Patch 5.4 patch notes
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The latest patch 5.4 newsForum post of the day: Life Tap dancing
by Amanda Dean 
Jan 28th 2009 at 9:00AM
Breaking news: a few people still play Warlock and many of them still drive healers crazy. Bravely posting on a Level 1 Alt, Suepah of Wildhammer posed the question, "Why do healers care if I life tap to 10% or so?" She says that even if she taps down when the tank is pulling, she uses a bandage and stays out of the way of the mobs. Timing is a major key, life tapping while the tank is pulling draws attention away from the task at hand. It also draws away from the healer's mana. My healer gets very frustrated when a Lock takes over his mana pool. To the point where he wanted to take a third rogue instead of a Warlock in a PUG. Life Tap is a cool ability in extended combat situations, but Warlocks can eat or drink at the end of a fight just like any other class.
Some healers don't mind, or even encourage Life Tapping. Lorina of Cenarian Circle mentioned that he asks Locks to Tap because it makes things go faster. Her comment to the OP concluded with "Be thankful you actually have healers that are concerned if you (as DPS) live or die, it's a rarity these days. And for good reason. "
I haven't healed a Warlock in ages, but as a tank it drives me crazy because I need my healer to maintain his mana pool and attention for my big bear butt. I'm also keenly aware of the fragility of a clothie in the red. I just have to remember our dungeon heuristic "If th healer dies, it's the tanks fault. If the tank dies it's the healer's fault. If the DPS dies, it's the DPS's fault." There are exceptions, but with Warlocks, this is spot on.
My best suggestion is to talk to the healer about his or her preference at the beginning of the instance. If you Life Tap inappropriately, don't be upset if you don't get healed.
Filed under: Warlock, First Aid, Analysis / Opinion, How-tos, Instances, Forums, Forum Post of the Day
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 10)
silverdragon Jan 28th 2009 10:09AM
EXACTLY! warlocks can heal themselves and are in no danger at all as long as the tank tanks and the lock stays away. but life taping to 10% during a pull? yeah thats kinda risky.
Thebum Jan 28th 2009 11:37AM
But as a healer it just comes as an instinct to throw a heal on someone with low health. I don't even think of who I heal, I just heal and think afterwards. The only way to get me not to heal a warlock who lifetaps is to remove his health bar, I can't not-heal him when I see his health go low. Being a druid I don't mind this as a hot can just heal trough it, but as another healer I can see it being annoying with the lifetaps.
Cyanea Jan 28th 2009 2:50PM
I usually try to lifetap between pulls. Most of the healers I've run with don't seem to mind too much, cause I usually get just a HoT.
Mana regen during the middle of fights is the reason I haven't specced out of Dark Pact yet.
Tapping during the middle of a pull (especially down to 10%) is a problem, I think. The person probably just needs to start drinking more between fights or whatnot.
It's always funny doing it during a raid scenario though. I tap ONCE, and suddenly I have a Wild Growth, Prayer of Mending, Renew, Chain Heal, and a Bubble on me.
I once Pugged with a priest who YELLED at me in whispers to stop lifetapping. Since Affliction doesn't burn off as much mana as Destro, I usually only have to tap once to top off after small pulls, and this priest was absolutely livid about it. I asked him if he WANTED me to kill things.
@Dark - OMG I love the Lightwell.
rosencratz Jan 28th 2009 9:11AM
I can't imagine a time where tapping to 10% is terribly sensible or necessary.
Karilyn Jan 28th 2009 9:49AM
This even annoys me as a tank. I tend to keep a close eye on party HP bars to make sure nobody pulled adds or something stupid like that.
And when I see a warlock's HP suddenly start dropping, my immediate reaction is "OH MY GOD SOMEONE PULLED!" And I try to find it quickly to get control on it, only to realize it was someone lifetapping.
VSUReaper Jan 28th 2009 9:28AM
This is my situation. Running an instance, giving the mana users a 10 second break to drink before I go charging in on the next group, and all of a sudden, I see an HP bar go crashing. If that happens, my Xperl (or some other crazy mod) starts flashing red at me, letting me know that something is wrong with someone, but they arent showing agro...
