Paladin, 2 Warlocks, a Mage, and a Druid

[MBlooksfun]

Hey there! This is my last "i'm a nub and need help" thread, promise. ;-)
Also, this thread is a tad long, so if you want me to cut to the chase, I summarized it in a few sentences at the end.

Anyways, as the title implies, I'm attempting to skip 2,3, and 4 boxing. I understand the complexities of what I will be attempting, and that I'll be facing a huge learning curve, but that's what I'm all about!

My goal is to be able to, after enough work, "solo" 5-man dungeons

I picked the paladin for a tank because it requires the least amount of, well, work... I have a level 32 Pally, and all I do is run in with ret aura, BoSantuary (at 30), and consecrate... Thorns from the druid will help. I just let him get some nice aggro, and consecrate when needed...

Druid for healing because of the heavy HoTs. I can throw 'em all on and I won't need to focus as much on it.

Warlocks for DPS because of all the DoTs. The lesns work I have to do the better.

I look at this as more controlling 3 characters, not 5, as the warlocks are all the same... And now I'm basically un-wipable after 20, and especially 30.

At 20 I get 3 soulstones to share between 2 healers. I get my Brez, too. If pally dies first, and I can't live, I Brez him, wait for the wipe, and accept after. If pally dies last I bubble + run. Basically, I'm all covered...

I contemplated having a mage for free food and water, but, oh well. If these guys ever hit 40, I have one waiting (that'll take some work to integrate, mind you).

I'm throwing this out on the forum just to see if anyone has any ideas, mods, comments, or insights they wish to share, I know you're all friendly like that! =D


Summary: I wanna run a Paladin tank, Druid healer, and 3 warlock combo for reasons stated above. I'm aware of the harsh learning curve. If you have any ideas, mods, comments, or insights you'd wish to share, thanks! =)

Thanks for reading!
-MBlooksfun!

[Squiggoth]

Well, just one tip. Don't share your SS over both healers, just SS the Paladin....that way you have 3 consecutive wipe recoveries (as opposed to sharing on both, you only have 1 wipe recovery).

It seems like a good setup, although I don't know if only HoTs will work for Heroics, you'll probably need to focus a bit more on healing at that point, but again, never done it solo, so dunno.

Good luck with it.

[MBlooksfun]

Well, just one tip. Don't share your SS over both healers, just SS the Paladin....that way you have 3 consecutive wipe recoveries (as opposed to sharing on both, you only have 1 wipe recovery).

It seems like a good setup, although I don't know if only HoTs will work for Heroics, you'll probably need to focus a bit more on healing at that point, but again, never done it solo, so dunno.

Good luck with it.

Yeah, I have an epic priest waiting at 70... If I ever get to heroics, which I doubt is in the foreseeable future, I have other possibilities. But yeah, good idea with soulstones.

thanks for your input. =)

[thinus]

How do you see your typical 3 or 4 mob trash pulls going?
How do you see your boss fights going?

Are you thinking of DoTing up all the mobs being tanked in which case you need really good planning to deal with runners?

Maybe DoT a single target up, Lifetap and then Drain Life combo to be as mana efficient as possible on trash. For bosses DoTs and Shadowbolt spam with Lifetap and Drain Life when low on mana.

3x warlock Hellfire will be insane.

Also, be careful with CoA, it is a waste of mana on trash usually.

[MBlooksfun]

How do you see your typical 3 or 4 mob trash pulls going?
How do you see your boss fights going?

Pally runs in (with or without HoTs already on him depends on future.. trial), drops a consecration... I then burn down mobs 1 by one.. probably immolating then shadowbolting to death... i'll see how it goes

Maybe DoT a single target up, Lifetap and then Drain Life combo to be as mana efficient as possible on trash. For bosses DoTs and Shadowbolt spam with Lifetap and Drain Life when low on mana.

definitely something i plan on trying.

3x warlock Hellfire will be insane.

+Tranquility!

