Life Tap change
lcpltom
changing warlock's Life Tap such that it consumes 26% of the warlock's
maximum health and returns 26% of the warlock's maximum mana. I've
heard a lot of people calling this a huge nerf. I attempted to do
some testing on it with my warlock on a live server.
Currently, Life Tap has a spell damage coefficient of 80%. The
highest rank consumes 582 health and returns 582 mana without
talents. The talent improved life tap increases the mana return by
20%, so the base stats of life tap with talents is 582 health for 698
mana.
I don't have the exact numbers with me, but I was consuming about 17%
of my max health and getting about 24% of my max mana on a live
realm. This was also with the improved life tap talent.
I tried to sign on the PTR to do comparison tests, since my warlock on
the PTR is geared the exact same way as my live realm warlock. I
planned to fly to Silvermoon and respec to match the specs as well.
But the PTR was having a tantrum last night and would not let me sign
on. Come to find out this morning that life tap on the PTR is bugged,
such that it is returning 26% of the warlock's current mana instead of
maximum mana. So tests there would have been corrupted (who the hell
dotted my test?).
Also there were no changes to the improved life tap talent mentioned
in the patch notes. And since I couldn't sign on the PTR, I couldn't
confirm that there was no undocumented change. If the talent has
remained the same, then we have 2 possibilities. First, the 20%
stacks on top of the 26%, making imp life tap consume 26% max health
and return 46% max mana, a huge buff and the most unlikely case. Or,
the 20% does not stack, in which case you get an extra 20% of 26% of
max mana, not a huge buff, but in line with the current implementation
of imp life tap.
I do however remember this:
On the live realm, my max mana is 6630 unbuffed.
The current implementation of imp life tap gave me 1610 mana, about
24%.
The most likely implementation of imp life tap on the PTR will give me
6630 * .26 = 1723.8 *.2 = 344.76 + 1723.8 = 2068.56 mana. Thats 31.2%
of my max mana.
So while the health cost of life tap went up, so did the mana return.
I am having trouble understanding why this is a huge nerf. WoW
Insider said warlocks would have to life tap more often to regen mana,
but from what I see, I would have to life tap less often, with an
increased health cost to go with the reduced frequency, it seems like
this is hardly much of a change. It just means being a little smarter
with your life taps.
ABW
- currently life tap converts hp to mana at 1:1 ratio (1:1.2 with talents)
- after change the ratio will depend on your max hp to max mana ratio (+20%
on mana output from talents)
This might be same or even slight buff for PvE (I guess most likely for
destruction warlocks), but it is huge nerf for arena, especially for SL-SL
build. As I look at some SL-SL warlocks I know, their HP to mana ratios are
around 3:2, therefore the change is 33% nerf for them.
lcpltom
Warlock gear in general has a health to mana ratio of 3:2. Even my
own gear, in which only the gloves are warlock specific, gives me
about that same ratio, which is the same gear my tests were done on.
So even there, while the health cost would be higher, the mana return
would also be higher. And since imp life tap is low in the affliction
tree it wouldn't surprise me if most SL/SL locks already have it.
I'll try to get more actual live server values when I get a chance,
such as my max unbuffed health and mana, and the current health cost
for life tap. I did the tests quickly last night and failed to write
anything down.
Brian Westley
Do lower ranks of life tap exchange a lower percentage? My life tap
button is a macro, so it normally does the highest level of life tap
that I know, but holding down the shift key it does (I think) life
tap rank 3, so I can top off my mana a bit more.
---
Merlyn LeRoy
PV
>I've noticed a recent change to the PTR patch notes, that they are
>changing warlock's Life Tap such that it consumes 26% of the warlock's
>maximum health and returns 26% of the warlock's maximum mana. I've
I don't think that's a nerf at all. In fact, I think I'll be getting back
considerably more mana this way. The question is, what are they doing with
improved lifetap?
The last time I looked at the 2.4 PTR notes, there was nothing about
changing this - the only significant warlock change was globally unlocking
summoning. *
--
* PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something
like corkscrews.
thadr...@wow.com
wrote:
When your imp is phased out like he's not there and he also adds a
small buff in the form of blood pact. Except for the buff what is the
difference between demonic sacrifice with the felhunter as he gives 3%
of your total mana back every 4 secs.
I have a very hard time doing more than one thing at a time but i'm a
very effective warlock with demonic sacrifice. In instances i do use
the succubus and since our mage gives me food and water i've become
very lazy and eat and drink.
