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Running with Mages... or in my case, Mage.
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Post by
jadylyon
Hi.
I'm hoping for some general advice on How To Be The Best Warlock I Can Be when I have a mage in my back pocket for blasting stuff.
I'll explain that I am not an old been-here-since-then player but I'm not an utter neophyte either. I played for a few months last year with some friends and have just gotten back into it again with another. I've played a few classes into their thirties, including a priest and mage and I'm currently working on a solo warrior as a side project. This is my first try at a warlock and to say we're having a blast would be an understatement. Who knew so much fun could be had with a big blue knucklehead? That's the voidwalker, not my mage friend....
I've read what I could get my hands on, I understand the logic of most of it if not the math, I've got some very useful macros bound to keys and I'm teaching myself to play by touch, not by click as much as possible. However most of the rotations either assume I'm playing by myself or that I'm level 80 and wet for raiding, neither of which is true.
We're currently at level 34 and I'm specced Affliction while he's Fire. Here's the part(s) I need advice about:
1) Considering I cannot get Curse of Agony to run its full duration on anything except an elite because it dies too fast, I've been using Weakness and now I'll be using Elements since I just picked it up. I *assume* since Elements is a reduction of resistances, that would be the better Curse - yes?
2) I went with Affliction because it was apparently the bees knees for surviving and I'm all about living to fight the good fight thirty seconds longer. I'm reconsidering however that perhaps I should spec into Demonology on this vague feeling that a better, stronger pet would suit us better than me being able to dot the hell out of everything. I've read the talents in both trees trying to decide if its worth the jump and honestly... yeah. Confusing. With a pocket mage for damage, would Demonology be the better choice with the currently-floating-around cookie cutter build? Subjective opinions gratefully accepted.
3) Chain pulling (mob to mob to mob to another mob if they're close together and I'm feeling lucky) works great up to a point. I pet attack/Curse/Corruption then tag the next and then I've got a choo-choo train of %^&*ed off orcs or whatever.
a) First problem lies in me being unable to figure out who my first mob is when there's a swarm. I want to refresh the dots but tab-targeting seems really clunky (could be my fingers). Any helpful tips for keeping the dot-tags going?
b) My mage has been targeting the first guy, starts blasting and inevitably peels the thing off Zhang, the voidwalker. Most of the time not a problem, it dies before it goes/gets far but it makes me nervous. On smaller pulls (two), I can keep up with changing targets and having Zhang give some loving all over, instead of relying on his field taunt, but four or more is hopeless. Since I'm changing targets all the time to keep the train going, should the mage be holding off and then targeting the LAST guy who Zhang will be stopping on (remember, I can't find the first guy anymore) to keep the aggro where it's supposed to be? And we work backwards?
The above is a question for when the AoEs we have will NOT kill off everything in the cluster and we're working single targets to eliminate.
Any suggestions, advice or anecdotal stories about the above is gratefully appreciated. We're slaughtering at speed and with much glee, but I want to get both of us into good habits with an eye for when things are not so easy. I ideally want to run an instance as a duo (call me excitable, I don't mind) and things will need to be on autopilot then, with solid reasoning for the when and the why. I have the patience for tactics and strategy and... patience for reading forums, I guess.
So.. help? Please and thank you!
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356172
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Post by
jadylyon
FMATT
CoA will probably still be better than CoEle, simply because the increase in damage from ele really won't add a whole lot of dps to you where as CoA will add a nice amount of dps even without running its full duration.
DUNNA
When duo'ing with a mage this is absolutely not true unless you are only concerned with personal dps in a duo (lol). It would be all around better for the duo to use CoE or just skip cursing all together depending on how fast you are able to burn through things.
*grin* Yes, I am not in the least concerned with my personal DPS. Things need to destroyed with abandon, I am not too worried about who gets karma-credit over it. Curse of Agony
may not even tick half its lifespan
before the poor, slavering thing is dead of a fireball or three to its face. Maybe a better way to phrase the question is if CoA is still worth the mana burn if only half of it goes off - or if Curse of Elements will be better in the long run for faster slaying / more victory dances on the battlefield.
2. For Leveling, up until 71 I believe it is, You'll want to go affliction... with Siphon Life, you normally don't have to worry about life as much.
I am not getting hit at all so far. I haven't had a single peel to me (okay, realistically maybe I've had a few but they are infrequent in the extreme), only to my mage. In fact, the only time I've had a HP problem is when I've gotten silly with the Life Tap button. So you don't think that Demonology is worth it in the lower (pre-70s) field, even realising I'm in a duo?
3. This I found to be a problem and still is a problem when it comes to targeting mobs with running afflictions. What I found helpful, was Hitting the V key so that the mobs life bars are displayed.
That sounds really helpful, I'll certainly give that a try. I don't have Death Coil yet or Haunt, again I am only level 34 and everybody (the generic everybody, not the specific everybody) seems to reference spells I won't be getting for ages. I can't do either of those things... yet.
/evilplot though!
So even if I was to respec Demonology, I wouldn't really be in any better of an aggro-holding situation (ie, I'd still have things peeling off on chain pulls) so there's no real gain there?
It sounds like you guys are advocating that I use the pet to just hold one or two things while the mage and I burn down single targets with Shadowbolt, Drain Life(/Soul) and his Fire arsenal in tandem.
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Post by
WoWTheoryCraft
I levelled with a fire mage for a bit and fire mage + aff 'lock is not a good combo.
Fire mages are all about burst damage and you're not, plus there's no way any 'lock pet will hold aggro off a fire mage.
I'd recommend respeccing to destro and ideally have your mage friend respec to frost.
The normal destro problem of lots of downtime is not an issue as the mage will need drink breaks anyway, so you might as well join him and enjoy the free drinks!
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