PVP help

[EntropyJim]

Dear All,
whilst my PVE main is a shammy, my PVP main has always been a lock. Now I've got it up to 85 and kitted it out in crafted gear I'm starting to pick up the honour gear, grinding out Hellscream's reach rep and jumping in BGs. I've always enjoyed the mobility of Affliction but don't seem to be able to find much, up to date info on forums regarding PVP specs, how things have changed in cata. Can anyone point me in the right direction? The Affliction sticky has nothing an pvp really. Regarding spec it doesn't look like there are many points to move around, what Glyphs would people recommend?

All I've read so far is that affliction seems to be weak in PVP (from the PVP fourms, one guy even said that lock's in pvp are rubbish right now).

Any help appreciated.

Cheers, J.

[rzy]

Affliction is fine if you can play it, the only trouble i have as affliction is double melee in 3s, that just hurts :P, locks are far from weak, they're in the worst place they've been in, in a long time, but they still aren't awful.

Spec is the usual Affliction spec, not on my pc so cant link it.
Stats:
7% haste, with dark intent gives you 10% which is one more DoT tick.
then rest is basically mastery, as its strong as hell.
Prime Glyphs:
Corruption
Haunt
Unstable Affliction
Major Glyphs
Soul Swap
Howl of Terror
Soul Link/Shadowflame (i personally prefer Shadowflame as CoEx is nefred to the ground.)

Also Arena junkies is more the place to ask imo.

Good luck though

[Notnicebb]

Why do people keep candy coating this . Locks are terrible in pvp. I leveled my ret to 85 and im in crafted blues wrecking people and enjoying it 1000x more than my gimped lock. Been playing my lock since 2006 too so im not fotm just disgusted.

[cwine]

It sucks there aren't any PvP class guides on MMO and EJ like they have for PvE. Obviously gameplay style is different; but what about gear, enchants, gemming, priorities, strengths and weaknesses, etc etc...

Its hard to go from playing a year in a half straight PvE and switching to mainly PvP...regardless, its a lot of fun!

[Corgrash]

Stats:
7% haste, with dark intent gives you 10% which is one more DoT tick.
then rest is basically mastery, as its strong as hell.

Is Mastery really that powerful? :S In PvE its a weak stat compared to Int, haste, and crit?
Also which armor should we be using? Atm Im going around with Demon Armor since melee really do chop up clothies atm + I use Life Drain alot.

The only issues Im having atm is the lack of burst with affliction (Im quite low geared). Against healers its a real struggle to bring them down since your damage counters your CC quite quickly (except deathcoil and spell lock) which means the time windows in which you need to get as much dmg out there as possible are really limited. If I use CoT I can pretty much bring down a Resto Shaman and the odd Resto Druid. The problems I have is with Paladin and Disc Priest, they just bubble/ use that prayer that means all your CD/CC combining is wasted. Ive also found that if you manage to get someone to 30% and they arent going to heal before they hit 25%, pre-cast your Drain Soul so it ticks as they pass 25% for some high damage.

I also have some problems against Warrior, Paladin, and DK. Their self healing is rediculous (warrior only in BG when theyre killing off bad players nearby me).


My spec is this: http://wowtal.com/#k=vztAP6R2.aei.warlock.qI6yDH

Edit: Would love it if people linked me some of their affliction warlock pvp vids since 4.0.6 as Im interested in how others play concerning all the changes recently to the game.

[Deleted]

Change 3 points from Death's Embrace to Shadow and Flame. I also didn't use the Imp. Life Tap, I have put those points into Demonic Rebirth.

http://www.arenajunkies.com/forum/22-warlock/ for more information about PvP.

[Deleted]

Death's Embrace is pretty awesome and usually save you on arena that the enemy dies. All help to our damage is good, coz we dont have burst.

[Deleted]

I'm not a lock so i dont know the specifics, but im around 2k rated (going up), and have enough experience with them to know that they're really annoying and can win if played right

Im not sure what spec it is, but the ones we've lost to before are dot teams - basically a healer and a lock, and the healer just runs around with hots on the lock, while the lock keeps dots up on his target, fearing their partner, they just do this until my healer runs oom

so that's pretty much it, just keep dots up if you're gonna do arena, and just and use LoS as much as you can (your healer especially)

but for now though, defo just get a team and get into arenas to get conquest points, being able to just buy the best pvp gear is really useful and will certainly help your resiliance rating alot

[DiscoGhost]

http://www.arenajunkies.com/topic/18...tting-started/

[Corgrash]

Change 3 points from Death's Embrace to Shadow and Flame. I also didn't use the Imp. Life Tap, I have put those points into Demonic Rebirth.

http://www.arenajunkies.com/forum/22-warlock/ for more information about PvP.

I only use shadow bolt if I have shadow trance, hence no points in it. Its the way Ive seen it done in other vids. Demonic Rebirth isnt necessary either with soulburn insta summons.

[Pieterman]

Why do people keep candy coating this . Locks are terrible in pvp. I leveled my ret to 85 and im in crafted blues wrecking people and enjoying it 1000x more than my gimped lock. Been playing my lock since 2006 too so im not fotm just disgusted.

Warlocks are weak on their own but unstoppable in pretty much any comp. Great CC, self healing and porting makes warlocks not only a priority to kill, but also very hard to kill.

[Wrey]

Locks are far from very weak. We lack the burst of a shadow priest but what we don't have in damage we make up for in control. As a lock, your job isn't to insta gib someone in a 5 second stun, so if that's what you're looking for then you're better off playing something like a Ret Pally. Your job is to spread dots and make the healer fall behind so that your team can get the win. A lock has all the tools a team would need to win.

It's a bit tougher in a 1v1 situation but that's just the way the game is. However, if it's on a map with a z-axis, there's really no reason outside of skill for you to lose in a 1v1.

Melee cleaves hurt but you should be packing around 3.7k resi and even higher if you can. The great thing about a lock is that you can pump out good damage even when getting trained, something that is a little more difficult for mages and spriests. With demon armor and points in demonic aegis, the ton of damage you're taking shouldn't make your healer panic too much.

Resi>intellect>haste. Gem resi or int+haste. Reforge crit/mastery into haste. Never gem crit or mastery.

[Meejum]

Is Mastery really that powerful? :S In PvE its a weak stat compared to Int, haste, and crit?
Al.

Yeah mastery is really good for an affliction lock in pvp. Nearly all your damage will be periodic shadow damage, and mastery buffs that. 10% total haste is a decent plateau to shoot for, that's with buffs, as you will get an extra UA tick at that point. After that I would reforge anything to mastery. Some choose to go all out haste, and it works, but the amount of total haste needed to noticeably decrease your fear or haunt cast time, to me, is too huge to worry about.

[cwine]

Yeah mastery is really good for an affliction lock in pvp. Nearly all your damage will be periodic shadow damage, and mastery buffs that. 10% total haste is a decent plateau to shoot for, that's with buffs, as you will get an extra UA tick at that point. After that I would reforge anything to mastery. Some choose to go all out haste, and it works, but the amount of total haste needed to noticeably decrease your fear or haunt cast time, to me, is too huge to worry about.

What amount of mastery would you say to shoot for?