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Life Tap

Life Tap
Instant
Requires Warlock (Affliction, Demonology)
Requires level 16

Restores (15 * Total health * 0.01) mana.

Buff

Spell Details

Duration

n/a

School

Shadow

Mechanic

n/a

Dispel type

n/a

GCD category

Normal

Cost

None

Range

0 yards (Self)

Cast time

Instant

Cooldown

n/a

GCD

1.5 seconds

Effect #1

Give Power (Mana)
Value: 15

Effect #2

Dummy
Value: 120
Server-side script

Effect #3

Apply Aura: Mod Healing Absorb % (Arcane, Fire, Frost, Holy, Nature, Physical, Shadow)
Value: 15%

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Warlords of Draenor
Warlock Changes

Comments

Comment by Mathas

This spell is absolutely INVALUABLE to the raiding warlock. Without having to burn potions for mana, and in emergency situations, Life Tap is more of a "Life Saver". The mana, especially for Onyxia in phase 2, is needed. It is also quite important to note that placing talents in Improved Life Tap in the affliction tree is also quite nice for the raider. Being able to take about 545 life from yourself and give yourself 700+ mana is many dots for use. Any serious raiding warlock should take this and its talent "Improved Life Tap" into heavy consideration.

Comment by gefthi

Please be careful though when you use it in PvP! It can drain your life pretty much.

There used to be addons that automatically selected the life tap rank to use according to your current HP. This functionality does not exist since 2.0 came out.

Comment by entropicdragon

Note that if you attempt to life tap and you have exactly or less than the amount of health that it costs it will fail with a "Not enough health" message.
Thus it is not possible to kill yourself using only it.

Comment by Kangi

Life Tap is by far one of the best because if you are low on mana, out of pots, and fighting humanoids, you can drain your health until you have your desired amount of mana and then use the Cannibalize skill from the Undead Racial ability to regain it or eat some food.

Comment by peteyd

As of Patch 2.4's beta:

Warlock

Lifetap now converts a % of your base health and mana.

Lifetap (Rank 1) now converts 5% maximum life into 5% maximum mana.
Lifetap (Rank 2) now converts 12% maximum life into 12% maximum mana
Lifetap (Rank 3) now converts 20% maximum life into 20% maximum mana.

I highly doubt it will make it live, though.

I never said it was making it live... re-read my post moron.

Comment by Genericusername

I do not heal warlocks who life tap in groups and raids; my mana should not become your mana.

Comment by sloppyjoes

Well used in combination with improved life tap, cannibalize and demon armor and the such.
From a very low level you can have 0 downtime assuming you are an undead. And even better if you are herb/alch due to lifeblood.

All you need to do is use your voidwalker and have him consume shadows every 10 mobs or so.
You can easily solo 5 mobs, just by letting him tank.

Comment by Garar

This spell is 100% of the reason that I rearrange my healing grid to put warlocks out of sight. You might not appreciate it, and I see a lot of downrated comments for it, but it is something that warlocks should be aware of. Intelligent warlocks can feed off of Wild Growth and Drain Life all day long and do fine, and a healer should never deny you the benefit of AoE heals. If the heal rotation allows, you will be healed, but you should anticipate being a low priority.

Try to understand this from our perspective. If you're healing 25-man content, you don't see what's going on. You see enough of the screen to keep yourself out of the fire. The rest of it is a grid of green lines and heal buttons. This means that we cannot see if your health is going down because you're getting hit or because you're out of mana and we do not have time to try to figure it out. The assumption is that you're hurting yourself and have the power to control it, and everyone else is getting hurt by something they can't control and will die if you don't start healing.

Ultimately, this means that a warlock 1) needs heal pots, 2) needs to properly gear +int and mp5 so that Life Tap is a tool and not a crutch, 3) needs to read the fights moreso than most DPS, and 4) needs to have superb aggro awareness.

Barring that, try a vent server so you can tell the healer that you're dying and it's not your fault. We won't believe you (if the healer dies, it's the tank's fault; if the tank dies, it's the healer's fault; if the DPS dies, it's their own fault), but at least we know it's not Life Tap.

Comment by Axier

So this is why emos cut themselves... To gain more magical energy!

Comment by Nerobyrne

here i was looking for some useful info about lifetap, and all i find is n00by healers whining about warlocks casting this spell .... really ... it is quite useless to those who actually want information.

EDIT: I just noticed .... why does this spell have a 50k range if it casts upon yourself? seriously, i've been beside myself before, but never THIS far!

