Alright, here's my guide I've always told my guild I was working on... This is intended to be more of a newbie guide than anything else, I'm going to suggest AA specs for leveling up and other such fun things like that, if you have any input, feel free to suggest it to me and it may be added to the guide. Some of the lingo I will be using consists of: NPC; Non-Player Character Encounters; these are the enemy NPC's that are attacking you, whether they are linked or not, they are all considered the encounter. Linked Encounters; these are encounters that are linked together, your green backed spells will effect all linked encounter members, but not any adds you may obtain. Single-Target Encounters; these are encounters that only have one enemy, Boss fights are typically single target. Add; this is simply an NPC that becomes an addition to your encounter. DPS; Damage Per Second, this is how you measure who has a bigger... err... damage output. AA; Alternate Achievement Points, you use these to upgrade current spells, get new spells, or get some buffs. Buff; something that makes you better in some aspect of your damage output, ability to take damage, ability to cast faster, and many other things. AOE; Area of Effect, this means the spell effects all enemies in a certain area. Blue-backed AOE's; these spells effect all enemies in a certain area around the warlock. Green-backed AOE's; these are spells that effect enemies that are linked that are in a certain area around the target you use the spell on. Root; A root is a spell that keeps an NPC in one spot unable to move, but still able to cast spells. DOT's; Damage over Time's, spells that deal damage over time, these have a chance to break a root every time they hit. Straight Damage Spell; A spell that just does damage, with a possible debuff or something, but no damage over time. Spell Crit; Spell critical chance, how much of a chance your spells you cast have to critical, which makes them deal more damage. So, why choose Warlock? Warlocks are the highest linked Encounter-wide DPS available to the game, this is not completely apparent until level 50, when you obtain Apocalypse, but it's true. Warlocks are quite respectable single-target DPS as well, of course they aren't as high as, say, Rangers, Assassins, or Wizards, but still good. In my opinion, they are among the easier half of classes to solo through the game, so long as you spec your AA's right. Also, what *isn't* fun about dealing 13,000 damage to an entire area with one single spell and sending rocks flying through the air and your foes flying backwards? Now, why not play a Warlock? Well, one, if you enjoy being able to take more than two or three hits before croaking, Warlocks are not for you. Although there is an AA spec that makes it easier to survive, I will talk about that later. Warlocks are simply not always the highest on the parse, if you are doing a zone that is mostly single target encounters, you will almost never top the parse above nearly any other DPS class. Warlocks have very long casting times compared to almost any other class, so you need to not only focus on getting your spell damage buffs up, but also your +casting and reduced recovery speed buffs up. Casting orders and such Alright, casting order for a solo warlock consists of this; Netherous Bind - Aura of Void - Dissolve - Netherous Bind - Distortion - Encase - Netherous Bind - Flames of Velious - Aura of Void - Dissolve - Netherous Bind -repeat until enemy is dead. As you can tell, Netherous Bind is just about the most important spell, you have to be ready to root any adds that happen along the way at any point in time. Don't worry if you don't have all of these spells yet, simply replace the ones you don't have with Dissolve or another straight damage spell. If you need to kill encounters, well, you are most likely not going to be able to until you get to level 50 ish and obtain Apocalypse, luckily enough, there aren't very many quests or that many encounters before that level anyways. Master 2 Choices; The following are my Master 2 choices for their respective levels, this can be disputed and there are other ways to go about it, but I like these. I didn't get the other one in the screenshot, but I chose Acid... because it was more expensive than Absolution on the broker... And now for the biggest question since Warlocks were made, "What AA spec should I use?" I'll start out with the Warlock tree, because this is where you want to spend your first 10 points, all of them in Magi's Shielding. After this it's hard to say whether you should go for the hastenings line or to finish the Stamina Line in Sorcerer. I would recommend getting Dissolve, then look below to the Sorcerer tree for further spending pleasures. Now for the Sorcerer tree. First, you should get Stamina line, it's good for defense, then you should immediately get the Wisdom line. After you have gotten Sagacity (the end of the Wisdom line) [note for wisdom tree, just spend 6 points in Freehand Sorcery until you have spent points elsewhere, it's just there because it's the best thing to spend the last point in] then you should finish the Hastenings line in the Warlock tree and then go for the Spell crit in the Strength tree here. After you've gotten 8 points in spell crit, finish up this tree by putting another point in Freehand Sorcery, Then finish Explosions in the Warlock tree. Here is where it gets confusing. Fill out the Power and Health buttons as you go along with your other AA's spent, then you'll be wanting to fill out the second line (Mage) here when you spend 60 points elsewhere. Then go back to finishing the other trees, and come back here when you have 120 points spent, and spend your next 16 points in the third line (Sorcerer). [Yes, I realize that I'm slacking with