How good is a warlock without his pet?
John Salerno
didn't play with his pet? I'm thinking of rolling a BE lock to be my
main (I really love BEs!) and sometimes I just get tired of dealing with
a pet, be it hunter or lock.
So is it a viable option to play the game without the pet, at least some
of the time? Not necessarily for the boss-type fights, but just in the
normal course of questing. It would be more fun for me, and more of an
RP thing, to have the pet as an option when desired, and not always
following me. But I don't want to make the game impossible to play, either!
Thanks.
L
news:45c038fc$0$31973$c3e...@news.astraweb.com...
not have the shield of a priest or the frost nova of a mage to come between
them and destruction.
Warlocks have fear. And tanks (voidwalker) to take aggro off them, and DPS
(succubus) to kill an enemy quickly, and Mana Eaters (felhunter) to deal
with other casters, and imps to help an entire party.
Now, don't get me wrong. A DOT is a wonderful thing. A DOT with a minion is
more wonderful.
copyco
warlock class is designed to be played with a pet. But I do think it is
doable. When you get a high enough level (not sure how high) and you
put your talents into demonology, you can get Demonic Sacrifice which
would allow you to summon a pet and then sacrifice it. Each type of pet
gives you a different buff that lasts 30 minutes. For instance,
sacrifice imp gives you boost to fire damage, and sacrifice succubus
gives you improved shadow damage. Sacrificing the voidwalker gives you
fel stamina which gives you about 135 heath every three seconds, but it
depends on your level, gear, stats, etc. as to how much health per tick
you would get. Bottom line is that you definitely can play warlock
without a pet, but not as effectively until you can get demonic
sacrifice. Another thing is that you don't have to actually use your
pet. You can just keep it on passive and have it hang around.
Demonology warlocks can have Soul Link in which 20% of the damage you
take is taken by your pet instead. So you should look more into the
demonology talents if you want to go petless.
Dirk Straube
> So you should look more into the demonology talents if
> you want to go petless.
That's a pretty strange advice to someone who wants to work without
pets. Demonology is basicly about making your pets stronger, so why
spend all those points into this tree?
I guess Afflication (even with the latest nerf) would be the way to go
for him. Better DoTs and later you just tag along with the Imp out as
Mana Battery, reducing your downtimes as you take your mana from him.
Played Demo-Warlock before and without my Pet I felt naked. Respeccted
to Affliction recently and I can do very well without my pet around. The
imp is still nice as I don't have to life tap and just take his mana
instead of mine, but he's never fighting, just standing there
phaseshifted on passiv.
Dirk
Christian Stauffer
> copyco wrote:
>> So you should look more into the demonology talents if
>> you want to go petless.
>
> That's a pretty strange advice to someone who wants to work without
> pets. Demonology is basicly about making your pets stronger, so why
> spend all those points into this tree?
Demonic Sacrifice, taken from http://www.thottbot.com/?sp=18788
> Demonic Sacrifice
> 100 yd range
> When activated, sacrifices your summoned demon to grant you an effect
> that lasts 30 min. The effect is canceled if any Demon is summoned.
>
> Imp: Increases your Fire damage by 15%.
Probably useless in this context.
> Voidwalker: Restores 2% of total health every 4 sec.
This allows the warlock to never run out of health even though he's
the one being hit.
> Succubus: Increases your Shadow damage by 15%.
Probably useless in this context.
> Felhunter: Restores 3% of total mana every 4 sec.
>
> Felguard: Increases your Shadow damage by 10% and restores 2% of total mana
> every 4 sec.
Allows soloing without ever running out of mana. Demon armor
might or might not be enough to refill the health pool in the
meantime.
Don't know how viable this is, but soloing means (at least for me)
keep a certain speed going without having to worry about health
or mana, and if there's something in the warlocks talent tree that
makes this possible without a pet it's this talent imho.
Chris
--
[WoW] Wildcard - Treehugging Tauren (60) on EN Sunstrider [PvP]
Gwaith - Short beastmaster (64) on EN Scarshield L. [RPPvP]
Sian - Best friend (64) on EN Scarshield L. [RPPvP]
Yagon - Pointy eared beast (26) on EN Scarshield L. [RPPvP]
Get the alt.games.warcraft FAQ at http://www.wildcard7.com/agw_faq.txt
Dirk Straube
>> Voidwalker: Restores 2% of total health every 4 sec.
>
> This allows the warlock to never run out of health even though he's
> the one being hit.
