[Guide] Warlock in Arena (not finished)

[Nixia]

Hi there, Bananengurke's post inspired me to make a pvp guide for warlocks so here we go.

Lets start with

Affliction
There are alot of different affliction builds depending on your playstyle and setup so i'm going to pick one and talk about that.

The spec
This is a good build for affliction.
Do not spec suppression if it will bring you over 6% hit. Put those points in improved curse of agony insted if you don't spec suppression.
I choose those glyphs because you'll need the extra 5% damage transfered by soul link to survive a hard nuke. And glyph of corruption because it will give you some kind of burst, which is very important in alot of situations.

The playstyle
Fear/banish 1 target and keep the other 1-4 targets dotted.
This spec is good because you can chain cast fear on one target and still do alot of damage on another.

Your most important dot is corruption, and you protect it from being dispelled with unstable affliction. You should make sure those dots are up before you start draining or casting shadowbolt.


Demonology
Not many people play demonology in arena and i have very little experience of it but i'll do my best to provide good info about it.

The spec
This is a demonology build for arena.
The glyph for felguard and soul link are obvios, more damage and more survival.
The glyph of shadowflame gives you the ability to kite melee classes which is very welcome agaist rogues.

The playstyle
Put corruption and curse of agony on targets thats not cc'd and spam shadow bolt/Searing pain (depends on how much time you have). Don't be afraid to use metamorphosis as a defencive cooldown to survive agaist melee classes.
Metamorphosis also has decent burst, charge a healer gives you enought time to cast shadow bolt and shadowburn which can deal alot of damage.
Immolation aura is probably the spell that will deal most of your damage while in metamorphosis, it ticks eatch sec and is very affected by spell power which make it very good for 3vs3 and 5vs5.


Destruction
Probably the most played spec at this moment and the spec because the high burst which is abit op :P.

The spec
This spec isn't complete as you see. This is because your setup decide where you put the last 3 points.
There are 4 different places you can put those points:
*Suppression (If you need more hit)
*Improved Succubus (if you use the succubus because your team lack cc)
*Pyroclasm (If you don't play with succubus and don't need hit)
*Soul Leech (if you don't like any of the above)

The playstyle
This depends, just like the spec, on what setup you play.
Use the felhunter if you don't have anyone that can dispell magic effects.
Use Succubus if you need some extra cc.
Use Voidwalker if your healer is having trouble keeping you and your pet alive.
I think everyone knows the combo Immolate->Chaos bolt->Conflagrate. It deals massive damage, up to 16k on a PvP geared target.
Its abit hard to pull of if you meet a team with a class that has dispell. Try fear the dispeller and then pull it off.

Use incinerate if chaos bolt and conflagrate is on cooldown.
Use shadowflame to kite melee classes, shadowflame and conflagrate can keep the target snared for a long period of time, enought time for you to get away.
you can also do a combo with death coil -> shadowfury ->silence (from the felhunter), none of the spells share dr which means that you can do a spell caster almost worthless for 9 sec.

Curses
You have 4-5 curses you'll use in arena.
Curse of Agony, it doesn't deal much damage but have a long duration so you don't need to cast it alot.
Curse of the elemenets is great if you lack spell penetration or play with spell casters.
Curse of Tongues is very good agaist paladins or other healers that lack instant spells.
Curse of Exhaustion gives you a small ability to kite, it also have a very good range if you have the minor glyph.
Curse of Weakness has a very long duration making it perfect to put on targets you won't attack (like if your teammate is a mage and will sheep a warrior/rogue for a long ammount of time).

You can also use Curse of elements/exhaustion/weakness/Tongues to "dispell" curse of agony. If you play with a mage *for example* and the mage want to sheep the target you have curse of agony on. He won't be able to cc the target aslong as you have agony up, just "dispell" agony with a curse that don't deal damage, like curse of Exhaustion.


Gear choice

Accessories
Destruction and Demonology should pick non-set parts with Crit on them.
Affliction on the other hand is abit more complicated.
Some people want more spell power and go for spirit, some go for crit because they can do some spike damage, and some get haste to get better cc and change target faster.
Pick the one that suits you best.

Gems
Alot of spell power, try match so you get the socket bonus. You will probably need atleast 1 gem with spell penetratin to reatch the cap (aproxementy 130)

Stats
Try get as much resilience as possible in the begining because you will die in a few gcd's without it.
You also want
4% hit, which is the hit cap in PvP (6% agaist some races like blood elf).
~130 spell penetration to conter Shadow Protection and Shadow Resistance Aura.


