Warlock VS Spriest

[Dartungar]

PvPed as SP in Cata. Not high rating or anything, but...
SP may bore you to death. Seriously. It's not 'omg so few buttons', but the whole spec feels - yes, solid and very strong, but just so plain comparing to lock. Also, I do not like idea of bursts of light and renews and shiels in 'Shadow' spec.

If you are looking for DPS caster, warlock has 3 totally different specs. I am having just so much time leveling my lock at BGs (facerolling as destro being not the funniest thing, tbh). Tried to play few BGs as my lvl85 SPriest, yes very strong, tons of utility. But lock just feels better. Maybe I'm just a warlock person.

(remembers that this is my 7th warlock over 6years) yes, totally may be...

[Yvaelle]

The 1.9% of players above 2200 in the world that plays affliction might not agree to being _fantastic_.
But im not disagreeing that you believe they are fantastic because you actually seem to think that they are.
Its sad because come 5.2 they will be put in an even worse state then now.

Affliction is the least popular spec amongst warlock players right now, popular and good are often very different things. For example, There is probably like 4% of 2200+ that are destruction, another 4% that are demonology, and 2% that are affliction. Compared to like 5% that are shadow, 1% that are disc, and 0% that are holy. If you add up 'Warlock' representation compared to 'Priest' representation, warlocks are better represented. Affliction is a great Support spec, its a fantastic one really - Demonology and Destruction are (to use a LoL/DotA term) Carry's - they score the kills - and people always love playing the Carrys: but that doesn't mean Soraka or Lulu blow just because they dont top the killing blow charts.

When Demonology and Destruction can no longer two-shot people (and everyone knew this was nonsense and was going to get nerfed hard), all Warlocks will end up going Affliction - and the 4% Destro and the 4% Demo will add 8% to Affliction, and suddenly you have 10% Warlock representation: of which 8% will be Affliction and like 1% will be people clinging to Destro and Demo (each).

[Gangresnake]

Spriest are already way above in 5.1 because of their utility, tanking and burst damage
Warlock is a garbage class artificially kept alive by blood fear, this end in 5.2

This may be a no-brainer right now, but they'll surely buff lock in 5.2

[saltyharbls]

Affliction is the least popular spec amongst warlock players right now, popular and good are often very different things. For example, There is probably like 4% of 2200+ that are destruction, another 4% that are demonology, and 2% that are affliction. Compared to like 5% that are shadow, 1% that are disc, and 0% that are holy. If you add up 'Warlock' representation compared to 'Priest' representation, warlocks are better represented. Affliction is a great Support spec, its a fantastic one really - Demonology and Destruction are (to use a LoL/DotA term) Carry's - they score the kills - and people always love playing the Carrys: but that doesn't mean Soraka or Lulu blow just because they dont top the killing blow charts.

When Demonology and Destruction can no longer two-shot people (and everyone knew this was nonsense and was going to get nerfed hard), all Warlocks will end up going Affliction - and the 4% Destro and the 4% Demo will add 8% to Affliction, and suddenly you have 10% Warlock representation: of which 8% will be Affliction and like 1% will be people clinging to Destro and Demo (each).

This prophecy hasnt come true yet even tho they have nerfed both demo and destructions ability to "oneshot" a long time ago.
Where are all these affliction locks you are talking about?

[Yvaelle]

This prophecy hasnt come true yet even tho they have nerfed both demo and destructions ability to "oneshot" a long time ago.
Where are all these affliction locks you are talking about?

When Blood Fear is gone and warlocks have to rethink how to succeed in arenas, warlocks who chain cast fear will return, until then everyone will cling to the idea that they are frost mages. Destruction and Demonology still work right now, so people are still playing them, when they stop working - and affliction continues to work - albeit it isn't nearly as fun - warlocks will play affliction again: that's my prediction.