The Affliction talents:
http://www.thottbot.com/?sp=30911
Siphon Life (Rank 6)
Transfers 63 health from the target to the caster every 3 sec. Lasts 30 sec.
http://www.thottbot.com/?sp=27220
Drain Life (Rank 8)
Channeled
Transfers 108 health every second from the target to the caster. Lasts 5
sec.
I usually end up close to 100% health after the fight. With an
affliction build you can improve Drain Life and give it a 75% chance not
to be interuppted when hit, which is essential when the mob is hitting
you. The health gained from the sacrificed voildwalker won't be enough
to keep you alive on hard hitting mobs. I don't even want to talk about
+damage gear here.
>> Felguard: Increases your Shadow damage by 10% and restores 2% of total
>> mana every 4 sec.
>
> Allows soloing without ever running out of mana. Demon armor
> might or might not be enough to refill the health pool in the
> meantime.
Yes, that''s a nice talent. With Darc Pact you could still gain more
mana from your pet.
http://www.thottbot.com/?sp=27265
Dark Pact (Rank 4)
Drains 700 of your pet's Mana, returning 100% to you.
However, this assume you can live with a pet that's just following you.
If you want no pet at all this is not an option. You than have to Life
Tap, which converts 580 health into 580 mana and then restore the health
by draining the mob. Will cause downtimes now and then.
> Don't know how viable this is, but soloing means (at least for me)
> keep a certain speed going without having to worry about health
> or mana, and if there's something in the warlocks talent tree that
> makes this possible without a pet it's this talent imho.
Yes, but you need to put 31 points into Demonolgy for this. This means
you have to spend a lot of talent points to improve your pets and this
points might be missing for other important things. In addition the
sacrifice will grant you mana restore OR health restore. You can't have
both at the same time. So either you have to eat or to drink after a
fight (assuming you survive the encounter without getting heals).
Dirk
Doc
"John Salerno" <john...@NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote in message
news:45c038fc$0$31973$c3e...@news.astraweb.com...
Drain tank FTW!
Err... to answer more fully, yes. If, for RP or whatever other reasons, you
would prefer not to use a pet, then a Warlock can get along just fine. On
the other hand, a Hunter would be much harder to play and most likely be
heavily survival specced.
--
Doc
'Virtute et armis!'
Llane server
60 Warrior
50 Warlock
Skywall server
60 Rogue
65 Hunter
John Salerno
> John Salerno <john...@nospamgmail.com> wrote:
>> Would a warlock still be as powerful as everyone says they are if you
>> didn't play with his pet? I'm thinking of rolling a BE lock to be my
>> main (I really love BEs!) and sometimes I just get tired of dealing with
>> a pet, be it hunter or lock.
>
> build.
Affliction seems best, that's probably what I would do. Dem. seems
pointless without a pet. Destruction...I might as well be a mage. :)
djar...@gmail.com
I'll go back to a Warlock toon the moment they add "Silence Pet".
PV
>Would a warlock still be as powerful as everyone says they are if you
>didn't play with his pet? I'm thinking of rolling a BE lock to be my
>main (I really love BEs!) and sometimes I just get tired of dealing with
>a pet, be it hunter or lock.
There is a skill that involves going without a pet (demonic sacrifice), but
I have to say, being without a pet makes soloing pretty much impossible
unless you have enough +damage to destroy things before they get to you.
All the cloth classes have some form of defense against melee, or a
melee form. For warlocks, that's generally our pet's job - you really don't
want to go up against much of anything with no pet. *
--
* PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something
like corkscrews.
paul...@yahoo.com
> didn't play with his pet? I'm thinking of rolling a BE lock to be my
> main (I really love BEs!) and sometimes I just get tired of dealing with
> a pet, be it hunter or lock.
A hunter in my guild almost never uses his pet. So, at least, at high
levels a petless hunter does work.
> So is it a viable option to play the game without the pet, at least some
> of the time? Not necessarily for the boss-type fights, but just in the
> normal course of questing. It would be more fun for me, and more of an
> RP thing, to have the pet as an option when desired, and not always
> following me. But I don't want to make the game impossible to play, either!
Once you get up in levels, it is certainly possible. Certain warlock
builds are built around Demonic Sacrifice where you sacrifice your pet
for buffs. This works well in groups and raiding - not sure how well
that it does solo grinding.
