Lock/wiz betray

[Longfangz]

I'm sure this has been repeatedly asked, but was curious and at work, where the net connection  is sometimes kinda buggy regarding searches in forums... Anyhow, I have been long considering betraying my 70 warlock to wizard, primarily due to changes that took place long ago. However, things haven't changed, and very rarely does my warlock get a chance to use his full AE ability without either dieing to overaggro or possibly even pulling mobs through walls/floors/etc due to SOE's infinite wisdom to increase spell range of AE's if you go the damage AA route. Cast/recast timers are far too long without having more than 2 mobs to be an effective DPS class compared to many others. I rarely raid on him, so I have little expectation of attempting to pop off his AE's in the middle of a raid where tons of trash mobs are being destroyed and the tank/offtank(s) are buffed far beyond what a typical group tank will be. Anyhow, I was curious to get a little feedback from anyone who has gone through the betrayal to see how they felt about converting. I'm definately not looking forward to replacing all his masters/AD3's, but somehow I don't think he is getting the potential that warlocks used to have and won't ever be getting back. Also out of simple curiousity, as mentioned above this character is not used for raiding, so his warlock only gear consists of only his hooloh's hat. I'm sure he probably won't be able to, but was curious if he could somehow trade it in to hooloh in either the origional or optional helm versions to the wizard hat once is finishes his betrayal. Thanks for any input.

[Force Weaver]

Are you sure you dont want to try Agi/Int for the reduced cast timers and deaggro on your Warlock before you bite the bullet and loose all your spells?  The LU 36 bump to the Int line is pretty effective.

[Aurorelle]

<p>I did the betrayal and converted my 45 warlock to wizard. Of course not being 70 thats no indication of what a conversion at 70 will feel like.</p><p>I *can* say that at 45 the difference felt very significant. I can do more damage, in practice I feel like I can do more AE damage even which seems ridiculous, but thats the way it feels. I can certainly do a lot more single target damage, and actually having decent non breaking roots is pretty cool. It feels like a better class both group and solo.</p><p>It's only an impression rather than a promise, but I certainly *feel* more powerful and useful.</p>

[Longfangz]

Yes, I have already looked into those lines. However the problem exists primarily in the comparision issue of the classes being that quite frankly there are so few AE encounters where a warlock is either required or even desired due to the immense aggro vs damage generated by the class. Even going the agi/int lines you end up with a very slight increase in cast/recast timers and a slightly better than before aggro reduction, at the cost of overall damage output. In the end, you end up doing even less damage with slightly less aggro, making surviveability a factor, but still not damage output. Don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed the warlock class, but coming from the standpoint of a multitude of other classes at 70 (zerk, conj, necro, defiler) as well as many others on the verge of 70, I feel his usefullness is somewhat less than many other classes in regards to what their job is overall. Single target wise, he dps is sadly that of maybe a high teir3/low teir 2 class. Multiple targets he does better, however even with aggro reduction most tanks sadly don't have the ability to keep aggro unless you specifically inform them of your intentions so they can swap targets and gain increased aggro prior to letting loose. I know this simply because my zerk is on another account and have boxed him on occasions. I can go full bore while boxing only because I know exactly what I intend to do before I do it while keeping aggro on my zerker, but any other tank is not going to know this unless they are sitting right beside you. And sadly, with exception of making farming runs through the nest faster due to mass AE of the zerker and warlock, his usefullness beyond that zone is little to non. As I said, I don't raid on him, so keeping in mind the typical 70ish zones (CoV/OoB/Unrest/even Den/HoF etc) there are minimal occasions where you intentionally pull multiple mobs/encounters on purpose. All of these places a well played wizard seems to outshine a similarly geared warlock since the capacity to deal decent single target damage is minimized unless the mob is simply taking too long to kill in a low dps group. Sure, if I have the time I can lay all my dots, dumbfire pet and chain nukes but in the end for the effort I am still easily outparsed by so many other tier 1/2 classes it is simply sad. On the rare occasions that their are multiple encounters or mobs that I feel I can unload on he can shine, but as mentioned above, they are too few and far between to feel his usefullness is beyond at least consideration of betrayal to wizard. Hence me asking the question of others who've made the effort to switch and determined how they felt after.

[Force Weaver]

Every point you made sounds on track.  Looks like you've already made your decision.  In T7 this class is extremely flexible and you will definitely experience a "bump" in your gaming experience being a wizard.  There's a <i>reason</i> there's so many <i>lvl 70</i> wizards on every server. 

[TheBu]

<p>I seen warlocks dps very welll even on just solo mobs.</p><p>just need to ask ur self wher the problem is.  also do a chart of ur damage and spell casts/recast and see what spells are doin gyour dps. purhaps some of ur aoes are on line with direct nuke and u might not be using them.</p><p>If agro a problem does ur raid a have a good MT setup? if not u might need to run the degro line. If u think ur spells are slow... add some spell haste...</p><p>a warlock is a good class i would not switch to a wiz def before the exp</p>

[hammerfil]

if ur tank cant hold aggro then something is wrong.. i betrayed from wiz to warlock and my dps went up.. warlock aoe>wiz aoe, wiz single>warlock single (not by much if you can play your class well).. as a warlock if im in the right group only way a wiz beats me is if he fusion's and crit ice nova or if hes a [Removed for Content] wiz and uses manaburn.. focused casting is awesome and if u still get aggro go finish out INT line and play with that imho warlocks are better.. sick aoe damage  + almost as good as wiz single =pwnage