Hi All,
Just been playing about with the talent points and wanted to see people's views on this build:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/warlock/talents.html?1500220510210000000002050320123200100000000505000512200010000000
The theory behind it is that you only use VW, which just prior to the battle you sacrifice giving you a decent shield and the health bonus (with max life tap this helps to solve health and mana troubles). You've then got instant corruption, Nightfall, max drain life, 70% resistance to interupt for destro and afflic spells and everyones Dest. favourite: Ruin. Plus if the shield breaks you can summon another VW in 0.5 seconds and reactivate the shield.
I am nowhere near lvl70 but I would love to hear what other players think about this? To me it looks like it "on paper" there's some good scope for damage with a bit more durability than full afflic or dest.
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Still a glass cannon?Follow
The problem is, to my knowledge, you cannot sac a VW for both the health bonus and the shield. They are two different abilities.
well, you have a vw out, to sac for the 30 sec shield. use fel domination so summon another and sac that one for the health regen for 30 min. that could work. would it be effective? i dunno. generally speaking, i would think you would lose more than you would gain by sacrificing pets. you lose the soul link, you lose the extra damage, and you lose the utility of the pet.
What you seem to be doing is trying to get the "best of both hybrid builds" - the classic hybrid builds being SM/Ruin and MD/Ruin. The problem with this split approach is that you get the "best" of neither.
All this fancy stuff about sac'ing the VW and popping another will become complex and won't pay off like you're hoping in BGs. Duels? Maybe. Occasional world pvp/ganks? Maybe. But BGs and steady pvp? I doubt it.
A 2855 damage shield is good. But you can't maintain it long. And at higher levels it can go poof in a second or less. To maintain it you're summonging demons and saccing more than you are casting dots, fearing and shadowbolting (I'm exaggerating, but in my experience I can only sac so much in a bg - I run out of shards, for one thing).
What I'm getting at is that maybe if your defensive strategy eats too much of your casting/fighting time, you're spending too much defending and not enough attacking. I suppose w/ great care you could balance this, but consider just going all out in one of the "new" hybrids.
It seems the new hybrid builds are DP/Ruin (dark pact/ruin, or one of the other very high lvl affliction talents + ruin) -- and SL/Ruin (soul link/ruin -- can have other high lvl demon talents, too, but SL is the Cadillac talent in this case).
If you want "true" defense, get MD. Sac a VW, pop a new one - and now you have a damage shield AND -10% to damage from md/vw combo AND -20% to damage from Soul Link. You can get DK (and consider going even harding into Demon for DT and get +5 to crit, which is really NICe - and perhaps you SHOULD, as most locks say Ruin only really shines w/ at least a 20% or even 25% crit rate (aim for 25%, I think most say that's the point where, in terms of raw #'s, ruin shines).
See what I'm getting at? You lose Nightfall, Fel Conce and some other nice mid-lvl Affl talents, but you gain some of the BEST demon talents (MD, Soul Link, DT). Just go 5/5 in imp cor - maybe improve tap. Imho a 7/33/21 (I think this goes up to SL and 2/3 DK) or a 5/35/21 (gets SL and 3/3 DK) or -- give up imp cor -- and get SL, DK and DT -- 0/40/21 build.
OR...
Give up demon and go heavy Affliction. Top end Affliction, Dark Pact, instant HoT (howl o' terror), Curse of Exhaustion -- CoEx can be used to kite, thus mitigating your glass cannon status somewhat like a frost mage does. SM is good, and SP also mitigates being "glass" by draining target to heal you (mult-cast this if possible).
The SM/Ruin or DP/ruin build, whichever we call it, can still go 5/5 in Demonic Embrace for some nice extra HP's. And you can just get some green "of stamina" outland gear to boost your hp's a lot - it's crazy what it can do.
In other words, don't water down your build to lose your glass status -- water down your mana pool and some of your +damage gear. Mix and match, green "of sta" gear from outlands is usually cheap on the AH.
Anyway, these are just options. Imho you will hate a 20/20/21 build (or whatever combo you had) - your affl and demo talents, doing that, are just too weak to be any good - again imho. And you have other options.
If you want ruin + demo's defense, by all means consider the SL/ruin build. Mid level affliction talents do nothing compared to the high demon talents. You won't get Felg and Ruin in same build, of course, but the other top demon talents are really nice. Nightfall imo isn't worth it. Procs too infrequently to give up the high end demon stuff. Or go DP/ruin and get gear and dem emb to get HPs. Play around with this before locking in. GL!
All this fancy stuff about sac'ing the VW and popping another will become complex and won't pay off like you're hoping in BGs. Duels? Maybe. Occasional world pvp/ganks? Maybe. But BGs and steady pvp? I doubt it.
A 2855 damage shield is good. But you can't maintain it long. And at higher levels it can go poof in a second or less. To maintain it you're summonging demons and saccing more than you are casting dots, fearing and shadowbolting (I'm exaggerating, but in my experience I can only sac so much in a bg - I run out of shards, for one thing).
