My Epic fail

[Bradster]

As of last Saturday I hit 70 with my group. As I progress on trying to do end game content, I must be totally honest with myself, I am not happy. So I’m going to break down some of the things I’m unhappy with. Perhaps you fellow lock group’s (if any?) may have run in to these problems and overcome them.

I’ll use today as an example.

I head out to the island for the daily (first time there). A 70 rogue and Druid kill me. I think Heck, no problem I’ve taken down 14 people before this will be cake. Well they were geared. Druid would come in range pop some heals and run out. I’d dot him up with 16 dots on him. He could out heal 16 dots without breaking a sweat. He would also jump in and CC me priest, I have no pvp trinket. Mean while the rogue could 3-4 shot my locks. This happened a few times. I was able to kill the druid a couple times. In that time my locks would all be dead. The rogue, Cloak of skill took care of my dots and resists 4 howl of terrors and a fear every time.

I went from god to a punching bag lol.

Frustrated being passed around like a Pez dispenser by those 2 and more jumping in for some free hks, I decided I’d work on the quest chain in Shadow moon Valley that gives a blue helmet. I figure it would be worth the effort, at the very least replace the ugly greens helms I have. So I spend an hour gathering up all the crap and start on one of the group quests required for it. I had to fly out, land on a hill and kill a dragon. I wiped 4 times. I did it get to 2% after using all my soul stones (desperate to finish it).

Thought well ok, maybe now I can finally kill That roaming elite in Nagrad to finish that quest, it’s green now (forget that giant things name). Wiped three times, left.

Decided, ok well I’ll head to underbog/steam vaults (the hard one down there). Bog lords 2 shot my tanks then my group. This happened a few times. Which point I just logged, wasn’t a good night, or week that matter.

This isn’t just a frustration of a single night. Lately I’ve been consistently let down unable to complete group quests and such. By nature that’s the point of the whole thing. Well, it’s failing and maybe it’s my fault, the class selection, whatever the case not very rewarding.
There is positive things about the combo of 4 locks and a priest. In the lower levels it’s very strong in both PVP and PVE, no problems until I reached the outlands. Since then it’s been a downhill spiral. At level 65 I ended up taking a break for a year because I saw it and just didn’t want to face it.

At 70, at least without better gear (I’m not sure how dots scale) but man, even with 16 dots on someone it feels like a single lock fighting someone at this point. Takes a long time to kill someone. Can’t kill most players with just dots anymore, doesn’t cut it, unless it’s cloth.
So here’s my thinking and what I have to work with. I have a 70 shaman already. I also have 5 shaman at level 17. I’m thinking, what if I took out a shaman out of my group of 5 and replaced it with a prot pally. Level these things, then if I want to PVP I simply replace the prot pally with my existing 70 shaman. If I want to PVE I just bring in my Prot Pally I leveled with the shamans. To me it sounds like a soild plan. Least with the shamans I could always go defensive with chain heals when something like cloak of skill is up, not to mention the mitigation difference and totems.

There’s all this talk with “boosting” I assume this is grouping up with a 70 and running your alts in an instance or something for exp? Would it be faster for me to take the 4 shamans and a 70 and run SM a lot, then do it for the pally (so twice)? Vs. just quested with all of them together and instances the old fashion way? Haven’t had much experience in the boosting department.

Thanks

[blast3r]

I think the giant mob you are talking abou is "Durn the Hungerer". Go to one of those camps where they have the elite felguards and enslave a few of them. You will have no problem taking that mob down. :) Those felguards will be a totally effective tank and I think they each hit for about 1200 to 1500 crit. I don't have anough MB experience to help you with the rest but Vyndree has a great video on boosting with a prot pally.

[shaeman]

Ouch - sounds like a rough day.

Firstly the rogue and the druid - that's was always going to be rough. It sounds like you are suffering from gearing issues, they were geared you weren't.

Rogues are horrific for locks.... cloak of shadows is overpowered. To completely remove all effects and to then have it grant 5 seconds of almost guaranteed immunity is hellish.

The one short term answer would be to spec felguard.... horrible I know but It helps to make up for gear deficiencies until you can get gear. It also would make a rogue think twice..... 1v1 I've had more success with rogues with a felguard build (not much - but more survivability. setting four of them on the rogue is going to hurt him even with clos (as it doesnt prevent melee damage).



I would recommend a focus fear macro. I basically had one that replaces my fear. If it doesn't have a focus target it sets it to what you are currently target.. .and fears the focus.

druids are susceptible to fear. Also if he was resto and did that tree of life thing remember you can banish him.

However I've always stayed affliction and just accepted the fact that rogues own me... but I do play on a pve server and don't have the frustrations of being ganked while trying to achieve objectives.

As to the other quests - you are picking on some of the hardest elites in the game.

