Epic Fail 2:L2 Lifetap
Posted on: 08/17/2008 - By: Chris

     You and twenty four of your friends are grouped up at the top of Black Temple. Akama finishes with his threats to Illidan, and Illidan turns to your guild’s main tank and begins the onslaught of attacks. To the left and right of you fly fire, frost, and shadowy attacks. After a few minutes into the fight, you and one of the healers, more specifically either a priest or druid, see that one of your warlocks is running low on mana. You instinctively throw one of your heal over time (HoT) spells on him. As your renew, or rejuvenation, spell ticks off each few seconds, your warlock comrade stands in place, low on mana.

     Lifetap isn’t a new ability for you warlocks. In fact it’s a spell that a lot of the other classes in the game are envious of. The ability to trade a bit of health for mana, especially in a raid, where a third of the group consists of healers ready to keep you alive is a great ability. However, it seems that most of the times that a warlock gets a healing spell thrown on them, they simply sit there without using the life tap ability.

     As a raiding priest, I can tell you that there are few things more annoying than finding a Warlock with low mana, throwing a renew spell on them, and then have them sit there as it’s wasted. When a healer throws a HoT on a warlock, the healer is attempting to tell the warlock to regain some mana. As long as the warlock uses the life tap ability correctly, a healer usually has no problem throwing out a heal.

     Correct usage of the life tap spell is key to getting free heals, which equates to free mana. When mana is low, a couple of life taps is usually sufficient to get a healer to notice your health dropping, and in turn will throw out a heal. When the raid’s, or party’s, health is low, the priest is low in mana. If the warlock continuously uses the life tap ability, dropping the warlocks health down to dangerous levels, this is when a healer will think twice before throwing out heals.

     The best thing to do is to talk to your healers and agree to a certain protocol when it comes to the life tap spell. Healers usually have no problem giving a competent warlock free mana and most will actually want to heal you, as the “Fel Armor” spell, which increases the amount of health gained back, making their job easier. Using this spell correctly makes everyone’s job easier, and more likely that your healers will work with you.