[Gangresnake]

Affliction is the least popular spec amongst warlock players right now, popular and good are often very different things. For example, There is probably like 4% of 2200+ that are destruction, another 4% that are demonology, and 2% that are affliction. Compared to like 5% that are shadow, 1% that are disc, and 0% that are holy. If you add up 'Warlock' representation compared to 'Priest' representation, warlocks are better represented. Affliction is a great Support spec, its a fantastic one really - Demonology and Destruction are (to use a LoL/DotA term) Carry's - they score the kills - and people always love playing the Carrys: but that doesn't mean Soraka or Lulu blow just because they dont top the killing blow charts.

When Demonology and Destruction can no longer two-shot people (and everyone knew this was nonsense and was going to get nerfed hard), all Warlocks will end up going Affliction - and the 4% Destro and the 4% Demo will add 8% to Affliction, and suddenly you have 10% Warlock representation: of which 8% will be Affliction and like 1% will be people clinging to Destro and Demo (each).

http://www.worldofwargraphs.com/stat...0---0-0-1.html
If you want the class chart above 2k2 Priest have 9% representation while warlock have 7%, and that's pretty much Shadow priest Vs Warlocks right now

The Demono/Destro two shot era is over and affliction is still not much played. It's been tried, but it's not popular, why ? Because it's bad. Most melees can do a better job at "pressuring" than afflocks and the metagame doesnt fit Caster Cleave comp anymore.

When Blood Fear is gone and warlocks have to rethink how to succeed in arenas, warlocks who chain cast fear will return, until then everyone will cling to the idea that they are frost mages. Destruction and Demonology still work right now, so people are still playing them, when they stop working - and affliction continues to work - albeit it isn't nearly as fun - warlocks will play affliction again: that's my prediction.

There isnt much to "Rethink" : If chain fear is that good, why do people hinder themselves with a 10s cooldown right now ? Spending 40k HP while being unable to properly chain-fear doesnt really look that appealing, until you play a MoP match and realize casting CC is a thing of the past, and hence that Blood fear isnt an option.

Warlock PvP have no future in the current 5.2 build, but I'm confident they'll get buffed

[Azari]

When Blood Fear is gone and warlocks have to rethink how to succeed in arenas, warlocks who chain cast fear will return, until then everyone will cling to the idea that they are frost mages. Destruction and Demonology still work right now, so people are still playing them, when they stop working - and affliction continues to work - albeit it isn't nearly as fun - warlocks will play affliction again: that's my prediction.

Yvaelle, i so much wish that you are right. Destruction is 'fun' (about as much fun as an arcane mage in early cata BGs - and yes, i think you can compare those speccs) in battlegrounds but boring as hell in arenas.

May i ask what is your idea on affliction survivability? currently destruction has the benefit of ember tap, that can really help you. especially with a high masteryrating.

I'm a little afraid that affliction lacks the former (as in pre-MoP) sustained self heal.
the siphon life glyph returns about 0.75% health per corruption tick (might be wrong on numbers, but i tried affliction a few days ago for some battlegrounds and i remember a health return of 3k per corruption tick on ~400k HP).
drain life is not what it's used to be. it's sadly little to never used. one thing that bothers me, is that it not really "drains" life anymore, but is by all means a channelled DoT that does not restore as much health as it damages. It may well be that drain life is intended to be used with soulburn. but even then, it is channeled.

affliction damage on the other hand is rather good with haunt / MG and Dark Soul up. thats the point where i'd like to contradict most of the posters around. sure, the dots alone do about 3k dmg per dot. watching a feral rip your butt off while your dots tick for 15k~ (agony/corr/UA) can be frustrating to say the least. channeling Malefics Grasp can be painful too, as you are very susceptible to interrupts. but that can be said for Chaos Bolt too. One will have to adapt / fear the interrupter / use unending resolve offensively.

My main concern is that the self healing and Dots without haunt/MG feel (!) so weak. but that might change next season with more gear.