Until you can get enough talent points to get Demonic Sacrifice, I
think playing a warlock without a pet would be pretty tough. Going
to be hard to level to the 30s without a pet - you would have to try
to play as a mage that doesn't have any CC ability (frost nova, sheep,
etc) so fear would be your only trick and fear kiting doesn't work in
many places.
If you can get in the 30s, then you can go for a drain tanking build -
prior to the 30s, drain life doesn't really do enough damage to be
viable. In Drain tanking, your pet is just an added Dot so you can
live without it - it just means it will take longer to kill stuff.
If you can get into the 50s then demo sacrifice added to Drain
Tanking build should be fine for leveling. The buffs you get for
sacrificing your pet are not bad - like 4% health every 5 seconds or
3% mana. You won't have enough points to go all the way to Felguard
so you will be sacrificing a VW or Felhunter.
But you won't be very desired for groups since you won't have the
Imp's blood pact or the succys CC ability or the Felguard spell lock
(a great pet in Scholo with all those casters).
Playing a warlock without pets (one of their key abilities) is
similiar to trying to play a Hunter who doesn't use range weapons.
You can do it but your gimping yourself needlessly.
RogerM
Then you would a much better job than a petless warlock. Destruction
warlocks? Meh.
RogerM
>
> On Jan 30, 10:34 pm, John Salerno <johnj...@NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote:
> > Would a warlock still be as powerful as everyone says they are if you
> > didn't play with his pet? I'm thinking of rolling a BE lock to be my
> > main (I really love BEs!) and sometimes I just get tired of dealing with
> > a pet, be it hunter or lock.
>
> A hunter in my guild almost never uses his pet.
Is that just when grouped, or does he actually solo that way?
mi...@evins.net
> Would a warlock still be as powerful as everyone says they are if you
> main (I really love BEs!) and sometimes I just get tired of dealing with
>
> So is it a viable option to play the gamewithoutthepet, at least some
> of the time? Not necessarily for the boss-type fights, but just in the
> normal course of questing. It would be more fun for me, and more of an
> following me. But I don't want to make the game impossible to play, either!
You can definitely do it. It helps a lot to choose a talent build that
facilitates it. As others have mentioned, there are Demonology builds
(generally revolving around Demonic Sacrifice) that assume you will
work a lot without your pet. Some contributors have dismissed
Destruction builds, but I recently ran my 65 Warlock through 4 levels
with a destruction build, and I have to say that I scarcely missed my
pet when for some reason I was without it. With a strong Destruction
build and good +damage gear you can kill most targets so fast that the
pet makes little difference.
One good use of a pet if you don't want to fuss with it is to have the
Imp out to supply extra stamina. Leave him on Passive and he stays in
Phase Shift all the time and out of your way, and you get more life
out of the deal.
nob...@nobody.com
>John Salerno <john...@nospamgmail.com> wrote:
>> Would a warlock still be as powerful as everyone says they are if you
>> didn't play with his pet? I'm thinking of rolling a BE lock to be my
>> main (I really love BEs!) and sometimes I just get tired of dealing with
>> a pet, be it hunter or lock.
>
>Some builds are actually designed to be "petless". Depends on your
>build.
Sorry to sound so dumb but what is "BE"??????
thanks
steve.kaye
> On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 09:45:18 -0600, jes.t...@hexduxhmp.org wrote:
> >John Salerno <johnj...@nospamgmail.com> wrote:
> >> Would a warlock still be as powerful as everyone says they are if you
> >> didn't play with his pet? I'm thinking of rolling a BE lock to be my
> >> main (I really love BEs!) and sometimes I just get tired of dealing with
> >> a pet, be it hunter or lock.
>
> >Some builds are actually designed to be "petless". Depends on your
> >build.
>
> Sorry to sound so dumb but what is "BE"??????
Blood Elf
steve.kaye
Slambert
<john...@NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote:
>Would a warlock still be as powerful as everyone says they are if you
>didn't play with his pet? I'm thinking of rolling a BE lock to be my
>main (I really love BEs!) and sometimes I just get tired of dealing with
>a pet, be it hunter or lock.
You do not actually have to deal with a pet as such, you can just have
it out to add to your manapool, the pet being set on passive.
>So is it a viable option to play the game without the pet, at least some
>of the time? Not necessarily for the boss-type fights, but just in the
>normal course of questing. It would be more fun for me, and more of an
>RP thing, to have the pet as an option when desired, and not always
>following me. But I don't want to make the game impossible to play, either!
I guess it is possible, but you would as others already have
mentioned, gimp yourself and add quite alot to your downtime imo.
