WoWGrrl's World

I was inspired to write this entry from some questions I was asked by one of my beloved Regular Readers who plays a Warlock on World of Warcraft and has only recently delved into the world of Raiding.

We Love You Warlocks, But You Know Why...

It's for your Summons and your Soulstones more than anything else.

Okay, I'll admit, it's not the reason we choose YOU over any kind of Melee DPS like Death Knights, Rogues, Warriors or Enhancement Shaman - we choose you at that point because of the overabundance of Melee DPS in the WoTLK.

But when it comes to making a decision about selecting a Warlock vs a Mage/Elemental Shaman/Boomkin/Shadow Priest, you know that the primary reason we choose you IS NOT because of your awesome DPS.

It's because a well-placed Soulstone can save a lot of time in a dungeon or a raid instance, and your ability to create a Summoning Stone also saves the team a lot of time when the group is first getting together, running back after a wipe, or is picking up a new member to replace someone who dropped.

The Solo Soulstone

Your first introduction, dear Warlock, to the Soulstone was when you were a very little Warlock.

You learned it before level 25 and if you realized what you were looking at, you saw a lot of value in it right away, and quickly put it to use in your solo questing by Soulstoning yourself.

Remember the ENDLESS number of corpse runs you were able to avoid because of this neat Warlock tool?

If you were anything like me in your lowbie Warlock days, you even got into the habit of taking bigger risks (taking on more mobs than usual) when questing with your Soulstone on, and then playing in a much more conservative way when it was on cooldown and used up.

Just having a Soulstone as a soloing Warlock lets me push myself and advance faster through quests and levels, because I can circumvent the run back from the graveyard!

The Soulstone In 5-player Dungeons and Heroics

When you first started going into dungeons as a newbie Warlock, you may not have realized that the Etiquette rules for Soulstoning change once a Warlock enters into a dungeon instance.

If this is your second character coming up, you might have learned it by watching other Warlocks being taught the lesson. If so, consider yourself fortunate, because some party members aren't all that nice when "educating" new Warlocks.

In a dungeon situation just like the Solo situation, the Warlock is expected to apply the Soulstone to team member for whom it would benefit the team the most.

In the case of Solo play, the Warlock is the only team member who is important (since player pets cannot click the "Use Soulstone to Resurrect" button after they die) so it makes sense that they Soulstone themselves. When in a party situation, however, the Soulstone would be much better used on a teammate.

In specific, the teammate a Warlock should apply a Soulstone to will have the following major trait:

• Can resurrect fellow party members who die

A good "rule of thumb" to stick with is that the Healer of the party gets the Soulstone.

Why Not Soulstone The Tank?

It seems logical to think that maybe instead of SS'ing the Healer, that the Tank should be Soulstoned, because, after all, at a certain level of play if the Tank dies, the whole party is pretty much doomed to die as well. Wouldn't it make better sense to SS the Tank so she/he can pop up again and resume the fight?

Unfortunately, this logic is missing some key information about how it's possible for a Tank to do their job in the first place, and when explained, makes it even more clear why the Healer should get the SS and not the Tank:

• In order to "tank" mobs, Tanks need to maintain a certain % of threat/aggro from mobs above and beyond what the DPS and Healers are generating.
  • At the start of a fight, it takes a moment for tanks to generate enough threat for the rest of the party to join in on the battle.

  • When a Tank dies, threat from all mobs is dropped to ZERO, and mobs begin to target the rest of the party members.
  • DPS and Healers maintain their positions on the Threat meters.

From the information above it should be pretty clear that even if a Tank does resurrect themselves at this point in the battle, it's going to be nearly impossible for her/him to regain their position on the top of the Threat Meters for all of the mobs that are now bouncing around between DPS and Healers. Might as well call a wipe.

Soulstoning of Healers In Dungeons And Raids

If, on the other hand, a Healer is Soulstoned and faces an opportunity to use it, the scenario goes more like:

• SS'd Healer dies, all threat from all mobs is dropped to zero.

• Healer uses the Soulstone to resurrect, and quickly self-heals. Having no threat from mobs is GOOD!
• Healer is able to heal the (majority of the) group through the rest of the pull, preventing a wipe

Alternatively:

• SS'd Healer dies, all threat from all mobs is dropped to zero.

• Healer observes the situation and sees that the group cannot win this pull, and stays dead until all die.
• Healer takes the SS rez once the battle is over, and resurrects the teammates on the spot, saving time for moving forward

Soulstoning Summary

The Soulstone is an awesome Warlocky invention that looks simplistic in graphic and design, but holds within it the greatest time savings known to raiding, dungeon runs and solo questing.

Learn how to use it well, learn how to be notified when it's time to re-apply (especially in Dungeons and Raids) and you'll most definitely stand out as a superior-quality Warlock!

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Related posts:

1. WoW Healing Tips: When To Let Them Die
2. Old World Instance, Dire Maul West, Warlock Felsteed
3. Awesome Warlock Consumables Guide

Tagged as: Raiding, raiding builds, warlock raiding build, who to soulstone