Season 15 Discussion + Warlock PvP Guide

[Nerraw]

At least for PvE the Drain Life combo is INSANE! It's pretty decent in PvP too, but I guess we'll have to see how much people are gonna let you do it in arena.

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Whoever thought Second Wind was fine needs to be fired and have a clause invoked that says they can never work in the game industry again.

[Bigstein]

hello all first ty for an amazing post! it helps us noobs who cant get in game and try tings out due to RL.. any who was thinking with soul link being taken as a talent with GoSup is glyph of health funnel viable? i know you can SB:HF to get 140% more health and 30% dmg reduction.. worth the shard? or just use the shard to summon your pet again? with the one min CD.. and i know DR heals ur pet too but thats a 2 min cd.. just wondering what your thoughts and setups might be with or without it..


MORE DOTS MORE DOTS!!!

[Werst]

HL + DL glyph is a lot of healing but its stationary channeling of shadow....I mean there isn't anything in the game easier to stop. With the amount of interrupts, silences, stuns, and misc other CC you just don't get to channel anything on anyone outside of their negligence. It is however the kind of thing that people will complain about.

With the return of warriors and another strong season for rogues don't expect to be anything but cleavebait 24/7.

[Simplexity]

I've been playing a lot of 3v3 wargames this week with and against current glads/R1s, almost all as Affliction. A few thoughts:

Affliction damage is pretty insane right now, and seems to be in a really good place since the damage/burst has really slowed down. I cannot even describe how good the new Soul Swap is. It's the old Soul Swap on steroids. The best way I've found to use it is to hardcast a UA and get all your DoTs on the target. Once you get procs, DS and SB:SS your DoTs to full duration with Pandemic, and SS those to everything, then spread Haunts to as much as possible. MG/FF is really down the list now as far as casts go.

Talents:
Dark Regen vs Harvest Life - I still like Dark Regen + HS glyph. With the new Soul Swap, I'm already a bit global strapped and having to channel DL (even with glyph) isn't worth it. I see the drain tank potential in it though for BGs. Not taking HL also frees up a glyph slot.

Sfury vs Coil is debatable, but I like Sfury in almost all setups (maybe not something like Mage/Lock/H Pal). Especially with no KJC, Sfury will help get Fears on healers. Against teams where you don't use Blood Horror, Coil gets more attractive as well.

Blood Horror vs UR depends on what you're facing, like last patch. I almost always use Horror if a team even only has 1 melee unless I'm certain that I'm going to get CC trained and not killed.

The defensive tier is super interesting now with Soul Link. Last tier I preferred Dark Bargain over Sac Pact just because with all the hunter teams, Bargain was way more reliable than Sac Pact. Now with Soul Link though, you can pair that up with UR glyph and have a total of 28% perma-reduction, and I think that will be the way to go against pretty much all teams except those who kill pets (mainly DoT teams). Stack it up with double PvP trinket bonus and the PvP meta, and you'll be pretty damn tanky and able to play really aggressively. The downside is that you have no "oh-shit" buttons, but that's how BC/Wrath/Cata lock played exactly, and port + Gate is usually more than enough.

Pet tier - Almost always use Sup as Affliction. Against teams that are horny for pet kills or if you need an Imp dispel, you can go sac. Obviously if you go sac, I'd go Dark Bargain or Sac Pact.

Level 90: With the MG nerf, really using it over FF now as a filler is a pretty marginal DPS benefit that risks you being locked out. Getting DoTs/Haunt up on everything is a much higher priority than using MG/FF, so I think AV is a clear winner for Aff (Destro might get better use out of KJC).

Glyphs: My main set is CoEX/HS/UR. UA is also debatable as well, maybe for HS. Depending on comp, CoEX can also be replaced, but without KJC, I find it really handy to focus CoEX a healer and get a fear on them before they can LoS/range it.

[Lucidious]

So interesting problem I've found. When running double dps 2's as demo using goserv I've found that the damage from my second pet has went down significantly. I ran multiple games with the same effect. In 5.3 and before the dps of the second pet was equal to if not better then my felguard. But as of 5.4 the second demon is a lot lower. Is this a bug? Has anyone else ran tests on this? Is this a stealth nerf? Because the resil change alone is not enough to explain this. Any help in figuring this out is greatly appreciated.

[Rhodianni]

Just played some 2's and for I felt like my damage was absolutely crap. DKs and Healers are unkillable, and hybrids healers ( moonkin, shamans ) were even harder to deal with. Probably something to do with resilience buff but I'm still wearing S13 gear. All healer/DPS vs healer/DPS games went the full 15min.

[Lucidious]

Just played some 2's and for I felt like my damage was absolutely crap. DKs and Healers are unkillable, and hybrids healers ( moonkin, shamans ) were even harder to deal with. Probably something to do with resilience buff but I'm still wearing S13 gear. All healer/DPS vs healer/DPS games went the full 15min.