If it is for rp reasons, would you be playing totally without a pet or
use dem sac as others have pointed out as an option?
If you are planning to play totally without a pet you have rolled the
wrong class imo. Then a mage should have been your choice.
I guess playing totally without a pet could be a challenge for some
time, but the time it would take to do "kill x amount of this" quests
would raise so much it would not be any fun at all.
Slambert
R.C. Payne
I've gone for a heavy afflicition build (I like DoTs), and have Dark
Pact, which lets me drain some of my pet's mana and give it to me. In
groups I just keep the imp out on passive, phase shifted, and he follows
me around as a group stamina buff and a mana pool. Before TBC I could
generally get through a whole Scholo run taking about 2 drinks total.
While this is not a "no pet" option, because the pet just sits there on
passive following me around, it's nearly there. For solo I'll often
have either the voidy out tanking for me, or do drain tanking with my
succubus.
My usual questing group (RL friends) is me (lock), a mage and a shadow
priest. Mobs don't last long, and the combination of soulstone and
priest make us very hard to wipe. Once the three of us (when we were in
our low 50s) did ST with a rogue guild friend (also low 50s) as 4 of us
with the voidwalker tanking. It was so much fun as we just went crazy
with crowd control (sap, sheep, shackle, bannish, as the groups in the
first part seem to have the right mix of mob types).
John Salerno
> If it is for rp reasons, would you be playing totally without a pet or
> use dem sac as others have pointed out as an option?
Basically I just like to solo so much that even having a pet around is
sometimes annoying for me. Leaving it on passive still involves having
it follow you around, involves summoning it every time you take a
flight, etc. I like the idea of a warlock being a stand-alone class, but
I guess it just wasn't designed that way.
> If you are planning to play totally without a pet you have rolled the
> wrong class imo. Then a mage should have been your choice.
I didn't roll it yet. My first character was a mage. He's at 44 and I
haven't played him since I started making a ton of other characters. I
suppose I could do a frost mage, since my other is fire, but it would
probably still feel too much of the same.
PV
>flight, etc. I like the idea of a warlock being a stand-alone class, but
>I guess it just wasn't designed that way.
No, it wasn't in the least. Learn to love your pet or play another class -
being without one is not really viable unless you are always grouped, which
you've said right out isn't the case. While you can kill stuff totally
alone by fear kiting, that doesn't work on everything, and you're running
around alone wearing tissue paper. It's going to drive you nuts! *
Dirk Straube
> Basically I just like to solo so much that even having a pet around is
> sometimes annoying for me. Leaving it on passive still involves having
> it follow you around, involves summoning it every time you take a
> flight, etc. I like the idea of a warlock being a stand-alone class, but
> I guess it just wasn't designed that way.
It would be pretty hard to level a warlock without pet, especially
getting to level 30 (drain tanking is not dealing enough damage/health
before that). You kill things a lot slower than a fire mage and you only
have fear to keep mobs off you. There is not sheep and no frost nova, so
the mob will come straight to you. You can't even slow it down (later
with a talent point deeper into the affliction tree) and fearing isn't
possible in all cases as the mob might bring others with him.
The options pointed out here are all aiming at higher levels. Affliction
build becomes useful with level 30 and up, the Demonic scrifice thing
won't work before level 40.
If you don't want to create another mage, maybe roll a priest and go
deep shadow.
Dirk
John Salerno
> If you don't want to create another mage, maybe roll a priest and go
> deep shadow.
Yeah, that's what I'm doing now (currently level 22). I really like it.
This whole BE warlock thing was when I thought my priest had suddenly
become weak, but now it's gotten better again with a slightly new
strategy (lots of Mind Flay!).
I already have an undead warlock, so no need to start a new one and mess
with that all again. I'm sticking with my priest, but tonight I'm going
to roll a draenei paladin so I can see that starting area and quests.
RogerM
>
> My usual questing group (RL friends) is me (lock), a mage and a shadow
> priest. Mobs don't last long, and the combination of soulstone and
> priest make us very hard to wipe. Once the three of us (when we were in
> our low 50s) did ST with a rogue guild friend (also low 50s) as 4 of us
> with the voidwalker tanking.
I can believe it. My main is a mage, and pairing him with anything other
than another mage results in a brutal killing team.
djar...@gmail.com
> You kill things a lot slower than a fire mage and you only
> have fear to keep mobs off you. There is not sheep and no frost nova, so
> the mob will come straight to you. You can't even slow it down (later
> with a talent point deeper into the affliction tree) and fearing isn't
> possible in all cases as the mob might bring others with him.