Durn the hungerer although only a 67 elite is one of the toughest hardest hitting son of a guns ever. He will mash through a clothy in seconds. You really need a dedicated tank for that one. I also think he is quite likely to switching target as well. I've seen 5 individual players struggle on that dude - so don't feel too bad.

I also know the dragon in netherstorm is an absolute nightmare.

I think you would definitely benefit from levelling your pally and 4 shamans.

I definitely think boosting is quick and easy - although I only tri box and so boosted two lowbies on seventies. You may have additional fun doing a combination of boosting your alts and then letting them loose in an instance to take it on normal.

I levelled through to 40 from about the minimum level of scarlet monastery and it seemed quick enough. (but dull). I wish I had 5 boxed and run it as a group at least a few times. It can be quite a drag power levelling a group when you don't stop for a bit of fun on the way.

[Esquilo]

I'm MB noob, but I have a 70 Shadow Priest that I PVP'd with quite a bit. (Phinius on Kirin Tor, if your interested in build) I can tell you that your priest is going to get owned until you get your resil up. I did ok with T4 gear, but was total rogue fodder until I got my resil about 200. Once you do that, a rogue is still a battle, but once you break the stuns, the rogue better be a running fool. Gobs of +shadow damage didn't hurt either :P

I'm guessing your priest is holy, I would suggest looking a hybrid desc/holy build for him/her. Desc tree will give you much better survivability, but less healing power(still very good though).

It really comes down to your lack of gear more than anything, it's not something I'm looking forward to for my team either.

[Naylix]

if it indeed was Durn the Hungerer, I must agree - he hurts like a ton of bricks... when I did him first on my hunter, I had a pally tank and shammy healer + 2 other dps in group and he went down just fine, even though we were in greens... hooray for plate dmg mitigation

We were lvl 65-66 at the time, but all very experienced players who had played together for years on different classes....

When we hit lvl 70, and had grabbed the first few Kara pieces + 1-2 badge pieces, we went back there to try it for fun - me and the healing shammy 2manned him, BM specced hunter-pets are just amazing tanks... But this was like 30% epic gearing, which is what really makes the difference.

All in all, form a 5v5 arena team. Do it now, dont wait for it. Play 10 games. In all likelyhood, you will loost 90% if not 100% of them. Collect your 300-350 ish arenapoints. Next week, disband the team and make a new one to reset ratings. Rinse and repeat. In a month, you can buy the S4 Gloves, requires no rating, just 1125 points or so. In the meanwhile, grind battlegrounds and if possible as many dailies as you can take. Accept the ganking, it will happen. S4 Belt for honor, also requires no rating. Buy S3 offpieces aswell, they are only 4% weaker than S4, and require no rating. Once your health goes up, your resilience and spelldmg follows, and you will see your 16 dots suddenly eat away opponents health, as opposed to now.

But it takes time and patience. There really is no shortcut, the rogue and druid who ganked you, probably have 30-50+ days /played @ lvl 70. Even as a MB'er, that is hard to catch up to.

[Dominian]

I assume you play affliction since you have 16 dots wich is a awsome spec wich i prefer for my own lock but when it comes to meele your short. If your warlocks is under 7k in health i can most likley kill 4 of them on my warrior with blues and a few S1 epics if i have the right cooldowns (no not the 30 min cooldowns) Deathwish,sweepingstrikes,mortalstrike then a worldwind will do so much damage and unless your warlocks and priests are undead a int shout will completly destroy you. Ofc i will die but i will hamper 5 opposite chars and it will make us win.

Untill your well geared a warrior or rogue + a healer will destroy you.

Sounds like you dont know much about the warlock class if you use 16 pure damage dots (no offence) :P

Against healers bind theese curses, Curse of elements (increases fire,shadow,frost and arcane damage with 10%), Curse of tounges(increase casting speed with 60%, This is a paladin,shaman killer.) Curse of Exaustion (err bad spelling there, anyway it decreases the enemy speed and even thought a druid can shapshift it off he still have to use time on it)

Its not bad against druids either since he cant decurse them all he wont have the time and cyclone got a cast time.

To kill the druid dot him up and use felhunters, you might aswell use auto devour since you already have a hard time. They will eat all his hots but even if he spams 1 lifebloom your dots should do more damage.

You got 4 spellocks try to get him in a long silence run. First get a fear on him then a spellock cycle!

What you can do is to spec sl/sl and your locks will last forever but aslong as your priest doesnt wear pvp gear he will be the weakest link in your group. Btw i see no need to bind all howls of terrors to 1 button why do you want to blow them all at once?

I personally dont have multibox experiance with locks and barley shamans but warlocks always been pointed out as a easy mode class wich they can be with SL/SL and 300 resillience but try aff or destruction and the tables turns. Have you ever tried to play one of your locks singel? maybe you should try to get the hang of it because starting with 4 sounds to me like it will be messy!