Comment by Archayan

as a healer I'd like to note

1 how to use it: in regular intervals, preferred while there is a hot on you. A bit more lifetapping is ok when there is relatively little raid damage

2 how not to use it: waiting thill you are at 0 mana and then lifetapping to full and yelling for a heal. Lifetapping while unavoidable aoe number 231 is going on and after a wipe expecting that the healers will drink twice while you dont.

consequent usage of lifetap keeps your healers happy and causes them not to "accidentually" forget to heal you. We are also very happy if you use one of your many liferegeneration abilities

Comment by GabrielRockman

The proper way to life tap during combat is to do it gradually, and not chain lifetap. The proper way to heal a warlock during combat is to put a HoT on him so that he can lifetap when he gets close to full health, and then get healed back up again after life tapping without the healer having to heal him again. This also takes away the risk of a warlock life tapping themself low enough on health that a direct heal is needed. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but a very good rule is that you do not life tap during combat if you are under 80% health.

Outside of combat, its alright for a warlock to lifetap themself down to very low health instead of drinking - it takes 5% of a healers mana (or less) to heal a warlock back up and let them get 75%+ of their mana back from life tap.

Its especially easy for shamans & druids to heal warlocks up - healing stream totem and wild growth allow them to heal the warlock up without devoting any attention at all to the warlock .... assuming the warlock uses life tap intelligently rather than recklessly.

To any healer who refuses to heal a warlock who lifetaps, I hope that you run into dps who are just as selfish as you and don't taunt adds off the healer when the tank loses them. A smart hunter or warlock will have their pet taunt an add off a healer, and a good plate wearing melee dps will throw their taunt at an add to pull it off a healer. Squishier dps will not taunt adds off a healer, but they will CC them, often with a fear or knockback. Unselfish dps take care of their healer, and unselfish healers take care of the dps.

And incase you are wondering, I have a level 41 warlock, but a level 80 druid with resto offspec and a level 80 mainspec resto shaman. My resto shaman likes tanking adds (I have ~20k armor) and often finds dps coming to my "rescue".

Comment by elgitar

First time a friend of me saw this skill he said : Wow, warlocks have to be emo.

Comment by robmoss2k

I can't believe the number of ridiculous comments I've read on here. Warlocks are designed in a certain way:

A warlock's spells cost a massive amount of mana to cast per point of damage, compared to other mana-using DPS classes.
Warlocks have ways to steal health and mana from mobs, but the amount is absolutely trivial compared to a nuke spell.
Warlocks have no FSR mana regeneration at all.
Warlocks can DPS for an infinite amount of time, given sufficient healing.
The amount of healing required to cater for life tapping is roughly equivalent over the course of a 5 minute fight to the amount of damage a main tank will take in two seconds.

Warlocks aren't designed the way they are to make healer's life a misery. They're designed to make you play intelligently. If I'm in a heroic with a healer and he starts going on about how he won't heal a life tapping warlock, I immediately explain why what he just said was wrong, then vote kick him if he continues to moan about wanting to be a lazy, leeching idiot.

Furthermore, yes there are times when a warlock must life tap to full mana during combat. A good example of this is running to and from the transition phases on the Lich King encounter. It's up to your healers to play intelligently enough to give the warlock chance to maximise their DPS as the encounter specifies.

And before you say anything, yes, I have a healer alt, I raid with it, and I heal life-tapping warlocks without moaning about losing 250 mana when they do it.

Comment by ZanathKariashi

Arguably, only a demo lock should have any problems with life tap. Affliction uses Dark Pact mostly, and Destruction almost always has Soul Leech these days, even with Life tap glyph, which almost eliminates needing to use full rank Life taps. With the near constant replenishment in effect in most group/raids these days, combined with other self-regens, you really should only have to tap every few rotations, and in most cases, combined with the healing from Fel armor, any cheap, basic hot is more then sufficient to keep a lock topped off. Each tick is usually about the same as a tap of full rank life tap. Anymore, unless I know ahead of time what kind of healer I'm working with, I'll tap twice and then Death Coil something. It regens about the same health and saves the heals from having to heal me, and it's usually off CD by the time I need to Tap up again. Though if I'm with a druid, priest especially, I just don't worry about it, cause especially in the case of druids, they're gonna have rejuv or WG up on everyone anyway, I've got a druid healer myself and know that they can spam both all day long without dropping below 85% mana.

Yes, I do get annoyed by locks who tap excessively, cause it's lowering their dps, raising my threat, and risking them dying from an unlucky happenstance. There's no reason to top your mana off all in one go. It's usually more efficient to slip a tap in during a DPS cycle or 2, so you stay up on the sustained dps, but ultimately, end up with the same mana regened without giving the healer a heart-attack.

Comment by Phsionix

Whenever I tap mid-combat, I'll always call as I will tap myself back to full (From about 25% below) This is so I don't break the painful "need to keep a constant stream of <these> spells on the target" rotation more times than I have to. Of course, that will only be done on the fights that allow it.

