Warlock lvl 20 drain tanking or not

[Tri@de]

Hi all, i reached the 20 level of warlock and i got my succubus.

i need your experince to know how to proceed.

I like do PvE and i'm not sure how to put talents.
I want to fight in the best way mobs. i don't know really what's drain tanking and how do it, but i know how i play.

Now i use my VW on the mob and casting Dot while i'm far forom the danger ;)

It's the best way to kill mobs or it's better to use drain tanking?
In witch way i have to put my talents?
How i use my succubus?

I read other posts but they talk for higher levels

[Nojolocka]

Originally Posted by Tri@de

Hi all, i reached the 20 level of warlock and i got my succubus.

...

How i use my succubus?

Just so you know, she isn't as powerful at 20 as she will be. She has a lot of future abilities you need to level to get to. When you level, be sure to check for more grimoires.

You drain tank with a succubus. If you're doing a lot of solo time on a PvP server, it's good to have her out.

First you see if the mob is solo or not. If solo, you can just CTRL-1, send her in, whip cracking. She takes agro.

If you need to pull from a pack, use a low threat spell, CoW will do. As the mob leaves it's friends behind, CTRL-1, and have her intercept the mob. She will take agro.

OK, so now you have a high damage, low armor, low hit points pet tanking. She will die fast. To stop that, you have to take agro.

Shadow Bolts are good for that. If she's dying fast, SB, SB, and agro will come to you.

If she has time, cast some dots first: Curse of Agony, Corruption, Immoate (which might get you agro) and then SB.

OK, you've got agro. Add some damage as it charges you, with whatever you have time for. Then it closes, and is in your face. Now Drain Life until it dies. If you need more shards, switch to Drain Soul just before the end. I have the two Drain spells on the toolbar next to each other, for easy switching. For fun you can put the weapon on melee attack, in case you want to get a swing in between channelings of Drain Life.

Note you don't want to be interupted, so Fel Concentration is a must for drain tanking.

Another tip: whenever you mana is not 100% and your hit points are 100%, Life Tap. That way, every tick, you are replenishing both HP and Mana. Improved Life Tap is a wonder.

[Fenrir]

offcourse, the best way to learn things is to try it out ;) this forum is a great knowledgebase of people with experience. but really, the best experience you gain from practice imo

[allegos]

Nojolocka hits the nail on the head. You have to be willing to share aggro with your Succubus. Pull the aggro yourself, and let the Succubus bushwhack the mobs from behind. Stamina gear and Demonic Embrace will help with this.

[ScissorMan]

The tactic i used for soloing up from around 26 to 60 was drain tanking
I was mosly affliction specc, since it is the best for PVE soloing imo.Using This specc usually consist of using succubus and casting your 3 primary dots on the mob (Immolation, corruption and Curse of Agony) then mostly just using drain life to kill it.

Imo Dark pact can reduce Downtime alot.Just turn off the succucbus soothing kiss and lash of pain and you got a pretty good mana battery that still can deal some damage. Well got nothing else to say

[Scatgirl]

So From what I hear this is the best way to grind? or is there another option because this sounds boring :(

[Devicus]

I find it quite fun. At 20 Drain tanking is no really. It'll be inefficient. You need some more talents and levels (drain life gets a higher damage/mana ratio as it levels) There's a guide on how to do it and I'll get a link, though my personal experience is here.

http://www.wowmb.net/forums/showthread.php?t=13752

there it is. Though I don't agree with all the details, the principles are sound here and it covers a lot I don't.

When you can get the dark pact talent, get the imp out and drain tank. The imp increases your stamina (margin for error and serious problems) and makes enemy pay for thumping you (fire sheild) but stays out of harm's away (i have mine passive with fire sheild and phase shift on auto cast)

For effective drain tanking you'll *need* maxed imp drain soul, maxed siphon soul, and siphon life. Maxed fel concentration is a must

1 rank in shadow embrace, and 1 or 2 imp life tap help a lot (imp LT is the least necessary). Dark pact isn't needed but should be picked up the moment you can get it.Grim reach is nice to have, UA helps at high levels, SM means more damage, means more draining. Otherwise the rest of your talents are personal preference.

Drain tanking is about a spell cycle that creates large net gains of mana and health, and this works properly when you're doing this fast enough that between dark pact and this effect you're able to maintain steady mana and health and even gain a bit from fight to fight. The talents above broad margins and raise multipliers as well as reducing the bits where inefficiency can happen (well fel concentration does that anyway)

Pull with UA or immo (cast time spell), then drop the instant dots you have, siphon life is a must, Curse of Agony, corruption should be instant cast if you've spent 5 points in affliction too. You can do these while running back. Then life tap and drain life. When the mob is about to die, drop a drain soul for the mana return. If mobs aren't living through enough drain life, drop a DoT, maybe swap Curse of Agony for CoS while you're at it.

If you're not healing fast, life tap less. After a few fights you might find your mana or health has gone down a bit. If it's mana, dark pact it back up. If it's health, skip life tap, swap Curse of Agony for CoS, maybe even drop corruption too and just drain life, then dark pact back afterwards. (in the absence of DP, the old LT/bandage trick works nicely)

Adjust times and drop/add spells as necessary as the gear and mobs change. When you get good at this you can clear lone mobs forever. As a rule if one full drain life cycle is not occuring, then you're *definately* DoTing too much. If you're draining past when your DoTs expire, you're too slow. Practice helps here.