[Menthu]

After reading your chinese wall of text I'd say the following:

Level that group of 4 shamans and 1 pala, and when you do PvE you use the pala, and in PvP your old lvl 70 shaman like you said.

Dont forget that a Druid as a tank is also a very good option! I'd go for the paladin personally, but its also an option.

-Jungle Love

[Meathead]

Go Destro Burst DPS is allways a win in my books in greens ive seen some locksdo about 3-4k crits and stuff.........Other then that todya for me was a Crapper got my guys to lvl 43 decide to go to ZF and wipped atleast 4-5 times wearing vengfull gear for my mage does not help. im taking a break right now so frustrating...hehe

[Darcla]

ahh the curse of the UA lock. The utlimate glass cannon.

From the sound of it, you are VASTLY undergeared than what you should be even as a fresh 70. But that is a good thing, getting geared up these days is easy enough. Just hit the BGs. In AV Especially, you will shine. Like others have mentioned, I would go Felguard spec until you get better gear/more resil. Felguards and dots would have been more than enough to kill the druid in your situation.

UA is VERY powerful once you get geared, at 1k spl damage , one row of dots kills most targets without heals. with 4x locks and 1k spl dmg each, UA and SL alone will kill everything you face.

To survive in PVP as a UA or destro lock you need at least 450 resil. I speak from experience on this. Until then, get a felguard spec, hit the bgs.

[Darcla]

Sounds like you dont know much about the warlock class if you use 16 pure damage dots (no offence) :P

Against healers bind theese curses, Curse of elements (increases fire,shadow,frost and arcane damage with 10%), Curse of tounges(increase casting speed with 60%, This is a paladin,shaman killer.) Curse of Exaustion (err bad spelling there, anyway it decreases the enemy speed and even thought a druid can shapshift it off he still have to use time on it)
Since you were mean, it opened the door. You obviously have no clue about pvp locks either. Never use CoE. It is a waste of a curse. CoT and CoEx are the bread and butter for arena. Everywhere else (BGs) stick to CoA.

What you can do is to spec sl/sl and your locks will last forever but aslong as your priest doesnt wear pvp gear he will be the weakest link in your group.Agreed on this however, except multiboxing 4 Sl/SL is worse than doing 4 melee. trying to micro manage 4 drain life (the basics of Sl/SL), sounds like way more work than needed.

[Havelcek]

I have a T5 lock so before you get all crazy and reroll a group let me give you one tip. Spec all your locks demo and roll with the felguard for a while. See if that works better for you. /Castsequence your intercepts and starting pwning face again.

[Steph]

For PVP you have a number of replies. For PvE 5man, I would strongly recommend getting a paladin tank instead of one of your warlocks.

[Catamer]

yeah, i just thought my 5x warlock team ruled the 0-60 dungeons. I was unstoppable... then came the outlands. They can't take any boss anywhere.
There isn't a single outland boss that isn't completely immune to all types of fear and horror. All of the bosses seem to have special warlock pet killing powers.
I got them to 70 but I pretty much gave up on them. Durn would do an AoE that wiped all of my pets at once and then proceed to wipe my team all at once.
It was cool to see the warlocks get all of the DoTs going, 25+ dots look awsome and most items can't survive long enough to get more than a few of them going.
I rolled shaman and they smoke Durn without even having to cast a single heal, the don't have too many problem doing all of the dungeons. I do SV, SL, Mech, Bot, etc.
The shaman don't do as well as locks for crowd control but they eat bosses.

for Durn I drop totems and 5x earth elementals, cast heroic, cast trinket and just LB him to death. The elementals seem almost immue to is AoE.

[Bena]

..and that's why I stopped pvp on my locks :( I've tried the
destro builds/demo builds etc. but the fact is a single druid is able
to heal through ALL of the dots on him and groups like rouges/mages can
wipe all of them off with a single click. Locks are a dot class
and with the increased stamina/dot duration things just take too long
to die. I still love my locks but unfortunately they're not as op
as I hoped. Still run pve with them (have a pally tank though)
once in a while.

[Tonuss]

A prot paladin and 4 elemental shaman would be a very nice group for instance running, that's for sure. Almost unfair, to be honest. :)

[Ughmahedhurtz]

This is not uncommon. My locks are at about 550 +dmg and any competent healing class can easily outheal my DoTs unless I keep them CC'd or interrupted. Now, granted, I'm demonology spec, so that cuts down on DoT dmg dramatically. Round-robin deathcoil and felhunters are about the only thing that works. With shammies, I started killing healy druids at 48. :P

[Sanctume]

There's plenty of group composition thread around here.

Priest + 4x Warlocks excel in BG for their Dot and Run.

That is far from open area world PvP with you against A druid and a rogue, both have abilities to get away from a fight, and also have the ability to start a fight to their advantage. It is not you the person that is epic fail, it's just how the situation is.