When we've done the last part of the pally mount quest i can just spam
dots and SB and at the end I might have to do a bit of lifetapping
every now and again but not too often.
lcpltom
From what I understood, there was only going to be 1 rank of Life
Tap. Since the effects are percentage based, it works no matter what
your max health or mana is. So you would lose the ability to downrank
this spell for just a little bit of mana.
lcpltom
max mana. And my gear isn't at a 3:2 health to mana ratio as I
suspected. But here goes.
Max unbuffed health: 8370 (I'm not SL/SL, I don't have Demonic
Embrace, and I don't have a bunch of PvP gear heavy on stamina. My
gear is damage focused)
Max unbuffed mana: 6790
Unbuffed, Life Tap (max rank) consumes 1249 hp and returns 1518 mp
(the tests I did last night were also with a bunch of buffs as I had
just helped out some guildies who buffed me up)
Thats a consumption of 14.9% of my max health and a return of 22.4% of
my max mana. This is also with improved life tap talent.
If we take the max unbuffed numbers and apply the new functionality,
Life Tap will consume 2176.2 health for each tap. If we assume imp
Life Tap remains the same, increasing the mana returned by 20%, and
that Life Tap no longer receives any spell damage bonus, we get 1765.4
+ 20% bonus = 2118.48 mp.
Thats an increase of 74% of health consumed, and in increase of 40% of
mana returned, and a roughly 1:1 ratio of health to mana. Slight nerf
in the ammount of health converted to mana, slight buff in that each
tap returns more mana, requiring fewer taps.
We can jump into more theorycraft with the 3:2 health to mana ratio.
Lets keep it simple. 9000 health, 6000 mana, and 1000 spell damage.
Lets keep it with the imp Life Tap talent.
Current implementation:
Health consumed = 582 + (1000 * 0.8) = 1382 hp
Mana returned = 1382 + (1382 * 0.2) = 1658.4 mp
PTR:
Health Consumed = 9000 * 0.26 = 2340
Mana returned = 6000 * 0.26 = 1560 + (1560 * 0.2) = 1872.
Thats an increase of 69% health consumed and 13% mana returned. Thats
also about 0.8 mana per point of health. Slightly more of a nerf for
gear that is heavier on stamina. And the slight increase in mana
recieved means that it won't effect the number of life taps required
too much.
Didn't try to sign on the PTR today, but I haven't heard of any fixes
the the previously mentioned bug.
Rehlow
Getting more mana back than health lost, 1:1.2.
Without Improve Life Tap you were exactly equal at 1:1.
> PTR:
> Health Consumed = 9000 * 0.26 = 2340
> Mana returned = 6000 * 0.26 = 1560 + (1560 * 0.2) = 1872.
>
Getting less mana back than health lost, 1:0.8.
> Thats an increase of 69% health consumed and 13% mana returned. Thats
> also about 0.8 mana per point of health. Slightly more of a nerf for
> gear that is heavier on stamina. And the slight increase in mana
> recieved means that it won't effect the number of life taps required
> too much.
>
This is terrible. You used to change health into mana or actually gain
more mana than health lost if you had Improved Life Tap. After this
change you will be paying some amount of health in order to convert
the rest of it to mana. The ratio will be even worse without Improved
Life Tap.
You can stay topped off on both health and mana by alternating between
Drain Life and Life Tap. With this extra health cost to Life Tap, I
don't think you will be able to continue on without taking breaks
anymore.
I have 10,000 hp unbuffed. I frequently have over 12,000 when raiding.
I am now going to lose 2600-3120 health whenever I Life Tap. Even at
full health that sounds a little scary (what if I get hit by an AOE
immediately afterwards) and sounds like suicide in arena.
I guess I'm going to have to stay Dark Pact for a long time so I can
safely get back mana from the Imp. I will be using Life Tap a lot less
in the future.
Later,
~Rehlow
lcpltom
As far as soloing goes, with drain tanking I typically end up
overhealing myself anyway, so the increased health cost is trivial.
For grouping, you can always follow up a life tap with 1 round of
drain life provided the encounter allows for it. If its a DPS race
you most likely won't have time to throw in a drain life. There is,
of course, the option for healers to toss a quick heal your way.
Also keep in mind that even though it returns less mana per health, it
does return more mana per tap than the current implementation,
allowing for less frequent taps.
