How do you counter affliction locks?

[Kreeshak]

We are having serious problems with affliction locks, especially on blade edge arena. Last night we faced 7 warlock teams in the row and dropped from 1900 mmr to 1800mmr. At some point I wasn't even trying.

10 seconds into the fight and we are all three 50-60% from the dots ticking.
The lock is tanking us without trouble.
If something shit happens he will portal or gate and live.
If we switch to his resto druid, because that's the only healer that queues he will always live with using gate, after i grip displacer beast.
Apart from that if we switch to his resto druid, massive amount of fears inc.

Unless I am doing something wrong, I find it impossible to consistently win warlock teams, if they don't seriously mess up.

Are locks a counter to melee cleaves? or is there something I am missing?

[Rucati]

In General Priest is good vs. Locks with Fear Ward. I can also imagine 6.1 Warriors buffed second Wind shining.

Both of these are wrong lol. Priests are trash, and Fear Ward is useless. It doesn't put Fear on DR, it just forces the Lock to cast another 1.3 second Fear. Priests can't heal for nearly enough to keep up with Lock spread pressure at high ratings. And Second Wind will still be completely useless and literally never picked up, there is 0 reason to ever use that trash talent over Enraged Regen. They could literally buff it to 80% life leech and it still wouldn't be used.

As for suggestions, hard to say without knowing your exact comp. Assuming it's something like DK/War/Paladin, your best bet is to kill Lock pet and Warlock.

Once the pet dies the Lock takes 20% more damage, and his instant summon is on a 1min CD, so if you can kill it fast enough you'll have plenty of time to do a lot of damage to the Lock. Plus without the pet your healer can free cast without fear of getting locked (by the pet, of course). The Druid is going to be a hard target to kill, you'll basically need to wait until he Displaces or Gates for some other reason and then swap to him and Death Grip him when he gets away. If he has both Gate and Displace available, I suggest running at him after gate and saving Grip for Displacer because he gains Sprint when he displaces.

Another possible thing you could try would be splitting damage, put your Warrior on the Druid and your DK on the Warlock. Druids aren't particularly good at healing two targets that are taking heavy damage, especially if he's getting stunned/silenced every 30 seconds. But I'd probably just ride the Warlock all game, and make sure to kill the pet when you can. Maybe not focus it down, just wait until it gets to like 50-60% from the cleave and then switch and kill it real fast before it gets healed up.

[Deleted]

Locks are great vs melee cleaves just because they can survive them well if played right, not to mention the pressure they can build.. tunneling on pet isnt a good idea you will just let the lock spam aids and by the time his pet is dead will be way behind on pressure but like rucati said, kill it when the pet is sitting at 50-60% or less, melee cleaves usually lack CC but your best chance is to use whatever you got perfect, try playing with strangulate if for example your team has 2 stuns alrdy, a fast switch on the druid wont harm you either especially if he has no hots and a bad possition.

[Kagthul]

10 seconds into the fight and we are all three 50-60% from the dots ticking.

Please dont with the hyperbole.

10 seconds into the fight he hasn't even gotten all his DoTs on three targets. On TWO targets, he's just finished getting all three DoTs up (and didn't get locked out of Shadow once already... why?.. nevermind) and still doesn't have SB: Haunt (Haunting Spirits) up or Haunt on any target... so his DoTs are NOT doing that much damage. even in full 690 PvP gear, without SB: Haunt up and Haunt on a kill target, his DoT's aren't hitting for more than ~3500 per tick. If your healer cant keep up with that, find a new healer.

He only gets dangerous when he's managed to get all three targets Dotted, AND has Haunting Spirits, AND has Haunt on a kill target AND pops Dark Intent.

Park on him with mongo melee. Hell do nothing, and get no casts off. Interrupt anything with a cast time... because he only has Shadow. He's got no other spells to cast.

Murder his pet. Warlock pets are tissue paper. A warrior can three shot most of them.

[Kreeshak]

Please dont with the hyperbole.

It sure felt like 10 seconds. If it isn't 10 seconds, within 30 seconds it feels like game over already. Or in chess terms, before the game even starts it feels like a check-mate.

[Deleted]

Poor TSGs hitting an obstacle after facerolling to 1900 rating. Its now time to try and learn the game.

[Kagthul]

Youre still extremely light on details. Is this 2s, or 3s? What is your healer, or you complaining about queueing into twos as double dps and getting pasted by dps/healer?

What is your class, and your partner(s)?