You tried Durn the Hungerer without a tank? I was pretty well geared tank, and I needed serious healing for that guy. Same with the Gorefiend quests chain in SMV. I actually tanked that at 69 when I was summoned in.

Anyway, getting to 70 is the end, it's an end to a goal, then you're beginning to "gear up."

When my 3 shamans were newly 70, I got ganked bad in the island. After some serious grinding in BG to gear up, how I roam around and noobs steer clear of me even when I aoe pull 5 nagas for the quests.

But if you want to start doing instances, then you'd want a tank for the job.

[Jorai]

haha cloak of shadows strikes again...honestly though, can anyone here complain about anything? are you doing this for the challenge or are you doing this to be OP? Cloak of Shadows...is so important, but everyone cries about it...and yeah i have leveled 3 rogues so i am definitely biased here.

all the QQ has paid off with chaos bolt though, if you spec destro on four locks in the x-pac you can chaos bolt right through that spell! so that is pretty good.

in reading this i am also wondering about my set up - 3 locks / pally and priest. I am thinking the pally tanking will help me level this group to 70, and i really want to do it despite any disadvantages they have over shaman. I think you are right to level your new group with a pally, then you can swap one lock out for a pally and go Pally/3lock/Priest at times for certain PvE content. I am sure this will help tremendously. I also think that locks will be even better in the x-pac, though shaman will continue to shine for boxing.

i am sure to follow in your footsteps - i am going to level this lock group first, then do something with druids and shaman. on the side i have a hunter group, a rogue/warrior group, and a mage group. all i can say is stick with it, you can't expect to beat every comp. even a good shaman group can fall to a rogue/pally/mage that knows what's up. i know first hand....if it wasn't easier for 3 or 4 people to communicate and use their mobility to kill a four/five boxer then we'd all be lying about the so called challenge.

[Reprisal]

That is the exact same experience i had with my locks. Tried affliction for a while in bgs but there are just to many counters and any healing class can heal through the damage. After getting owned for a while i ended up switching to 41/20 for the felguard stun and the increase range on my shadowbolts and the 70 percent resist to spellpushback since i liked to aoe grind with hellfire a lot. Towards the end i found dots to be almost useless. I had about 900 spelldamage as destruction and over 1000 as demo when i stopped playing them and i still coudln't even do a full normal shadow labs/shattered halls run. I know exactly how you're feeling, except for the amazing aoe fearming i was doing i was totally disappointed in my lock/priest team as well. That is why i switched to shamans about 3 months ago and haven't had a single urge to switch back. Now heroics are a complete joke, i fly through heroic mgt, which is one of if not the hardest heroic in the game, in under 35 minutes. Locks were awesome until you hit 70, after that fear becomes almost useless, dots become almost useless, you're super squishy due to wearing cloth and you lack the ability to kite other players well. I found that 3 well geared players could easily take me down. Which definitely doesn't happen with the shamans. But if you still feel like playing them i always rolled with one felguard out so i could see upcoming rogues and had a button for it's spell lock so i could shut down casters, and another keybinding to devour magic on my priest so i basically had an 8 second pvp trinket against fear and sheep.

[Lokked]

My S3 warlock sais that with 4 Felhunter Pets on druid, with /castsequenced Spell Locks and Automatic Devour Magic, the druid isn't going to have any HoTs on him, or will be getting a casted heal off. Drain mana x 4 + Mana burn x 2 = 5-6k mana gone in 5 seconds. Don't bother putting Curse of Tongues on a single druid.

The rogue, however, you will not be able to deal with until you get a couple hundred resilience. Most geared Rogues owned my shaman when they were 70 wearing their crappy greens. Shaman have an easier time outlasting Rogues, as they can at least heal themselves while the rogue uses CoS.

I have more advise, but at the moment, it is just your lack of gear. Locks specced for Demo or Aff have always been a class that simply needs to outlast the opponent to win, and you just don't have the gear to do that VS geared opponents at this point.

I would concentrate on AV and EotS, to spam Seed of Corruption vs groups, or the regular dots vs single/duos. Always use Felhunters. If you are feeling too squishy to have any offensive capabilities, respec Soul Link to use with Fel Hunter (24/37/0). This still gives you siphon life, but you lose Instant Howl of Terror. But you have your priest for Psychic Scream.

Another thing (maybe something you haven't looked into, I don't know) is that you can purchase blue PvP gear from vendors in Shattrah, Cenarion Hold in Zang, Thrallmar in HFP. To get all the pieces you need to be honoured with Keepers of Time, Cenarion Hold, Thrallmar, Lower City and .....something else (whatever rep from doing Tempest Keep instances in Netherstorm).

