Warlock PvP Q/A thread

[Deleted]

Seems to be a good idea which would help quite a few people with Warlock PvP.
Post a question and people will quote you and answer it to the best of their ability. My Warlock is in my sig at the bottom, current stacking resi a little less than most and trying to be a little more offensive.

Ask away!

Will take PM questions if its long or whatever.

[Saif]

I recently started playing my warlock a bit, and have been having a ton of fun in PvE with her, and started doing a bit of BGs. I'm playing Affliction and have only really hit the BGs for a couple of days and I'm curious about how to go about it.

I find that I can actually kill stuff in BGs fairly easily as long as I can get a couple of seconds to put on DoTs and launch a couple of SBs (or get lucky with procs) but mostly I seemed to start fear-spamming, Howl on CD and keeping attackers off of FCs with fears and CoEs. It's kind of fun to kill mages with CoT and using CoT + fear juggles on healers seemed to put some pressure on them forcing them to self heal a bit but I kept wishing for interrupts and was hitting CC immune and DRs a lot. Anyway, right now I'm just using Fear/Howl till immune, with DC for emergencies. What's the ideal control method? I'm guessing this would fail pretty hard in Arena and I'd need to juggle to keep from DRs killing my CC.

I actually found myself wishing for SB > SoC a few times just to get a ton of damage out with Corruption splash but I didn't pick it up in my PvP build. I'm guessing it's pretty useless outside of BGs, right?

One trick I discovered while running last night which getting really low with the flag was to SB > VW > Sacrifice which saved my neck a couple of times. Are there other things like that, that I can do?

Is glyphing Shadowflame worthwhile?

Man, is it hard to keep from hitting LT when I OOM after being in a long stretch. That said, I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I originally only PvP on my Paladin and this is the first time I'm trying another class in PvP and love it so far.

[Lyndonm33]

Don't hard cast shadowbolt, ever! Should be using Drain Life as a filler once you full dotted + haunt a target with constant switches of dots via soul swap.
Warlocks have other forms of cc, few I can think of off the bat would be : glyphed shadowflame ,CoEx, banish (on other lock/mage pets).

The best possible control method really varies on the situation your in (bg's/ 2v2/3v3/5/5) where as in Bg's you SPAM dot every player in sight *at least i do * , opposed to 3s where you have 2 kill options and a focus target who eats majority of your CC's.
Don't even get me started on warlock 2v2 atm.

[Deleted]

That is pretty much all the control you need for battlegrounds but try not to use fear when it isn't neccessary just because it might be on DR when you most need it to peel which is the worst feeling ever in arena.

The SB > SoC talent is sound like it could be useful in certain situations but it would only take about 10 seconds to fully DoT up a 10 man RBG team with corruption anyway if you really wanted to so it is a waste of a talent point imo.

The SB > VW > Sacrafice is one of the few things you can actualy do to really keep yourself up whilst flag running but there are a couple more. If you see alot of the team coming towards you, you can put down a teleport and being to kite away from it. This just allows you to get a few seconds unmolested when it actually comes down to it. Another is Shadowflame slow which relates to your next point: ALWAYS get Shadowflame slow. It has saved me a countless amount of times against double melee teams and it is an amazing peel for healers and yourself in arena. Brilliant for 1 glyph slot.

That is pretty much everything you asked I think

[yakkolio]

Don't hard cast shadowbolt, ever! .

I never knew this!

[lightgil]

I never knew this!

Yeah as afflict hard casting sbolt does nothing more than get you spell locked lol

[Deleted]

Never hastcast Shadowbolt in arena as, chances are, you will get interrupted and won't get the full cast off and damage is similar to that of drain life where the damage starts to come in sooner.

[yakkolio]

so what would a good pvp spec look like?

[Deleted]

so what would a good pvp spec look like?

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#IrGbRGsMcdsrM is the talents spec I am using at the moment. In my opinion, there are some pretty baseline talents which you should pick up and there are about 5 points which are personal preference about how you play, how aggressive or defensive you want to be e.t.c. This spec is for arena and I use it to play Warrior/Warlock/Shaman at 2.3k rating+. Also grabbed a Darkmoon Card: Volcano from patch 4.1 so I can play VERY aggressive as I rarely got focused on by the team.

