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Comment by 8888_

The spell Drain Life increases the efficiency of warlock soloing. A warlock can DoT up his opponent, and then Drain Life the guy down, which keeps him/her at full health, and then Life Tap back up for mana. This spell was given an increase in spell damage coefficients in patch 2.0.

Comment by 47710

With a lot of + damge which by the way alll locks should focus on at 36 or higher lvls, this becomes awsome to quickly get to full health, so far at my lvl with 88 + shadow damage at 42 it heals insane amounts at 65ish per tick and is especially useful for affliction locks who are drain tanking. Also the damage it dishes out is great to, VERY useful when u get that rogue ambush u can deathcoil fear dot then u can drain the life to get some pretty decent hp and get the nightfall procs to boot. Though this move is pretty crapy at lower lvls do NOT underestimate this.

Comment by daurenr

Each tick of drain life have 4% chance of Nightfall
In addition Corruption gives 4% each tick

4*5=20% From drain life
4*6= 24% From corruption

Comment by 10965

as it was said, drain life makes some nice damage and heals you effectively, especially after a lifetap.

If you have nightfall (affliction three), you will also have over 20% (4% x 5s, not counting your running corruption dot) to see it proc during your drain life, and then get an instant SB. Which makes drain life+nightfall one of the most effective dps sequence of an affliction warlock. And Soul Siphon isnt an option imho :)

Comment by 65826

The "Alchemist stone" improves drain life by 40%?

Comment by 34204

I would assume that the Alchemist's Stone would not affect this spell as it is triggered by potions and potion-like consumables -- drain life is a skill, as opposed to an actual consumable item.

Comment by 87606

This spell and Life Tap are a good combination to keep going and going and going without returning to town to get drinks/food did this on my 42 warlock just to try it (Destro Spec dont think it helped at all but correct me if im wrong) killed things at an alarming rate

Comment by 99562

for you pallies trying to kill locks, you can dispell this from you =)

Comment by 152119

usefull macro
/cast drain life

Comment by Johnsom

This spell will not be of much use until you are 15 points into the affliction tree till then stock up on water.

Comment by Johnsom

This spell will not be of much use until you are 15 points into the affliction tree till then stock up on water.

Comment by Johnsom

This spell will not be of much use until you are 15 points into the affliction tree till then stock up on water.

Comment by Tourlip

Looks like the animation has been changed: http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2008/september/newbeams.jpg

Comment by 74802

There's nothing a little draining can't fix!

Comment by 238760

mind flay crits now. does this?

Comment by 114960

Does not work on Mechanicals.

Comment by 340836

I am highly against enchanting your weapon with Lifestealing. As a caster, when are you ever going to be using melee? If you want to be an über self healer, just roll a Paladin and get the Crusader enchant. You'll soon learn that you should always have a judgement up on your current target. And the obvious complimentary judgement for Crusader would be... of light.

The reason I felt compelled to write this comment was because I was looking for a way to fight without ever having to heal or bail.

Comment by 325352

Amount of life drained is getting from .. ? Spell Power ?

Comment by 15507

needs a cooldown, oh so badly

Comment by 325352

Fast with bonus Haste equipment :P

Comment by Squirrely

Does haste rating affect this spell at all?

I assume it reduces global cooldown but I'm wondering if the channeling length will be shortened.

Comment by 420796

Is the amount of health gained by this lower on undead? because I've just been fighting the highborne in darkshore and only been getting 5-7 health per sec even with Demon Skin

Comment by shika

Good spell to use to waste a warrior's Spell Reflection

Comment by 285665

How ironic, you can kill the undead, using drain life....

Comment by 230590

actually what Bladebee64 means is "undead = no life to drain" so technically drain life and similar effects shouldn't work on undead (or other things like golems)

however, if this is like the majority of other games (anything based off DnD, final fantasy, etc), things are reversed with undead, negative energy or shadow damage heals instead of harming undead, so drain life would harm you to heal the undead... though funny they have a double standard too, a death knight's deathcoil can heal their minion but harm other undead lol

Comment by crovaxs

does drains life damage count as periodic damage?

Comment by 909998

I just discovered that a Rat or other critter that only has 8HP gives me +3074 HP with Drain Life (No Soulburn)

Comment by Adephon

A cool little bug: if used right before the target dies, it will be green even after death.

Comment by Thottbot

Perhaps at higher levels this is a little more effective, but this really isn't a warlock "heal" spell, per se, because when you need it most, chances are you're getting attacked which severely severely cuts the channeled duration.

Comment by Thottbot

I have seen some Affliction builds... and I have to agree with you. I think this will get handy when you get lvl 24 and the Fel Concentration is 5/5. You can get much better dmg spells then this when you aren't getting attacked, and when you are getting attacked the dmg your getting will drasticly lower the channeling time this spell will do.

So first get Fel Concentration ^_^

Comment by Thottbot

The channel cutting simply increase the mana cost of drain life, otherwise doesnt lessens effectiveness.

Obs: if not having certain talents or anything special from equipment the mana cost would be the same as the health gain if not disconsentrated from attacks.

Comment by Thottbot

If your Voidwalker is tanking and you have health depleted from Life Tapping or damage over time, this can be useful for getting some of your life back. Remember that Drain Life also has a decent DPS (no where near Shadow Bolt or Searing Pain but still not too shabby).

Comment by Thottbot

I don't like the new drain life talent, You gotta pop on more DoT's to get the same effect. Sure, in a raid it's better, but you won't be draining in a raid too often. It sucks cus my lock is drain-tank specced for PvP. put corruption on everything, siphon life, then drain life, and cast the insta-shadow bolts that proc.

Comment by Thottbot

In regards to the above statement this spell is amazing in raids. this combined with lifetap makes locks have unending dps. infact the only reason to have a lock in a raid is that after the mages and hunters run out of mana. they are able to maintian a constant amount of dps.

