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Friday, November 1, 2019

Lessons in Being Facerolled 101

Roll up a Lock, they said.

It'll be fun, they said.

Hey, you've got a built-in tank, they said.

It'll be facerolling, they said.

Such was my state of mind after puttering around a bit in Redridge the other night.

Unlike a Hunter, however, a Warlock is still a cloth armor wearer, and that does have an impact. Additionally, after questing in Westfall and Elwynn, my cloth wearing gear isn't all that Warlock friendly.* I've heard it said that Westfall and Elwynn are great zones for Rogues, and I believe it. Unlike Darkshore, a lot of the random drops that I've picked up are rogue friendly, and Deadmines itself is famous for having some good rogue gear there.

I was about to perform the Wetlands Fun Run and relocate to Darkshore when I figured that I should at least try Redridge Mountains and see what happens. Besides, getting to L20-22 means that he Wetlands should be easier than at, say, L18.**

So off to Redridge I went, to kill gnolls, Orcs, and spiders.

Or rather, to be killed by them.

Spiders aren't so much of a problem, since you can pick them off one by one, but Orcs and Gnolls love to congregate in packs around campfires, so the good ol' Voidwalker would have to stay upright while having 2 or 3 enemies wailing on them at once.

And, I discovered, the DOTs don't DPS down enemies fast enough to compensate for my liberal usage of Health Funnel, trying to keep my Voidwalker upright, and the corresponding loss of mana.

And using direct attacks such as Drain Soul and Shadow Bolt take what seems like forever to work.

So I became used to the corpse run back to Gnoll areas while I debated what to do.

Grouping is the most obvious answer, but when there isn't a group around (at, say, 5 AM), then you just have to pick off the Gnolls around the edges. And hope that when the Gnoll tries to run, they die quickly enough that they don't aggro another pack of Gnolls.

Oh, and one critical thing: run.

Run a lot, and use the Voidwalker's Sacrifice ability as much as possible.

This is the old WoW I remember, trying to level as a Clothie in early Wrath, not really knowing what I was doing, and deciding that running was a very viable option.

Do I mind? Well... It's not facerolling by any stretch of the imagination, but no, I don't mind. I just have to tailor my expectations to match reality.

And besides, I'll remember those Gnolls, when I need some fresh souls....




*When I've grouped, I've frequently lost the rolls on caster gear. I see my D&D rolling capabilities followed me to WoW Classic.

**I did make Wetlands Fun Run at L18 after all, and in spite of being chased by a Dragonmaw Orc who came from over the hills and chased me and my Voidwalker until I detonated the Voidwalker, giving me enough extra time to escape.

6 comments:

  1. A lot of the locks I've seen out in the world are absolutely owning things. As far as I can tell they don't rely too much on their voidwalker, but instead use fear liberally. I always wonder how they don't end up pulling even more adds that way, but somehow they make it work.

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    1. I honestly don't get it either, because every time I've tried Fear the Feared enemy ran right into another mob. Instead of 2 baddies zeroing in on us, we're suddenly faced with 5-6. Because of that, I only use Fear if I'm pretty sure that the mob is isolated enough. A Mage's Polymorph is much more effective for CC, because the sheep doesn't wander off very far.

      I have to think that I'm in that weird weak gap between L16 and L20 when your DoTs haven't gotten that next level of effectiveness might have something to do with it. The key here is that the Voidwalker doesn't have a lot of stuff to use for damage mitigation, so it's pretty dependent upon the Lock's Health Funnel to keep it upright. And some enemies, such as the Harvesters in Westfall, are immune to the threat ability that the Voidwalker has, so using an Imp to take those machines on is a better idea.

      In terms of support, however, the DoTs that a Lock lays down can be devastating in a group. Just DoT the tank's primary focus, Life Tap to keep your mana up, and then Siphon some health away from the enemy. Rinse and repeat.

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    2. One thing that I did notice was that when a Mage gets their next level attacks, such as the next level of Frostbolt, suddenly the enemies around Moonbrook start dropping much much faster. I think it's the same with the Lock once you get those next level DoTs.

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  2. Oh I've had SO much more success with my lock than the other classes I have tried so far. To be fair, I did play it concurrent to my warrior and well… lowbie warrior questing is da poop to put it bluntly. I just felt like I had so many more tools and survival options at my disposal on my lock. Just the fact that you CAN run from your enemies, pah! "A luxury!" I yell from my warrior account.

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    1. I'm jealous that you can take more than one hit and keep on going.

      I did try just letting my concerns about Fearing things go and just let it rip. The results were mixed at best: don't fear the casters so much because they'll be so far away when they come out of Fear that I'll have to run after them to DoT them again. And yes, the enemies run straight to the other camps. But for 2 or 3 at once, without a bunch of potential ads nearby, okay, that's more viable than I thought. Takes forever to down a full pack, however.

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