Never played a Warlock and starting to really enjoy it. I will be locking in my 30's (35 i think) for a while and will begrouping most of the time with SK and a Fury ( again locked at 35). PVP / BG focused. My question is where best to spend my limited AA's. So far I have 35 AA's. 10 pts in Magi Shielding and taken the Focused Casting AA line. Any other suggestions ? Thanks all !!
The general idea is that at low levels, for a warlock, Survivability > DPS. Most locks will agree that magi’s shielding, mana shield and focused casting are essential on a pvp server. But after that, opinions diverge somewhat. I’m going to work from the assumption that the three aforementioned lines have been completed, you’re fully mastered, wearing a full set of PvP armor/jewelry and that you're looking for suggestions on what to do next. At this point, the three things under consideration are: 1) the need to further increase your casting speed; 2) the need to augment your wards, power pool and health pools to further enhance your survivability; and 3) the need to increase your crit rate and spell damage. Some locks claim that the Ward of Sages (wis) is the thing to go for next since it stacks with Magi Shielding and also leads up to a nice increase in base damage. Some believe that you benefit more in a tight spot from Deflecting Staff (str) and the following increase in crit chance offers a larger DPS return than the base damage enhancement. I’m sure someone out there has done the math. Nevertheless, practical experience tells me that casting speed (agi) is the next most valuable line after magi’s shielding, mana shield and focused casting. When I’m out solo, trouble often comes in the form of an overconfident scout who will (with the help of game mechanics), be fighting me toe-to-toe for most of the encounter. If he exploits avoid blame and uses the “cannot target†bug, you’re just screwed. There is simply no way to win 1v1 if you cannot target your opponent for 30 secs of a 1 min fight. Just take your beating like a man. But if he isn’t a total ***** and fights fairly, what’s going ensure that the post-encounter corpse humping session stars his rump and not yours is by casting so quickly and so furiously, upfront (and then hitting mana shield at the right time) that he’ll revive and shirk off in hopes of finding an easier update. Let’s face it. Most predators are total p***ies out looking for easy kills. Magi’s shielding, mana shield, focused casting (coupled with spellshifting) won’t make you OP but you'll scare the bejesus out of most people 1v1 and, even if you lose, they’ll sure as hell know they’ve been in a fight. It’s the same with group PvP. With agi, even after you’ve burned through FC, you’re sill casting and refreshing faster than you would otherwise and you’re bringing to the table what the group needs, DPS! Most PvP fights are either quick burns or long mana fights. As a lock, the quick burns are what you need to worry about. The longer ones are usually decided by your group makeup. Beyond that, I’d put 5 points into the Shadows general power pool, 5 into general health, 5 into runic protection and then go back and start your second Warlock tree. That’s just my two coppers. I’m sure others have different opinions. http://aacalculator.com/latestVersi...acalculator.cfm
Felleyes wrote: This all seems to be great advice to me. I have pretty well the makeup you suggest on my level 39 BG runner. The question I have, is the agility line better than Deflecting Staff? I have staff maxed right now, as I frequently get several tanks/scouts beating on me at the same time in Gears pick-up groups. The cast time would be nice, but I can only put three points there if I keep Staff. I'm just curious as to your opinion in this case. Oh, one more thing. If I stay with Staff, I can get seven points in wards instead of three in Spellshaping. To me, these are tough calls. I'd love to know what someone with more experience thinks.
Update . . . OK. So I am now lvl 35 and locked. I have 116 AA's and have them spent as listed below. I have messed about with manashield BUT as I am running in a group PVP wise I am thinking NUKE NUKE NUKE vs manashield. So STR and AGILITY with FOCUSED CASTING and the rest in Shadows AA. Any suggestions welcome :-
For a DPS build, you're right on track. You're probably already doing this, but I'm going to suggest it anyway, for the benefit of others. If you're forgoing Mana Shield, you’ll also be missing out on the extra mit you gain from battlemage armor, so you need to do three things to increase your survivability. 1) Make sure all of your selected attributes (in the Character Development window) are against physical damage. Building up your Elemental, Noxious and Arcane resistance is easy; finding decent + physical gear as a caster in t4 is not. 2) Spec sorcerer’s shielding as quickly as you can (second line of the shadows tree). You’ll notice the benefits right away. 3) It’s possible to have around 54 percent mitigation as a caster in T4 while keeping a full set of PvP gear and the reflection bonus from the 5 pieces of PvP jewelry. Plus physical on gear is commonplace in T5 but somewhat rare in T4. Look on the broker for items that have high + physical. There are a few pieces that have + 200-something vs physical that you can use in your finger, ear and wrist slots. The small decrease in INT is well worth the boost you’ll receive verses melee damage from these items. Often + physical jewelry costs between 20 and 30 plat; but since most uber + physical items in T4 are treasured, noobs will put them on the broker for a few gold. With more than 50 percent mit, PvP toughness and sorcerer’s shielding, when you mentor down to 30 for the BG it’ll take more than one person beating on you to take you down. Dead locks don’t parse well.
