Peter's Blog

Maexyn

It was Maexyn's turn for some attention. She was level 52 and I fancied sending her to Burning Steppes for a couple of quests as when I went there with Maevyn and Maezyn they were too high level to really benefit. Level 52 was just right for the dragon and ogre culling quests, there are some level 58ish orcs in the northwest that can wait till later.

I started off killing dragons but after a few minutes I abandoned it. It was a really hot and humid evening and I couldn't stand the boring affliction grind: Pet Attack, DoT DoT DoT, Life Tap, Drain Life, Drain Soul and repeat. As I've said before, it's waiting for the global cooldowns between each DoT that is really turgid. I stopped playing.

Next evening and another opportunity to play but I wasn't enthusiastic. I still needed to level Maexyn but how to make it more interesting? Idea! Respec her to Demonology for a Felguard. Yes I did it, I turned her into a hunter.

The Felguard is a good pet, he has a charge that stuns and he keeps agro very well. His dps isn't awesome compared to, say, beastmaster cat and it is still mainly up to the warlock to do the damage. One afflication annoyance was always when the mob was down to 1% health and the DoT's had run out, the voidwalker never seemed capable of finishing it off (especially if the mob was running away). The Felguard by comparison can finish things off. He can tank a couple of mob's (e.g. level 54 boss ogre + level 52 sidekick) but he needed healing between every few fights, a bit more healing than a voidwalker would need in grinding mode. I use bandages for this to save on mana, although the Health Funnel gives a good 100% heal. Felguard doesn't have Consume Shadows so he can't heal himself while I loot.

Fights went like this, although I need a bit more practise to optimise mana efficiency during sustained grinding:

• Send pet (charges! no waiting like wafty voidwalker)
• Immolate
• Shadow Bolt
• Shadow Bolt
• Drain Life to death

And that's it, equal level mobs dead in about 15 seconds. Affliction took about 18 and very rarely less due to the nature of DoTs as they don't crit. Also the pet attack is instant, the 18 seconds doesn't include voidwalker transit time as my dps meter doesn't count that.

Now my Drain Soul doesn't give mana I don't bother with it but I will be talenting up for it asap. I was surprised that the Shadow Bolts were critting for 750, four Shadow Bolts would kill a mob but wasn't mana efficient. I rarely used shadow bolt as afflication as it wasted mana and drew agro, I never realised they were so powerful, I had assumed that since I wasn't a Destro warlock the Shadow Bolts would be slightly better than wanding, how wrong I was. The 750 crits can sometimes draw agro from the Felguard but he soon gets it back.

My Felguard died once due to a Scorpid add. I saw it coming as his health was low so I feared the scorpid, the Felguard chased it and killed it but a poison DoT killed my Felguard as he ws running back. It was tragic, the scorpid got it's vengence from beyond the grave. Still it gave me a chance to try out a Demonologist trick, I cast a talent that reduces the next minion summoning spell to 0.5 seconds. I did this and he was back in two clicks and with 100% health and mana! That will be useful, two Felguards per fight could be handy against elites.

In conclusion, Felguard is perfectly viable at level 52 (despite what I had read ) and it makes a nice change from Affliction. Affliction served me well, I'm not knocking it and who knows, I may spec back one day. Affliction is very powerful but not in an exciting way, you are waiting for DoT's to kill things. Demonology feels like playing a hunter that doesn't need to buy ammo. I wouldn't say I'm excited by the new potential, just that it's not as boring.

Wotlk

I read a rumour that levelling from 60-70 is going to be faster in wotlk, maybe less than 5-6 hours per level. If I find even the faintest corroboration then I will be parking Maexyn, Maesyn and Maecyn at 60 and waiting. Questing in Outlands for me is the worst grind and I will avoid as much of it as I can. I thrive on the micro-reward system of a ding every two hours or so, a five hour wait (and ten hours between visits to the class trainer!) is much too long.

Maevyn won't be on the first boat to Northrend either, I will be biding my time as I hate crowds. Eastern Plaguelands will be crammed full of Death Knights, I wouldn't want to be a big maggot thing on that day.