Why is warlock pvp so hard?

[pkm]

Hats off to the people i see that can do it well... so many buttons... so little time.

[Rennix]

The main thing with pvping and having a lot of buttons, is to start off slow, maybe with a few key binds and eventually it will be second nature to you and you will flame people asking this very same question

[lilisk]

I know what you mean, to practice your keybinds atleast, bg's seemed to work the best for me. Whenever I change something I try and get as much practice outside of arena with it I can (such as small evenly matched world pvp or bg's). Because I know without doing that I'll push the old bind

[Deleted]

I really hope the next expansion trims the excessive amount of abilities WoW has accumulated over time. Warlocks and Hunters especially have far too many individual abilities to shuffle while Warriors for example need a massive amount of macros.

It would also make balancing the game a lot easier.

Warlocks have roughly 56 abilities while Rogues manage with just 36. Yet both classes have a high skill-cap. So it's definitely possible to trim things without "dumbing it down".

[Irollmyface]

I believe it is because some people at blizzard are still hurt that we had SL/SL..

[fizikz]

ever played a hunter? (one who is an eng, too?) it's so much worse. i have no problems on my warlock keybinding everything (though i do have LOTS of keybinds, and have been playing my lock for years) but my hunter is just a nightmare to play. ended up quitting pretty much for that reason... i didn't have enough keys.

[Deleted]

ever played a hunter? (one who is an eng, too?) it's so much worse. i have no problems on my warlock keybinding everything (though i do have LOTS of keybinds, and have been playing my lock for years) but my hunter is just a nightmare to play. ended up quitting pretty much for that reason... i didn't have enough keys.

Yea, I did. I have no problems keybinding on my hunter, but my warlock is just a nightmare to play.

Oshit.

[Deleted]

atleast in 3v3 we are just pure fear bots, yeah i will top the metters in 3s but that doesnt mean i can actually kill someone(recuperate outheals our dots L O L)

[Hellfury]

yeh its easy to top damage done but most of that damge is just healed away easly cause its slow and spread on 3 targets, when we need to make a quick switch to burn someone we cant its incredible frustrating, maybe 4.1 will help.

But then a SP can also do the same damage as we do when called to burst they can actualy do it.

I dont like homogenization but I think aff needs a mechanic aswell to at a given time sacrifice dot damage to burst

[Deleted]

You simply won't be a good PVPer if you just start PVPing at 85. You should start PVPing from level 10 and learn what other classes abilities that you should be avoiding or what you should do when he actually uses that ability. PVP is just all about practise, whether its dueling, bgs or even arenas. Try to start off with dueling and doing bgs before heading into arena.

[Deleted]

You simply won't be a good PVPer if you just start PVPing at 85. You should start PVPing from level 10 and learn what other classes abilities that you should be avoiding or what you should do when he actually uses that ability. PVP is just all about practise, whether its dueling, bgs or even arenas. Try to start off with dueling and doing bgs before heading into arena.

i prefer to read forums,tactics,watch pvp videos and talk with top pvpers in our realm for tips and hits. iv seen so many warlocks dueling and like 70% of them wont use CoT or CoW even they help ALOT.

[Badluckandtrouble]

i suck at warlock pvp...and pve.... i got an 85 lock and played it for 3 years but i just can't do any dps at all on it =( i find it a very, VERY fun class but i am not a fan of getting pwned... so therefore i play my (rather easy tbh) warrior =/. i respect the good pvp locks on my realm, i just can't make locks work my way lol.

[Deleted]

I was a pvp warlock in wotlk... But we are in cata so yh.. ´that fact seems kinda pointless..
But today im a disc priest, and Warlocks doesnt really seem that hard to survive from.
Tho in 3v3 or 5v5 they are insane as a backup/support units since their dots can do INSANE damage... You just need some ppl who can CC and let you do your job as afflection lock. Destro and demon lock doesnt seem that good atm. So my advice is: Go find some ppl with brains and practice ur 3v3 or 5v5 skills with them

[Razaac]

a gotta walk before u can crawl. i had my ass handed to me for months in alterac valley while i farmed honor for gear and worked on my skill.

[Zues]

Naga razer mouse will help a LOT, just switched from resto shammy to unholy dk/afflic lock and it's really helped me manage my buttons. That and bartender.

[Deleted]

I really hope the next expansion trims the excessive amount of abilities WoW has accumulated over time. Warlocks and Hunters especially have far too many individual abilities to shuffle while Warriors for example need a massive amount of macros.

It would also make balancing the game a lot easier.

Warlocks have roughly 56 abilities while Rogues manage with just 36. Yet both classes have a high skill-cap. So it's definitely possible to trim things without "dumbing it down".