Either way, Brad, I think you are doing fine, and have just had an unfortunate week. I still run into duos that shut me down if I don't blow cooldowns (S3 disc priests ugh). Easy to farm things that might help is the above mentioned rep for easy PvP gear, 50 Spirit Shards to turn in for the Epic Ring with resilience, AV.

In instances, use your fears more liberally. Pull mobs back a ways and feel free to fear them. Pulled back far enough, they won't run and agro other mobs. Set each Warlocks focus to an individual mob, and that is 4 mobs you can neutralize while they take damage.

PM Mudd and take advise from him, as he has managed with 5 warlocks to attain some instance gear at 70, as per their armories.

Good Luck!

[Nepida]

Gear makes a huge difference, I went from being farmable by 1 rogue with clos and cheat death to ignoring them because they are such a small threat (well I usually kill them as revenge heh)

[BobGnarly]

I don't have any 4xlock experience, but I do have some general lock experience that might help.

I would definitely recommend going some sort of demo spec. Felguard is really a great under-geared spec, and it pretty simple (so good for multiboxing). I disagree that SL/SL would be too hard, so that's an option too for more survivability (but less dmg). Personally, I'd go with Felguard.

Given your dru/rog matchup, ya, that's going to be tough. Honestly, any healer backed team is going to be tough for you because you lack burst. However, CoS and trinkets aside, neither of those classes really has an answer for fear, and you have TONS of them. This is where careful macro management would pay off (being able to have certain locks fear on focus, others on target for example). But really, without gear, this is going to be a loss.

For the pve side, I'm sorry, but no tank really makes that tough. If you have an 70 tank you can sub in for a lock, it'd be a great group tho.

[Bradster]

Thanks all for the words of encouragement. Well, I think the first thing I’ll do is spec Felguard like some suggested. I tried this spec, but at the wrong time at level 52. Before he got all the goodies to work with. I’ll do that, farm a bit for some gold here and there. After that I’m pretty much finished with them I’ve decided. Perhaps In the future I’ll 10 box and use them.

I enjoy pvp and all, but I extremely hate the BG grind. I’m willing to do it, but not with a gear reset coming up soon (Xpac). At 80 I’ll do the grind. Mean time I’ll get a pally caught up to my shamans that are level 17. Then start running around from there leveling.
Now that I have experience leveling a full group from 1 to 70 I should do it much faster this time around. I am kind of excited about playing a prot pally, not so much the 4 shamans. In my heart I’ve always been melee, that and I LOVE tanking. Any game I always enjoy the tank role. So there’s two things I have to look forward too.

I already leveled a pally to 8 last night. Would have been higher but I rerolled. I first tried a male, didn’t like many things about it, and tried a female happy with that. Can only select Blood Elfs if you want to be a pally, what’s up with that!

I have a question regarding the shamans and the level grind. I noticed that going the elemental route these guys run out of mana quite fast. Does the efficiency improve later? Is there something that helps (other than a vending machine)?

[Stormweasel]

If I were in your situation, I would be running 10 Arenas a week to bag your points on the 70s and when youre not doing that, get levelling a tank either by questing or boosting. Just what Id do.

It will open up more things for you to do both now and in the expansion. I would feel at a loose end in PvP right now if I just hit 70, multiboxing or not - while on one hand, you want the gear to stop etting slaughtered, on the other hand the expansions coming and you cant help knowing youre grinding towards a gear reset.

Under the circumstances I can only think that having a tank available will enhance your multiboxing options now and for a long time to come. Bank a tank is my advice!

But of course, your time your choice :)

Edit to add - I do realise that youve come back from a long break after hitting a bit of a funk with the levelling process. So having just hit 70, realising you might need something more and having someone say "Hey dude just roll a tank".......well, I can see why it might sound like glib advice. But if you can stomach the level again, it might be a way forward.

Edit 2 - having just read your last post PROPERLY, I realise my post is completely redundant. YAY!!! 8o

[Anozireth]

I'm not sure if anyone mentioned this, but a great way to solve the tank problem in the short term is to just make friends with a good one. I find my instance runs are much easier and more enjoyable when I don't have to worry about tanking.

[Lokked]

To reiterate a portion of my post, and in agreement with an above poster, I would still play 10 arenas per week to get the points.

You just can't beat the virtually free epics.

[JoeWunsch]

Go farm some pvp gear for a while bro.

In 7 weeks, I took my shamans from 6700 hp to almost 11k Hp unbuffed.

Also you should be doing 10 arena games a week, win or lose, you will get a free S3 piece every 5 weeks.

[Esquilo]

d
Thanks all for the words of encouragement. Well, I think the first thing I’ll do is spec Felguard like some suggested. I tried this spec, but at the wrong time at level 52. Before he got all the goodies to work with. I’ll do that, farm a bit for some gold here and there. After that I’m pretty much finished with them I’ve decided. Perhaps In the future I’ll 10 box and use them.