Setups

2vs2 Setups
*Warlock (affliction or destruction) + any healer. i suggest a healer capable of help dpsing abit like a druid whit insect swarm because if you want to play affliction.

*Warlock + rogue. Both affliction and destruction works with a rogue but most people play destruction because the huge amount of damage the warlock can do while the healer is cc'd.


3vs3 Setups
*Rogue, Warlock (destro), Shaman (resto). This is the most common 3vs3 setup with a warlock, superb burst and cc not much more to say.

*Shaman (resto), Mage, Warlock (affliction or destro). Not much to say here either, amazing cc and good burst. Both sheep and fear are very good cc spells and this setup have them both.


5vs5 Setups
This bracket is where warlocks shine. 5 of the 8 most popular setups have a warlock in it and most of them are destruction warlocks because if the huge burst they have. The warlock also have alot of backup to rely on. Anyway, there are alot of setups with warlocks in it so i'm going to post 2 of them.

*Retri Paladin, Hunter
Disc Priest, Warrior and Warlock. This setup has ALOT of burst, warlock, retri and hunter can kill a target in just a few sec. The weakness of this setup is that there is only 1 healer.

*Elemental Shaman, Hunter
Holy Paladin, Disc Priest and Destro Warlock. This setup has 2 healers and 3 ranged dps's. The shaman brings heroism and also helps the other to get away from melees with eathbind. Paladins have very good synergy with hunters because of freedom, and warlocks has good synergy with priests. This setup lack abit of cc but the lost important thing in 5vs5 is to burst 1 target down as fast as possible.


To do list:
*Start making the guide
*Finish the Affliction part
*Demonology PvP spec
*Destruction PvP spec
*Gear choice
*List of good comps for 2vs2, 3vs3 and 5vs5. Also add what spec that work with which comp.
*Demonic portal positions

Feel free to PM me if you find spelling errors, grammer errors or things you want me to add

[wannabetroll]

this seems a rather bad guide

[Nixia]

this seems a rather bad guide

Would you please explane why so i can improve it.

Edit: its not done yet. I don't have time to comlete it in 1 day so it will take sometime before its complete. Look on the "to do list" if you want to see what i'll add later.

[wannabetroll]

Tips and tricks
*Use both Bansh and Fear agaist restoration druids to keep them cc'd for a long amount of time.
*Use Haunt to refresh Corruption, this will save both time and mana.

come on everione knows that

and casting shadowbolt =S i would rather use searing pain i rarely shadowbolt in arenas

if you want to make a guide then put some effort on it, demonic circle positions, what do vs x comps, y classes, etc...

[notintheface]

Would you please explane why so i can improve it.

I don't got a warlock, but even I knew this shit.
Being arena guide, comps would be a good idea to implement, instead of doing some 1 v. 2 bg situation sketch.

[Nixia]

I admit that the "tips and tricks" section is abit weak atm but thats because its not finished.
Feel free to send me your own tips/tricks and i'll add them if they are good (i guese they are better that mine :P)

[cowcaw]

Let her finish the damn guide.

[Bakis]

Improved fear is a waste imo. There are so many classes able to break fear, not to mention in 3v3,5v5 there is bound to be a dispeller or some tremortotem. Fear will be used obviously but since so few targets will actually stay feared for long enough, the points are move valid in improved Lifetap. 3v3/5v5 cc bot will undoubtfully make any warlock go oom. Sure we can lifetap but thats a really dangerous GCD option without ILT.

[pomterri]

I would like to see you in arenas so easy team with easy warlock is here front of me?
Do you thing you can even cast fear to me or banish me? that must be joke . Yes this is the truth. In every setup in 3v3 .I order my gang to attack warlock and cleave his pet with him all the time so I won't be banished(I never use tree form against locks=that may make me oom %20 faster nvm better than waiting in stupid banish. I only use tree form when my hp goes low so an idiot lock may banish me and I can get rid of dmg income to me and wait for my swiftmend cooldown to pop :P thanks really banishing me).Only with the setup Warlock rogue disciple priest is seem to be hard atm. Thank god to my dk+ arms warri pull rogue off me .
Retri+ warlock+1 healer setups. God please help me so I can heal both my ars and my team mates arses. Retri stuns me with his repetance and I max can hot regrowth and reju on my friend which is nnot enough to handle nuke. If I use trinket and lock is lucky to cast his fear on me. I must use my trinket Which leads to 6 sec Hoj on me and near 14k dmg on me only done buy 1 dot+ retri nuke maybe some manaburn and holy fire casts by priests. Which leads to loss of that game.