I did find this however on blue tracker which would obviously change
things a bit:
http://blue.cardplace.com/newcache/forums.worldofwarcraft.com/4913821490.htm?posts=1
Someone asked about how imp Life tap would be effected, and a blue
response seemed to indicate that life tap will take 15% of max health
and return 15% of max mana. Its possible there has been a change
since I originally read about the change to life tap.
Vladesch
news:a5b94189-b86f-43a4...@s8g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
its 20% of 26%, or an extra approx 5%
>
> I do however remember this:
>
> On the live realm, my max mana is 6630 unbuffed.
>
> The current implementation of imp life tap gave me 1610 mana, about
> 24%.
>
> The most likely implementation of imp life tap on the PTR will give me
> 6630 * .26 = 1723.8 *.2 = 344.76 + 1723.8 = 2068.56 mana. Thats 31.2%
> of my max mana.
>
> So while the health cost of life tap went up, so did the mana return.
> I am having trouble understanding why this is a huge nerf. WoW
> Insider said warlocks would have to life tap more often to regen mana,
> but from what I see, I would have to life tap less often, with an
> increased health cost to go with the reduced frequency, it seems like
> this is hardly much of a change. It just means being a little smarter
> with your life taps.
It hurts the well geared players, especially the ones in pvp sets who have
massively more life than mana.
Clearly your mileage may vary. If you had (say) 10k mana and 5k hit points
it would be a "boost" or anti-nerf.
Personally the change wont afect me much since my warlock is wearing crap. I
just play casually (since BC) so I have about the same HP as MP.
The change still annoys me though. Its a pretty basic spell for warlocks and
its gone unchanged for 3 years, and I dont realy see the logic behind
changing it. You would think that after 3 years and a few months that maybe
they might be nearing the end of their class balancing, but it seems that
its going to be a neverending process without even the benefit of the degree
of changes diminishing.
I hope the next major MMORPG has a dev team that doesnt find the need to
constantly make major alterations to classes. I thought Id left this bs
behind when I left EQ.
Vladesch
news:fpujp9$les$1...@atlantis.news.tpi.pl...
I was reading through the forums yesterday, and some were reporting nerfs of
about 46% after doing tests on PTR.
Pretty stupid that you get punished for increasing what most people consider
your prime stat.
Catriona R
wrote:
>I've noticed a recent change to the PTR patch notes, that they are
>changing warlock's Life Tap such that it consumes 26% of the warlock's
>maximum health and returns 26% of the warlock's maximum mana. I've
>heard a lot of people calling this a huge nerf. I attempted to do
>some testing on it with my warlock on a live server.
Horrible horrible change, frankly. Apparently a blue has said improved
lifetap gives you back 18% of your mana for 15% of your health, and really,
for any warlock with more than a tiny amount more health than mana (ok, so
that's all of them then), it's a nerf. At least my 70 lock has Dark Pact so
won't be hurt so much but it's going to hurt my Demo/Affli hybrid lock for
sure.
Some figures here, my 70 lock hasn't gone all out for stamina gear, I've
just taken the highest damage items I could find and ignored stamina,
possibly lucky for me. Even so, with my imp out (which is my normal way of
playing), I have 8429 health and 7220 mana. Based on those figures, a
lifetap would cost me 1264 health and return 1299 mana. Ok, very very
slightly more mana than health, but that's *with* the talent, without it
I'd lose out even worse (1083 mana back)
It seems just a little silly that I'll now be better off unlearning my
extra stamina talent and my improved imp talent, when until now,
concentrating on stamina has been the whole point of being a warlock, what
makes them distinct from mages.
--
EU-Draenor:
Balgair - Human Rogue (lvl 70)
Naomh - Draenei Priest (lvl 70)
Rosad - Human Warlock (lvl 70)
Sealgair - Dwarf Hunter (lvl 70)
Sagart - Undead Priest (lvl 70)
Eilnich - Blood Elf Warlock (lvl 63)
Beag - Dwarf Paladin (lvl 60)
Sgoildubh - Human Mage (lvl 53)
ke...@spamsucks.com
> changing warlock's Life Tap such that it consumes 26% of the warlock's
> maximum health and returns 26% of the warlock's maximum mana. I've
Good grief, why mess with this at all? Demo/Destro locks already burn through
mana at an incredible rate (I don't see the mages having the mana management
problems that I do).