What I'm getting at is that maybe if your defensive strategy eats too much of your casting/fighting time, you're spending too much defending and not enough attacking. I suppose w/ great care you could balance this, but consider just going all out in one of the "new" hybrids.
It seems the new hybrid builds are DP/Ruin (dark pact/ruin, or one of the other very high lvl affliction talents + ruin) -- and SL/Ruin (soul link/ruin -- can have other high lvl demon talents, too, but SL is the Cadillac talent in this case).
If you want "true" defense, get MD. Sac a VW, pop a new one - and now you have a damage shield AND -10% to damage from md/vw combo AND -20% to damage from Soul Link. You can get DK (and consider going even harding into Demon for DT and get +5 to crit, which is really NICe - and perhaps you SHOULD, as most locks say Ruin only really shines w/ at least a 20% or even 25% crit rate (aim for 25%, I think most say that's the point where, in terms of raw #'s, ruin shines).
See what I'm getting at? You lose Nightfall, Fel Conce and some other nice mid-lvl Affl talents, but you gain some of the BEST demon talents (MD, Soul Link, DT). Just go 5/5 in imp cor - maybe improve tap. Imho a 7/33/21 (I think this goes up to SL and 2/3 DK) or a 5/35/21 (gets SL and 3/3 DK) or -- give up imp cor -- and get SL, DK and DT -- 0/40/21 build.
OR...
Give up demon and go heavy Affliction. Top end Affliction, Dark Pact, instant HoT (howl o' terror), Curse of Exhaustion -- CoEx can be used to kite, thus mitigating your glass cannon status somewhat like a frost mage does. SM is good, and SP also mitigates being "glass" by draining target to heal you (mult-cast this if possible).
The SM/Ruin or DP/ruin build, whichever we call it, can still go 5/5 in Demonic Embrace for some nice extra HP's. And you can just get some green "of stamina" outland gear to boost your hp's a lot - it's crazy what it can do.
In other words, don't water down your build to lose your glass status -- water down your mana pool and some of your +damage gear. Mix and match, green "of sta" gear from outlands is usually cheap on the AH.
Anyway, these are just options. Imho you will hate a 20/20/21 build (or whatever combo you had) - your affl and demo talents, doing that, are just too weak to be any good - again imho. And you have other options.
If you want ruin + demo's defense, by all means consider the SL/ruin build. Mid level affliction talents do nothing compared to the high demon talents. You won't get Felg and Ruin in same build, of course, but the other top demon talents are really nice. Nightfall imo isn't worth it. Procs too infrequently to give up the high end demon stuff. Or go DP/ruin and get gear and dem emb to get HPs. Play around with this before locking in. GL!
Hi,
Loki: Well to be absolutely honest I also have no idea on that one, it just seemed logical to me that if you have Demonic Sacrifice then you should gain that irrespective of whether you are killing you're pet or whether you use the sacrifice spell the VW has. But you may well be right in which case that's a nice big hole blown in my theory. :-)
Jebadia: ur... if you have a check of my build you'll notice that soul link isn't there so I'm not losing that by sacrificing a VW because I didn't have it to start with, I also don't have MD in my build so I'm not gaining any extra damage either. Unless you meant those talents SHOULD be in there in which case fair point but you perhaps should have explained that a bit more succinctly.
Iponema: I have actually been giving probably 'too much' thought into whether I want to go for Demo of Afflic, I think I have made my mind up that Ruin for 21 points is a bit of a no-brainer even if it does rely on the "luck" of hitting crits. The reason I am having difficulty deciding is that I currently use affliction and although I love it, at present in PvP it's very weak. And I find that CoEx doesn't help me in any PvP situation as I would always use Curse of Tongues on any spellcaster which would include Shammies and Pallies and so I would only use CoEx on warriors and it doesn't stop them from charging me, and it also doesn't stop them hitting me with the 50% reduced speed spell which is stronger than exhaustion. I also don't know what SP is? I'm also not sure about the defense eating up cast time, I mean you would already have a VW out so that starts at nil, sacrifice is instant, and you can re-summon a VW in 0.5 seconds, but I fully admit that my knowledge is very limited in comparison to most so you could very well be right. I'm just looking at what's on paper. :-) I do see what you are saying though, there is a definite complexity to it that perhaps isn't worth the effort. The one thing I don't really get is do you really rate that Ruin talent as better than a Felg? I just ask cuz you mentioned a 0/40/21 build and I'd have thought if you are gonna put 40 points in any tree you may as well put that extra 1 in and get the finale.
I do have a couple of quick queries that someone might be able to help out with, Thinking about the SL/Ruin build, first and most obvious question is if you pet gets banished, does that remove SL?? I might be just focusing on something I read but I remember a sentence in a post that really burned in my head. It was "If you are a demo lock and someone takes away your pet, you've lost your power" or something like that. Are warlocks the only class that can simply remove your pet from the game (i.e. banish?) If so then maybe I have just been frightened by a sentence that was over dramatic.