And in regard to tapping between pulls or after wipes, I will generally tap to 50/50, as with Fel Armor active either during the next pull, or to it I will gradually return to full health. After a wipe I do the same, and then eat/drink respectively. The reason for the 50/50 tap is that it takes less time to get 50% hp/mana, than 100% of either, if that makes any sense xD

Comment by Kangi

If you have to constantly life tap in a heroic you either aren't drinking when everyone else is or your gear is terrible

Comment by JaedanS

My thoughts on this as a long-time healer (and with experience as a warlock):

Use Life Tap periodically during fights, especially in cases where you're on the move (and thus can only cast instant spells). This is the perfect time to life tap if you need it.
Use common sense in refilling your mana bar between fights. If the healer's mana is half depleted and a tank is chain pulling, then yes, you're going to worsen the healer's life by life tapping four times. If a healer's mana is doing fine, then he or she shouldn't ever mind helping you. It's a matter of looking out for your teammate, in both directions.
Be careful in situations where the tank is having aggro management problems. Mostly this occurs in PUG's, but in a situation like the Halls of Reflection, your life tap between fights could result in the healer getting aggro and wiped out at the beginning of a new pull (especially if he or she unwisely uses an HoT). So again, it's far better to use Life Tap during fights, particularly when your health is near full.

As with most things, there is not a simple rule that applies to all situations. A little consideration and common sense goes a long way.

Comment by Kangi

note to all warlocks dont life tap the hell out of yourself you WILL die i've seen it happen many times and healers may not rezz you if you die in that manor.

Comment by ZanathKariashi

I have no problems about healing between fights for life tappers. If they heal, awesome, if not, I can bandage and get moving while everyone else is still sipping their drinks. Fel armor gives a decent regen, and between bandages and natural regen, you should be nearly topped off and ready to rock before the next pull anyway. I heal as a druid, and I mostly just keep wild growth/rejuv up at all times on everyone. My regen is so fast it doesn't even dent my mana, the only time I drop below 97% is when I have to spam a few nourishes on tank during enrages and stuff. I've tried using lifebloom, but with my latency, I just can't fit it into a rotation. Any caster with a rejuv, riptide, renew has no excuse NOT to heal a lock. They're ridiculously cheap and as long as you're geared for whatever you're healing it's plenty combined with fel armor and whatever other regens they have.

Except in actual guild runs or 25 mans, a lot of destruction locks DO use soul leech, not for the healing, but because it's required for imp SL and the replenishment effect it gives. For 5/10 mans, especially pugs, you can't always have a guaranteed replenishment, which is a HUGE benefit to reduced downtime, and helps dps over all by limiting how quickly they need to resort to mana gains. My lock rarely has to bother tapping more then once simply cause of Imp SL and the replenishment it gives, and even then, I rarely require heals cause roughly every 2-3 shots I'm gaining 4-5k hp from my incinerates.

For 25's, you're probably gonna have plenty of survival hunters and ret pallies to keep it up, so it's not as big a deal then, and you can skip it for other stuff, though considering how simple a max dps Destruction rotation is, there's really not much need to gum it up with other abilities, and considering what talents are required for max dps, you don't really have a lot of other good options. Mostly just situational stuff like taking Soul link for aoe raid damage fights etc. Though with only 5 points to work with, there's not much else you can add without actually lowering dps, not to mention removing a chunk of your group value. Locks don't get many buffs really, just health, Int/Spr, SP/damage (deep demo), having replenishment is never a bad thing, and even with 2-3 people to use it, you're just guaranteeing a 100% up time.

Comment by Anathelia

Any caster with a rejuv, riptide, renew has no excuse NOT to heal a lock.

It's a double-edged sword. Yes, healers should heal warlocks when they life tap -- however, a healer's mana is NOT On Demand for a warlock. No, healers are NOT mana batteries. And while in WoTLK it may seem like a non-issue, we're promised that mana regen will matter again in Cata.

I'm not above healing an intelligent lock. I am above healing a lock who doesn't understand how irritating life tap as an ability is for a healer. For instance:

After a 20 sec mana break, the lock begins to life tap only during the next pull.
The healer is low or almost out of mana, and the lock starts shouting in chat for a heal for LT.
The lock is standing in a puddle/void zone/fire and life tapping.
A large, predictable and very damaging AOE is about to occur, and the lock starts tapping just before it.
The lock has aggro and is barely being kept up (Along with everyone else), and starts life tapping.
The lock uses large spells on critters and runs themselves out of mana, then LTs and calls for heals.