I enjoy pvp and all, but I extremely hate the BG grind. I’m willing to do it, but not with a gear reset coming up soon (Xpac). At 80 I’ll do the grind. Mean time I’ll get a pally caught up to my shamans that are level 17. Then start running around from there leveling.
Now that I have experience leveling a full group from 1 to 70 I should do it much faster this time around. I am kind of excited about playing a prot pally, not so much the 4 shamans. In my heart I’ve always been melee, that and I LOVE tanking. Any game I always enjoy the tank role. So there’s two things I have to look forward too.

I already leveled a pally to 8 last night. Would have been higher but I rerolled. I first tried a male, didn’t like many things about it, and tried a female happy with that. Can only select Blood Elfs if you want to be a pally, what’s up with that!

I have a question regarding the shamans and the level grind. I noticed that going the elemental route these guys run out of mana quite fast. Does the efficiency improve later? Is there something that helps (other than a vending machine)?

The mana issue will get better, but not till about 40. I leveled a Shaman solo from 1-70 in 2 weeks as enhancement and only died a few times doing all questing. I'd try running all 5 as melee just to get leveled up, enhancement shammies have good, fast dps and 4 would be like a buzz saw

[BobGnarly]

I have a question regarding the shamans and the level grind. I noticed that going the elemental route these guys run out of mana quite fast. Does the efficiency improve later? Is there something that helps (other than a vending machine)?Two things about playing this group from a mana utilization PoV.

1- Yes, it gets better. First, I always run BoW on my shaman. It's even better than kings for them, as they do want to burn a lot of mana. Second, I took Unrelenting Storm (talent) as soon as I hit 30 and it helps a ton. Between these two things, the mana is much better.

2- When I was running 5 shaman early, it was a "nuke-nuke-nuke-dead-drink" type of playstyle. Once I brought my existing paladin into the fold, I rethought my playstyle a little to use the strengths of that class (aoe tanking mainly). This means, rather than find one target and burn it down quick, I drop a lot of totems and round up a bunch with my paly, and let the aoe totems and paly reflective dmg do the dmg (with a c-lighting thrown in here and there). This is probably a little slower than you could go burning stuff down, but if you do it right it's zero downtime, and I find it preferable to be doing something (not waiting to drink) the entire time I'm playing.

So yeah, it'll get better, and you might find a slight adaptation to your approach helps a little too.

[Bradster]

I have a question regarding the shamans and the level grind. I noticed that going the elemental route these guys run out of mana quite fast. Does the efficiency improve later? Is there something that helps (other than a vending machine)?Two things about playing this group from a mana utilization PoV.

1- Yes, it gets better. First, I always run BoW on my shaman. It's even better than kings for them, as they do want to burn a lot of mana. Second, I took Unrelenting Storm (talent) as soon as I hit 30 and it helps a ton. Between these two things, the mana is much better.

2- When I was running 5 shaman early, it was a "nuke-nuke-nuke-dead-drink" type of playstyle. Once I brought my existing paladin into the fold, I rethought my playstyle a little to use the strengths of that class (aoe tanking mainly). This means, rather than find one target and burn it down quick, I drop a lot of totems and round up a bunch with my paly, and let the aoe totems and paly reflective dmg do the dmg (with a c-lighting thrown in here and there). This is probably a little slower than you could go burning stuff down, but if you do it right it's zero downtime, and I find it preferable to be doing something (not waiting to drink) the entire time I'm playing.

So yeah, it'll get better, and you might find a slight adaptation to your approach helps a little too.Cool thanks for the tactic tips!

[Naysayer]

@Bradster

When I leveled my first warlock before boxing, I felt the same way. It's just the way cloth classes are these days. When I started getting arena gear things changed quite a bit. Now that he is decked out in S3-S4 gear it's like comparing night and day. 400-500resil and 1200 spell damage and he's a beast. Good rogues are still hopeless, but everything else is an even match or I kill them with one hand tied behind my back. I can only imagine what 4-5 warlocks in that gear would be like, which is why I'm leveling 4 more :) .

[nogbog]

I'm levelling 4 locks, 67 at the moment.

I have to say that i'm very suprised that so many people have been having problems with their locks in PVP and PVE.

The talent spec you choose is incredibly important, it's not about which is "best" but which suites your play style.

@Bradster - You've gone affliction, but you chosen a priest to fill the 5th spot. To me, the synergy isn't there.
Affliction is based on dots and keeping mobile while the dots tick. For affliction, in my opinion you would have been better off with a resto druid.
If you were to keep your priest i'd recommend demonology for your locks.

I'm currently levelling destruction, purely so i can do instances, the idea is to kill things before they get to you.
In PVP i run into trouble when someone takes out my main, but 70s die quickly against destruction locks. Immolate spam + conflag.

