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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria 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 5 of 10)
Cyanea Jan 28th 2009 3:11PM
"Second: Lifetapping out of combat if the healer is already OOM can easily be interpreted as saying "My time is more valuable than the healers" because the healer will still have to drink after throwing even a renew on you."
Then don't.
If they're a sensible lock, they'll be able to MORE than heal themselves within the first few seconds of combat. That's why Warlocks (especially Affliction) have so many different ways to heal. I ususally come second on the healing meters cause of Siphon Life, Drain Life, Lifeblood, and a stone.
If they're not a sensible lock and tap themselves to near dead (with the amount of spirit on our gear though, there's something SERIOUSLY wrong if you need to tap to 10% to fill your mana bar), and they die when they take AoE damage...then they learn their lesson and become a sensible lock.
Thiosion Jan 28th 2009 10:00AM
The only time I've ever tapped below 40% is when I'm OOM and some buff just popped, such as bloodlust or boss-specific buffs, like spores. And even then, I've learned to time my spells better so even that rarely happens.
I agree with the other posters. The real problem is when healers DO heal us. However hectic the Affliction rotation may be, we can sacrifice a couple shadowbolts for a life drain here and there.
William S Kent Jan 28th 2009 10:04AM
Well...after a wipe I tap way down because I can regen life quicker than mana, but the healers in my guild know this. Some locks announce when life tapping, but even that doesn't seem to help with healers that are healing simply based on what thier grid is telling them. I don't like to PUG for many reasons, but a big one is trying to learn to work with healers. Guild wise we''ve gotten use to each other and things work well.
Dueg Jan 28th 2009 10:07AM
As a priest, I don't have a problem with a warlock lifetapping, even during a pull as long as he doesn't mind that he's going to get a renew ( and only one renew) until I have time to focus and maybe throw a flash heal down or something.
That being said, let me make this one hundred percent clear as this is a pet peave of mine: Do NOT ask me not to heal you. I am a HEALER, I HEAL people, that is my only job in a group. When I see your health drop suddenly, my first thought is "this person needs a heal." I don't stop to think about the situation or look at who's losing life, if you need heals and I have time to heal you, you're going to get heals. Get used to it.
Hwi Jan 28th 2009 10:14AM
I have played Lock, Tank and priest healer alot.
I guess its all been said before, but my general experience:
- Put Life Tap in your rotation so you have a steady "flow" of mana and dont have to suddenly tap alot
- If you Tap and get healed with a Renew, Lifebloom or other HoT do a quick calculation on how much its going to heal you and if ex. the ticking part of lidebloom is enough to heal you, do a new tap so the end heal on LB also heals you and you dont waste the healers mana
- Careful with tapping if there is AoE damage.
- Ask the healers if they want you to tap. When i heal i ask the Warlocks to Tap beacuse it can get really boring in heroics and warlocks give me something to heal ;)
- Dont be a idiot :P
vazhkatsi Jan 28th 2009 11:32AM
don't tap right before a decimate. learned this the hard way. i used to tap up to full mana so i could seed the crowd. but apparently this kills you if you're below a certain amount of health.
CappyPolaron Jan 28th 2009 10:28AM
The key is to Tap responsibly.
As a healer, I don't care if a Warlock's Life Tapping. Most Warlock's don't tap to the extreme of 10% health, but each Warlock has their own methodology to regaining mana. If I know a Warlock will be tapping, I'll throw a renew on them when I can.
But that's the key. Warlock's need to pay attention to what's going on just like everyone else.
If you notice you need mana, don't wait until the tank's pulling to Life Tap, because as was previously commented the moments' confusion could be dangerous to the entire group. While we don't use crowd control spells as often, we're still using crowd control - the tank's control trash mobs into nice, neat clusters that can be burned down with AoE. If they think one slipped away, they start focusing on finding that one, making it a little difficult to control the ones that're currently smacking them around.
If its a difficult boss fight, watch what the healer and tank are doing. If the healer's having to give it their all just to keep the tank alive - not uncommon in early heroic and raid groups that're still gathering the gear they need - tapping to the extreme is probably not a good idea. Instead, tap once or twice, or consider using a mana potion instead. This way your health hasn't dropped as much, and it'd be easier for you to self heal back to full with Drain Life or Haunt while allowing the healer to continue focusing on the task at hand.
iamOG Jan 28th 2009 11:06AM
Gift of Naruu for juu LockyLock :D
No, to be honest I don't mind them doing it, I will heal you if I can, just know that your not a priority and if you Tapped and died because of it... it is YOUR repair bill.
InFiNiTy Jan 28th 2009 3:18PM
My only complaint, from a holy priests POV, is that when I am healing, I see your health as well as your mana, and when its low, I generally throw a renew early and forget about you. It seems that whenever I do this, you don't tap until the renew is over. I know this is simply solved by not throwing one at all, but dammit pay attention. You have like 4 skills to use you could at least tap when you have a hot or two on you. =P
Biggles Jan 28th 2009 10:36AM
It all depends on timing.
If my mana is generally/mostly full (or we're obviously about to pause to drink and buff before a boss) - it would be silly for me not to trade a few hundred of my mana for thousands of the lock's - and it would be silly for the lock to go into potential danger without full mana and health. Life tapping (and me healing it) is fine between combat...
BUT...
in the end - the lock is responsible for the lock, and they should know it. My *priority* is/are the tanks. If they tap when I'm low on mana... well, they may have to bandage.
This isn't a problem with good locks.