Unbound Will sounds good on paper, but the 20% health cost really put me off. it is clearly not meant to be used when trained, that's sure, but rather to break a CC and protect your healer. but even then...20%? Not sure about the Imp though. You'll have to play with the Grimoire of Supremacy / Upgraded Pets since you will not cast MG often enough. and even then, the Clone Magic ability of the upgraded felpuppy alongside with the Demon Training glyph will probably make for some okay healing and offensive dispels.

I'd be glad if you shared your thoughts on those one.

cheers

[Malzahar]

The highest rated warlock in arena on Nightfall is at 2081. I think Gangresnake link which shows warlocks above 2200 at 7% must include RBGs in it.

[Tya]

Affliction is actually fantastic right now, everyone just got hyped up on being able to two-shot people with Destruction/Demonology, and the thought of playing a spec that spends its time having to actually CC (without blood fear), debuff (which most locks this season seem to not even bind), and dot (highly unexciting compared to two-shotting someone) - is wasted on them. Affliction with Unbound Will and an Imp pet for defensive dispels is probably the strongest utility class in arenas right now (not joking).

Nonsense.

Firstly, any warlock spec can use an imp and unbound will. Affliction brings nothing to the table utility-wise that destro or demo don't bring.

Secondly, aff is squishy. Destro has insane self-healing and doesn't need to life-tap. Demo has plate armoured demon form on demand. Aff has nothing bar baseline warlock defensives.

Thirdly, aff damage isn't better than destro and certainly isn't better than demo. Demo also has MS, compounding the difference further.

There is no reason to spec aff. Demo has more utility, damage and survivability. Destro is just far better at burst and survival. On top of all this, aff has huge issues with the new dispel and weak UA dispel protection. My full malevolent warlock's corruption ticks for 3k.

Short of getting a warrior to babysit you in 3v3, aff has little to no purpose.

[Sumatran]

So are you also rerolling shadowpriest then? Mine is 86 as we speak! :P

LMFAO.

Have fun getting pillar humped while you keep up that nasty SW:P

[Yvaelle]

Yvaelle, i so much wish that you are right. Destruction is 'fun' (about as much fun as an arcane mage in early cata BGs - and yes, i think you can compare those speccs) in battlegrounds but boring as hell in arenas.

May i ask what is your idea on affliction survivability? currently destruction has the benefit of ember tap, that can really help you. especially with a high masteryrating.

Affliction doesn't have ember tap, but with an imp you have Cauterize Master (48k health over 12 seconds with a 30 second cooldown, off your GCD, since the imp is casting it), without blood fear you aren't constantly eating away at your own health - which is actually a major source of lock damage in arenas right now. Drain Life doesn't heal for nothing either, I know it doesn't scale off your damage like it did in TBC (but that was silly at high gear levels), but in 5.2 it will heal for as much as Second Wind in 5.2, and with the glyph it will heal for as much as Second Wind does on Live (5.1): that's not trivial.

Barring that, while Dark Regeneration is obviously great, Harvest Life heals for more than double what Drain Life does - 6 seconds of channelling Harvest Life heals as much as Dark Regeneration does (30%) in half the time (6s for HL vs 12s DR) and has no cooldown, and deals 50% more damage than Drain Life, and is AoE: it's a channel, that risks a kick, but a kick on you is a kick not on your healer who is hopefully healing you during that. Soul Leech is useless in PvP. If you try playing without Blood Fear you honestly won't feel nearly as squishy (if you use it on cooldown, its basically reverse Second Wind (and lasts all Arena, not just below 35%) - and since you always use it when your getting trucked, you're punching yourself in the face while being punched in the face, Blood Fear is enticing - but its a bad habit IMO).

I'm a little afraid that affliction lacks the former (as in pre-MoP) sustained self heal.
the siphon life glyph returns about 0.75% health per corruption tick (might be wrong on numbers, but i tried affliction a few days ago for some battlegrounds and i remember a health return of 3k per corruption tick on ~400k HP).
drain life is not what it's used to be. it's sadly little to never used. one thing that bothers me, is that it not really "drains" life anymore, but is by all means a channelled DoT that does not restore as much health as it damages. It may well be that drain life is intended to be used with soulburn. but even then, it is channeled.

