The Warlock’s Guide to Life Tap

For most warlock players, the first reaction to Life Tap goes something like, “Burn health for mana? What are you, nuts?! Why would I ever want to do that?” I’ll admit it can be a bit off-putting at first; after all, voluntarily losing health is a dangerous prospect for any character. However, appreciating the power and utility of Life Tap is what distinguishes and empowers the most experienced ‘locks.

Why Use Life Tap

Life Tap carries two primary benefits. First and foremost, it allows you to extend your mana pool in a pinch. In fact, because of Life Tap, warlocks have deeper mana reserves than any other class in the game. At level 70, my warlock has about 7,400 health and about 7,000 mana. If I really need the mana, though, I can have 1 health and almost 16,000 mana (accounting for the 20% increase from Improved Life tap). Dangerous, certainly, but very handy.

The second benefit of Life tap is that everything used to replenish health can be used to replenish mana instead. Food, bandages, healing potions, healing spells, and even ordinary health regeneration can all be used to vicariously replenish your mana. Just Life Tap your mana back to full and follow up with the health replenishment medium of your choice. As long as you’re in a relatively safe location and aren’t taking any sort of continuous damage, there’s no danger in doing this, since trying to Life Tap past your health limit will simply cause the spell to fail.

If you’re a demonology ‘lock with the Mana Feed talent, Life Tap has the added benefit of replenishing your pet’s mana in addition to your own. With regular use, your demons will rarely if ever run out of mana, allowing them to do what they do best without ever having to rest.

When to Use Life Tap

Using Life Tap effectively in combat can be tricky. After all, nobody wants to throw away health that might keep them alive at the end of the fight. If you’re careful about it, though, you’ll find yourself using Life Tap almost every fight with confidence. Here are a few situations in which it’s safe to use Life Tap.

• Any time you’re at full health and not full mana
• Right before you use Drain Life or Death Coil if you’re already close to full health
• If you have Mana Feed, whenever your voidwalker or felguard are tanking and out of mana
• Whenever you need more mana to win a fight

The first three are obvious ways to maximize efficiency and survivability, but the fourth may sound counterintuitive. It’s a difficult judgment to make, especially on the fly. If you’ve got no mana, though, and need more DPS to conclude a fight, all the health in the world won’t keep you from dying. Life Tapping to get what you need, throwing up DOTs, and trying to outlast your opponent are your only path to victory in this scenario, because you can’t kill a mob without damage, and you can’t deal damage without mana.

Mind you, Life Tap can be necessary to win a fight. If you’re forced to flee, however, don’t use it; you’ll need as much health as possible to survive.

How Much to Life Tap

At higher levels, you have the option of using a lower-level Life Tap to convert less health into mana. Some recommend using a scaled Life Tap macro to dynamically choose which level on the fly and thereby maximize efficiency. Almost without fail, however, I find that your highest-level Life Tap is always preferable to a lower-level version because of the casting delay.

You see, Life Tap has an instant casting time, but it causes a one-second delay before you can cast anything else. Casting several small Life Taps throughout a battle causes these delays to add up to a significant amount of time. If you only Life Tap when the highest conversion is warranted, though, you maximize the time you spend doing other things, like fighting your opponents. Thus, always use your highest-level Life Tap, but only use it when you can get as much as possible out of it.

Summary

Experienced ‘locks use Life Tap all the time, including during and between fights. They do so because they recognize it’s value. If you’re playing a warlock, embrace it as one of the class’ most distinct and potent abilities. Don’t shy away from it just because it’s dangerous. You’ll never achieve your character’s true potential that way. And besides, if you wanted to play it safe, you shouldn’t be running a warlock anyway.