Well, for one, in fights where it's easier to aggro at the start it's a good idea to Life Tap a little earlier to tone down your dps at the start.
And in fights like Ragnaros with random dmg it's still a little tricky to balance LT and health. Ragnaros also has the downside that falling in lava in a bad spot is gonna eat quite a lot of hp that you can't always account for.
Bandages really are important. Back when I still did a lot of 5 man instances I barely had enough runecloth for bandages. I now buy it off the AH or funnel it from my alt. Even if I waste loads of them because I get healed while bandaging, you never know when a healer will not be watching you :D
Shadow Priest with competent locks won't downgrade your dps at this point.

Your warlocks don't bring bandages? :o

Show your raid leaders the dps meters before and after a shadow priest is introduced and let him judge.From my meagre experience,shadow priests can heal most classes decently and tanks even,other than the main tank.They don't necessarily have to be dpsing full time either;put rank1 SW:P up and maintain 5/5 shadow vulnerability while healing on the side will add mileage to their efficiency.Oh,and bring tons of major mana pots too.=p

As for the "optimal" build?

Hmm.Sm/ruin worked quite fine for me in mc/bwl,bwl's a little bit risky even with a very good tank because of the various aggro-reducing talents of the bosses there and in especially position sensitive encounters.Ds/ruin is pretty alright as well.My general tips to maximise lock dps are:
1)run a threatmeter.KLTM works fine.
2)run a dot meter.
3)get your warlocks to occassionaly eat a wing buffet(or w/e aggro reducing debuff a boss puts out).Until today I still do it,and even on Gluth I will occassionally run in to get feared.

Also,as for a conflag(heavy destruction)based build,it has never really enticed me.Maybe perhaps some of the best gear out there is +shadow(i.e. ebony flame gloves,band of dark dominion,fel infused leggings).The main efficiency to damage seems to be worse than other builds too.But it's a good spec for C'thun,since the burst dmg helps to bring a tentacle down very fast.

Lifetapping should never kill your locks if they have any sense in them. That's part of the l2p to know when you can lifetap and when you can't. Here's a hint: go bolt+bolt+bolt+lifetap, not oom+oohp. Warlock set gear gives plenty of stamina. You can easily lifetap two to four times (depending on your spell dmg) and still be on par with the typical mage hp.

From horde POV two of the most important warlock dps boosters are heal-over-times and a tank with Thunderfury. In BWL tho, forget about it. No way you can go all out with the threat reduction skills. Just wait for the new talents and BoS. Only boss you can dps properly is Chromaggus although the way it works only thing you'll get for sure is huge amounts of frustration.

MD spec is lame at best. With the -20% threat you'll also end up with no dmg anyway. Go either SM/Ruin or DS/Ruin for raid dps. Heavy destro is an alliance thing I guess without incinerate.

Shadow vulnerability is nice when there's no chance of aggro but again in MC/BWL those encounters are rare. In Naxx and AQ with tf tanks it's superduper. Always reminds me of the good times when I see over 4k sb crits. Still doesn't make you top the dmg lists if the encounter is a static tank+dps boss. With two or more constantly dps-ed targets you can beat the rouges with dot power.

Fear isn't a aggro reduce, it just makes the mob ignore you temporarily :)
(Which is why you want to get feared if you can't be sure that a tank higher above you on the threatlist will avoid it as well.

just renew/rejuv warlocks. when i see a straight, non-chain heal spell hitting a warlock, in 90% of the cases i'll bitch at that healer. you shouldn't use more time then an instant hot on a target that takes self inflicted, 100% controllable dmg. if the healer doesn't run around in blue gear, its more then enough. also on fights like patchwerk, where global CDs matter, just cast the renew immediatly after your cast time heal finishes, that saves you 1 global CD. having a lock bandage on such a fight is just a waste of time and dps.

What? No, it doesn't.

Apologies for the inappropriate phrasing ><

And @ the op,yeah I've suggest casting a low rank hot on your locks if you can spare the time.Just get them to eat a buffet every now and then,subtlety's cost isn't really advisable unless they have cape of the broodlord especially since TBC is so nearby.My healers love healing me especially on trash pulls,it helps them to top the healing charts =D

As someone else said, that's part of learning the encounter for a lock - "how much can I safely lifetap before one more time will get me killed when Rag tosses me in the lava?"

That's really not good! Get them to bandage and I think it will help your healing problems a lot. We have one druid in my guild (also usually short on healers) who, before many fights, says "DPS'ers, if I don't see the bandage debuff on you, you're not getting a heal." Of course this really applies more to the ones where there isn't much aoe/etc. damage, but still.

In an attempt to get healers to not use as much mana on me, I made a

/say lifetapping and bandaging

macro that I use when I am going to lifetap fairly low, since I was getting a lot of healing while I already was going to be fine because I was bandaging and not in any other danger. However I'm not sure that it works very well since the healers tell me they are too busy staring at health bars to even see the macro :) Anyway, my point is getting them to bandage is good, but coordinating so that you don't make the bandaging useless by healing over it anyway is even better.