Deathcoil is best way to take down a druid. Resto or feral. You've got 4 deathcoils to use. Stagger them and the druid won't be able to heal and felhunters eat druid heals.
Rogues are tricky because they can kill you before their CloS wears off. I got no tips for that other than to get better gear.

Don't give up on them!

Locks are fun.

[daviddoran]

Man, I'm starting to get scared with my 3 locks/2 pallys. I mostly rolled em cause i wanted a second paladin, and took the locks along for the ride cause I could, but it turned out well, for my first team, due to free mounts for everyone. I also came to love summoning, which made zolo boosting laughably simple. I have them as affliction now, because it seems to work well when I have a 70 tank holding all the aggro (locks are 58 ATM) and i can virtually just spam one castsequence button and do the rest of the work with the tank. I'm not sure what I'm gonna do with them at 70, other than summoning new toons to shatt and other flightpaths. I have another team with mixed classes, so I could swap a lock in for either my priest mage or druid, to test things out. I guess I'm really gonna have to work on my shaman. Good thing I'm an altaholic. Will make experimenting pretty easy if I have tons of toons on each account to swap in and out.

Should I try felguard spec if my locks are being led by a pally tank and a pally healer? Seems like I mostly have to just put out damage, and given that paladins are the kings of "outlasting" opponents, slow DoTs seem like the way to go.

[Dominian]

Since you were mean, it opened the door. You obviously have no clue about pvp locks either. Never use CoE. It is a waste of a curse. CoT and CoEx are the bread and butter for arena. Everywhere else (BGs) stick to CoA.



CoE will get better when you get better gear, if you can push it above 1000 dps it should starting to getting worth it... However it might aswell not be worth it since enemies dies like flies with that manny dots. I didnt mean to be "mean" but refering to it as "cloack of skills" then he said that he blew 4 howls of terror on the rogue...(i took it as he used them all at once) Yes well thats not realy good playing and alot more devastating then using 1 CoE atleast.

To play your multibox class to the max you need to know how your class works is my belive.

He tells us that he dies fast wich means his survivability is to low so ofc CoT and CoEx should be used against meele. Enhancement shamans is my favourite as Aff lock to duel against.. this only works if they are not able to mount like i cant rememeber seeing people do. Dot them up and use CoEx and run the shaman will never get in range and if he use frost shock devour yourself, if he turns and runs away just follow he wont be able to run away either. If he starts to heal he already lost!

BM hunters,rogues and warriors will always be hell untill you have realy good gear as a UA warlock.. Atleast most people will die even if they manage to kill you! :)

[Zenthor]

Hmm...I have same team (1 holy priest, 4 demon locks) and so far, have not had problems in Outland. I just (we are L64) cleared ramparts and even got Naz on first try (it took my 5x hunters around 7 tries). As for Durm, have not got there yet with locks but 5xL68 hunters, and one extra L69 hunter got owned many times and gave up. 6 hunters could not take him...scarry.

In any event...it seems I need to get working on either 5x shammy or 4xshammy + pally/druid. From what I can tell...its the only class that has PROVEN to own at everything...PvE, Heroics...PvP. I just fear that unless other combos can show they can do as well...all boxers will be the same cookie cutter 2 builds.

[Negativ1337]

Hey Bradster,

I think your plan is really well thought, i am leveling 1 prot paladin and 4 shamans. Had no problem at all 1-58 (im 58 now) in pve nor pvp. At level 42 i went AB and i could even 1 shot twinks without having the next rank of chain lightning. Also the paladin can tank very good.

I did boosted myself some times, and it was doable, but not a fun job. This is what i did to keep them all on the same exp level.

You can reset a dungeon 5 times, before you get a cooldown (unless you clear it very slow).
So i putted in group 1: char 1 2 3 4, keep 5 behind.
After boost is done: log in char 5 and keep 1 behind.
After boost is done: log in char 1 (and keep 5 in the party aswell) and logout char 2.
After boost is done, log in char 2 and remove char 3.
After boost is done, log in char 3 and remove 4.

Now you have cooldown, go watch a southpark episode or whatever (takes 20 minutes. Cooldown is 20 minutes aswell to reset. Southpark episode is usually 22 minutes. (for the fans :D))

Now every char missed 1 run of experience, which keep them all at the same experience of the level.

I hope this will work, and i enjoy my setup a lot. Although when i created my chars i really thought i made a mistake, because i really enjoyed your Bradster videos and i really thought a 1 priest 4 locks would be more awesome. Although i would specc felguard :)

-Negativ1337 A.k.A. Steven

[Freakinred]

I just dinged 50 with my lock team. Historically, I've been the type of person to rarely respec while leveling. My last solo leveled character was also a warlock who I never respec'd. He's in full S1, but I haven't played him in a while.