Drain Life (as I already mentioned) isn't bad, but the real thing is that the way Warlock survivability works has shifted, and I don't think many warlocks have adapted to it. Before, Soul Link made warlocks way tankier than Spriests (25% vs 15% damage reduction) - and the high passive damage reduction (much like Warriors who spend all game in defensive stance right now) means Resilience scales far too well, and self-healing scaled far too well. That time is over though, warlocks are now closer to mages than spriests in terms of survivability.

It's all about good use of teleports and controlling your opponents - it's a lot of running away (this is a change I definitely don't like about warlocks in MoP, but I understand why they did it). Setting up and maintaining a good portal network is critical now, it's not just a trick on Dalaran/Blade's Edge, positioning away from your Portal and teleporting back at very first sign of trouble is the only way to do it now (which sucks, because locks dont have novas and blink out of stuns).

affliction damage on the other hand is rather good with haunt / MG and Dark Soul up. thats the point where i'd like to contradict most of the posters around. sure, the dots alone do about 3k dmg per dot. watching a feral rip your butt off while your dots tick for 15k~ (agony/corr/UA) can be frustrating to say the least. channeling Malefics Grasp can be painful too, as you are very susceptible to interrupts. but that can be said for Chaos Bolt too. One will have to adapt / fear the interrupter / use unending resolve offensively.

Affliction damage is very respectable right now (its higher than either Destruction or Demonology, its just not as bursty). It could also be that as someone who mains a spriest and a lock, when 5.0 locks were turned into 4.0-4.3 spriests - the whole concern about interrupts when you are dependent on channeled fillers was something I was completely used to - while non-spriest-playing locks were horrifed at the sudden dependence on interrupt bait on their only important spell-school (shadow). Offensive use of Unending Resolve (and/or partnering with Hpals / Rets for BoPs during Dark Soul) is absolutely the right call though - affliction once set up, and during dark soul, is spooky high pressure: combined with a bursty class like a frost mage (ie. MLS) that translates into kills (just not killing blows for the lock).

My main concern is that the self healing and Dots without haunt/MG feel (!) so weak. but that might change next season with more gear.

I honestly think a big part of it is that everyone is sticking to the cookie cutter Dark Regen + Blood Fear build, when the cookie cutter days are over - if you experiment with Harvest Life and keeping your health topped off, and if you stop bursting yourself while you are being burst with Blood Fear, and if you run rather than tank like last season - warlock survivability really isn't that bad at all right now. Last season if my lock was tanking the enemy teams damage that pretty much meant we were going to win the match, this season you need to teleport or cc on the first hit: burst is so very high right now, and warlocks aren't pvp tanks anymore.

Unbound Will sounds good on paper, but the 20% health cost really put me off. it is clearly not meant to be used when trained, that's sure, but rather to break a CC and protect your healer. but even then...20%? Not sure about the Imp though. You'll have to play with the Grimoire of Supremacy / Upgraded Pets since you will not cast MG often enough. and even then, the Clone Magic ability of the upgraded felpuppy alongside with the Demon Training glyph will probably make for some okay healing and offensive dispels.

The cost is rather high, but if you put that in blood fear terms its almost trivial - if you Blood Fear on cooldown, you deal three times more damage to yourself per minute in fears than if Unbound Will on cooldown. Coupled with using an Imp to self-dispel if you are being trained(and to Cauterize Master), and saving unbound will for long CCs like Fear, Polymorph, Blind, Freezing Trap, etc - when your teammates are CC'd so you can peel - and you have a nigh-un-CC-able support class to constantly peel for your teammates: that's crazy.