No I was just talking about the second pet from grimoire of service specifically. The second pet is doing FAR less damage than resil would account for. Something is either bugged or we got stealth nerfed. I just want someone else to test it to confirm my findings.

[xskarma]

No I was just talking about the second pet from grimoire of service specifically. The second pet is doing FAR less damage than resil would account for. Something is either bugged or we got stealth nerfed. I just want someone else to test it to confirm my findings.

Have you tried testing on dummies to see if it's a problem there too? If we can rule that out, and make sure it's a PvP only problem that should help us inform Blizz of it.

[Deleted]

So anyone using SoC now that its soul swapable? I find it awsome when you have stacked enemies and you rotate the SoC + other dots with the SS, but still looking for some omfg usage.

[Deleted]

I maintain 75% damage reduction trough the pvp meta and trinket socket bonus.
Stamina gemming is with sac pact soul link which is 20% health + 10% from di + 10% from fel armor.

Lets say we gem full mastery we gain around 12.4% damage increase in dots.
Destro is around 12% on ember consuming spells and 4% on incinerate conflagrate immolate and fel flame.
Lets say we gem full stamina we gain around 2520 stamina which is 2520*1.4*10*(1/(1 - 0.75))= 141120 effective health or 35280k health
Lets say we gem full resilience we gain around 1.3% resilience which translates in around 5% overall damage reduction.

So generally when we play at 512 ilvl the effective health gain just on the gear from ilvl 496 is pretty insane compared to other classes due to the aditional boosting we have.

[Nicola]

Gemming stamina is not a really good way to increase your effective health though since you'll require more healing to stay alive
To give a simple example, someone with 100k health and no resilience will need twice as much healing to go from 0% to 100% compared to someone with 50k health and 50% resilience.

If you play without healer, stamina is slightly better than both mastery and resilience, but once you take healers into account, stamina falls behind both mastery and resilience, for the reason explained above.

[Hypoxia]

Whats viable now? Destro or AFFLI?

I moved your thread to the PvP sticky, as the question belongs in that thread. You're more likely to get an answer here, and it keeps our forum tidy. Please try checking if your question can be posted in the stickies before posting next time. :-) - Alarinth

[Hypoxia]

which talents and glyfs you guys using has affli ?

[Badjoe242]

Alright I need help.

Last season I ran boomkin/afflic (I was the warlock). We did pretty awesome, (For my server) and got 2k (For the first time for me). Out damage was pretty good, I kept the pressure/dmg as the boomkin ran around kiting/healing and we bursted our kills when his cooldowns were up. Our win lost ratio was 3:1.

Now that 5.4 has hit, and we started doing 2's last night and today. We came to the conclusion that warlock (At least affliction) isn't viable for 2's anymore. I will tell you from my point of view.

It seem's the the nerf to kil'jaeden's cunning has killed me. Me not being able to fear while running, I can't chase healers that pillar hump while dotting the other person.
If a melee sits on me and kicks every cast I do, I do next to nothing damage overall. Even if I transfer dots from SB:SS or just casting:SS I can't properly CC any target if I'm a turrent. I use to do x2/x3 damage compared to my boomkin partner. Now I'm doing either equal or less even though we got a huge damage buff.

Either, I'm doing something wrong, or I can't adapt to the changes to kil'jaeden's cunning.

Thoughts?

P.S. our first night and the following day we went 2 and 14 and those 2 were won by 15min battle and we got the other team lower than us.

[wholol]

Alright I need help.

Last season I ran boomkin/afflic (I was the warlock). We did pretty awesome, (For my server) and got 2k (For the first time for me). Out damage was pretty good, I kept the pressure/dmg as the boomkin ran around kiting/healing and we bursted our kills when his cooldowns were up. Our win lost ratio was 3:1.

Now that 5.4 has hit, and we started doing 2's last night and today. We came to the conclusion that warlock (At least affliction) isn't viable for 2's anymore. I will tell you from my point of view.

It seem's the the nerf to kil'jaeden's cunning has killed me. Me not being able to fear while running, I can't chase healers that pillar hump while dotting the other person.
If a melee sits on me and kicks every cast I do, I do next to nothing damage overall. Even if I transfer dots from SB:SS or just casting:SS I can't properly CC any target if I'm a turrent. I use to do x2/x3 damage compared to my boomkin partner. Now I'm doing either equal or less even though we got a huge damage buff.

Either, I'm doing something wrong, or I can't adapt to the changes to kil'jaeden's cunning.

Thoughts?

P.S. our first night and the following day we went 2 and 14 and those 2 were won by 15min battle and we got the other team lower than us.

Ok this will sound blunt, but you're doing it wrong, kjc nerfed sure, you don't even need to cast anything besides fear and haunt atm, MG only when you're not the target, tbh you shouldn't be feeling the threat in 2s at all as affli/ boomkin, my only conclusion is that you need to get used to not casting fear while moving which is fine tbh since it's always been the case prio-KJC.

