How do you have no down time?Follow

Life Tap, Dark Pact, Cannabilise (if your undead) Drain Life = no downtime.

this is how I play which yields very little downtime.

I am affliction with dark pact. I have my little buddy out (the imp) and set on passive. I start out with a shadowbolt, followed by Unstable Affliction, Curse of Agony, Corruption, Dark Pact, Siphon Life, Drain Life and right at the end I finish with Drain Soul which gives me 15% of my maximum mana back since I have 2/2 in Improved Drain Soul. Then I dark pact one time as I run to my next guy to kill.

Sometimes I won't use that Siphon life if my health is doing good because it does use a decent bit of mana. On the flip side, if my health is low and mana is doing good, then I will substitute Curse of Shadows in for Curse of Agony which gives my drain life an extra boost.

I am not one to take on multiple mobs at the same time, but rather just going from one to the other without stopping.

Here is the build I am shooting for (I'm only level 66 now so I haven't filled out the demonology side all the way yet.)

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/warlock/talents.html?0502220512231115512012050020000000000000000505000010000000000000



Now that I think about it, you are probably not high enough to have dark pact yet. I would use my Succy, send her in. Then Curse of Agony, Corruption, Life Tap, Immolate, Drain life....the Immolate will pull the mob off of your pet and onto you so you will need to have 5/5 into Fel Concentration.


Edited, May 18th 2007 8:12am by zebug

masterlargo, i recomend reading the stickie, folks put a lot of info in to it to help folks awnser questions.

Yet I am not Such a butthead that i wont sum it up(still read the stikie)

The tatic you refer to is called "Drain Tanking" and it is the secret to the locks "Zero downtime" modle. Firstly do not expect this to work like we say right away, drain tanking is not as Eazy as most standard gameplay. I am not claiming that you have to be super skilled and totaly awesoem to drain tank, just that it make take some time for it to work as well as it dose for some folks.

You can start to drain tank at level 20, but the tatic dose not come in to its own untill level 24, and becomes more effective theirafter. This tatic revolves arround one tallent and is boosted by a few more, the key is Fel Concentration, because you are about to get hit, again and again, but you need Drain life to stay up(the more you recast it the harder it is to effectivly kill the mob with zero downtime). other tallents that help drain tanking,Soul Siphon,Nightfall(just for DPS),Siphon Life and Shadow Mastery.

My drain tank regement(we do not all do it the same, thats why reading the stickie is important)
i start by sending in the succy, i let her smack the mob once or twice, then start with syphon life(leave it out if you do not have it yet), then CoA, followed by Immoate(this should break aggro and make you the new target), then corruption, i sidestep run while i use lifetap once or twice then start up drain life(recast if needed). you may have to refresh a spell or something but usualy the mob is close to dead and if need be a wand or two.... Ta Daa you just drain tanked a mob.

Imp out on passive, phased out. Unstable Affliction, Siphon Life, CoA, Corruption as I run towards a second mob. Stop long enough to cast UA again, then the rest of the dots as I run away. Dot up a third mob, iHoT, drain life on the third mob, drain soul on each mob as they die. Dark Pact once.

End fight at 100% life and mana. Collect loot, repeat. =)


Truely a lovely process, but after you leave nagarand mobs start hitting a little too hard for you to risk too many adds with three mobs running around feared. Still.. pretty much no downtime.

Nice one ,way to be.....

got to get your jab in? because you do not drain tank it must be because the other player is incompentent?, or is yours the only "One true way"?

Edited, May 18th 2007 2:26pm by Capitolg

is it true that this talent only works when Drain Soul Deals the killing blow? if you have succy or vw out and they take the final blow to kill the mob, then i guess that talent wouldn't work all the time.

Did you just contradict yourself here? Besides, what about the sacrifice ability that the VW gives you on a PvP server. Nice little shield if needed. Now I admit that I don't use the VW (or Succy for that matter) often at all on my PvP server. Some would say that the felhunter is the best at world PvP as it is hell on casters and can spot that pesky stealthed dude sneaking up on you.

Just saying what you started out saying, there is no "one true way" at anything.

at lvl 38 i dont have DT i send in VW CoA,Corr,SL,life tap 1 or 2 times depending on my mana then drain life till dead most of the time the second DL draws aggro from VW. but i can go on forever without stoping once in a while i might have to if i draw multiple mobs. i havent perfected my play style yet. pretty much as you play your lock more you learn easier ways to grind mobs without stoping

which part of "trying to grind hunter-style" did you miss in your tirade?


Edited, May 19th 2007 2:11am by neesh

My 'lock is Drain Hunting (or as close as is possible)like this...

1. Wear lots of stamina gear.
2. Send in Void, when he reaches target, Curse of Agony.
3. Corruption, then Immolate.
4. Shadow Bolt (once is enough, makes my pet keep the aggro)
5. Drain Life/Wand the mob till death.
6. gr4b t3h ph4t l00tz!
7. Pop Consume Shadows while I Life Tap till an acceptable level. I usually move straight on, even though I may be at a mediocre level of health, I'm taking only one hit a battle at max (adds go to me first)

If I get an add, I pop Suffering/Switch target and Torment then continue, then start from the top on the next. Playing like this may be a slow kill, but I can handle one/two adds and even three (at a limit) if I use Health Funnel. If the adds get too bad (ie, I'm in a zone a bit over my depth), I'll Sacrifice and run like hell. At a stretch, this can cope with a mob 5 levels over me (though this is scarcely "no downtime", the Void takes a while to recuperate)



Edited, May 19th 2007 4:40pm by ecirphsoj

Here's my drain hunting tactics:

1. Send in VW, when he reaches target, Siphon Life, CoA, Corruption, (Unstable Affliction, Immolate - Unstable affliction against tough mobs, add immolate against bosses only, where there is a real tank, not just the VW)
2. Life tap + Drain Life (switch to Drain soul when farming shards)
3. Shadowburn as a finisher (don't often need to use it)

The VW is able to hold aggro against multiple mobs (up to four at a time, depending on the mob's level), so when I get done with the first, it's on to the next. I end up with a very small mana loss and no health loss whatsoever.

I'm generally able to handle 8-9 mobs this way before the VW needs to consume shadows. If it looks like he might go down during a fight, I give him a bit of my own health (Health funnel) before resuming draining.

The trick is in knowing when to start draining life. I usually start draining at about the time normal mobs hit 2500 health. Against elites, the Drain should start after the VW gets an additional hit, and some or all of the DoTs may need to be renewed afterwards, followed by another Life Tap+Drain Life.



Edited, May 20th 2007 5:28am by ohmikeghod

Sorry, but it's not the aggro issue for me, it's the time issue. When I farm (or when I would grind XP), the fastest way to do it was to gather like 3-4 things, DoT them all up, Howl of Terror if they got me down to like 1/2 HP, otherwise just keep draining life, then Dark Pact my mana back from the imp on my way to the next pack. When I start to run low on HP/Mana (because this tactic does not have a 100% return on either) I switch to fighting single mobs in a drain tanking fashion and that has MORE than a 100% return on BOTH. No down time, faster kills, and AoE pulls = better than using that idiotic blueberry and trying to regulate my damage flow.

repair bill...was that ever an issue for clothies?
i am a big fanboy of drainTANKING, i see absolutely no use in VW,
since i am fully affliction specced and will put the remaining skillpoints
into destruction. your vw will only be able to tank decent when you put skillpoints into it´s aggro-causing abilities. i go affli all the way with imp as pet and i always make it attack as well, rarely have any dontime doing usually 2 mobs at a time.