All this is going to do is penalize me for increasing my primary stat, and
require me to depend far more on the healer, who let's face it, doesn't
really like to have to continually top-off a lifetapping warlock.
Why fix what isn't broken?
-----------------------------------------------------------
Posted using Android Newsgroup Downloader:
.... http://www.sb-software.com/android
-----------------------------------------------------------
Dirk
> As far as soloing goes, with drain tanking I typically end up
> overhealing myself anyway, so the increased health cost is trivial.
>
> For grouping, you can always follow up a life tap with 1 round of
> drain life provided the encounter allows for it. If its a DPS race
> you most likely won't have time to throw in a drain life. There is,
> of course, the option for healers to toss a quick heal your way.
In PvE Encounters the change won't matter much. I actually would need to
live tap not that often as I get more mana back, which saves me the few
seconds of the global cooldown. In this aspect I would welcome the change.
> Also keep in mind that even though it returns less mana per health, it
> does return more mana per tap than the current implementation,
> allowing for less frequent taps.
As I said, welcome in PvE but highly risky in PvP encounters. My warlock
has 11907 hp and 9296 mana (PvP geared with SL/SL build). Fully buffed I
have around 14000 hps and around 9900 mana. Lifetapping in this
situation would cause me to loose 3640 hitpoints, which can be fatal
when in combat. In most situations you won't have time to restore the
health lost due to lifetapping as you will be dead before you get a
chance to make use of the generated mana.
Judging from the link you provided this might be what they had in mind
when they implemented it.
Dirk
ABW
my warlock a long time ago.
Look at it that way:
is there any talent or stat for any class/build that reduces effectiveness
of your abilities?
There are crappy stats that don't improve your character, there are crappy
talents that noone wants, there are talents that direct your playstyle
(making some abilities so much more effective than other that you never use
the other ones), but I can't recall any that would be counterproductive.
Even the old "taxed" improved fireball/frostbolt mage talents were
beneficial (the "tax" was not big enough to negate gains - it was only
reducing benefits of taking that talent).
Take f.e. strength for priest. Pretty crap. But if I equip my priest with
full "of strength" greens none of my abilities are reduced and my melee
attacks :o) gain some power in comparison to naked.
Take Predatory Strikes talent of feral druids - gives 50% of your level per
talent as melee attack power. For 3 talents it is neglegible 105 AP at
lvl70. No druid would take it if it wasn't prerequisite for mandatory feral
talent lower in the tree. Despite being crap it still gives some benefits in
comparison to not taking the talents and leaving 3 points unassigned.
With that change to lifetap stamina and stamina based talents (f.e. Demonic
Embrace, Improved Imp, Fel Stamina) become counterproductive. By taking
these talents or increasing your stamina you increase cost of life tap,
which means it will be harder for you (bandages, pots, HS), or a healer
(more mana to heal) or a shadow priest (less overhealing from VE = more
threat on spriest) to recover after lifetapping. And there is no choice -
mana cost of warlock spells is calculated around warlock using lifetap
therefore there is no such thing as "not lifetapping warlock" (solo grinding
does not count). It means that raiding warlocks would have to avoid using
imp and dispell Fortitude buff from them.
Not only talents and buffs, but also warlock specific (tier) equipment will
be counterproductive as it is heavy on stamina.
I understand some devs might want to make lifetapping in arena harder than
it is already.
The more obvious solutions would be adding cast time (1.5s) or leaving cost
as it is on PTR (15-25% max hp) but leaving hp:mana as it is today. This way
lifetapping would have to become conscious decision in both PvP and PvE. You
would need to plan when you can afford hitting yourself for 1/4 of your
health. Let's say you have 10k hp, lifetap would take 2500 (leaving 7500)
but would give 2500 mana, the more hp you have the more lifetap takes but it
also gives more mana, so when you gear up to have 15k hp, one lifetap takes
away 3750 (leaving 11250) but also gives 3750 mana. This way stamina is
still beneficial for warlock, although not as much as today and lifetapping
is nerfed in PvP (slightly buffed in PvE), but does not destroy the whole
idea of how warlock works.
Brian Westley
...
>Good grief, why mess with this at all? Demo/Destro locks already burn through
>mana at an incredible rate (I don't see the mages having the mana management
>problems that I do).
While I don't see why Lifetap needed changing, I have a 70 mage and
a 70 warlock, and my mage has FAR more problems with mana compared to
my warlock.
Warlock: need mana? Lifetap, followed by bandage (1 min cooldown)
and/or drain life.
