Solo grinding a warlock

[Malik2]

OK so I'm not new but I do have a question.

My warlock is up to lvl 32 or so and I find grinding going pretty slow.

2 reasons:

First: my energy barrier is lvl 3. I target a normal or challenging mob and before it is dead it breaks my energy barrier and is doing me damage. So then I wait for the barrier to cycle before grinding again. Or somtimes attack another mob and take massive damage. Vampirism doesn't seem to help much as it knocks my mana for not much health and then the energy barrier goes down and I take more damage than I recovered with it, because vamp does not do as much damage as something like lightning or fireball.

Second: less of a strategy thing but I have been experienceing a massive number of resists. Not only are spells but also regular damage from my staff seem to be resisted at least once per mob; I often experience multiple resists. So instead of casting 2 damaging spells per mob I am up to 3 plus buffs every 2 minutes it puts a heavy weight on my mana and ambitious sacrafice.

I have also noticed a strange situation in syrtis. In general I have found that in general when grinders learn that I am not a conjurer their eyes glaze over and are not thrilled with forming a group with a warlock. I think ultimately a group grind situation would be best.

Any thoughts on grinding a lvl 32 or so warlock would be appreciated.

[backe]

IIRC, I used to use a 15 in Arcania and Elements, 13 in Mana control, 9 in Necro, and 7(?) in Mental.

I'd switch between Stalagmite and Meteor, or Lightning and Fireball (all at 4), with Mind Push, Blaze, and Beetle Swarm (all at 2) for random mob resists. If there were a bunch of resists, I'd usually resort to Crystal Blast(4). All of this was with Devotion(3)

Generally, I'd refill my mana with Ambitious Sacrifice(3) and life with Vitality Absorption(2) (albeit, it wasn't that effective and some resting was generally needed). Resists, unfortunately, are a big issue with a spell only build now, but it worked pretty well for me before.

Edit:
I just remembered, I used to use a fast 20m staff and start casting at around 25m so as not to cause unintentional aggro through staff attacks.

[Angelwinged_Devil]

staglamite produces lousy damage, fireball/lightning produces some good damage, but I've always liked blaze and arcane missile when i was grinding with spells, I'd also recommend you to get some good gear, specially if it boosts your casting speed, intelligence or mana.

I can't remember if I used a barrier but I killed the mob usually before it reached me, my problem was just that when I found a new mob my spells were cooling down.

For lifestealing, soulkeeper, vampirism, vitality absorption, generally consider cooldown, mana cost, damage vs mana cost etc. When selecting your build.

[Dupa_z_Zasady]

Originally Posted by Malik2

OK so I'm not new but I do have a question.

My warlock is up to lvl 32 or so and I find grinding going pretty slow.

I level lock, hit 36 yesterday, but i do not consider myself an expert. Anyway, in my opinion lock is GREAT to grind. I don't have to rest at all (Well in my opinion all ranged don't need to rest) even if something goes wrong.

2 reasons:

First: my energy barrier is lvl 3. I target a normal or challenging mob and before it is dead it breaks my energy barrier and is doing me damage. So then I wait for the barrier to cycle before grinding again. Or somtimes attack another mob and take massive damage. Vampirism doesn't seem to help much as it knocks my mana for not much health and then the energy barrier goes down and I take more damage than I recovered with it, because vamp does not do as much damage as something like lightning or fireball.

I don't use energy barrier. I use some mental instead. This is how u can keep mob from attacking you. Ivy, Beetle are great. Freeze from elements is useful too. If mob resists to much, try stop him and gain some distance. And use vampirism and SoulKeeper, but remember keeping HP high reduces offensive potential of those spells (god i hate conjus healing me while grinding lock ;P).

Second: less of a strategy thing but I have been experienceing a massive number of resists. Not only are spells but also regular damage from my staff seem to be resisted at least once per mob; I often experience multiple resists. So instead of casting 2 damaging spells per mob I am up to 3 plus buffs every 2 minutes it puts a heavy weight on my mana and ambitious sacrafice.

Thats why i don't use buffs, well, maybe some staff magnifications but this is from lvl 35. I use AS practically all the time, as soon as cooled down.

