Noob

[bobloblaw]

Hey there - I am new to the forum but I've been playing the game for a few weeks.

Right now, I am a lvl 24 Gnome Warlock but I consider myself a newbie because I just don't 'get' certain aspects of the game.

Anyway,I have what I am certain to be the stupidest question ever:

How do I use my staff (Long Staff) for combat? I had an Arcane (?) wand but it stopped working. I have no clue how or what but now I have this staff in my action bar but when I hit the key - it does nothing. I'm pretty sure that I've screwed something up. Help!

For the record, my husband likes to fiddle around with my character from time to time and acquires new weapons/spells for me to play with but he isn't available for me to ask this question of - thanks!

[Tanitha]

The first thing to check would be that you have the items equipped. So open your character view (I think it's C) and check that the wand and the staff are in the right places.

Then, people commonly put their "shoot" skill on the action bar. Make sure that you are not inadvertently clicking the shoot skill while having no wand equipped. If you switch to your skills book (I always think it's B, but not sure) you will find both "Attack" and "Shoot"

Attack needs to be on there for a staff to attack with. Shoot needs to be there for a Wand attack.

And sometimes people will drag the actual wand to the action bar which only results in them equipping it, rather than shooting :grin:

As a Warlock though - you should be considering spells as your number 1 weapon rather than a staff. You'll do fairly minor damage using it compared to what you can do with your spells. If you're finding yourself going out of mana very quickly, remember life-tap + drain life = no more oom.

[Karkas]

Not to "shoot" you down Tanitha (huh-huh, lookt at my work joke :grin: ) but just to clarify even more:

For attacking with an item you have to have the attack skill (be it: "shoot", "autoshot"(for hunters) or "attack" in one of your quickslots.

This can be done by opening your spellbook (normally "P"), go to tab "general" and drag the "shoot"(normally with a picture of a wand) icon to your action bar. Now if you have a wand equipped (this can be done by dragging a wand to the wand slot in your character screen) you can click the "shoot" icon and you will keep shooting the target till he is a glistering corpse.

Although spells should be your primary source of damage as Tanitha says, for my warlock and priest it proved to be quite efficient in terms of mana saving to start wanding when a monster is at about 30-50% health (find what suits your best). This was your character will already start regenerating mana during combat and you can go to the next monster with a more full mana bar.

As you may have noticed your mana does not regenerate when casting spells. There is something called the "5 second rule" which basicly means that you will not regenerate mana within the 5 seconds after casting a spell. So it pays off to cast your spells in a bunch at the beginning of combat so you can regenerate mana while attacking with your wand during the rest of the battle.

Although for a Warlock it might be better to spread your spells a bit so your voidwalker can keep the monsters attention (keep "aggro"). Confusing? No problem we are there for you!

Remember: there are no stupid questions! (only stupid people :grin: )

[bobloblaw]

Thank you both for your replies! I didn't have the attack skill on my action bar.

Tanitha - your suggestion of Life Tap, Drain Life has drastically improved my characters quality of life! She doesn't spend nearly as much time running from grave to corpse.

Thanks again!