Mage: need mana? Let's see, a limited number of mana gems with
a longer cooldown than bandages. Evocation (8 min CD), invisibility
+ drink (5 min CD), mana pots (but warlock have them, too).
---
Merlyn LeRoy
ke...@spamsucks.com
> a longer cooldown than bandages. Evocation (8 min CD), invisibility
> + drink (5 min CD), mana pots (but warlock have them, too).
hmmm... When I'm raiding, I don't see our mage having the mana issues that I
do. He seems to remain fairly topped off through the long raid boss fights,
while I am life tapping and then wasting time on drain-life to recover the
lost health. I'll have to ask him next time how he does it.
ke...@spamsucks.com
> live tap not that often as I get more mana back, which saves me the few
> seconds of the global cooldown. In this aspect I would welcome the change.
There are a lot of raid situations where you can get hit by a relatively
large large attack from a boss (an AOE attack, or a boss that targets random
players). In these cases I already have to follow my life taps with drain
life to keep myself safe (you can't rely on the healer, as all three of them
are busy healing the tank through whatever hellish effect Blizzard is
throwing at the tank). This just makes me feel that much more vulnerable, and
is going to make me waste even more time drain-lifing to keep myself up.
In fact, I think if this change goes live, I will probably drop destro and
respec back to demo to make felguard sacrifice an option again for keeping my
mana up.
lcpltom
Recent blue post, there are more changes in store for Life Tap, and
that they have enough feedback for now. No other information but that.
Catriona R
wrote:
>Recent blue post, there are more changes in store for Life Tap, and
>that they have enough feedback for now. No other information but that.
Hmm, wonder if that means good or bad things lol. Hopefully it won't be as
drastic a change as the current one anyway.
--
EU-Draenor:
Balgair - Human Rogue (lvl 70)
Naomh - Draenei Priest (lvl 70)
Rosad - Human Warlock (lvl 70)
Sealgair - Dwarf Hunter (lvl 70)
Sagart - Undead Priest (lvl 70)
Eilnich - Blood Elf Warlock (lvl 64)
Henis
more mana.
On Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:49:42 +0000, PV wrote:
> lcpltom <lcp...@yahoo.com> writes:
>>I've noticed a recent change to the PTR patch notes, that they are
>>changing warlock's Life Tap such that it consumes 26% of the warlock's
>>maximum health and returns 26% of the warlock's maximum mana. I've
>
> I don't think that's a nerf at all. In fact, I think I'll be getting
> back considerably more mana this way. The question is, what are they
> doing with improved lifetap?
>
> The last time I looked at the 2.4 PTR notes, there was nothing about
> changing this - the only significant warlock change was globally
> unlocking summoning. *
--
Why not?
lcpltom
Life Tap Rank 1: Converts 5% of max hp into 5% of max mana
Life Tap Rank 2: Converts 12% of max hp into 12% of max mana
Life Tap Rank 3: Converts 20% of max hp into 20% of max mana
There are reports of this being bugged on the PTR however, as it seems
some warlocks are reporting they are only consuming 5% of max health
and getting 15% of max mana. http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/02/27/latest-life-tap-change-is-up-on-the-ptr/
steve.kaye
> I really hope that change won't hit live servers, even though I hibernated
> my warlock a long time ago.
> Look at it that way:
> is there any talent or stat for any class/build that reduces effectiveness
> of your abilities?
Generally, tanks can have a problem if they have too much mitigation
due to reduced threat generation if they are too overgeared for the
instances that they are running.
> With that change to lifetap stamina and stamina based talents (f.e. Demonic
> Embrace, Improved Imp, Fel Stamina) become counterproductive. By taking
> these talents or increasing your stamina you increase cost of life tap,
> which means it will be harder for you (bandages, pots, HS), or a healer
> (more mana to heal) or a shadow priest (less overhealing from VE = more
> threat on spriest) to recover after lifetapping. And there is no choice -
> mana cost of warlock spells is calculated around warlock using lifetap
> therefore there is no such thing as "not lifetapping warlock" (solo grinding
> does not count). It means that raiding warlocks would have to avoid using
> imp and dispell Fortitude buff from them.
You wouldn't necessarily want to dispell fortitude or other stamina
buffs - they are still of benefit. Made up numbers for easy
calculations:
Warlock 1: 8000 hp, lifetap once for 1600 hp leaves 6400 hp
Warlock 2: 9000 hp, lifetap once for 1800 hp leaves 7200 hp
So you are further away from your maximum health but you are also
further away from death. So it is still a benefit to the Warlock to
have more stamina - they still have more available to convert to
mana.
