Season 15 Discussion + Warlock PvP Guide

[Nicola]

@Nicola i read in the pvp forum that u reached 2.3k in 3v3, double lock and resto druid, you were destro?

Nah, as Affliction. Just double dots on everyone and wait till someone dies from the pressure.
Or till the healer dies because he dispelled double UA

[Deleted]

And you didn't have hard time against TSG, KFC, RMP, and so on? Can i ask your play-style?

[Nicola]

And you didn't have hard time against TSG, KFC, RMP, and so on? Can i ask your play-style?

Comps that rely on popping everything at once are actually rather easy to deal with because they rely so much on that burst, which you can counter rather easily. My personal play style is super aggressive and the same goes for the comp really because you want to completely overwhelm the other team with the pressure you can do.

Basically you just want to survive while dishing out as much damage as possible, which is fairly easy with how durable you are and how much instant CC you bring. Spread dots (UA highest priority) on everyone, trow some cc around on the healer so everyone drops low, counter burst with cc and laugh at how hard the other healer has to struggle with 40 seconds of Dark Soul coming from both Warlocks, being unable to dispel any of the dots or cc because of double UA being extremely deadly.

If you survive whatever burst the other team has, you'll usually win the game because either the healer will go out of mana, fails to keep everyone alive or because he dispels someone.

[Deleted]

I will give a shot for this comp, seems funny
I just found that with havoc u can also copy CS, so double CS ^^ in RBG is amazing for hard swicth

[Skudge]

Dear fellow warlocks,
as I am quite new to RBGs, I could need some advice on node guarding, anti-tap and tapping bases.
1. Node guarding
I am running affliction most of the time and I will describe my actions out of that point of view.
When I am dedicated to guard a node, I would use the succy pet, anti CC trinket and unbound will. I would put the succy pet right on the node while I setup a gate nearby the node. The gate will allow me to go out of line of sight from the attacker but also gives me the chance to get back in line of sight very quickly. I will position myself about 10 yards away from my pet and the node in a position where I cannot be blown off very easily by a druid or it is a position that allows me to gate back up quickly.
In case I get saped, I will wait for the attacker to start either attacking me or taping so I can use my pet to knock him off or seduce (mesmerize) him. As soon as I realize the inc, I will cry for assistance in order to get a heal if needed (I will of course call out how many attackers are coming).
How are your strategies about using pet abilities, trinkets in different scenarios?
In what cases am I not able to control my pet? – I am not completely sure which CC abilities allow me to control my pet and which don’t.
What should I do in case of a so called sap-clone cap?
Please feel free to give me some situational examples. Every helpful thoughts are gladly appreciated.
2. Anti tap
How does the general anti-tap strategy work as 1. Affliction 2. Destro 3. Demo?
From my knowledge Howl, shadow fury and Rain of fire (not even sure) are all I can do as Affliction.
As I don’t have much experience with anti taping correctly (Howl+sf obviously work) I would appreciate some tips on any spec.
3. Taping bases
Is it possible to solo tap a base?
I would try to SF into a Fear -> start taping -> fear into a half mesmerize
In that case I guess it is mandatory that the defender doesn’t have any ground aoe thingy and no trinket

I thank everyone who would like to share some thoughts in advance. Sorry for my bad english by the way.

Cheers robert

[Deleted]

1) There's no possibility that they can ninja your flag, with pet + 2 trinket. Your biggest concern is to stay alive or to solo the opponent. A rogue knows against a lock he's got no chance for a ninja cap, but if u don't pay attention he will burst you down in 4 sec.
BTW never trinket a sap, use your pet instead, if somehow they control your pet you can trinket cyclone/blind, but at least you must be able to resist 30 sec before someone can assist you.
2) affly the best way, is seed + SS all over the place. Destro: refresh rof (only the first tick interrupt), or aoe with F&B. Demo: hellfire
3) the only way that i AWARE if u are alone is as demo. Start with cenarion swarm to push back your opponent, Howl of terror, start capping, it will trinket, coil 3 sec and pet stun 5 sec and CAP. not against all classes u can ninja cap.
Hope it will helps

[Skudge]

Thanks a lot for your reply, I really appreciate it.

[Deleted]

Hello oh mighty ones! I have a tricky question, I returned to Warlock PvP start of this season and as many have said it is the patch of melee. I am not sure have this been asked before but I ask again.

How in hell one can keep warriors/Monks/Druids off himself when they decide to jump on you and kill you. I am having huge problems with them.
Playing as Destro, and mostly in BG enviroment.

