How do affliction warlocks counter being trained in arena?

[Yvaelle]

Just being curious here but which glyph do you sacrifice for CoEx? I don't think it's worth sacrificing either UA, ER, SL or HS over CoEX for any matchup. :/

Glyph of Unstable Affliction is usually what I will sacrifice for CoX - and CoX is of course a situational glyph itself, not something you take everytime. Most of my Soul Shards are spent on SB:SS anyways, so while I do still hardcast some UA's, the little extra time isn't too big a deal.

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There's never going to be a time when you run around a pillar channeling malefic grasps while kiting a melee. They have a lot of gap closers.

You have to pick the melee who don't have crazy uptime - you can make use of portals and coil to open gaps on them - and you don't have to do it to just melee - you can SB:SS casters and hunters, and then KjC:Malefic Grasp to get a pretty powerful advantage over ranged battles as well.

[Hand Banana]

Personally I run one of either two builds in 3v3 on my Aff lock.

I will either try to maximize damage reduction by taking Soul Link + Supremacy + Glyph of Unending Resolve, at which point I have like -30% passive damage reduction. Or will take Sacrifice + either Soul Link or Sacrificial Pact + Unending Resolve (unglyphed). The first lets me tank damage and reduce comp pressure (particularly effective with an Imp pet to spam dispels on you and your teammates and eat all the dots/debuffs). The second build gives me an enormous health pool and amplifies the effect of all my defensive cooldowns (all of which scale off max health).

Next, you need to learn good positioning relative to your healer and the enemy healer - you want to find spots where you are in line of sight of your healer, but where the enemy would LoS their healer - this puts them at risk (so either they will back off or damage will become more effective on them). You want to use your teleport to kite and escape melee - try to be as annoying as possible - teleport through walls and floors and such - and try to always teleport the max 40 yard range: melee love that.

Agree with all of this, I usually run the first build unless the other comps is dot heavy (spriest or ele) because my pet is usually a problem to keep alive against those.

I personally don't like glyph of CoEx just because the other glyphs seem stronger. Can't find an excuse to use it especially considering I run with a warrior who has everyone slowed anyway. I also can't support KjC. Malefic grasp is laughable damage, I hardly ever find myself using it anymore. Spamming fear, redotting, or using pretty much anything else is higher on my priority list. Hell, spamming fel flame is comparable damage.

[Shisui-kun]

You usually want to reapply Unstable Affliction during soul swap downtime and you have a smaller window to get interrupted in with a faster cast.

[Yvaelle]

You usually want to reapply Unstable Affliction during soul swap downtime and you have a smaller window to get interrupted in with a faster cast.

That's true, but coming from a Shadowpriest I'm pretty used to having to fakecast all my VTs anyways, so maybe I'm just more used to having to cast? I don't know, landing 1.5s cast times (+ haste reduction) isn't rocket science.

Edit: Coming from a Shadowpriest is probably also why I value having a powerful ranged snare that doesn't also root me in place and require me to channel to maintain the snare.