[ncvr]

I use Fireball(4)/arcane missle(4)/blaze(4) and Lightning(4)/arcane missile/blaze to kill mobs - at lower lvls (like 32) even just lightning + blaze should do, replacing arcane missile with vamp(3) whenever it does enough dmg. The advantages of this setup over the standard lightning/stalagmite and meteor/fireball are that cooldowns are a lot lower, meaning that resists are far less of a problem. You should be able to kill any mob without it hitting you more than once.

I believe my setup at the time was Mental lvl 15, Elements lvl 15, Mana Control and Necromancy lvl 11.

[Kralmoe]

Originally Posted by Malik2

OK so I'm not new but I do have a question.

My warlock is up to lvl 32 or so and I find grinding going pretty slow.

2 reasons:

First: my energy barrier is lvl 3. I target a normal or challenging mob and before it is dead it breaks my energy barrier and is doing me damage. So then I wait for the barrier to cycle before grinding again. Or somtimes attack another mob and take massive damage. Vampirism doesn't seem to help much as it knocks my mana for not much health and then the energy barrier goes down and I take more damage than I recovered with it, because vamp does not do as much damage as something like lightning or fireball.

Second: less of a strategy thing but I have been experienceing a massive number of resists. Not only are spells but also regular damage from my staff seem to be resisted at least once per mob; I often experience multiple resists. So instead of casting 2 damaging spells per mob I am up to 3 plus buffs every 2 minutes it puts a heavy weight on my mana and ambitious sacrafice.

I have also noticed a strange situation in syrtis. In general I have found that in general when grinders learn that I am not a conjurer their eyes glaze over and are not thrilled with forming a group with a warlock. I think ultimately a group grind situation would be best.

Any thoughts on grinding a lvl 32 or so warlock would be appreciated.

You are completely right in everything you say. It happens to every warlock. The only way to get a bit on is to avoid the challenging mobs and to use the right setup. Don't use Vampirism anymore because as you well pointed out it consumes more mana than gives health. What I did at your level was maximise Prycking Ivy (faboulous spell), Beetle Swarm, Meteor and Stalagmite. I also maximised fire magnitude and combat. I only used Ambitious Sacrifice at 2 because at 3 it takes too much health at that level. Keep Energy Barrier maximised. Use a fast staff, range 25 if you can. The best attack is then: 1st Meteor, followed by Ivy and try to finish him off with your staff, if not, use Stalagmite or Crystal . Next one again Meteor and Beetle (Ivy has a long cooldown). Keep Dragon's Blood maximised too (very important). And rest.....
When you are a bit higher things will be somewhat easier.....
Ignore people who give you the glaze. They will need you later when you are able to cast Terrors....

[Inkster]

Only other thing i can thing of to help, mobs will only chase you so far,
find that point and keep just out of that range, you can then kill the
mob without receiving 1 hit (assuming the mob has no range attack)

As for people who give you the Glaze - Sod em, they will want you
soon enough when they need help

[monktbd]

For these levels I always reskilled a lot to see what setup fits grinding best.
I never used a heavy mental setup but was more relying on elements and arcania. Since especially high arcania spells (meteor, crystal) take a lot of mana I had mana control on 15 with barrier 3/4 AS 4 and devotion 4.

I now think that a high mental setup is a better way to go as you make almost the same damage with lower cooldown and less mana consumption by using blaye and missile while having excellent CC with beetle and ivy or even will domain if needed.

Necromancy at 11 is I think a must to use soulkeeper (3) to gain some HP back.
You can test for yourself if you think that putting points in vitality absorption is worth it or not.

I never had much of a problem with a spell setup for the lock but ofc resists are a bit of a pain sometimes but I still prefer this a lot to a SM setup which is not very effective anymore since the last update besdies when you know that you will grind in a group of 4+ people where you just make too much damage in a spell setup to keep everyone happy.

[Malik2]

Thank you all for the input.

I have fooled around with the set up a bit. I was getting way to hooked on elements and casting things like golem fist (which does great damage but eats up mana).

I think I have a more economical set up and I think I'm going to keep tinkering. That and I now hang out at the spider frenzy.

[Tenex]

Originally Posted by Malik2

Thank you all for the input.

I have fooled around with the set up a bit. I was getting way to hooked on elements and casting things like golem fist (which does great damage but eats up mana).

I think I have a more economical set up and I think I'm going to keep tinkering. That and I now hang out at the spider frenzy.

use mental to avoid damage from mobs, stuff like mind push, ivy or will domain was and still is a must to get away with no scratch. Hell, in that case you don't even need energy barrier.