[Werst]

Since the hidden/stealth 25% nerf vs player targets specific to chaosbolt I wouldn't even use it since its just so preventable and even when it does go off it isn't for much. Spend your GCD's to get a CC chain that will let you get a kill by double conflag/backlash/FF and hope that you get the target to execute range for a shadowburn finish. (you will need outside help or careful nuke/cc/nuke/cc setup) This patch with warriors everywhere and them having at least 4x ways on short CD to stop your cast (and/or reflect it) the gain just isn't worth the effort if its even possible. Ember tap and poke away with your other tools. That or go affliction...

Most melee will have an easy time sticking to a lock of equivalent skill....its just how the game works. You can try using the shivara vs melee or the voidlord vs melee for the disarm.

[Deleted]

Werst what pacht are u playing...? CB was buffed in 5.4 (15%) and in full gear hits for more than 200k...and the damage skyrocket with double DPS trinket.

For ziengrand: i'm having real fun in RBG, i often did 30-0 killingblow. Destro is really powerfull with full pvp gear.
The best advice i can give you is: always place your portal, every time you move. Stay at max range from melee, and blow them with your giant green flying dildo. If you have hard time fighting melee 1v1, play safety at max range band never alone.

[Deleted]

Werst what pacht are u playing...? CB was buffed in 5.4 (15%) and in full gear hits for more than 200k...and the damage skyrocket with double DPS trinket.

you make it seem like 200k chaos bolts are common

[Deleted]

Ofc they are not, but CB in this pacht hurts a lot

[Werst]

I haven't tried destro since maybe week 3 or so of 5.4 but it wasn't hitting particularly hard and was nearly impossible to get off. Meanwhile you can darksoul dots everywhere for pressure far more reliably since you can actually get that damage out in the gcds between when you are cc'd. The -25% stealth CB nerf more than offsets the pve buffs. Maybe I'll try it again but I just don't see it happening in rated play. Sure in a bg vs randoms you might get some nice kills but usually you just get mobbed.

When you say double dps trinkets are you talking the 2 dps pvp trinkets or actual pve trinkets?

[Deleted]

i'm not arguing that destro is better than affly in 3v3 or 5v5. i'm just saying that now Cb hurts a lot, in full pvp gear ofc. He was also asking in normal bg environment, and in that situation destro is 1 of the best spec. Is really easy to free cast and shot people with cb ( i did some amazing 40+ kills). I also found really viable destro in RBG at least till 2k.
For double dps trinket i mean double pvp-dps trinket... 1 on-use one on proc...

[Deleted]

I haven't played PvP since 5.2, so I don't have any present content experience. My question is, how are we doing in pvp (arena and BG)? As far as i know we are doing fine in BG, like any other range-class. But in arena, while still viable, we are not the cream of the crop. Warriors is the top PvP-class atm.
I had a discussion with one of my guildcollegues, who claims, that warlocks are more OP in PvP, than in PvE and that he gets bashed every time by wls through our chainfear+ stun...btw he is a warrior. I had the opinion, that a warrior is by far superior in pvp, given the same gear and skilllevel. Am i wrong?

[Nicola]

I haven't played PvP since 5.2, so I don't have any present content experience. My question is, how are we doing in pvp (arena and BG)? As far as i know we are doing fine in BG, like any other range-class. But in arena, while still viable, we are not the cream of the crop. Warriors is the top PvP-class atm.
I had a discussion with one of my guildcollegues, who claims, that warlocks are more OP in PvP, than in PvE and that he gets bashed every time by wls through our chainfear+ stun...btw he is a warrior. I had the opinion, that a warrior is by far superior in pvp, given the same gear and skilllevel. Am i wrong?

Affliction is currently in a very good spot for everything but 2v2 and 1v1. Not as strong as Warriors of course but still in a very good spot. As for Destruction, it works to a certain point but it isn't too great and Demonology is rather useless although I guess you knew that already.

And you are right, Warriors are currently the strongest PvP class in game. Him losing is just his team playing badly, as a Warrior you should never get chained-feared to death if you manage your abilities correctly.

[Werst]

I know I can get on a 522 warlock in a bg with my 476-496'ish warrior and it might take me a bit to kill him but I come out of it with full HP. They just can't get away and can't cast or when they do I have a iwin mechanic for it. Comparatively when a fully geared warrior gets on me (on my main/lock) I have ~10 sec to live without bigtime peels/heals and tend to die just after my CD's if not through them. You kinda aren't playing the same game if you are pvping as one class vs the other. Its like some kind of nightmare sicko mode engages where you have no ammo, little HP, hyper fast zombies everywhere, etc vs unlimited ammo BFG's.