AA's and don't have 200 yet, but, to be honest, just follow Saltaf's guide(link on bottom of post) and you will be alright for the Shadows line and finishing the Warlock line] How to act in groups Here is a section for what you need to do so that groups don't hate you. One; do NOT aggro adds with your blue-backed AOE's, this can be very challenging and in some zones walls and level differences are not enough to stop a blue backed AOE from hitting someone else. This can cause many problems, not the least of which are; pain, dislocation of any/all bones, and occasionally death. Two; be careful of what you cast at, don't go casting a ton before the tank has gotten the enemy to the pull spot, you don't want to get aggro'd and then get a big fat AOE in the groups face, nobody likes that. Three; be careful when the tank aggro's a big encounter, you should not start off the fight with freehand sorcery and Apocalypse, because then you have aggro problems and people get deaded, and people don't like being deaded, it hurts. Four; You don't need to be the top on the parse to be good, just realize that when an encounter comes up you'll kick that Wizards scrawny little butt. Now for gear... The gear is very basic, get mastercrafted until lvl 80 and then get shard gear Of course, there's always the Jewelery questions, and the best jewelery you can get before lvl 50 is... not very good, but definitely get the jewelery from Everfrost, it rocks. Where to quest? So, where do you start the questing? And where do you go? Well, you can go from almost any zones before Everfrost, though I personally despise Nektulos Forest and Feerrott. I strongly recommend going through Everfrost and Lavastorm, those two zones are very nice now that they are revamped. Then I generally go to Lesser Faydark, Loping Plains, the basket quests in Tenebrous Tangle, Bonemire, Barren Sky, then Kylong and follow the questlines through Kunark. Where should I put my AA slider? The AA slider, in my opinion, is best placed at about 50 or 60% until you reach 70, where you should turn it down to 20 ish %. Where to start? Which of the cities should you start in? Honestly, it doesn't really matter, though starting in Gorowyn is nice because they have a nice level 1-25 timeline there. Although I must say that the two best deity's to pick are evil, so I would recommend an evil city over a good city, unless you want extra AA from the Betrayal quest. What Deity should I pick? Honestly, this is an unresolved debate between Anashti Sul and Bertoxxolous, they both have good miracles and blessings for Warlocks. Just pick the one with your favorite cloak or something And so, with the fun deity question, I shall conclude my "guide", if you have any more questions you can ask me in a comment or private message me or send me a tell in game (Odesia, Alistaer, and Bolthor are who I spend the most time on, all on the Oasis server), or something else if you feel like it. I will list a few other resources below that have proved incredibly helpful to me, and some that are more geared towards high level Warlocks interested in raiding. Hope it's proved useful ~Odesia/Bolthor Gukstomper of Oasis. Helpful links; http://www.eq2flames.com/...warlock...tml#post1003504 http://www.eq2flames.com/warlocks/ http://www.eq2flames.com/...-having...rouble-dps.html http://www.eq2flames.com/...chievem...t-spec-dps.html http://www.eq2flames.com/...ted-new...ear-thread.html http://www.eq2flames.com/...24751-p...sibilities.html (<<< Get involved in your Warlock community today!)
I'd recommend doing further research on how to spec as a warlock, i strongly disagree with many of the AA choices in this thread, but certainly which AAs you chose completely depend on what aspect of the game you enjoy. If you are primarily a solo player, by all means, enhancements to roots can help, however, if you are a raider or you do a lot of grouping, you may want to look at a more dps oriented spec to help you provide more to the groups who take you in. I realize this guide is intended for those leveling up, but once you get to lvl 80 and are grouping more, re-speccing your AAs will increase your effectiveness as a non-solo player.
isis23 wrote: I agree with this. I never, never, never used dissolve while levelling up. In fact, now at level 80 it isn't even on my toolbar
Pedorro@Butcherblock wrote: I agree with both of you. In fact, the further research is available on the first link the OP gave at the bottom of his post. Saltaf's AA guide is a great one. I THINK that I technically still have dissolve on a hotbar somewhere...but not my primary damage spell bar. There is almost always a better spell to cast. I also didn't choose it for any M2s for that same reason.
As is said in the beginning, it's a newbie guide for leveling up, and roots, to me, proved invaluable to my survival as a solo Warlock. If you are raiding, I suggested using Saltaf's AA spec, which I provided a link to, this is an excellent way to spe for raids or grouping at the higher levels. Although I do know I can explain further the meanings of why I chose which AA line, I will do that when I'm not busy, so probably some time a little bit after school is out. Although, I must say, I used dissolve a lot because it was the best I could think of (I was used to a Necromancer, so that may play a part in it), as I was still new to the game. However, I tried to replace it with Distortion, Encase, and flames of Velious simply for the fact that they did more damage, as I've said, these are just basic guidelines for people who are newer to the game. Although I will definitely look closer at this and decide on a better way of the casting order and such, this was just the work of one day, and as such is not quite as thorough as it could be. Thanks for the input, ~Odesia/Bolthor