Moo Jan 28th 2009 1:13PM
couldn't agree more, Biggles. It's about timing and not being an idiot. As a holy pally I have no effective HOTs so I typically will wait for a life tap to be up and then hit it all with a single Holy Light, which usually takes care of it. Yes HL is mana intensive but in today's world of 25+k mana pools and divine plea most pallies can spam holy light forever now. I would be more cautious if you are a level 72 Lock heading into a Northrend dungeon for the first time with a holy pally, tho. You're gonna piss off the healer if he has to drink 20 times during Reg Nexus.
Tapping when I'm low on mana, as Biggles points out can be a little dangerous...at least if you're tapping down to 10%. At 10% a lock is susceptible to almost anything and I may need a second or two for that divine plea to kick in or to get a Bacon up if it's not up already for some reason to feel comfortable shifting from the tank...so if a Lock takes themselves down to 10% they do so at their own risk.
Nic Lake Jan 28th 2009 10:38AM
If you (warlocks) decide to Life Tap, do it at some point in time when I am *not* sitting down to eat my Firecracker Salmon to get my buff.
Or, if I am eating, stop whining. Use your bandage, use Lifebloom, or don't suck.
Thanks.
-The Healers
Mark Jan 28th 2009 10:43AM
Amanda Dean, you've been trolled by a level one alt. Way to go!
"If th[e] healer dies, it's the tank[']s fault. If the tank dies[,] it's the healer's fault. If the DPS dies, it's the DPS' fault."
What a cliche. Cliches sound comforting because they let you gain the not-thinking-for-yourself debuff. This is one of the silliest things I see written about party dynamics.
Tanks and healers that are annoyed by life-tapping have completely divorced themselves from the notion that a healer has full control over her healing and mana pool. Good locks know that good healers don't flip out over life-tapping. Good tanks shouldn't flip out, either. The life-tapping-to-10% situation is sacrifice from a good lock; otherwise it's a figment of the imagination.
I'm play a holy priest, and I adore my locks. I love it when they life-tap.
Manatank Jan 28th 2009 12:28PM
"I'm play a holy priest, and I adore my locks. I love it when they life-tap."
Why would that be? Because you enjoy their mana return? You like that they heal themselves? Or do you enjoy another mole to whack? If they are doing things right you should barely notice that they life-tap at all.
Xenne Jan 28th 2009 10:50AM
I would just like to say that I miss when locks were abundant. I play a holy priest and having a SS just made thing easier and the group new to take more risks in instances. Try a different strategy on a boss, CC certain mobs, what have you. I was SS'ed and let's teach these uglies some manners.
Oh, and pertaining to the Life Tapping, I always told my locks before we began the instance to just Life Tap whenever. I put a renew on them and they're set. No freaking out "oh god, what's attacking the lock?! Why is he... oh..."
0bsolete Jan 28th 2009 10:58AM
As a healer who is driven insane by this, I think I can argue for the other side. First of all, many healers (and I know its a bad habbit) tend to get fairly tunnel visioned. DPS are primarily active, a rotation while watching for major changes. Tanks are reactionary, but to the state of the fight around them so they are more likely to get tunnel vision on the fight. Healers watch bars. We stay back out of the way, watch for the specific things we need to watch for (Loken's Lightning Nova, etc) and play whack-a-mole. That means that when we see the warlock's health drop from 100% to 40% in a couple seconds our "the DPS pulled aggro" reaction automatically pops off. Of course, the more said DPS' health drops rapidly like that the less we heal them, but still. As healers we naturally heal the people who take damage. It gets to the point where we don't think, we just do it.
For me, this is the way it works. The warlock tells me not to heal him, he doesn't get heals. Period. Mob charges him? He doesn't get healed. In all likelihood at least. But my healing meters don't tell me the difference between life tap or aggro. Thats why I don't like life taping in anything but the longest combats, specifically when I have at least 15% more mana than the boss has health (percent basis of course, etc boss being at 40% health, I'm at least at 55% mana)
So to warlocks: remember-unless its a really good healer who has managed to fully break their tunnel vision habits (rare in my experience) expect them to either heal your life taps and get annoyed, or not heal you at all and get annoyed.
Moo Jan 28th 2009 1:28PM
why don't your heal bars tell you the difference between a tap and aggro? I'm pretty sure healbot does...
jrizutko Jan 28th 2009 2:34PM
No offense, but it sounds like you haven't been healing very long. Any raid frame add-on should indicate very clearly for you whether someone actually has aggro or not.
0bsolete Jan 28th 2009 7:44PM
My UI is not the best in all fairness. I lost my account to a gold farmer a while back, in the time it took to level another shaman to 70, wrath was released, I caught up, and most of my UI was outdated, unupdated, etc. So I'm slowly working on it not sucking so much. All the same, my mods don't tell me what the source of damage is, and I generally am healing before I mentally process an aggro change, but either way, my job is to keep all party members topped off. Thats what I do unless, due to boss mechanics, I'm not to heal x person or heal during such and such time. Either way, I heal the warlock, or if they tell me not to, I don't. I prefer warlocks to do what everybody else does, drink. Unless you are in the middle of a boss fight, the healer has plenty of mana to deal with the rest of the fight assuming nothing massive goes wrong, and said warlock is totally incapable of using any other method of regaining mana.
TriggerHappy Jan 29th 2009 1:29PM
You can't only heal people who have agro. There are too many boss abilities that don't require boss agro that WILL kill a single target. Off the top of my head, KT's ice block, Maexna's web. Those fights teach healers to throw heals on people below 50% regardless of whether they have agro or not.
Even without those abilities you have timed AE's that cause lots of raidwide damage, requiring everyone stay fairly topped off.
The two responses saying to watch agro are just fail.