Battlemage viable?

[zaun2]

For a warlock, how viable is protection on the warlock tree and battlemage under the sorcerer tree for starting out?  I have a low level warlock (only 15, but 14 AA atm) I'm working on, and am starting him out with ten points in magi shielding, then planning to go 4/4/8/4/1 under STA for maximum melee mitigation.  In a lot of places, especially in dungeons, the quarters are too close to root reliably, especially multiple mobs, so I'm mainly popping the PBAoE poison DoT, as well as using the usual single target and encounter spells. Right now this is effective up to low orange-con mobs and my warlock doesn't get chewed up too badly (although damage spikes are pretty bad sometimes), but I'm concerned when encountering scout mobs and the slit throat stifle proc. Any tips on multi mob scout encounters, or encounters with mobs with stifle/stun procs (zerkers, etc.)?

[knightofround]

For a battle mage, WIS is probably better than STA. You'll find that the biggest problem with you tanking is twofold: One, you drop from spike damage too quickly. Two, its easy to snag aggro right off the bat, but its difficult to hold it deeper into the fight when you get interrupts. WIS line makes both better. You get another ward spell, FHS gives you better aggro control on pull, and brainstorm will kick up your extended dps quite a bit. 10 points in Magi Shielding+WIS line is the way to go, IMHO. Manashield is only really good for soloing or pvp, because although its nice to stay alive, if you're tanking you can't hold aggro without mana. The mitigation bonus, while nice, comes nowhere close to matching the survivability provided by the WIS self-ward.

[Groma]

<cite>knightofround wrote:</cite><blockquote>WIS line makes both better. You get another ward spell, FHS gives you better aggro control on pull, and brainstorm will kick up your extended dps quite a bit. 10 points in Magi Shielding+WIS line is the way to go, IMHO. Manashield is only really good for soloing or pvp, because although its nice to stay alive, if you're tanking you can't hold aggro without mana. The mitigation bonus, while nice, comes nowhere close to matching the survivability provided by the WIS self-ward. </blockquote>Couple things.  Personally, i disagree and I am specced Stamina.  The ward in the Wisdom line was changed to ward against only magic damage, which cut its usefulness significantly.  At 70, you get roughly 800 mitigation from Battlemage Armor, which is about a 20% increase for most well geared Warlocks.  Manashield is huge, it will save you more times than you can imagine, and useful both in soloing, and when grouping and accidentally pulling aggro. Sure, Wisdom will help you hold aggro better, but as a warlock you shouldn't have an issue holding aggro if that is your goal, and you don't need to spec for it. Just my .02

[LionWilled]

<p>I recently just respecced from wis/agi to sta/agi.</p><p> I have not died a single time since then, Nullmail+Manashield is sick survivability. I was running through Feerrott, and ran into two encounters and had like 10 mobs hitting me, including a few heroics that were yellow, and I got snared, so even with sprint on I was in deep crap. But I popped manashield right after nullmails buff was going down, and I managed to get away. Any other spec and I would have died, period. </p><p> Manashield is just a wonderful "oh crap" button. And the damage shield that you get is also very nice as mobs beat themselves to death on it, especially encounters. It's useful in situations where you are OOM and you and the mob are almost dead, with the DS, the mob dies before me.</p><p> With 8 points into the AA that boosts your skills (can't recall the name), I notice less resists, and I get interrupted less as well. Sta is a very nice line, if a bit boring.</p><p> The problem I have with WIS, is that all of the abilities in that tree are kind of gimpy without a huge point investment. FHS is nice, but 24% at 8 points, you pretty much have to put 8 into it imho. The ward is nice but is magic dmg only, and the base dmg increase is yet again something that needs alot of points to really shine. Plus those 4 points into the wis buff are completely wasted, as wis does jack for us.</p><p> Just my opinion so far. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Kocia]

Unless you're on pvp server you have no business going STA.  If you want survivability roll a brawler not a warlock.  Warlocks is DPS and I can't imagine cutting your damage by 20% just to gain an OH CRAP button.

[miliskel]

<cite>knightofround wrote:</cite><blockquote>For a battle mage, WIS is probably better than STA. You'll find that the biggest problem with you tanking is twofold: One, you drop from spike damage too quickly. Two, its easy to snag aggro right off the bat, but its difficult to hold it deeper into the fight when you get interrupts. WIS line makes both better. You get another ward spell, FHS gives you better aggro control on pull, and brainstorm will kick up your extended dps quite a bit. 10 points in Magi Shielding+WIS line is the way to go, IMHO. Manashield is only really good for soloing or pvp, because although its nice to stay alive, if you're tanking you can't hold aggro without mana. The mitigation bonus, while nice, comes nowhere close to matching the survivability provided by the WIS self-ward. </blockquote>that sounds like u are talking about tanking in a group lol. battlemage is the battlemage spec is better for battlemage lol - u can pretty much use symbols as sheilds and u get a huge power ward.

[miliskel]

<cite>Kocia wrote:</cite><blockquote>Unless you're on pvp server you have no business going STA.  If you want survivability roll a brawler not a warlock.  Warlocks is DPS and I can't imagine cutting your damage by 20% just to gain an OH CRAP button.</blockquote>this is <u><b>extremely true</b></u> stamina line is really for pvp and we are really dps

[miliskel]

battlemages are shadowknights btw.

[Agaxiq]

FYI, looks like we'll able to have some sort of AA profiles with RoK - so we can switch back and forth between several AA setups. I still dont think I'd ever go down STA on a non-PvP server, but if you solo and raid, it would be worth it to have the STA line as a build to switch between. Otherwise, I'd have several raid setups <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> agressiv

[Astornoth]

I would say STA/AGL for PvP and solo AGL/STR or WIS for groups and raid.