> Dirk
"Aftermath" - 10% chance to daze (only 5 pts in Destruction Tree)
"Pyroclasm" - 26% chance to stun (22 pts into Destruction Tree)
OK, not great but at least its something. :)
RogerM
>
> Basically I just like to solo so much that even having a pet around is
> sometimes annoying for me. Leaving it on passive still involves having
> it follow you around, involves summoning it every time you take a
> flight, etc. I like the idea of a warlock being a stand-alone class, but
> I guess it just wasn't designed that way.
>
It just isn't as efficient. As long as you don't mind a slower leveling
pace, have fun with the character as you like to play him. I play a holy
priest as an alt and I roleplay her as non-violent. She won't take any
actions which do direct harm to another living thing. Makes it hard to
level and impossible to solo most quests, but it's a nice change from
the unholy bloodshed wreaked by my mage and hunter.
I have tried many different RP styles with my alts. I have just started
an undead warrior (because I like the cannibalism ability to reduce
reliance on potions and food for healing) who has a curse on him that
all his money turns to dust. That means he can't buy stuff, train, or
even use the flight points (and that hurts the worst, as I hate running
long distances). Sure, he's seriously gimped,(he had to learn to fight
bare handed until he got another weapon drop) but it is a fun change
from the normal play style. Thank goodness talents don't cost money
(although he'll never be able to respec without Blizzard's help).
> > If you are planning to play totally without a pet you have rolled the
> > wrong class imo. Then a mage should have been your choice.
>
> I didn't roll it yet. My first character was a mage. He's at 44 and I
> haven't played him since I started making a ton of other characters. I
> suppose I could do a frost mage, since my other is fire, but it would
> probably still feel too much of the same.
Probably, yeah. I have not done much with any alt mages I have started.
Just not a very different experience.
paul...@yahoo.com
Don't know how he solos. He might use the pet then. Every time we've
been in a group or raid together, he almost never brings his pet out.
PV
>"Aftermath" - 10% chance to daze (only 5 pts in Destruction Tree)
>"Pyroclasm" - 26% chance to stun (22 pts into Destruction Tree)
Unless they've fixed these, a total waste of points. They almost never
proc. *
Brian Westley
>John Salerno wrote:
>>
>> Basically I just like to solo so much that even having a pet around is
>> sometimes annoying for me. Leaving it on passive still involves having
>> it follow you around, involves summoning it every time you take a
>> flight, etc. I like the idea of a warlock being a stand-alone class, but
>> I guess it just wasn't designed that way.
>>
>It just isn't as efficient. As long as you don't mind a slower leveling
>pace, have fun with the character as you like to play him. I play a holy
>priest as an alt and I roleplay her as non-violent. She won't take any
>actions which do direct harm to another living thing. Makes it hard to
>level and impossible to solo most quests, but it's a nice change from
>the unholy bloodshed wreaked by my mage and hunter.
Heh. I thought it would be interesting to have a small pacifist
group of NPCs somewhere in Outland, and if a player tries to join
their group, they get rejected as not being a pacifist - the idea
being that you can only join them by getting to level 60 without
killing anything.
---
Merlyn LeRoy
RogerM
>
> Heh. I thought it would be interesting to have a small pacifist
> group of NPCs somewhere in Outland, and if a player tries to join
> their group, they get rejected as not being a pacifist - the idea
> being that you can only join them by getting to level 60 without
> killing anything.
>
> ---
> Merlyn LeRoy
Now THAT would be a challenge. :)
John Salerno
> getting to level 60 without
> killing anything.
lol :)
nob...@nobody.com
>John Salerno <john...@NOSPAMgmail.com> writes:
>>Would a warlock still be as powerful as everyone says they are if you
>>didn't play with his pet? I'm thinking of rolling a BE lock to be my
>>main (I really love BEs!) and sometimes I just get tired of dealing with
>>a pet, be it hunter or lock.
>
>There is a skill that involves going without a pet (demonic sacrifice), but
>I have to say, being without a pet makes soloing pretty much impossible
>unless you have enough +damage to destroy things before they get to you.
>
>All the cloth classes have some form of defense against melee, or a
>melee form. For warlocks, that's generally our pet's job - you really don't
>want to go up against much of anything with no pet. *
If you don't want a pet become a mage. More powerful and no pet.