Oh, its just my GF lifetapping down to 10% and then hitting lifeblood (the herbalism ability).
Shes really bad about it, and when I used to heal her, we got in a huge argument once over if she deserves a full heal, just a renew, or to be ignored all together. She claims, as do many locks, that they can handle the lifetapping down to almost nothing, then popping canabalism, lifeblood, and then drainlifing the first few seconds of the pull.
What they dont understand is that tanks and healers are conditioned to see big, healthy, green bars before pullls, and when it drops, the healer feels compelled to either top them off or complain, especially as some healers are trying to ride the 5 sec rule to have less drinking time.
Although, I think my GF for the most part learned her lesson while farming one day. Going around, chain pulling mobs, and then lifetapping down to literally nothing. An alliance warrior runs by, sees that shes literally almost dead, and does a heroic throw, kills her, and then mounts up and runs on his way. She gets all pissed off, rez's and does the same thing. Lifetaps, gets killed by something/one else. Gets even more pissed, swearing in vent about it. I suggest that maybe she shouldn' t be in the habit of lifetapping so much on a PVP server, and learn to drink a little like my priest does.
Deadly. Off. Topic. Jan 29th 2009 11:06AM
Question:
Knowing you have a life tapping warlock in the party, there is no need to freak out especially if the screen flashes red and has the big aggro word in the middle of it. Or do people like to ignore the "AGGRO" flash on their screen?
Deadly. Off. Topic. Jan 29th 2009 11:10AM
This is what happens when I merge the damn thing and dyslexia tells me the sentence is find, but it really isn't cuz it's missing the important words of no in it.
Posted again for clearance:
Question:
Knowing you have a life tapping warlock in the party, there is no need to freak out especially if the screen IS NOT flashing red and DOES NOT has the big aggro word in the middle of it. Or do people like to ignore the "AGGRO" flash on their screen?
Lautaro Jan 28th 2009 9:16AM
Well I usually throw a little HOT after any lock life taps except right before a boss fight.
Now if the lock is really stupid (needing on blue plate at the same time the tank does (enchanter), tries to melee tank some melee mobs) then i will usually not throw that little HOT.
Jason Jan 28th 2009 3:11PM
why is this a problem? I am not talking about taking yourself to 10%. Pre-instance its part of the set up imo to chat with the healer about life tapping. The Afflock is only being efficient by lifetapping. If you have drain and siphon life, and Haunt going on and you are full hitpoints, those siphoned off points are being wasted. You need to make room for those incoming points by life tapping if you are 100% health. Just make sure you and the healer on the same page about how you work. Core ability is correct. Want to be an efficient Afflock? Life tap.
SnippyMcPhail Jan 28th 2009 9:15AM
Warlocks: Never tap below 50%
Healers: Don't panic when your warlock taps... they get the health back quickly! Panic when they're going below 50%, b/c that shouldn't be happening!!
Patrick B Jan 28th 2009 12:04PM
Yes very quickly. Fel Armor returns a huge amount of health, somewhere in the range of 450-500 hp5 even while casting. I think 50% is a little low, personally I'd like a small heal when I hit 60-65% hp which is around 10k health. I'm talking about boss fights when mana is an issue and not trash pulls when it almost never is.
zappo Jan 28th 2009 1:53PM
50% is a good measure. I've seen warlocks tap all the way down because they thought they weren't at risk, then get thoroughly owned by a patrol or some other random thing that went wrong. At 50% you still get some mileage out of lifetap, it's a decent health buffer and I can safely throw a heal when I feel everything is under control.
nav Jan 28th 2009 9:18AM
I don't care what any class does, as long as you're *ready before the pull*. Simple as that.
Jelda Jan 28th 2009 9:18AM
I'll give 'em a Renew, but that's all. A quick instant cast I can usually spare, but other than that I leave it up to themselves to stay alive. If the Warlock dies, it's the Warlock's fault ;).
myalternateaccount Jan 28th 2009 9:20AM
I hope that's an exaggeration; tapping down to 10% for pretty much any warlock would be more than their entire mana bar.