Comparing my 520'ish (has wep) MM hunter to my lock in terms of a ranged nuker is also no contest. Just to get destro on par with MM you'd need to:
*baseline KJC incinerate or drop FF's mana cost when used vs pvp targets (ie a mana refund when striking player targets)
*undo the 25% chaosbolt "vs player targets" nerf
*make it uninterruptable ala powershot
*drop conflag's recharge time when used vs player targets 25% and extend its snare duration 50%
Obviously stuff like this would make a mess of pve but in general the way nearly everything is designed now other class mechanics just do better in pvp. So many "unintentional" things happen upon the translation between pve and pvp. For example...take battle fatigue and how it not only obliterates all our defensives but massively inflates spell costs in terms of lifetap repayment and with everything doing 75% less damage specs like demo often do more damage to themselves casting a spell mana:HP wise than the target takes after resilience tax. At any point HP based heals/shields could have been excluded or pvp power buffed to offset these for the class (since I can't think of any situation where you would stack pvp power) but no. If you look at the ladders locks are lowest class wise in 2's with mid/lowpack in 3's (nobody plays 5's lol). The only time we succeed at all is as a cc bot for a fotm/OP class (warrior/mage/etc) since we can help setup a kill. Is that really what most people sign up for when rolling a pure damage dealer?

[TiagoRamos]

Why are we Demo locks so useless? Really makes no sense how weak we are :/

[Werst]

Pretty much demo and aff pvp took it in the pooper from pve based nerfs...demo especially based around the UVLS thing. Reasonably speaking the beatdown to the trinket itself was sufficient...the spec nerfs were overkill. Keep in mind pvp ilvl is based around T15 normal level for you/us pve guys...so think back to then and adjust mentally up/down per spec based on the changes. Then consider how badly locks get screwed on the resil, battle fatigue, self healing to pay for spells, etc core class mechanics....that one is actually really bad and just gets worse the further they keep having to turn those knobs to keep healers in check. I mean they could "fix" it in about 10 mins but thus far apathy has carried the day in terms of their "best efforts" in this area.

Another issue is that melee toolkits have to be so incredibly strong to deal with frostmages and what counters them for the most part will counter a warlock but we don't have the nifty tools or damage they do. Thus we are kind of roadkill or a casualty of war or an arms race between the necessity of what is the successful caster and the melee who chase them.

Those macro level realities leave us with destro or aff to play but you really aren't going to get a kill vs a similar MMR team yourself. You may "rot" a team to 80% and rely on your hero class partner (rogue, warrior, ele, mage, etc) to 80%-0% them while you CC someone which is why locks even exist at all in 3's but are dead last in 2's. Destro you can probably get off enough damage to get someone down similarly but you don't get to get off that big CB so you are better off banking embers and hoping your team member can get someone from 80% to 20% and then shadowburn plus having ember tap for those mongo cleaves. If blizz midseason adjustment "balance" is the intervene change then its safe to say they really have no clue or just don't care (which means they are highly focused on WoD at the expense of QoL now). Not necessarily a bad thing...just a design direction though perhaps penny wise pound foolish IMO.

IDK I've been pvp'ing with friends on other classes and find it to be infinitely less stressful lately. I can see how the macro game has kind of put locks in a bad spot and also devs in a spot in regards to unf***ing them. I always enjoy being able to pvp on my main the most but lately its just more stress than its worth. What I find most frustrating is how much better they could be (without breaking pve) if just a little time were spent but it seems that just isn't on the radar sadly.

[TiagoRamos]

Hello,

Could we discuss the PvP situation that Demo Locks are in at the moment?
Am I the only one that thinks and feels we are the weakest link?

-low pet dmg compared to hunters (and even mages)? saw hunter pets dealing 50k crits while my FG deals what? 10k? LOL
-low damage in general compared to all classes, specially crits. (saw DK's crying at MMO CHAMPION that they are the weakest pvp classes while they are criting me for 90-120k? WHAT?)
-and so on... fel flame is useless, shadow bolt and soul fire are useless due to the cast time

I could be here all day...

discuss

Moved your thread to the appropriate sticky. Also, avoid using "discuss" as a main point in your topic - if your point is good, a discussion will naturally follow.

- Alarinth

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I think the discussion might be very viable and useful. Anyways, might not be discussed cause there are almost no Demo locks at pvp, since afflic and destro are better.
demo seems so ridiculous weak and broken. Am I the only one to see and think that? For instance, I played around 200 arena matches at 2v2 and saw only 2 demo locks...