Need advise (aka little rant).

[Junaru]

Ok I started a Warlock on/near day one of EQ2 (Made Nov 10th) and got him into my 30's before the cast times just got to me. I rolled a Monk and have loved him since. But he's 70/100 and until RoK comes out I really only raid or farm with him.I've since been playing my Warlock again and he's now 43. The problem is grouping. I never seem to get to use my AoE spells. As soon as I do I'm dead. I've tried waiting for the tank to get in a few taunts and I've even told the tanks I plan to AoE on group mobs with 3 or more yet they never seem to hold aggro. I'm not talking about going mad with AoE but after 2 I always seem to get the mobs attention.I've read the threads saying how the Warlock class is the hardest to master for just this reason so I'm not shocked by it. What pisses me off is that I spent all the AA and plat for master and can't use my abilities.I'm thinking I might take the lazy mans way out and betray to a Wizard. I don't have problem when I just use my single target nukes/DoTs. I know I can pull aggro if I wanted but I'm able to manage aggro better.Truth is I know it has more to do with the tanks I'm grouping with then my playing style which is what pisses me off most. If I was something I was doing wrong I could fix it but it's not.So now onto the advise part. I know this is a bit loaded question since this is a Warlock forum. But do you guys think I would be better off betraying? This isn't my main and I'm not sure I want to dedicate the time it would really need to make friends with good tanks and control my own aggro. I'm thinking it would be easier just to betray.

[Pentarum]

Stuns and stifles are your friend. Your group root as well. Learn to solo groups of mobs or juggle 2-3 singles. With the right gear you can even tank well if no fighters are around. I've Tanked SoS, PoA, MMCat, Kaladim with just a fury healer when we couldnt find tanks. Pull with A forced crit Apoc follow up with a Void Absolusion or distortion and the encounter is either dead or about to be in a few sec. Most of the time they hardly get to even touch you and your moving to the next group. Robe from Nest, Enspelled Vultak eye and Shield of the Magi = 1050 in wards as well. Works well once your high enough level to wear them.

[Junaru]

<cite>Pentarum wrote:</cite><blockquote>Stuns and stifles are your friend. Your group root as well. Learn to solo groups of mobs or juggle 2-3 singles. With the right gear you can even tank well if no fighters are around. I've Tanked SoS, PoA, MMCat, Kaladim with just a fury healer when we couldnt find tanks. Pull with A forced crit Apoc follow up with a Void Absolusion or distortion and the encounter is either dead or about to be in a few sec. Most of the time they hardly get to even touch you and your moving to the next group. Robe from Nest, Enspelled Vultak eye and Shield of the Magi = 1050 in wards as well. Works well once your high enough level to wear them.</blockquote>Thats just it I don't have an issue soloing group mobs ever since I got Bone Grasp. But when I group the idea is to not get aggro.

[Phineus]

<p> The manashield line buffs your mit pretty darn good. Puts some points in the replenishing ward and you make an alright off tank. Can get 2 finals in warlock and still stuff 8 pts in the ward. With mystic buffs(i bot mystic or warden sometimes) I actually have higher mit than my nephews plate tank. Oh I have adorns for mit too. Can get fabled ones or legendary. Three legendarys add about 3% mit but those fables can put you to 6% uncontested mit I believe. Will have to dbl check the riposte adorn. The short of it is, aggro is a problem. A really good tank can hold off a warlock but there arent very many really good tanks. Guardians ancient teachings vastly help especially with aa in them. A high dps ae specd zerker is probably the best bet but I rolled with a darned good pally for 20 levels and couldnt complain. Not sure if amends is an ancient teaching but I went ahead and bought him his master just to save me some repair bills.       </p><p> I remember a time in lyceum a long time ago. They pulled the encounter. I counted 1001 1002 1003 all the way to 1030 then i debuffed and critted apoc and was tanking within 10 seconds. 30 full seconds to build aggro and I was tanking by the 40 second mark. This was long before I truly appreciated a warlocks procs for dmg so my dps was still pretty low. I rolled an illus the next day.</p>

[Windowlicker]

<p>The problem your encountering isn't so much how your playing *your* character.  You need to understand, that below level 50 almost 95% of the characters you'll see just suck.</p><p>Understand that most tanks and groups won't be able to handle you with mastered spells.  They especially won't be able to handle you in lower tiers if you've mastered everything.</p><p>For me as a level 70 with decent gear, I need to have properly stacked hate reduction in the group or I'll be tanking absolutely everything.</p><p>At your level, you'll be lucky if people in your group are even high enough to *have* hate control spells much less understand how to use them.</p><p>The best thing you can do is use your built in hate reduction stuff, and make your own groups.  Some of the combinations I find work well for me:</p><p>Warlock + Pally(Amends)</p><p>Warlock + Swashbuckler OR Assassin (Hate transfer on tank)</p><p>Warlock + Troubador(Group hate reduction) + Guard(Moderate)</p><p>Warlock + Coercer(Hate reduction buff, may be wise to stack with a Guard's Moderate)</p><p>Warlock + Berserker (Plenty of AE abilities, and out of encounter AE's/taunt)</p><p>Warlock + Dirge (Hyrans) </p><p>Of course, you can mix and match the above and see some really nice effects.  If you have Amends from a Pally, and a Swash/Assassin running a hate transfer on the tank?  You likely won't *take* aggro, even if you go balls to the wall.  </p><p>Basicly, the only time you'll really be able to unload safely .. is with Amends, or with a combination of more then one of the other options.</p><p>Otherwise?  You'll need to scale back and guage where you'll be taking aggro.</p>