Also, be careful with CoA, it is a waste of mana on trash usually.

noted, thanks. =)

[thinus]

Pally runs in (with or without HoTs already on him depends on future.. trial), drops a consecration... I then burn down mobs 1 by one.. probably immolating then shadowbolting to death... i'll see how it goes

From my experience with a warlock and a frost mage in my group I can tell you that the frost mage just frostbolt spams and tops dps on trash but it is a lot closer between the warlock and the mage on boss fights.

Also, the mana efficiency of the frost mage is insane compared to the warlock. If you know you are in for a long fight you can make a mana gem with the mage, evocate back up and be ready to go.

With warlocks you will need a Lifetap with some kind of healing strategy for long fights. Shadowbolt spam chews through your mana like you won't believe.

When I solo leveled a warlock a long time ago I always went for "... of the Eagle" gear for the stamina as it was easy to Lifetap every now and then and using Corr, Immo, Wand for grinding initially and later on drain tanking with the Succy where I would send the Succy in, put my DoTs on and start Drain Lifing soon as I got aggro. Almost zero downtime.

Running instances almost exclusively is a completely different playstyle for a warlock though. The mage really shines as all it does is Frostbolt spam and with the right talents it is extremely efficient. I usually only have to Evocate after a wipe recovery or a tough boss fight.

With the warlock I run OOM all the time. After two groups of trash I usually Lifetap 4 or 5 times and heal the warlock to full. Waiting for the GCD timer is annoying though. Not a big thing but annoying and it slows you down slightly. I also prefer to give the warlock a big heal out of combat rather than go into combat with a HoT ticking on the warlock.

Also on accidental aggro from a runner or pats where you are still fighting other trash expect to be OOM with the warlocks quickly. I find it a bit of a pain to deal with mana issues while at the same time trying to tank and keep all the mobs on the pally while chain healing and trying to DPS enough of them down to stabilize the situation.

Also, with frostbolt spam I get an automatic snare on the mob and I very seldom have problems with runners. You will need either a Curse of Recklessness or a Judgement of Justice on every mob to be safe.

I started to give my warlock a lot more spirit gear and I am ignoring stamina gear for now prefering to have passive mana regen.

But I would really suggest you replace one of the Warlocks with a Frost Mage just for ports and Frostbolt snares. The mage is also really easy to macro for DPS as you just spam Frostbolts with maybe a Fireblast thrown in as a finisher.

------

In closing: with 3x warlocks I think your biggest challenges will be dealing with runners and mana management. Up to 60 anyway. I don't know warlocks very well past 60 as I played mine a long long time ago when MC and BWL was all the rage.

[MBlooksfun]

...

wow. thanks for all the insight, i guess i should seriously consider using mages instead of warlocks, at least for instancing!

-MB

[thinus]

...

wow. thanks for all the insight, i guess i should seriously using mages instead of warlocks, at least for instancing!

-MB

Don't get me wrong, I love warlocks. They do need a little more love than mages in a normal tank-heal-dps group though. Personally I wouldn't go with 3x mages or 3x warlocks but rather 1x mage 2x warlocks or 2x mage 1x warlock.

Need to pick up a quest for RFK in UC when you just finished running RFK? No problem, mage ports, gets quest, warlock summons and off you go.

Ran out of reagents during an instance run? Mage ports, warlock summons.

Yes, your macroing will be a little trickier but honestly, it is not that big a deal. I have 2 DPS buttons, one of them the mage frostbolts and the warlock castsequence DoTs, the other button the mage frostbolts and the warlock shadowbolts.

[thinus]

Oh yeah,

1 more reason to seriously consider having a mage...

...Remove Lesser Curse

[MBlooksfun]

Oh yeah,

1 more reason to seriously consider having a mage...

...Remove Lesser Curse

heheh... tru dat...

anyways, 1 last question (that I can think of thus far! =D)

Do I port my druid to the human starting area to start off with my human mages + paladin? it seems like the logical thing to do... then at 10 and 14 I can go back to do the druid quests... eh?