There's a bunch of other threads here about warlock talents, but the general opinion is that soul link/MD are not that great for raiding - the threat reduction isn't worth the massive damage nerf. Personally I can't imagine raiding without going at least up to Ruin in destruction. Beyond that, SM/Ruin, DS/Ruin, and NF/Conflag are all good - everyone has their personal favorites. If they are careful, though, the warlocks shouldn't have too many issues with pulling aggro. Particularly in the current absence of any kind of aggro wipe, it's a major, major part of "L2P" for our class, which maybe they haven't learned yet. I admit to having serious issues with that myself in the not-so-distant past, to the point where all our healers groaned every time I got a gear upgrade - "Oh god, she's going to pull aggro even more now!" :D but then a few things happened. First, myself and all our tanks and a lot of the rest of the guild got KTM, and we learned how to use it. That includes learning encounters where it might not be entirely trustworthy (things with knockbacks, etc.). I also realized that I'm a hell of a lot more useful to the raid when I put not pulling aggro (which coincides nicely with living to the end of the fight) ahead of my personal glory on the damage meters. I can still do a lot of damage, but I don't mind slipping down a couple spots when it means the fight goes a lot more smoothly and I don't have a larger repair bill at the end.

I'm sure I've rambled on enough for now :) Hope that was somewhat helpful.

And AQ and the vast majority of Naxx.

9/21/21 aka DS/Ruin is generally considered the best combination of nuking power and utility. If you have warlocks with Demonic Sac, don't bi*ch at them if they sac a VW and dont give their group imp. You can't complain about having to heal them AND complain when they try to reduce the healing they need.

As far as healing on farm stuff, I generally try to get a life tap/SB rotation going. First of all, the healers know that I and the other warlocks, if they feed us hots, can pump out the dps - so they do. By getting into something like a 3x SB/lifetap/check dots rotation, you ensure that you are never so low on health that shaman playing emergency monitor wack a mole all throw you LHW and waste mana. One thing you could do is assign a specific druid and priest to check the warlocks every 30 seconds or so and feed em hots.

I'm sorry if this is a partial derail, but the issue of missing the HoT when it's on you was mentioned a few posts back.

Does anyone know of a nice add-on that would give me a noticeable signal when a HoT is applied to me?

I frequently 'waste' the last few ticks of a HoT if I don't notice it and L.T. my health back down.



And more to topic: Just like DPSers like to climb the damage meters, healers are competitive. If a Druid or Priest find out you will make 'full' use of their HoT, you will find they love to use you as a nice way to cheese to the top of the effective healing meters. It’s taken time for our healers to get comfortable enough with their primary tasks to take the time to heal Warlocks, but it’s a sure sign of a skilled and smooth-running healing group.

Thanks for all of the responses. Warlock is the only class I have not experimented around with much. I'll probably start an alt one just for kicks. Although its my understanding that the class only ramps up in power after level 40. A few of our rogues and mages make use of the SWstats DPS meter. Given that their gear is roughly equal to other raid DPS, its clear that warlocks can definitely hold their own. In the future we hope to get more healers on board and work locks into a better spot on the healing list.

More than anything else: warlocks are not mages and its now my understading that playing a lock like a mage is what kills. Just one last question before before this thread rests: Someone once told me that a lock with SM and DS could sacrifice his succubus, use jumper cables on it ASAP, and recieve both damage buffs at the same time. I have never personally seen this in action and I don't know any warlocks who have the talent build neccessary to make it work. Anyone know if this is possible?

I believe the sac&rez exploit was fixed long ago.

not that long ago, but yes, it has been fixed. i was actually specced DS/ruin at the time of the patch, and i tested it personally. rez the pet and you lose the DS buff.

You are specifically referring to the MD/DS sac-rez trick aren't ya? =p

Yes,it was possible a long time ago to rez one's pet after sacrificing em to get a total of +25%(as opposed to the 15% from sac).They fixed it the last patch I believe.

If you ever go into FSR for more than 1 second when you lifetap immediatly after a lifedrain, or when you are standing around bandaging for 8 seconds, as a warlock, you aren't playing your class optimally. I get significantly faster Mana/sec regen from 1 channel of lifedrain for 5 seconds, than I do from standing around for 15 seconds doing jack squat.

Nevermind the fact you just did 1000 damage to the mob, even more importantly you just gained 600 mana in 5 seconds. Fuck spirit....

I hate watching pve videos taken from the point of view of a shitty warlock when they only spend 1/4th to 1/3rd the fight actually casting, it's painful to watch someone play their class that badly. It'd be like a rogue making a video showing them sitting at 100 energy.

The other thing that pisses me off is warlocks that don't use their pets to help dps on tank and spank encounters ala Fankriss. Or maybe they'll send their imp on auto-attack, but then just leave it on auto-attack throughout the fight, not letting it med back up to full before sending it again.... :(

Regarding healers, I'm spoiled, I admit it, I basically never eat or drink on a raid except after a wipe, but I am consistantly in the top 5 most every encounter, and especially on trash, since so many people slack off on the trash, it really lets me shine and put out 110%. And I'm soul-linked specced even letting me throw down great non-stop dps on aggro limited encounters.


Soul Siphon is going to be god damned nice come the expansion, basically a required talent.

Oh, and warlocks that have MD, but just sit there with their imps out the entire raid piss me off too.

Join the rest of the world and get KTM. Learn to ride the aggro line and stare at KTM the entire raid. Throw away the imp, grab a succubus, and be higher up on the damage meter than your average wannabe SM/Ruin newb build lock. Don't knock the extra 150 dps that a succubus can give you, works wonders on fights that normally limits casters to being 2nd class dps citizens, like instructor razuvious.

The reason I often life tap aggressively is because I just know there are healers in the raid who have the emergency monitor front and center, and so I'm more likely to get a heal if I tap down very low in a cycle rather than sit at 80% or so life.

Guilty as charged on trash. :( It's not really front and center but it might as well be.