So let's start with this, i will presume you are using double DS talent as well as SL ,eternal resolve glyph and siphon life glyph as well.

where's the casting problem ? the fight starts with u placing your gates/ circle, pop DS / SB :SS first target and haunt it if u can.
Now judging from the point you've given you are facing a healer/ melee ( I'd say warrior or DK ), and the melee is sitting on u ( which is natural ), you have too many tools to move and survive, 1) symbiosis rejuv from your boomy ( which should be used on cd , place it on whoever is getting focused no excuse, free heals win),
2) you have Sfury or coil , aoe fear , and against melee healer you should have blood horror since there's no real CC chains that the other team should be doing on u in all honesty ,since 2 dps should have enough pressure to force the healer to actually u know... heal more instead of CC more, so you have a lot of self peeling tools, and do not forget circle and gate.
3) the most important point, your boomkin should be helping u peel, i thought that was the basic of basics, if the warrior is on u, let him root him, move away, i honestly do not think how u cannot just stomp that melee hard with all the Cds you guys have between each other, if the healer is pillar humping u can do the following:

1- shadowfury that healer the moment he comes out of pillar and fear him ( if the melee is on u, I'd advise to have your partner root him so u can setup a proper fear without getting stomped, or a more viable option is to blood horror yourself , once the melee is horrified you can Sfury / fear the healer without fear of being interrupted, though beware good warriors will reflect it on u, so make sure u have that down before u do it).
2- pull strategy : if the enemy healer is sticking to a pillar like his life depends on it, you drag the melee AWAY from the pillar towards your side of the map, this is called zoning, you force the healer to come out to heal the melee who will probably be chocking soon enough being too far from his healer with 2 dps throwing crap up his ...

Anyways I hope that helps you a bit, the best advice is to practice more on coordination with your partner, arena is not about players playing individually , it's about a team who works as one.

[wholol]

both are viable, affliction is the main spec for any serious rated bgs you might consider atm though, and your job is simple enough .... rot everything literally.

[Badjoe242]

Ok this will sound blunt, but you're doing it wrong, kjc nerfed sure, you don't even need to cast anything besides fear and haunt atm, MG only when you're not the target, tbh you shouldn't be feeling the threat in 2s at all as affli/ boomkin, my only conclusion is that you need to get used to not casting fear while moving which is fine tbh since it's always been the case prio-KJC.

So let's start with this, i will presume you are using double DS talent as well as SL ,eternal resolve glyph and siphon life glyph as well.

where's the casting problem ? the fight starts with u placing your gates/ circle, pop DS / SB :SS first target and haunt it if u can.
Now judging from the point you've given you are facing a healer/ melee ( I'd say warrior or DK ), and the melee is sitting on u ( which is natural ), you have too many tools to move and survive, 1) symbiosis rejuv from your boomy ( which should be used on cd , place it on whoever is getting focused no excuse, free heals win),
2) you have Sfury or coil , aoe fear , and against melee healer you should have blood horror since there's no real CC chains that the other team should be doing on u in all honesty ,since 2 dps should have enough pressure to force the healer to actually u know... heal more instead of CC more, so you have a lot of self peeling tools, and do not forget circle and gate.
3) the most important point, your boomkin should be helping u peel, i thought that was the basic of basics, if the warrior is on u, let him root him, move away, i honestly do not think how u cannot just stomp that melee hard with all the Cds you guys have between each other, if the healer is pillar humping u can do the following:

1- shadowfury that healer the moment he comes out of pillar and fear him ( if the melee is on u, I'd advise to have your partner root him so u can setup a proper fear without getting stomped, or a more viable option is to blood horror yourself , once the melee is horrified you can Sfury / fear the healer without fear of being interrupted, though beware good warriors will reflect it on u, so make sure u have that down before u do it).
2- pull strategy : if the enemy healer is sticking to a pillar like his life depends on it, you drag the melee AWAY from the pillar towards your side of the map, this is called zoning, you force the healer to come out to heal the melee who will probably be chocking soon enough being too far from his healer with 2 dps throwing crap up his ...

Anyways I hope that helps you a bit, the best advice is to practice more on coordination with your partner, arena is not about players playing individually , it's about a team who works as one.

It's not blunt when I know I'm doing something wrong :P
Strategy and coordination was great on the boomkin and I (As we got 2k). I just need to learn how to deal with the change on KJC.

[Akakishin]

both are viable, affliction is the main spec for any serious rated bgs you might consider atm though, and your job is simple enough .... rot everything literally.

OMG tnx, you solved my problem, since last night I was wonder what's RGBs

[Deleted]

affly hands down, dot cleaves reign supreme in rbgs since they came into the game

[Ogawdspider]

Whats viable now? Destro or AFFLI?

Like Wholol said they are both viable.. It realyl comes down to personal preference imo. Chaos Bolts ftw!!