As mentioned above, I generally don't expect or want a healer to heal my lifetaps, unless there is also raid damage occuring and it's a must. I get the health back fairly quickly between soul leech and fel armor regen. If I'm short any significant amount between pulls, I tap until my health/mana are roughly equal then eat/drink.
Expecting a healer to completely heal you up from 10%, especially right after a pull, is just being lazy.
moonspeaker Jan 28th 2009 9:22AM
as an afflock i don't care i get fustrated when i'm getting healed becaurse a single life tap or two
i mainly tap just when i send a haunt flying so that barely a sec later i get a good amount of hp back and due to siphon life (almost 500 hp3) and fel armor (+2% hp every 5 sec) i rarely lack healing.
it just dosn't make sense to heal an afflock, atleast unless we get realy unlucky
due to aoe as long as i don't get hit more than a than twice i just ignore it, and would prefere the healer didn't waste mana on hp i'll just get back a few sec later anyway
Kirk Jan 28th 2009 9:21AM
I've done quite a bit of healing, and a little warlocking, and in my experience the warlock is usually justified when lifetapping.
There are exceptions, such as right before a pull or when heavy aoe damage could lead to the warlock's death, but these aren't that frequent.
On the other hand, healers need to appreciate this is a valid game mechanic, and doesn't just exist to annoy them. Warlock spells are more mana intensive than other casters, and the class is designed to lifetap in long fights. They simply must do it eventually, or the damage stops.
In regards to lifetapping out of combat, yes warlocks should be prepared to eat and drink (bandages should be saved for in combat.) However, most tanks don't wait for dps to be full on mana before pulling more trash. In these situations I think it is necessaryfor the warlock to tap and be healed at least enough to keep the pain flowing on the next group.
Remember, a small to medium heal costs comparatively little mana for a healer, and restores quite a bit of mana for the warlock.
For that matter, since when has healing the dps been an issue for healers? Certainly not for any healer who has raided, and even dungeons have more aoes these days.
Tom Luongo Jan 28th 2009 9:35AM
Having raided as both a warlock and a resto druid any healer that complains about a warlock tapping is a bad healer. Period. LT is the keyto sustained Lock DPS. So, if you can't spare a lifebloom or renew for them, then you miss the point of the cooperation needed to win at raiding, be it 5, 10 or 25 man.
Kirk, you are right, it's part of the class design to not only LT but to have the helaers in raiding situations assist them in getting their life back. Things have changed with some of the new self-healing mechanics that locks have, but the essential mechanic is still there.
I usually have the alternate problem, locks not LT'ing enough or responsibly. They constantly have to be reminded to do so before burning out their mana bar and then LT 5 or 6 times. Ideally, one should be interspersing their LT's around their normal spell rotation, one or two at a time and the healers should be good enough to recognize what this is and spare a GCD on an insta-cast spell to ensure they're topped off.
Tanks that complain about locks tapping are bad tanks as well. Period. MT healers should not be healing locks in a raid, that's why there are healing assignments. In a 5 man, no encounter is truly long enough that the healer should be in a mana-tight situation. If you are, you shouldn't be doing that content. Locks are self-sustaining in that content. Leave them be.
Ta,
0bsolete Jan 28th 2009 11:09AM
You have to remember, not all healers can just simply toss a lifebloom or a renew. Shaman healers can rarely spare a hot (Paladins I don't know) because we only have one hot, which is on a 6 second cooldown (more than it sounds when healing) and said hot is mostly used to maximize chain heal when focused on melee groups, or not used at all due to its mana inefficiency. In 5 mans most of the time I have to use direct heals. I can't just toss a hot and forget. If the warlock decide to life tap to 10%, I have to turn my attention from the tank, to him, for a good 6-15 seconds, depending on crits and health pool. Being that the warlock is generally too far in such situations to let chain heal splash over, I either have to hope the tank doesn't die because I have to worry about the warlock, or let the warlock die. It may be an instant cast that rapidly gets you mana, but it can lock down the healer for 10 seconds while they try and keep you from dying.