Shadow Priests WTFPWNING Affliction Warlocks?

[gherkin]

Fear spam for 6 seconds, interrupting their mind blasts and VT (1.5s Fear > 2s Casts), forcing them to blow Trinket, WOTF, and possibly dispersion. Meanwhile, Devouring Plague and SW:P can be dispelled.

How is that not a good thing?

[Alemayehu]

Okay, first thing I noticed about this post is the "WTFPWNING" part. If you are getting beaten by such a large margin, either you are doing something very wrong, you're foes are doing something very right, or both.

Now considering you said you dueled 20+ spriests, this is a decent sample size. The odds of all of these shadow priests being Gladiator+ or HWL's/Grand Marshall's pre-bc is kinda slim (HWL/GM at least implies that you have faced every class multiple times and know what to do vs. all of them during you're eternal honor grinding sessions).

Also, make sure you have your felhunter's spell lock on a hot key. For example, I use q for Spell Lock. Note that this is the pet's ability, so you can be in the middle of casting an important spell (fear, UA) and it will still function. Also, make sure you have devour magic on a hotkey, maybe for casting it on yourself. I have broken HOJ, Fears with this, absolutely vital for saving your trinket for later.

Now that you have your hotkeys in order, look at what the priest can do defensivley/offensively.

AOE fear, 20+ second CD, short range....should be fine from that, try not to get too close to the priest. This can be a hindrance if they fear the felhunter. However, what you could do (if you don't want to risk it) is to just have the pet on passive following you. That way, the pet will never be feared and you can always rely on its cooldowns. Also...the felhunter has tremendous magic resistance and it will not fall easily against a caster. With resil and penetration scaling, you can be damned sure that the spell locks will be resisted less (and will also land, since hit is scaling with pets as well).

Offensive/Defensive dispell. That means you need to have UA up at all times. My cast sequence on an spriest (say I am playing against one in the new bg) would be Haunt/UA/Corruption. That alone does decent damage, and since UA is up the priest won't start dispelling. That way when you cast CoA (if you want to skip out on Curse of Tongues) your dots will hit 20% harder. Basic rule is have UA up and you are safe from the priest dispelling his or her self. Also, you will be casting only for a few seconds, so it will be hard for your enemy to get off the silence.


Silence, Instant cast, lasts 5 seconds; nasty but it is a magic effect. Therefore, do not have devour magic on autocast and absorb say...the power word: fortitude. Save it for this spell.

Fear Ward: as affliction you will have an instant cast howl of terror. What I usually do is fear 2 times in a row (with decent spell pen, you will have the first one be absorbed, the second one land) or just fear once, then howl of terror near the priest. They can also do the same to you, but remember they have their pet.

Dispersion: 90% less damage from all sources: During this time, check your cd's, make sure UA is still up so the priest cannot dispell spam after they revert back to normal form, maybe reactivate Shadow Ward, or be ready to refear. If this is blown early you have already one. Just make sure to use devour magic because if the priest is any good then there WILL be dots eating you alive at this point. An important note...if the priest reverts (or just rightclicks) near you, they are in range for a fear. Keep this in mind and stay away from them during this effect. Also, try to renew the dots right before the priest gets out of this form (since they are pacified). Note that this ability will restore a significant amount of mana, so keep that in mind.

Shadow Fiend: deals damage to you and gives the priest mana. You can deal with it if you like, but do not prioritize the pet over say the priest's mind blast.

Shadow Damage: if a priest uses holy damage spells like smite and holy fire they will drop out of shadow form. This means they cannot crit with their shadow dots, and they also take more physical damage and deal less shadow spell damage. Therefore, shadow priests will only cast shadow damage spells against you, and use discipline moves (power word shield) on theemselves. Use this to your advantage and have shadow ward up. If you have dots rolling on someone, have the pet and are fear-bombing them, trust me the last thing that will be on their mind will be your shadow ward. It scales with spell damage now, so it is a great way to mitigate shadow damage. Also, use this against DK's, other warlocks as well. I have prevented many many deaths from activating shadow ward after I killed a DK.

Now, lets go over the warlocks defensive/offensive moves assuming you are using the Felhunter demon pet thang.

Spelllock (pet) ranged silence that can lock out a school of magic when it interupts a player/mob casting from it. Land this on an spriest casting mindflay, mind blast and they literally have no offensive ability (like I said they will not resort to using holy fire/smite...maybe if you are almost dead? but by then they'll probably just use death and its gg).

Devour Magic (pet) takes off a magic effect from an enemy, an ally, or yourself. Heals the pet when used and also heals you (I think with the glyph? been a while). Useful for taking off fears, hammer of justice, fff from a stealthing ally, bloodlust off some crazy shaman, silence or improved counterspell off of yourself and you're ally...get the picture? A superb move that is sadly underused (yes autocasting counts) by warlocks.

Unstable Affliction: UA, does dot damage, can crit, and best of all, dispelling this move will hurt the caster for a lot of damage (thousands, and can also crit). This spell is basically your dispelling insurance. Yes someone can dispell this ish, but they will pay very dearly if they do. Use and abuse this spell. In fact, opening with this is important, you can weave in haunt later on if you want but you really really want to get this move off. This makes it so that you can still dispell certain spells off of yourself (magic, like shadow word: pain) yet the priest cannot do the same without losing the fight).

Fear: Uh need I say more? If you see a priest cast this 2 times since they will have the fear ward up, which has a cooldown. Also i know that will of the forsaken will take this off for the undead, but its still worth using. It can give you some extra time to get your dots off, use shadow ward, whatever. Remember that even if your opponent is feared for 2 seconds, that is 2 seconds in which they have to reorient themselves and starting up their offense.

Spell Pen: If you want to be serious about PVP not that your enemies will have a lot of resistance (especially druids, sp riests vs shadow, and mages). Also, remember that if they are undead you will need an extra 2% chance to hit because of the racial, and I think...1% for blood elves?




I know this is incomplete, but just seems like you are having a real problem with this. Hope this helps you understand your opponents and your own class a little better.

[Raptorg]

If you don't have any spell penetration(Fail if you don't).

CoE.
Have puppy interrupt shadow spells.
Dispel yourself everytime it comes off cooldown.
Stack spellpenetration.
Fear where possible.
Shadow ward whenever it's up.

Suck the sucker dry.
Win.

[memphisbleek]

An affliction warlock with a Fel hunter should never lose to an caster dps. Ever.

He cant cc you because you can dispel you have instant fear and spamable fear. Shadow ward, healthstone, deathcoil. crazy healing from haunt, Siphon life, and drain life, plus a silence. No mage, ele shaman, shadow priest, destro lock and caster can do really anything about that. If properly played you should never lose.

[Abandon]

Also, if he uses Shadowfiend while Dispersed, just fear it. He can't dispel the fear while self-silenced and the Shadowfiend has no magic resistances any more.

[cloud_strife]

As most of the people above said ,make macros for spell lock and devour magic and use them wisely.
Also remember that corruption is healign per tick , so use it even in shadowfiend.

have pet in distance from you so that you wont get both feared by psychic scream.

If all else fails use your secondary specc destruction and pwn him in 6 seconds.

[lollero]

Lets be true, lolcoil heals you for maybe 1,5k-2k and got a long cd.

Healing from skillcoil got buffed to 300% of damage done.

[TerryBogard]

I think even my felhunter can solo a shadow priest, this is just a L2P issue.

^^
I ROFLCOPTERed