> Not only talents and buffs, but also warlock specific (tier) equipment will
> be counterproductive as it is heavy on stamina.
Same goes for +stamina gear - from purely the warlock's perspective it
is still more beneficial to have more stamina.
It is better for the warlock to have more stamina from a healer's
point of view too. With the example above the warlock with more
stamina is still further away from death than the warlock with less
stamina after one lifetap from full health. In theory, there is less
need for a warlock that is further away from 0 health to be healed.
However, I think that most healers focus on missing health rather than
health remaining - my UI even shows missing health instead of health
remaining - so the healer will end up healing a warlock with higher
stamina more than one with lower stamina. That isn't a good thing but
I'd still rather warlocks that I need to heal have more stamina. I'll
just have to get used to the fact that I shouldn't keep them topped
up. I generally only ever throw a renew on them anyway whilst in
combat so I'll just have to leave my healing of them at that level
regardless of how much health they've lost (through life tap).
Also, you are right that it is a problem for shadow priests who will
get more threat due to the extra healing done.
Having said all this, I do believe that it is a crap change that
appears to be a nerf to any warlock that has more health than mana.
They'll not be able to lifetap as much after the change and so they
may start having problems managing their mana (or more problems
managing their mana - I don't have a high level warlock so I don't
know if they have problems as it is)
steve.kaye
ABW
news:bfbbf65b-ae9a-4eba...@u72g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
> On 26 Feb, 15:19, "ABW" <mhval...@poczta.onet.pl> wrote:
>
> > I really hope that change won't hit live servers, even though I
hibernated
> > my warlock a long time ago.
> > Look at it that way:
> > is there any talent or stat for any class/build that reduces
effectiveness
> > of your abilities?
>
> Generally, tanks can have a problem if they have too much mitigation
> due to reduced threat generation if they are too overgeared for the
> instances that they are running.
>
job is to keep aggro and mitigate damage. If tank is overgeared he has three
options to balance mitigation and aggro:
- he can unequip shield and dps-tank with dualwield or 2H. This way his
mitigation is reduced to "natural" level for the instance while his dps
increases. His rage generation will be slightly better (more generated from
damage done), threat as well. As a result the group of mobs will go down
faster. This option cannot be used when situation requires use of shield
(f.e. to use shield bash or spell reflect).
- he can pull more mobs. More mobs = more rage. Since pulling more mobs
means the rage needs to be used to spread threat more than in case of small
group, dps needs to spread their damage by switching targets or by use of
DoTs and/or AoE rather than concentrating on one mob. Not suitable for
groups with dps that needs to concentrate on one mob (like rogues or shadow
priests)
- he needs weaker, less frequent heals. This means that the healer aggro
will not be too big, so tank can spend most of his rage to tank one mob
against dpsers aggro instead of spreading the threat to tank all mobs.
Alternatively dpsers might need to hold back a little longer before tank
builds up threat. Good for situations when neither of the above options is
available.
> > With that change to lifetap stamina and stamina based talents (f.e.
Demonic
> > Embrace, Improved Imp, Fel Stamina) become counterproductive. By taking
> > these talents or increasing your stamina you increase cost of life tap,
> > which means it will be harder for you (bandages, pots, HS), or a healer
> > (more mana to heal) or a shadow priest (less overhealing from VE = more
> > threat on spriest) to recover after lifetapping. And there is no
choice -
> > mana cost of warlock spells is calculated around warlock using lifetap
> > therefore there is no such thing as "not lifetapping warlock" (solo
grinding
> > does not count). It means that raiding warlocks would have to avoid
using
> > imp and dispell Fortitude buff from them.
>
> You wouldn't necessarily want to dispell fortitude or other stamina
> buffs - they are still of benefit. Made up numbers for easy
> calculations:
>
> Warlock 1: 8000 hp, lifetap once for 1600 hp leaves 6400 hp
> Warlock 2: 9000 hp, lifetap once for 1800 hp leaves 7200 hp
>
The problem is that in most situations as a dpser warlock ise not supposed
to be hit.
Then more HP gives a safety buffer but it will be irrelevant after the
change because more HP will mean bigger (and therefore harder to heal) cost
of lifetap. In long boss fight it may be a difference of several thousand HP
more to be healed.