I play bith an Afflock and an rDruid. Healing against aff - especially if this is 2s and hes the only dps - is braindead easy. He will NEVER do enough damage to outheal a healer with a pulse. In 3s, with the Aff putting out slow pressure, and a heavy hitter to keep the heat on, its a different story, but Aff as solo DPS in 2s...? One HoT will keep pace with the DoTs on the off-target, and even on the kill target, theres no heavy burst; a fee quick heals will keep up easily. As my resto... Id just double Rejuv and throw a WG and laugh as i outhealed his DoTs entirely.

[RH92]

I would say interrupting Haunt is the key, Affliction is about setting up the damage. Because that's how the damage works from Affliction Warlocks.

All the three DoTs deal little amount of damage on their own. Haunt increases DoT damage and you have talent which can make all your DoTs to deal more damage, basically a AoE buff to DoTs. Combined with Dark Soul, which increases Haste, it does a lot of damage.

Interrupting any of his casts is basically interrupting Fear, all their spells are shadow.

[Deleted]

Youre still extremely light on details. Is this 2s, or 3s? What is your healer, or you complaining about queueing into twos as double dps and getting pasted by dps/healer?

What is your class, and your partner(s)?

They are playing 3s and his class is a DK. I made these conclusions based on him saying that the three of them were at 50% hp and he gripped the displacer beast.

Apart from that.. yeah, it could use some more information to help find out what they are doing wrong.

[Gumboy]

Poor TSGs hitting an obstacle after facerolling to 1900 rating. Its now time to try and learn the game.

Are you saying that TSG is the only thing locks are agood against? Warlocks are the best dps in the game right now, by far in 3v3.

[Kreeshak]

Poor TSGs hitting an obstacle after facerolling to 1900 rating. Its now time to try and learn the game.

You mean learn to chain deep freeze in to poly, in to cyclone, in to fear, in to silence, in to poly again?
Or you mean to play stalemates where if they manage to fuck up the 1 minute chain cc, hide into a pillar until DR is gone and cooldowns reset?

Give me a break

- - - Updated - - -

Youre still extremely light on details. Is this 2s, or 3s? What is your healer, or you complaining about queueing into twos as double dps and getting pasted by dps/healer?

What is your class, and your partner(s)?

I play bith an Afflock and an rDruid. Healing against aff - especially if this is 2s and hes the only dps - is braindead easy. He will NEVER do enough damage to outheal a healer with a pulse. In 3s, with the Aff putting out slow pressure, and a heavy hitter to keep the heat on, its a different story, but Aff as solo DPS in 2s...? One HoT will keep pace with the DoTs on the off-target, and even on the kill target, theres no heavy burst; a fee quick heals will keep up easily. As my resto... Id just double Rejuv and throw a WG and laugh as i outhealed his DoTs entirely.

It's melee cleaves. We rotate healers and dps from (holy pally, retri, dk, warrior, resto druid)

[Deleted]

Are you saying that TSG is the only thing locks are agood against? Warlocks are the best dps in the game right now, by far in 3v3.

If thats what you want me to mean then I guess it is

[Kreeshak]

I would say interrupting Haunt is the key, Affliction is about setting up the damage. Because that's how the damage works from Affliction Warlocks.

All the three DoTs deal little amount of damage on their own. Haunt increases DoT damage and you have talent which can make all your DoTs to deal more damage, basically a AoE buff to DoTs. Combined with Dark Soul, which increases Haste, it does a lot of damage.

Interrupting any of his casts is basically interrupting Fear, all their spells are shadow.

What is more important? haunt or ua?

[Bluesftw]

you target the warlock and never switch, easy wins

[Gumboy]

If thats what you want me to mean then I guess it is

You didn't say anything about how to counter locks, you just chose to insult him for playing a comp. TSG is a lot shittier then pretty much any warlock comp right now, isn't it?

[Deleted]

You didn't say anything about how to counter locks, you just chose to insult him for playing a comp. TSG is a lot shittier then pretty much any warlock comp right now, isn't it?

I pressed post before my OT-part so that sucks. Anyways... by now the thread has gotten enough responses for him to read so I dont have to.

[RH92]

What is more important? haunt or ua?

I would go for Haunt, you can apply UA instantly by using Soulburn on Soul Swap considering you have a free Soul Shard. Beside that it really does small amount of damage without Haunt.

[Kreeshak]

I would go for Haunt, you can apply UA instantly by using Soulburn on Soul Swap considering you have a free Soul Shard. Beside that it really does small amount of damage without Haunt.

cheers! you the best!