I'd be glad if you shared your thoughts on those one.

cheers

I think a solid change for Warlocks at this point would be to maybe make Mortal Coil baseline (stick something new in that tier), and to make Demonic Portal break stuns - that gives them some stuff to work with if they are supposed to be comparable to mage survivability-via-mobility now: which I think was the Dev Teams goal when they removed Soul Link and gave a second portal to locks. The Demonic Circle change alone would probably remedy the burst-risk that warlocks face right now by itself, in which case making Mortal Coil baseline may not be necessary.

That Blood Fear is the critical spell that holds warlocks in arenas right now, or that afflictions damage is pathetic...no. Afflictions pressure is very high - especcially if you think of them more as a support (and play it that way) - and their utility is great. When burst comes down (and it has been) and survivability goes up (and it will), affliction only stands to grow stronger in 5.2.

[Ripley6174]

Barring that, while Dark Regeneration is obviously great, Harvest Life heals for more than double what Drain Life does - 6 seconds of channelling Harvest Life heals as much as Dark Regeneration does (30%) in half the time (6s for HL vs 12s DR) and has no cooldown, and deals 50% more damage than Drain Life, and is AoE: it's a channel, that risks a kick, but a kick on you is a kick not on your healer who is hopefully healing you during that.

Perhaps if you soulburn your Harvest Life (who does that) and you hit 4+ targets, then yes. But relying on Harvest Life to keep you alive in arena is just a horrible idea all around, because it is not going to help when you most need it (you being trained and the healer CC'ed). Running with anything but Dark Regen is just suicide right now, until the meta game starts shifting away from infinite CC chains and burst.

Affliction damage is very respectable right now (its higher than either Destruction or Demonology, its just not as bursty).

In a game that depends solely on bursting while healers are in CC chains, that Affliction damage is mostly useless damage. If healers could actually run out of mana, then it would be more useful, but as it stands that's a non-issue.

Have you actually played arena this season? Because if you do, I think you'll find that while all this stuff sounds fine in theory, it's not all that helpful in the current state of arena where cleaves are so dominant and you can die in 3 GCD's.

[Azari]

Perhaps if you soulburn your Harvest Life (who does that) and you hit 4+ targets, then yes.

Drain Life or Harvest Life do not heal for more if you hit more targets. it just heals 2% / 0,9s over 5,37s (Drain Life) or 3-4,5% / 0,9s over 5,37s (Harvest Life). Thats what i meant, it's not really draining anymore, but healing you while damaging a bit. (on my current gear's haste leveln ofc, just stating the tooltip)

Thanks for your answers Yvaelle, i will comment on them later on, i don't have the time right now!

cheers.

/edit: keep in mind that they are buffing drain life through a glyph. and re-reading my post i realize, that 3-4,5% HP every Second is quite a lot...5 ticks per channel give you a maximum of 22,5% HP in 5,37s. Whereas Dark Regeneration gives you 25% over 12s, which is about half the healing with a 2min Cooldown.

[Gangresnake]

/edit: keep in mind that they are buffing drain life through a glyph. and re-reading my post i realize, that 3-4,5% HP every Second is quite a lot...5 ticks per channel give you a maximum of 22,5% HP in 5,37s. Whereas Dark Regeneration gives you 25% over 12s, which is about half the healing with a 2min Cooldown.

You have to think in term of opportunity cost, Dark regeneration is an instant buff, throw it for survivability and keep doing your buisness
Harvest life is channeled, so you're not DPSing or CCing while doing it and it open your shadow school to interrupt, which easily stop the healing and prevent you from blowing any defensive cooldown such as Port of Bargain
Same goes for glyph of drain life 2%+30% is 2.6%, On a 400k hp warlock this is 10400 hp/s, to which you apply the -30% healing debuff : 7280 hp/s. A misery.
7k hp/s simply isnt worth the cost, I dont see any competitive alternative to Dark regeneration, nor now, nor in 5.2.

[Livevil]

Spriest by far, better dot damage, better survivability, better utility, better burst and come 5.2 you could even argue better cc.

