Warlocks Please Help a Fellow Lock Out (Arenas)

[Revulsion]

Hey everyone! I am currently running a 2 v 2 with a Disc Priest. He is around 12k life 450 Res. and I am a SL/SL Lock with 12k HP and 290 Res. I spent a few months off last season and have really fell behind the curve.

We are having a lot of problems with Druid/Insert Class here. Last week we managed to go 8-2 but we were in a lower rating bracket. After we hopped up to a 1620 rating we drew the teams that new what they were doing. Please help me out. I need to know what I should be doing to help us win. The priest can live, that is not a problem. Should I be doing nothing but fearing/mana draining while keeping dots up? We seem to get a lot of mana drains done to us, but I was not doing any to anyone else.

Please give constructive help. No ZOMG L2PLAY comments. Give me an example what you do to healers to help eveyrone out. Mana drain? Dot up while fearing? Do you try and keep them feared constantly or wait a while fear the dps a few times also and go back to the healers.

I seem to try and just fear, fear, fear, then they go immune (yes I know this is supposed to happen). My partner being a priest cant fear next b/c they are still immune. I run with the felhunter out for interrupts/devours and know to keep him alive and summon another if he dies. It just seems there is some hurdle we can not get over and it is driving me nuts. I dont mind loosing, but Druid/Insert Class, should be able to be beat. We just haven't figured it out yet.

[Kadash]

Remember your spec is a control spec, not a burst damage spec.
Keep your dots on the opposing team, and drain mana, fear, spellock, curse of tongues, spam searing pain, etc.
If the opposing team has to dispel a dot, that drains mana too, so throw them like mad. Apart from that drain mana till their healers are oom then finish it (note this may take a long time with a druid healer, as they have innervate), this is the downside of being sl/sl and having no burst damage apart from a joke 2.5k nightfall now and then.
You can dispel lifeblooms also, it triggers the heal but it removes the hot.

The priest can help speededn up the mana draining with manaburn also for that matter.

[Revulsion]

Is it worth eating the Lifeblooms? I have not been eating them b/c of the heal penality. IMO, it's healing anyway so I might as well eat it but, I was a little hesitant too.

[Aireell]

@ Disc setup you will stand abit longer alive than going as I do, in lock/SP setup.
Problem with druid/war or lock setup is that it is only YOU that can do the damage, while at the same time try to obtain total control over a fast running and casting druid.

There is no real trick here, other than ofc. try to mana down the druid and hope you Disc. priest can keep you alive.
Keep both targets dot´ed and stress the druid with CoT if he tents to stand still, and mana drain him. He will (if under enough pressure) start kiting, turn to CoE and try the best you can to keep him in line of sight. Druid can go bear and prevent manadrain, but just dot him then and /other class whilest trying to cc away druid. As soon as he returns to normal form. Manadrain.

SP / lock setup has imo a better chance against this setup, and keep in mind if the players you meet is skilled your chances are slim.
We do 2 things, either kill /other class or manaburn druid. The advantage is we got some burst dps along with dots and manaburns.

I figure your priest does not have the equipment to go shadow, so it is almost all up to your skill and the opposing team skill.
So control, control, control

[Froppy]

A few things to consider/know about a SL Lock.

Dotting isn't always best. Here's the reason to do this sometimes. When you fear something, it constantly does checks based on the damage that the toon is taking. i.e. if it's fully dotted, you are SB'ing it AND your pet is on it. Most likely the fear will be short lived and something is going to "break" it. However, DR still continues to accrue. You fear again, same scenario, and it's a short fear, but DR accrues again.

Sometimes, there's another scenario that you can do. If the druid is dumb enough to let you fear him (or you skillcoil + fear... OR the Priest screams then you fear) if the druid is UNDOTTED a lot of the time the druid will get the full fear (10 seconds) + a lot of times you might even catch them in cheetah or some other form, hopefully pegging them behind a pillar and having to run to get back to the DPS. When this happens and it's planned (not fearing them behind something because that's not plannable, but.. your first non-DR fear after the dru has trinketed, AND the dps is fully dotted and maybe even HoT-dispelled) you can try to "burst" - you have all your dots up, drain life + try to proc a nightfall and try and get it down prior to the druid coming back. Sometimes you don't need to drain the mana of the druid (good druids make it nearly impossible for you to do this). The important part is that the priest is constantly dispelling the healer, Lifebloom heals them, but it's generally going to heal them anyway... dispelling it loses the tick (which is about 1200-1600 depending on the druid) AND it burns the druid's mana. It's a team effort, the priest needs to be dispelling and fearing it when he needs to and calling for your help when he needs it. You need to play with the druid to force him to come out to heal and you catch it with drain manas, etc...

Also, even though a druid shouldn't get mana drained by you often, you still want to try. Shifting into bear/cat costs 600 mana and they can't do it all day. Sure, they have innervate, etc.. but if you have full dots on the dps (which isn't a ton of dps, but some nonetheless) and then persue the druid to mana drain any time you can, a lot of the time you can blow through their mana too.

Ultimately, your Priest needs to be good at kiting too, and the point that you'd want to get to is being able to drain the druid's mana pool before the priest even comes close to dying. Remember.. druids can be slippery and go and drink too... and that's the worst possible thing to happen.

Finally, I'd assume you have control of your felhunter's silence and you are using that when it's right, not just auto-silencing. Some do this for devour too.

I play both a Druid in a Druid/Warrior and a SL Lock in a SL + H/D Priest (recently I went UA and have liked it) so I know both sides of this fight. As a druid, constant persuit blows because I can't drink and have to keep healing myself or switching forms to stop the drains. As a lock, dotting where appropriate and NOT when you need that fear to last can be an important tool. Theorycraft for sure, but forcing the druid to do what he doesn't want to do and controlling him is the name of your game.