I could go on. But those are all examples of a lock not understanding that you don't just LT whenever the hell you feel like it, or of a lock assuming that the healer's mana is their own. (The last example especially &*!@es me off. If you want to waste your mana doing nothing, don't expect my mana to restore it).

Comment by KylenPhylar

I personally believe that this spell is quite worthless. Granted, yes, in a raid or dungeon 'locks shouldn't be taking damage, but you know what? This is a world of tanks that suck, and healers that don't heal casters. When I have to use 80 percent of my health to get back JUST OVER 30 percent of my mana, I must deem a spell not fit for my hotbar. Maybe if my current bases were 350 health for like, 180-200 mana, I wouldn't mind much, but I ONLY have about 900 health, and over 2k mana.

So, to be honest, even with the glyph and the talent (especially as a Demonology spec) it's just not worth the talent points.

Comment by Sylvandas

If a healer tells you that you shouldn't be life tapping, tell them that they shouldn't sign up as a healer.

If the group agrees with the healer, leave the group whenever possible, and pray that you get less idiots on the next go.

Comment by Aaro

I side with the healers. That's not saying this isn't a wonderful utility spell or this shouldn't be used -- don't get me wrong, it should and often times it's a necessity. But many locks not only abuse the privilege given to them, but they have no consideration at all for the healer who's letting them do it.

So many times I've healed dungeons, just to witness the Warlock lifetapping when they have plenty of mana. Or, even worse, a Warlock who waits until they're at the lowest mana they can possibly get and spams lifetap during a fight, leading to their death by a 1-hitting mob. You're robbing the healer of their time and mana by being lazy with your own.

While the healer should always cast a quick HoT whenever possible (as a Pally, I SS them and throw out an FoL), they aren't obliged to when you lifetap, and often the Warlocks are very smug when they realize this is the case. There are still healers out there with mana problems, and Warlocks suck down mana very fast. That doesn't mean the healer has to be your babysitter.

If they decide they don't want to heal you during lifetap phases, say whatever, carry on, conserve your mana if you worry about dying. If they tell you you should not be lifetapping, send them a whisper saying that you're doing this so the group has less downtime (it's the Warlock version of Evocate), and you'd appreciate it very much if they could throw you an HoT every once in a while. Chances are, they're not jerks -- they're just misunderstanding how beneficial it is for a healer and Warlock to work together.

Comment by HyperDiper

i'd tap that

Comment by koutsiog

This spell is one of the reasons healers want warlocks in raids:it keeps them from geting bored!

Comment by hilltopperpete

I'm shocked nobody has mentioned that any time you need to life tap out of combat, you can (and should) use . Each tick is worth well over 20k life at lvl 85 and keeps the healer off your case.

Comment by jonjonpizza

Its a no-brainer really, it only takes a few seconds, and you get free soul shards to boot. But you know, everytime I do this I get healed anyway. No matter how quickly I pop Soul Harvest after tapping, the healer tops me off anyway. I only hope that they at least realize that I'm making an effort ;)

Comment by murdershot21

Currently both Destruction and Demonology are nigh-independant or life tap.

They both have the Mana Feed talent and Destruction has Soul Leech, contributing a very large amount of mana

Demonology may life tap 2-3 times a fight however.

Comment by TehOracle

#showtooltip
/punch
/cast Life Tap
If nothing else it lets yours healer know.

Comment by germanhalo

For my warlock, depending on how I know the raid or dungeon, I tell the healers that they don't NEED to heal me if I use life tap, because I will always have Haunt and Drain Life available, but if they want it's perfectly fine. Most of them say it's ok, they're bored and will heal me anyways.

Comment by Maelchav

Is Life Tap excluded if you spec Destruction? I don't see it noted anywhere, but my warlock has access to it in Affliction, but not in Destruction. Not sure about Demonology, never tried it.

I've seen a few things like this that I don't see documented anywhere (like Shadow Bolt - it's not in my spellbook in Affliction or Destruction, and if I /cast Shadow Bolt in Affliction it casts Malefic Grasp).

Thanks.

Comment by sylancer

since Glyph of Life Tap is a class glyph (on the tooltip), how Glyph of Life Tap work for Destruction? as their Life Tap have been replaced by Chaotic Energy?

Comment by sylancer

Life Tap actually is only available for Affliction, Demonology Warlock,

for Destruction Warlock, Chaotic Energy replaces Life Tap.

Hearthstone: Life Tap

Comment by Bogdanov89

It is actually possible to "implant" the Glyph of Life Tap as a Destruction warlock - but it will not benefit you in any way, since Destruction does not have the Life Tap spell.

Comment by orcdrahr

Why doesn't this spell change in Demon form to return Demonic Fury instead of Mana?

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