[impfernal]

Sp is way better, way easier to play, as a warlock you actually hav to use your curses and dispels and cd's wisely as an sp you just faceroll los heal and repeat along with the insane offheals. Going back to my sp it feels more op but just not as much fun as warlock. I guess i speak for all of us when i say we would all love affli to get buffed abit i am not going to miss blood fear to be honest and i like playing with pet in arena, if only the dots and haunt didnt hit like fricking wet noodles and we would get some return for casting spells. Thats why i guess sp is better they can kite have fears and disarms sileneces dispells and can barely get interrupted.

[saltyharbls]

Sp is way better, way easier to play, as a warlock you actually hav to use your curses and dispels and cd's wisely as an sp you just faceroll los heal and repeat along with the insane offheals. Going back to my sp it feels more op but just not as much fun as warlock. I guess i speak for all of us when i say we would all love affli to get buffed abit i am not going to miss blood fear to be honest and i like playing with pet in arena, if only the dots and haunt didnt hit like fricking wet noodles and we would get some return for casting spells. Thats why i guess sp is better they can kite have fears and disarms sileneces dispells and can barely get interrupted.

There are positives and negatives with both classes. The thing that makes shadowpriest better than locks in general right now is
the combination of good damage with good utility.

Overall the shadowpriest brings more to the team than a warlock does. It can be argued that locks can CC more and that might be true,
but what good is alot of CC if you dont have the utility or damage to go all the way?

Im having fun on both my lock and my priest atm but if i were to push for rating RIGHT NOW i would deff go with the priest because it feels more viable.

[Tea]

Hm so what combo in 3vs3 is spriest running? Is that team combo topping the arena ranks? I never saw spriest topping arena ranks ever in the past... talbadar pretty much only one. I would really like some links to youtube vids showing the top rank 3v3 arena teams having shadowpriests around. The more teams the better! Please link!

[saltyharbls]

Hm so what combo in 3vs3 is spriest running? Is that team combo topping the arena ranks? I never saw spriest topping arena ranks ever in the past... talbadar pretty much only one. I would really like some links to youtube vids showing the top rank 3v3 arena teams having shadowpriests around. The more teams the better! Please link!

Links for what? You can find the ladders on http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/pvp/aren...irbelsturm/3v3
Im not going to link every team with a spriest in it if thats what you are asking for :P

Spriest/Fmage/Healer, Spriest/Warrior/Healer and Spriest/Feral/Healer seems to be the most common ones but
if you are good and your partners are good im guessing most things will work.

If you want 100% faceroll then go Spriest/Warrior/Rsham. That is as easy as it gets. 2200 is a breeze with this comp.

[stickyjam]

Wait what?
Their utility will go down because they are not getting any nerfs while other classes get their cc nerfed, some harder than other...

Also, if warlocks are currently so amazing as people say here, why is the representation of affliction warlocks almost non existent above 2.2k rating?
Not counting incomplete teams, there's a grand total of 1 affliction warlock above 2.2k on my battlegroup, mistery eu, argued to be the best battlegroup in europe.
A grand total of 6 warlocks above 2.2k compared to 17 shadowpriests above 2.2k....

When one single spec, is almost three times as much represented as a whole class, it means something. That either one spec is extremely good, or that the other class is just terrible.
In this case, it's a combination of both. Warlocks are in a very bad state now, and getting nerfed to useless, shadowpriests on the other hand are very good and not getting nerfed.

Heck, I even took the time to look at the other "best" battlegroup in europe, cyclone.
3 affliction warlocks above 2.2k, a grand total of 7 warlocks if we include the demo and destro warlocks. On the other hand there are 11 shadowpriests.
Again, I didn't count incomplete teams.


I think I kinda proved my point here that shadowpriests are far superior to warlocks, and since warlocks will be taking a massive nerf in 5.2, they'll likely become as useless as elemental shamans are right now.

what you are missing is that good disco priests had to change to shadow too