Comment by Thottbot

You make up the remaining 5 mana/health through Demon Skin.

Comment by Thottbot

At high level (70) with +dmg and +healing gear, each tick is 380 for me. I am demo spec'd but I have improved lifetap and soul siphon.

That's 1900+ total damage in 5 seconds, all of which is non-crit -- it's that much every single time I channel this. And it heals me for the same amount, in the same amount of time!

For lvl 70 5-mans, this rocks!

Comment by Thottbot

Hi i was just wondering what kind of damage spell is this? shadow or just magical damage?

Comment by Thottbot

this is basically THE spell for "drain tanks" Just to let you know, a drain tank is a person who takes out a high dps pet (succy felhunter) or an imp for stamina... and then he dots up all the mobs and drain lifes the last one. These builds have 5/5 fel concentration and imp drain life

Comment by Thottbot

In raids this is a useful spell cause u will always have dps going :) all i do is dot and drain and if u have 2 locks this counts as a affliction debuff so yeah very useful

Comment by Thottbot

This steals almost 400 health per tick and returns it to me at level 70, i drop all my dots, lifetap so my mana is full again then chuck this at the mob until he is dead. good way to keep your health and mana up while fighting.

Comment by Thottbot

these is the best spell for aff locks just dot then life drain to death...geting low on mana lafe tap till u almost dead then go life drain some more :D

Comment by Thottbot

anyone know the formula for this particular rank? ive been getting 21 per tick, id also like to know what the rate for this is too

Comment by Thottbot

At level 40 or so, once you start to get decent spell damage, this spell tends to tick for more damage than the mobs deal (for an affliction build, obviously). Great for grinding--it allows you to "drain tank"

Comment by Thottbot

+ Healing does NOT affect this spell, but spell dmg does (because it increases the damage, and you gain health equivalent to the damage)

Comment by Thottbot

What I would like to know is if a mage casts amplify magic on a lock, would he gain more health from drain life? At the same time, would dampen magic reduce the healing from this spell?

Comment by Thottbot

Mortal strike is now effecting this spell, so does aimed shot and wound posion.

Comment by Thottbot

this is part of the warlock mana health circle

this means
drain life= mana-health
life tap = health-mana
drain mana= mana-more mana
use this when doing quests under water because you cant use food

Comment by Allakhazam

One of the great things about a skilled warlock is the ability to keep your health and mana up at all times. Even at lvl 14 drain life along with life tap means that you should always have a good amount of mana ready at your disposal.

Edited, Mar 8th 2007 8:39am by Velenas

Comment by Kanariya

Spellpower co-efficient is 50% (10% per tick).

Comment by Gendien

Does this scale with shadow spellpower? I've never been real clear on that.

Comment by ThatOneSPriest

Questing with a warlock is kinda mundane... until you get this

Comment by smsep

Here is all the information I know:

Drain Life is a Shadow spell, meaning both Spell Power (increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects) and Shadow spell Damage (increases damage done by Shadow spells and effects) will increase both the damage and the healing of Drain Life.

Since it deals Shadow damage, will also increase both the damage and the healing of Drain Life.

The spell coefficient is 0.5 (50%), meaning half of your total Spell Power and Shadow Spell Power contributes to the spell over its entire duration, not per tick.
Each tick therefore receives 0.5 / 5 = 0.1 (10%) of your Spell Power.

Example:

Wearing Dreamweave Circlet grants 21 Spell Power.

Total damage increase:
21 × 0.5 = 10.5

Damage increase per tick:
10.5 / 5 = 2.1

So, 21 Spell Power increases the total damage and healing of Drain Life by 10.5, or 2.1 per second while channeling.

It appears that and increase only the base rank value of the spell, not the amount contributed by Spell Power or Shadow Spell Damage.

Personally, I love this spell. When combined with Life Tap, it makes you extremely self-sustainable, allowing the Warlock to last much longer in fights than other mana-dependent casters like mages, druids, or priests, who often need to drink after every mob or small pull.

However, it is still a situational spell. Without the talent, it is guaranteed mana loss while being hit.

If you manage to channel the full duration of Drain Life (Rank 3), you end up with more health than the mana spent, further increased by , , and both Spell Power and Shadow Spell Power.

Links

Drain Life

Drain Life	Level 90

1% of base mana, plus 1% per second	40 yd range

Channeled (6 sec cast)

Drains the life from the target, causing (357 + 0.334 * Spell Power) Shadow damage and restoring 2% of the caster's total health every 1 sec. Lasts 6 sec. [Soulburn: Soulburn:
Healing increased by 50%.]

Buff

Drain Life

Suffering 357 Shadow damage every 1 seconds.

Restoring 2% of maximum health to the caster when Drain Life deals damage.
6 seconds remaining

Spell Details

Duration

6 seconds

School

Shadow

Mechanic

n/a

Dispel type

n/a

GCD category

Normal

Cost

1% of base mana, plus 1% per second

Range

40 yards (Long)

Cast time

Channeled

Cooldown

n/a

GCD

1.5 seconds

Effect #1

Apply Aura: Periodic Damage
Value: 1 every 1 second
PVP Multiplier: 1

Effect #2

Apply Aura: Dummy (10)
Value: 2
PVP Multiplier: 1
Server-side script

Effect #3

Apply Aura: Dummy (10)
Value: 10
PVP Multiplier: 1
Server-side script

Flags

Cannot be used while shapeshifted
Channeled
Track Target in Channel
Require All Targets
No Target Per-Second Costs
Spell Haste Affects Periodic
No Caster Aura Icon
Taps immediately
Reflection Only Defends
Aura Points On Client
Haste Affects Duration

Drain Life

Buff

Spell Details

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