In situations where warlock is hit he has to take that into account already
and stop lifetapping.
Again more HP makes it safer to lifetap, but one should lifetap when it is
safe already.
Other dps casters have less HP and live.
Warlocks have more HP because they kill with HP, while other casters kill
with mana.
Warlocks have talents, spells and buffs that allow them to regenerate health
in combat, other casters have talents, spells and buffs that return part of
mana cost of their spells or allow them to regenerate mana while casting.
Warlock equipment is heavy on stamina, so so on intellect and spirit is
nonexistant, other casters have intellect and spirit, stamina comes as
bonus.
That's the key difference, which is totaly ignored by the lifetap change.
> So you are further away from your maximum health but you are also
> further away from death. So it is still a benefit to the Warlock to
> have more stamina - they still have more available to convert to
> mana.
>
No, and that's the point. No matter how much stamina you have, after the
change your full HP bar will convert to full mana bar and only thing that
changes with increase of HP is the increased cost of life tap.
steve.kaye
> "steve.kaye" <nos...@giddy-kippers.co.uk> wrote in message
> > > And there is no choice -
> > > mana cost of warlock spells is calculated around warlock using lifetap
> > > therefore there is no such thing as "not lifetapping warlock" (solo
> > > grinding does not count). It means that raiding warlocks would have to
> > > avoid using imp and dispell Fortitude buff from them.
>
> > You wouldn't necessarily want to dispell fortitude or other stamina
> > buffs - they are still of benefit. Made up numbers for easy
> > calculations:
>
> > Warlock 1: 8000 hp, lifetap once for 1600 hp leaves 6400 hp
> > Warlock 2: 9000 hp, lifetap once for 1800 hp leaves 7200 hp
>
> The problem is that in most situations as a dpser warlock ise not supposed
> to be hit.
> Then more HP gives a safety buffer but it will be irrelevant after the
> change because more HP will mean bigger (and therefore harder to heal) cost
> of lifetap. In long boss fight it may be a difference of several thousand HP
> more to be healed.
In this part of my post I was comparing two warlocks after the
change. Not before the change and after the change. I was
specifically answering your point that they'd want to dispel a fort
buff. It is still more life for the warlock and it will still be of
benefit for him to have more life.
> Other dps casters have less HP and live.
> Warlocks have more HP because they kill with HP, while other casters kill
> with mana.
Yes and it could mean that warlocks want to have more mana than health
in future which would make them too much like mages with different
visual fluff.
> > So you are further away from your maximum health but you are also
> > further away from death. So it is still a benefit to the Warlock to
> > have more stamina - they still have more available to convert to
> > mana.
>
> No, and that's the point. No matter how much stamina you have, after the
> change your full HP bar will convert to full mana bar and only thing that
> changes with increase of HP is the increased cost of life tap.
Ah yes, of course.
steve.kaye
gerryq
> "steve.kaye" <nos...@giddy-kippers.co.uk> wrote in message
> Other dps casters have less HP and live.
> Warlocks have more HP because they kill with HP, while other casters kill
> with mana.
> Warlocks have talents, spells and buffs that allow them to regenerate health
> in combat, other casters have talents, spells and buffs that return part of
> mana cost of their spells or allow them to regenerate mana while casting.
> Warlock equipment is heavy on stamina, so so on intellect and spirit is
> nonexistant, other casters have intellect and spirit, stamina comes as
> bonus.
> That's the key difference, which is totaly ignored by the lifetap change.
This doesn't necessarily apply in all cases. While mage-oriented gear
does tend to have spirit, many mages place very little value on it,
and go for intellect and stamina, with a slight preference for
intellect. You'll see quite a few mages wearing warlock T3 "of
Oblivion" items - my own did. In high-level dungeons and raids,
spirit only matters to a mage who is wearing mage armour, and most of
the time mages will be in molten armour for the 3% extra crit chance.
> > So you are further away from your maximum health but you are also
> > further away from death. So it is still a benefit to the Warlock to
> > have more stamina - they still have more available to convert to
> > mana.
>
> No, and that's the point. No matter how much stamina you have, after the
> change your full HP bar will convert to full mana bar and only thing that
> changes with increase of HP is the increased cost of life tap.
You probably shouldn't convert your whole health bar to mana so! If
you choose to convert only some of it at any given time, Steve's point
remains valid.
- Gerry Quinn