Affliction and succubus

[Jr]

Hey,

lately I've been dueling quite some rogues, and I found surviving the opener to be quite disturbing. Even when trinketting the kidney and being shielded with my voidwalker's Sacrifice, I still take too much damage throughout the fight.

Is the succusbus a viable option against this class? Do you ever use your succubus as affliciton?

[Prothean]

No. Many warlocks will struggle with rogues in 1v1, the goal is to make as much distance between yourself and the rogue early, use trinkets and demonic teleport sparingly, and at the right time, to kite them. Wait out their cooldowns with VW sacrifice, use fears offensively to force cloak and vanishes, only then use teleport to make some distance, put up curse of exhaustion to nullify sprint and kite them like mad. Use well timed howls and shadowflames to break vanishes during kiting, and continue to spam fear whilst draining to keep yourself topped up. It's more of a challenge than other classes like mages for example, but it's more than doable.

[Prothean]

Also don't forget to use consume shadows during vanishes or before the fight starts to find the rogue in stealth. That, along with suffering can easily swing the outcome of a duel in your favor.

[Jr]

Yep, thanks for your answer, but that's basically everything I do. Why is a 9k absorbing shield better than a pet that gives me much more control and possibly forces the rogue to trinket on/cloak the succubus CC, if not, annoy the rogue much more than my voidwalker would later in the fight?

[ComputerNerd]

Against cloak of shadows, a shield over a magic based cc which at best will have a slim chance of actually hitting is your best hope.
I never thought of howl or shadowflame to try and break vanish before, and I will try to bear that in mind.

[Prothean]

Yep, thanks for your answer, but that's basically everything I do. Why is a 9k absorbing shield better than a pet that gives me much more control and possibly forces the rogue to trinket on/cloak the succubus CC, if not, annoy the rogue much more than my voidwalker would later in the fight?

The VWs other abilities are much more valuable than you give them credit for. Suffering, for example, is yet another way to break a rogues stealth. Hit it as soon as you see them vanish and it will pull them out. Consume shadows also grants dramatically increased stealth detection for it's duration, the only downside is you cannot use it whilst the VW is in combat, so this spell is more for getting the upper hand at the start of the fight before the opener. It's preferable to place these abilities into other macros with your other demons abilities, and put them on a keybind easy for you to reach, since it is crucial to use both of them very quickly in order for them to give any real bonus. If all else fails, atleast you still have your sacrifice to fall back on, which is better than nothing.

The thing about succubus is you'll only realistically get one seduce off before they're showered in dots. Couple this with the fact that seduce shares DR with fear, and that you will have to change your spec and put points into it in the demo tree for it to work, doesn't make it seem very attractive to any serious affliction warlock.