Anyway, my point is that I really enjoyed leveling him as afflic and stuck with it. But for my 4-box combo, affliction just wasn't enjoyeable.

Sure, you can put 16 dots on stuff, but you're wasting a ton of damage. I kind of hate it because it feels like playing a mage, but I've done very will with Destro (up to ruin) and the rest in demo. The damage bonuses and damage mitigation/stam boots have made me quite formidable in PvP and PvE.

But back to the original post, it really seems like your major problem is gear.

I'm planning on hitting 70 asap and then just spending all my time between arena/BGs for the welfare epics. I'll probably spend a couple months of my life in AV defending the bridge and spamming Seed of Corruption.

But I enjoy that kinda stuff. I can see where this would be problematic if you didn't.

But yeah... Ruin is great for a lock group. Sbolt X 4 with increased crit damage is freakin glorious. Also, Shadowburn X 4 with ruin is generally instant kill to anyone near my level range. I've often wondered what they say when they attack me solo and then just fall over. I know that I giggle... but they probably don't.

[Vyndree]

Does the efficiency improve later?

Mana will be an issue until water shield (BC).

Pre-BC, the shaman "leveling spec" is supposed to be enhancement. Of course, enh was terrible back in the day to level until 2h spec or dual-wield. Now, 2h are trainable. For a boxer, just get used to drinking -- you'll feel like a mage before water shield.

As for PvP on the locks -- welcome to resilience affecting DoTs. S4, gg. :(

[Bradster]

Well,

Last night I tried boosting out. Didn’t quite work out since I need to lrn2boost.
First hit up the instance in Ogrim, ran it a few times, would pull ¾ the zone, at a time (the knock backs got really annoying and I had to kill them). I’d get 4-5 bars in about 15mins. I guess it wasn’t all that bad. Took it from 7 to 10 this way.
Cleared the path to SM and finally got my little pally there to find out you can’t enter it until 20 OOPS! I just decided then to hit up the barrens and drag my priest in tow out of group. I did around 14 quests (even bright red) without a single death of none stop killing. Then it was time for bed for me. Made it to 13 or so.
I had much more fun leveling it this way, it also felt faster or at least past the time well as I enjoyed myself. I’m going to crack on it all night when I get home. What’s funny is my pally has 3 blues from the Ogrim instance. The weapon I used for killing the damage on it was 2-6 (very slow) this blue one hander is 36-42 I think. Should speed things up lol.
Pretty certain I’ll have it caught up tonight. Which point I need to take some time to redesign my UI and make changes, like my spread out formation macro and other things that would be better suited for the shamans. I’m also tossing in the idea of formatting my main machine this weekend so that will slow me down. I’m going to put this off if I can this weekend and maybe take my machine with me to work and work on it next week.

Once I get the pally caught up, i'm most likely just going to level them normally. I did the whole grind before the EXP changes. So this should be much better this time around, and mounts at 30! that should help.

[Hokusai]

One thing that may have been said already, I didn't see it though, is that you can get the pvp lvl 70 BLUE gear from rep vendors in outland/caverns of time if you have honoured rep with them, this may solve some of the gear issues you have and might make your chars a bit tougher too, although I am basing this purely on you saying you have green gear at 70.

these are the vendors:

http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=21432

http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=21655

http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=17585

http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=21643

http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=17904

[noir]

Only a PvE fool would CoT or CoEx on a resto druid... XD

Priest + 4 Locks vs Resto Druid and Rogue...

First off, Felhunters are on aggressive with paranoia up...

If/when the rogue unstealths, open with Deathcoil (#1) -> Fear -> Curse of Exhaustion/Weakness/Agony/Agony/SW:P. Force the trinket. Keep fearing and dotting until the druid shows himself. Deathcoil (#2) the rogue, then immediately sic all pets on the druid, then start pouring moar dots. Close with the druid.

Devour Magic is 8s cooldown, in which time a druid can get only 5 casts off. 4 Devour Magics means only 1 Lifebloom ore 1 Rejuvenation in that 8 seconds. And only a PvE fool druid would cast Healing Touch or Regrowth when you've got 4 Spell Locks on /castsequence... And it's a sad day if 4 locks can't out DPS one HoT per 8 seconds.

The rogue will Cloak of Shadow and close to the druid. Instant fearbomb x5, then chain Fear x4. Cloak of Shadow is a 90% immunity. You've just had 9 10% chances to fear the rogue. Not feared? The rogue will have one of your guys KS'd, another Blind. Trinket and chain Fear x4 again. His Cloak is blown. CoA x4, switch back to the druid. Moar dots. Deathcoil (#3) the druid. Burn him down. He'll have NS -> HT'd himself (if your 4 Devour Magics on auto haven't eaten the NS) and is trying to run away. Deathcoil (#4) the druid and finish him off.

Finish the rogue at your leasure.