That's because you have to think about there being 2 different specs that use completely different spells. Affliction uses no destruction spells, while destruction uses 2 or 3 affliction spells. Demonology is a mix of the two so that tree doesn't matter. Looking at rogues, they use mainly the same spells, there is no obvious boundary. Of course you choose some spells over the other, but you will never, ever see a destruction warlock casting shadow bolt, drain life, etc. or an affliction warlock casting immolate, soul fire, the burn spell (play german client: Verbrennen), etc.

I play a warlock in pvp and i am not overwhelmed by the amount of spells because you quickly get used to it. You use a few spells all the time and the rest maybe 3 or 4 times in the arena battle.


My problem with warlocks isn't the large amount fo spells there are, but the small amount of survivability spells we have.

BTW, take a look at druids, the spells are even more separated there. Going through the feral section of the spell book shows you 3-4 pages of spells. Do you use all of those? No.

---------- Post added 2011-04-23 at 09:09 PM ----------

I was a pvp warlock in wotlk... But we are in cata so yh.. ´that fact seems kinda pointless..
But today im a disc priest, and Warlocks doesnt really seem that hard to survive from.
Tho in 3v3 or 5v5 they are insane as a backup/support units since their dots can do INSANE damage... You just need some ppl who can CC and let you do your job as afflection lock. Destro and demon lock doesnt seem that good atm. So my advice is: Go find some ppl with brains and practice ur 3v3 or 5v5 skills with them

Actually our dots deal very little damage. VERY little damage.

On 0 resilience targets they do the following damage:
BoA: 1000 per tick
UA: 2000 per tick
Corruption: 1800 per tick

This is with 0 resilience, no haunt, and 0 stacks of shadow.
Now if you let the warlock hard cast shadow bolts to keep the increase dot damage up, you're doing something wrong.

[Nurvus]

Affliction uses no destruction spells, while destruction uses 2 or 3 affliction spells.

Wrong.

All casters except Paladins alternate between spell schools to deal with school locks from successful enemy interrupts.
So you may want to trick ur enemy by casting searing pain, and if he kicks you, u cast all ur shadow spells for a while without any fear of being interrupted by that same enemy - unless ofc special stuff is used to reset cooldown on said interrupt.
If you do get interrupted on your Shadowspell - wich can happen often if you're facing Mages in enemy team - you can change to Fire to do more than 0 damage while your main school is locked.

So yes, a great lock will need alot of keybinds.

Some keybinds can be bypassed by macros.
Most good locks keybind certain pet abilities, like Seduce & Whiplash, Felstorm & Axe Toss, Devour Magic & Spell Lock, Sacrifice, Singe Magic and Flee.

Best is done in a way that reduces the amount of keybinds needed - with macros such as:
#showtooltip
/cast [pet:imp,@mouseover,help,exists,nodead][pet:imp] Singe Magic; [pet:succubus,@mouseover,harm,exists,nodead][pet:succubus] Seduce; Summon Succubus
and another:
#showtooltip
/cast [pet:imp] Flee; [pet:succubus] Whiplash; Summon Imp

This would be a pair of useful PvP Destruction keybinds.
For Demonology you'd want Felguard with something else; For Affliction you'd want Felhunter with something else.

In any regard, it uses 2 keybinds only - without modifiers - to do plenty of stuff.

[Deleted]

Wrong.

All casters except Paladins alternate between spell schools to deal with school locks from successful enemy interrupts.
So you may want to trick ur enemy by casting searing pain, and if he kicks you, u cast all ur shadow spells for a while without any fear of being interrupted by that same enemy - unless ofc special stuff is used to reset cooldown on said interrupt.
If you do get interrupted on your Shadowspell - wich can happen often if you're facing Mages in enemy team - you can change to Fire to do more than 0 damage while your main school is locked.

So yes, a great lock will need alot of keybinds.

Um no. Yes you could sit there casting Searing Pain, but no player, least of all a mage with a long interrupt CD compared to melees will interrupt an affliction warlock's fire spell if above rating 1800...

Sure you could go fire if interrupted, but seeing as Immolate won't work and Incinerate damage increases with the Immolate dot. Searing Pain is terrible, Soul Fire casts take too long, etc.

Your best bet would still be to fake cast a fear, because, you know, fears are scary and everyone will interrupt them.

[Nurvus]

You realize that you still need to have Fire spells handy, don't you? Otherwise your arrogance WILL get you into situations where you're standing there doing nothing.

Your theory seems devoid of practice.

You can get caught in your fakecasts.
You can do damage with Fire spells as Affliction.

Settling for less than the best options to face various situations is just bad.
You would be amazed at how often "smart mages" at high rating Counterspell a carefully placed Searing Pain - for example: right after a fakecast Fear.

[digitalboy6]

warlock pvp is not hard[period] unless you simply cant grind yourself some gear. what makes a good warlock, now days, is a warlock with somewhat high HP, high resilience rating, and actually using portal and healthstones(+glyph).