a free mount.
50-59. I have a firm mastery of everything now. I'll be running all the high level instances, and people start knowing of and wanting the power of warlocks. I've pulled off endurance and reinforcement tricks no one else can.
60: A few upgraded spells. One new spell. Doom. Neat toy. I've started on my epic dreadsteed quest... its honestly no more intensive than all the other quests and slaverings my warlock career has put up with.
Slow killing early on, insane requirements, extremely niche utility but powerful once we finally get to use it in combination with our other abilties. We're blizzard's second class citizens, driven through the dirt, and yet they fear we're overly powerful. Many untapped strengths, because this is certainly a confusing class. All skills come at awkward moments. Many of the spells don't become apparantly useful until end-game, where it isn't always possible to zerg everything. Group and Solo play abilities are radically different, and ignored through in solo play until several levels after they're obtained. Gameplay shifts dynamically as new skills make for new observations and tactics. No longer do you shadowbolt spam everything after gaining a pet, you let the pet hold aggro. Using mana efficient spells and aggro management slows the rate of killing to a crawl. Without defenisve or escape mechanisms, its either learn to manage your aggro or die.
Getting nuke happy doesn't work without DD uninterruptable (instant) spells. Our only options are life drain with maxed improved fel concentration, which still gets interrupted... Shadowburn, 11 talent points into destruction, costing us precious soul shards--so it may only infrequently be used. . . or Nightfall, which procs on chance. Death coil (instant DD) is last resort spell.
All our skills are like that. High risk. High attention factor. Life or death on the roll of a dozen dice, resist and cooldown timers we can't passively monitor. Dozens of niche skills easily forgotten. If I use this now... will it be wasted? I cannot use it again. Yes warlocks are powerful, but only the winds of fortune favor them. Warlocks are punished for screw-ups more than any class I can think of. Screw up? Make waste of your abilities? You're out of options and you're dead. You cannot defend. You cannot escape. Your pet gone? You're at less than half effectiveness. There is no 'oh #$%&' button that allows warlocks to magically escape away, snare the enemy so he cannot follow, lose aggro, or protect himself when all is lost. When all is lost, all is lost. Didn't have voidwalker out in time? Didn't get sacrifice in time? Wasted your cooldowns? Complete goner.
Its the high life all right. Your reward? You master your abilities, create the right circumstances, and you tear through whatever comes to you. Anything less than near-peak efficiency, any bit of your party making waste of your abilities, then you're simply a liability. Your debuffs get pushed off, pushing off other debuffs too, attract aggro to yourself too soon from secondary targets, panicking the tank/healers, and your off-tank / CC abilities pop early and those enemies start whacking your party healers. Oof, life as a warlock is not for carebears. Live dangerously, and exert your skills to the fullest! Then you may partially match other class abilties and pull off tricks not unique to your own class--but sometimes fantastic at a pivotal tide turning moment.