Thinking about DP/Ruin, I'm guessing you mean a build like this:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/warlock/talents.html?1500222510230115010000350000000000000000000505000512200010000000
I do quite like this as a build too, although it kinda seems a shame as you are really restricting yourself to using only the imp for the stam buff and mana pool. Which I am sure probably works extremely well but it just seems a shame as I rather think the pets with their extreme variety of strengths and weaknesses and how you manage them is the best part of being a warlock.
I dunno, I think perhaps I'm being overly analytical too soon in, just need to gain an extra 14 levels so I'm up to 55 and then I can play about with builds a bit more and check out the 41 point talents.
Hey anyways, thanks for spending the time writing back to me, if you can help out with my other Q's then that is greatly appreciated and if not then no worries, I'm sure in a month or so I will get to lvl 70 and then I can play about with it and get some first hand experience.
Loki: Well to be absolutely honest I also have no idea on that one, it just seemed logical to me that if you have Demonic Sacrifice then you should gain that irrespective of whether you are killing you're pet or whether you use the sacrifice spell the VW has. But you may well be right in which case that's a nice big hole blown in my theory. :-)
Jebadia: ur... if you have a check of my build you'll notice that soul link isn't there so I'm not losing that by sacrificing a VW because I didn't have it to start with, I also don't have MD in my build so I'm not gaining any extra damage either. Unless you meant those talents SHOULD be in there in which case fair point but you perhaps should have explained that a bit more succinctly.
Iponema: I have actually been giving probably 'too much' thought into whether I want to go for Demo of Afflic, I think I have made my mind up that Ruin for 21 points is a bit of a no-brainer even if it does rely on the "luck" of hitting crits. The reason I am having difficulty deciding is that I currently use affliction and although I love it, at present in PvP it's very weak. And I find that CoEx doesn't help me in any PvP situation as I would always use Curse of Tongues on any spellcaster which would include Shammies and Pallies and so I would only use CoEx on warriors and it doesn't stop them from charging me, and it also doesn't stop them hitting me with the 50% reduced speed spell which is stronger than exhaustion. I also don't know what SP is? I'm also not sure about the defense eating up cast time, I mean you would already have a VW out so that starts at nil, sacrifice is instant, and you can re-summon a VW in 0.5 seconds, but I fully admit that my knowledge is very limited in comparison to most so you could very well be right. I'm just looking at what's on paper. :-) I do see what you are saying though, there is a definite complexity to it that perhaps isn't worth the effort. The one thing I don't really get is do you really rate that Ruin talent as better than a Felg? I just ask cuz you mentioned a 0/40/21 build and I'd have thought if you are gonna put 40 points in any tree you may as well put that extra 1 in and get the finale.
I do have a couple of quick queries that someone might be able to help out with, Thinking about the SL/Ruin build, first and most obvious question is if you pet gets banished, does that remove SL?? I might be just focusing on something I read but I remember a sentence in a post that really burned in my head. It was "If you are a demo lock and someone takes away your pet, you've lost your power" or something like that. Are warlocks the only class that can simply remove your pet from the game (i.e. banish?) If so then maybe I have just been frightened by a sentence that was over dramatic.
Thinking about DP/Ruin, I'm guessing you mean a build like this:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/warlock/talents.html?1500222510230115010000350000000000000000000505000512200010000000
I do quite like this as a build too, although it kinda seems a shame as you are really restricting yourself to using only the imp for the stam buff and mana pool. Which I am sure probably works extremely well but it just seems a shame as I rather think the pets with their extreme variety of strengths and weaknesses and how you manage them is the best part of being a warlock.
I dunno, I think perhaps I'm being overly analytical too soon in, just need to gain an extra 14 levels so I'm up to 55 and then I can play about with builds a bit more and check out the 41 point talents.
Hey anyways, thanks for spending the time writing back to me, if you can help out with my other Q's then that is greatly appreciated and if not then no worries, I'm sure in a month or so I will get to lvl 70 and then I can play about with it and get some first hand experience.
Hey there.. now while I dont have much experiance with SL/Ruin or SM/Ruin builds, I belive that locks are the only class that can banish, but I have duel mages who will sheep, then kill my pet. But that is for another conversation..
As for your dislike of keeping an imp out just for the mana pool when you have DP, i will tell you it is great. When i run instances/raids, the only pet i keep out is my imp, not having to stop for mana is a wonderful thing, the only reason I keep any water with me in instances/raids is for the healer.
As for your dislike of keeping an imp out just for the mana pool when you have DP, i will tell you it is great. When i run instances/raids, the only pet i keep out is my imp, not having to stop for mana is a wonderful thing, the only reason I keep any water with me in instances/raids is for the healer.
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