To write a full Arena guide, You must think situations like this. Which will take atleast 10 pages and 1 day to write. So don't waste your time till you reach the 2.6+ rating in any bracket and face with every possible setup

This guide needs lots of things.

[Nixia]

To write a full Arena guide, You must think situations like this. Which will take atleast 10 pages and 1 day to write. So don't waste your time till you reach the 2.6+ rating in any bracket and face with every possible setup

I'm aware of that but alot of questions get asked alot of times and i'm trying to answer them. I also want to keep the info abit limited because people don't want to read 10 pages if they are new to the warlock class.

Improved fear is a waste imo. There are so many classes able to break fear.

The slow effect from improved fear is added when the fear ends (even if its dispelled) but i agree that,
less gcd to get mana > a 30% slow for 5 sec.

I've edit my first post with the new spec and i will write the demonology section today when i have time.

[Kelpie]

Your affliction build leaves something to be desired. My recommended affliction build is : http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IoxMrhrAoqiMhkt0Gbhkhb

The point in imp felpuppy and the 2 in Eradication can be moved down into Death's Embrace for a drain soul build. Hit is completely useless PvP, you're likely hit capped (and then some) with even a couple pieces of decent PvE gear (the reality is that most warlocks don't have full furious set + furious offset + pvp weapons etc. etc. they use PvE gear to fill the holes, which likely has 50+ hit on each piece.

If I were even going to use a demo build, (which I don't...so i'm not an expert on it) I would likely use : http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IZ0GbhkAdihsxuVoAc0qb

More pet crits == more demonic pact, deeper in the destro tree to get less pushback is more important than the +2% spell crit gained from further imp SB

The destro build I use (which is my primary PvP build) is : http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IZ0GbhkhbZVf0qrcuAoAcot

Fairly good overall survivability, chaos bolt, immolate, conflag, backdraft, pyroclasm, what else could you ask for? (Except for them to not nerf Fire and Brimstone)

[Bats]

As I'm now leveling my warlock I like reading this, even if I know most of it, it's still helpful, cheers for making the effort Nixia!

Now about for people that don't appreciate it... please go away.

[bubblebetuna]

Let her finish the damn guide.

[Dahlvash]

its a good start, but very vague, needs to be expaned a fair bit more. Keep up the work. And to the that are flaming, he is trying to help other locks out with providing some tips, so lets not flame the hand that feeds eh?

[Nixia]

Thanks alot of the nice comments really appreciate them.

Your affliction build leaves something to be desired. My recommended affliction build is : http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IoxMrhrAoqiMhkt0Gbhkhb

Thanks for the info i will edit my post to explane what to do if you have some pve gear with hit =).

If I were even going to use a demo build, (which I don't...so i'm not an expert on it) I would likely use : http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IZ0GbhkAdihsxuVoAc0qb

Thanks for the build, i will use it in the guide (because my build was kinda, crappy =S).

[Nixia]

The destro build I use (which is my primary PvP build) is : http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IZ0GbhkhbZVf0qrcuAoAcot

Hehe, thats the build i'm going to post.

Does anyone have pictures of the arena seen from above? (not to much details if possible).
I need them to mark some good spots for demonic circle.

[Boltenstein]

So yeah. Atleast -SOMEONE- made an effort to make a guide for warlocks in Arena. I am personally not doing much arena, and i probably wont either. But this is a step in the right direction for more stickys in the warlock forum, and helpfull posts for warlocks in need of assistance.

So, i get why you'd want to criticize this post; There's alot of things unfinished, but instead of leaving comments in the sense of "Hey lol, this guide is useless" or "Haha, everyone knows this", please contribute with some valid information instead, and try to improve it.

I think we should bump this thread alot with new information about different arena comps, speccs etc etc. and then make a clean guide which the mods can put up as sticky.

I would contribute if i could, but as i said, not much of an arenajunkie.

[Darklordace]

Or read Arenajunkies.com?

[Nixia]

Thanks again for the nice comments.

I'm not going to post "what to do agaist X" because it would require over 100 pages of text to satisfy everyone.

I also try to not overload it with info because it would just confuse people.

[Kildar]

Thanks alot for putting this together Nixia. Good solid warlock guides are hard to come by (especially current ones!). I last played a warlock in vanilla. Very very very much has changed since then and I am struggling like mad to play one now (Yes, I really suck).

So looking forward to seeing this grow with more information - Keep up the good work!