[Deleted]

We are having serious problems with affliction locks, especially on blade edge arena. Last night we faced 7 warlock teams in the row and dropped from 1900 mmr to 1800mmr. At some point I wasn't even trying.

10 seconds into the fight and we are all three 50-60% from the dots ticking.
The lock is tanking us without trouble.
If something shit happens he will portal or gate and live.
If we switch to his resto druid, because that's the only healer that queues he will always live with using gate, after i grip displacer beast.
Apart from that if we switch to his resto druid, massive amount of fears inc.

Unless I am doing something wrong, I find it impossible to consistently win warlock teams, if they don't seriously mess up.

Are locks a counter to melee cleaves? or is there something I am missing?

Since we are talking about 1.8mmr here, you should have no problem what so ever when playing a cleave.
If you are honestly all on 50-60% hp after 10 seconds then you might wanna start by replacing your healer,
because the only scenario i see this possible is when all of these are combined:
-your 2 melee dps doesnt kick a single cast and lock is getting dots on everyone + haunts out
-your healer is not healing
-your healer is not dispelling

Training a lock with melees should significantly reduce his dmg, especially on low mmr.
Facing a warlock on blades edge is a small extra pain in the ***, but nothing that cant be handled.

- - - Updated - - -

I dont wanna get into the whole blaming or L2P game here, just want to mention a few tips

You mean learn to chain deep freeze in to poly, in to cyclone, in to fear, in to silence, in to poly again?
Or you mean to play stalemates where if they manage to fuck up the 1 minute chain cc, hide into a pillar until DR is gone and cooldowns reset?

Give me a break

It's melee cleaves. We rotate healers and dps from (holy pally, retri, dk, warrior, resto druid)

So it seems we are talking about facing lock-mage-druid (MLD),
their cc arsenal is indeed quite big, but as a melee cleave you guys should easily get alot of pressure.
No need to talk about what others have that you dont, you just need to stop their strengths (cc chain)
and abuse their weakness (clothieeeeeesss!).

Poly for instance:
From the healers perspective he should only be able to get polied when its out of a deep,
ok not always, but most of them. What he can do about that is call it out when mage is comming in for the deep,
and then you guys should stop the poly with a kick-grip-stun-strang-whatever or the healer should presac it as hpal
or preshift it as druid (and then you have to stop ring ofc).

If a poly does land on your healer then its the dps their job to stop incomming chain,
by now you should have alot of pressure on the lock so both he and the druid should be playing defensive and not
just stand afk next to your healer to follow up the poly, so basically only worry about the repoly.

If the druid uses a few cds (ironbark vigil ) to lower the pressure of your team and keep his lock safe
to go for clones anyway then just swap him for a sec to try to stop those aswell, he has bark up on lock anyway.

Im actually gonna stop here because I could describe a 100 situations, the basic idea is the same every time
-prevent cc from being landed
-if it does land stop the chains at all costs
-you should have enough pressure so they are not just all 3 spamming cc

The last part is important, beware of the viscious cycle when you have no pressure.
No danger for them -> all 3 will max their cc potential and you obviously cant stop everything then,
then you play even more defensive because healer gets spam ccd and they keep rolling the cc out all the time
and basically you are just waiting for death.

ADVANCED cleave tactics (for lets say your dk ret rdrui comp): run in hoj their rdrui, pop everything on lock, strang rdrui out of hoj
(at this point he should alrdy be forced to trinket that), clone him after, lock is dead. GG WP cleave skielz
Not trolling but thats just how you play it.

[Hand Banana]

First thing to know about locks, the first 40 seconds after engaging is when they do the most pressure. Most locks use back to back dark souls or at the very least one for the first 20 seconds. Locks have to hardcast UA and haunt now since swapping dots wastes shards like a mother. Someone mentioned soulburn soul-swapping but that wastes 2 shards which with RNG gods you might not get back for 30 or more seconds. So, when you see dark soul popped early, train the lock and interrupt haunts/UA or just LoS him and let it run most of its duration out.

Focusing the lock whilst cleaving the pet is your best option IMO. You are running some form of warrior/dk or dk/ret or whatever which has a BUNCH of passive melee cleaving onto the pet as well as high damage on the lock which will kill his pet in no time flat. Any of those 3 melee have strong executes to easily finish off pets that their healer lets get low. Be aware of dark soul and when he is going to do crazy dot damage. This is assuming hes running war/lock/rdruid or some form of melee/lock/healer. If its something like MLD/S or shadowplay then the other caster could be a better option depending.