[BetaMaster]

<cite>Phineus@Nagafen wrote:</cite> <blockquote><p> I remember a time in lyceum a long time ago. They pulled the encounter. I counted 1001 1002 1003 all the way to 1030 then i debuffed and critted apoc and was tanking within 10 seconds. 30 full seconds to build aggro and I was tanking by the 40 second mark. This was long before I truly appreciated a warlocks procs for dmg so my dps was still pretty low. I rolled an illus the next day.</p></blockquote><p>There is a very good reason why you took aggro from doing this... there are actually a couple really good reasons.  The hate that you gain on a mob does not stay with you for the whole fight.  Aggro in eq2 is diminishing.  If your tank has built up 100,000 hate during the fight and you've done nothing... that doesn't mean you can smack the mob for 80,000dmg and not get aggro... that tank got that 100,000 over time and during that time it was diminishing so maybe he only has 15,000 and doing any sort of spike damage will surely pull that mob off and over to you... that's sort of what happened in the lyceum thing you were talking about.  If you come in the middle of the fight and blast a spiked situation there is very LITTLE CHANCE that you WON'T get aggro unless the tank is ready for it.  The best time for something like that will be early in the fight during the first dispatch call because that's when the tank is burning for aggro cause everyone else is unloading their big dps all at that moment.</p><p> This is why warlocks are such powerful dpsers... a large portion of our dps is in dots... and people have a hard time playing warlocks cause they see a 3k spell and a spell that does 500dmg per tick and they choose to use the big dd when that dot would do prolly 5kdmg over time and give u a LOT! less hate.</p><p>The main thing to notice from the OP's post is that he's not lvl 50 yet... he doesn't have Destruction/Apoc so lets not talk about that line right away... your best aoe to use at your level is going to be your pbaoe dot but be careful what is around you of course... make sure mobs debuffed if they are going to last that long... and your Abhorrant Gift line is your best friend.  Your Aura line and your Netherlord(not sure the lower tier names offhand) spell will be your primary single target dps items along with your War Pyre line.  Stack up those dots for single target... and on any multi target fight use chasers on your aoes while gift is up.  Use pbaoe dot, then nullification (will proc gift temp buff) then absolution then another deaggro see how that works out for ya.</p>

[BetaMaster]

<p>erg double post =(</p>

[knightofround]

While leveling up, go with the INT line. Sub-70 PUG tanks usually don't have Ad3 taunts and AEs; the only thing that would work for me is a paladin. Everyone else I had to hold back; hell, even one of my alliance's raid MT couldn't hold aggro on his alt, simply because he didn't have upgraded CAs.Either that, or go STA and tank the groups yourself. From 20-60 I tanked approximately 50% of my groups. Just grab a second healer instead of a tank, max out Magi Shielding, and you're good to go.I would not recommend betraying to a wizard. As far as xp groups, wizards have the *most* problems getting into groups, because not only are dps spots easy to fill, but wizards are the most played class in the game. A wizard and a warlock can work well together, but 2 wizards? Meh.

[Windowlicker]

<cite>knightofround wrote:</cite><blockquote>While leveling up, go with the INT line. Sub-70 PUG tanks usually don't have Ad3 taunts and AEs; the only thing that would work for me is a paladin. Everyone else I had to hold back; hell, even one of my alliance's raid MT couldn't hold aggro on his alt, simply because he didn't have upgraded CAs.</blockquote><p>It's my view that's it's better to have to hold back on every pull, then have the ability to cast at your full extent with every group.</p><p>What's going to happen when you hit that ideal group that will support your DPS?  You won't be able to kick it out because you've spec'd into the hate reduction line.</p><p>Personally I approach my Warlock knowing he's only looked at for one thing, and that's his damage.  Anything that hinders that, I'm not interested in.</p><p>Yes, with the hate reduction lines there are some instances where you'll be doing more damage without taking aggro.  But when you hit those really sweet groups, you won't really be able to shine.</p>

[zaneluke]

Look for a paladin as a mt.My wife plays a paladin and never had issues with her while we were grouping. Also if you can drum up a mystic as a healer thier group ward and encounter disease/poison debuff stack with yours. Makes for fast kills.