The talents which are debatable are Improved Life Tap, Siphon Life, Improved Fear, Shadow Embrace, Death's Embrace and, to an extent, Dark Arts but I will discuss that in a paragraph. For a more offensive spec, I would choose to have Imp. Life Tap, Shadow Embrace, Dark Arts and then either Imp. Fear or Death's Embrace. This would reduce the healing you do to yourself and reduce the peels you can provide for your team but would increase your damage by quite a chunk. I would never really max out Death's Embrace for a 3v3 spec. I

f you are running 2v2 with another dps or playing Battlegrounds, I would advise running a different spec: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#IdGrRrkGcdfbM maximises defensive and healing capabilities. Remember, change small parts to your preferences. I spent over 200 gold recently playing around with my spec.

DARK ARTS

Dark Arts is debateable at the moment due to it being uncertain how good it actually is. I swear by it as it increases my single target damage which is what Affliction Warlocks need but some choose other talents. Your preference.

[yakkolio]

Now that I don't find myself casting that many shadow bolts, I'll give your second spec a try. I tend to get trained a lot in 2s and 3s so the self healing is nice. Thanks!

What resilience is everyone running since 4.1? I have 3600 and was thinking of swapping it out for volcano card.

[Deleted]

Before patch, I was running about 3650 but I have recently dropped to 3483. I dropped a PvP trinket for volcano and regemmed some haste into resilience to compensate. If you can regem into resilience without loosing too much I would advise going for it. The only problem is that the damage increase on you is slightly noticeable. I changed my playstyle a little so I heavy burst at the start when Power Torrent/Volcano/hopefully Eradication proc and then I try to react very quickly to damage or when switched to. Usually, if I get switched to by melee cleaves, I would shadowflame and port out straight away and begin to LoS until they left me alone. It isn't a massive change but you may have to be a little more defensive/quicker reactions to damage.

---------- Post added 2011-05-12 at 03:19 PM ----------

Now that I don't find myself casting that many shadow bolts, I'll give your second spec a try. I tend to get trained a lot in 2s and 3s so the self healing is nice. Thanks!

What resilience is everyone running since 4.1? I have 3600 and was thinking of swapping it out for volcano card.

Also, I would personally advise against the 3 points in Shadow's Embrace if you are running alot of 3v3 as the points COULD be spent elsewhere but if you BG/solo/2v2 with a dps quite a bit then just leave it.

[Soldan]

What about our mastery? Is it worth gearing for?

[Deleted]

What about our mastery? Is it worth gearing for?

at the moment haste > mastery > crit but mastery and haste are getting extremely close. Due to the expansion being quite early, haste isn't as good as it will be so mastery is as good as it will ever be at the moment. The reason you will rarely see Warlocks gemming for it is that haste both increases damage through cast time decrease, global decrease, DoT ticks faster so you can do pretty much everything faster AND that it speeds up you cast times to make it harder to interrupt. That is mainly for later in the expansion but it still applies at the moment. These outweigh the flat damage increase from mastery.
Another thing which I feel it helps with is that Warlocks can be very much capped with casting/GCD all the time so getting haste means you can just do MORE such as it is quicker to Shadowflame -> Port -> Fear that without haste and many times like that can just win games.

tl;dr haste>mastery>crit atm

[lemmilemming]

OK so i tried out some BGs wich my Warlock (mostly Raid loot with some HC mode items) Bought me the bloodthirsty shoulders and the CC removal trinket with resiliance (so im pretty low on Resiliance)
Could some at least fully Bloodthirsty Warlock answer me some questions plz:
1. Since im low on Resiliance my Survival atm is pretty low compared to what it could be but atm im feeling like every other class exept a Elemental Shaman, Healer and other Affliction Warlock can kill me in like 5 seconds without me even getting close to kill him even if i happen to get all my dots up and maybe 1-2 Nightfall procs but even then i seem not beeing able to kill anything unless i get like 10 seconds full time on them and given the fact that im in full raid loot i dont get why. (tried around 10-12 GBs)
2. Survival: As stated above my Resiliance is low but with a decent ammount of resiliance (like around 3k+) how is it ? is it like in TBC / WotlK that with fear / kite / CoX that we still can drain kite other Melee to death or am i doomed as soon i got a melee on me ?
3. Arena: how you guys preform in 2v2 and 3v3 ? Im thinking to play with a Hunter in 2V2 and Shaman / Hunter / Lock in 3v3 (i know the setup isnt optimal)

[Deleted]

OK so i tried out some BGs wich my Warlock (mostly Raid loot with some HC mode items) Bought me the bloodthirsty shoulders and the CC removal trinket with resiliance (so im pretty low on Resiliance)
Could some at least fully Bloodthirsty Warlock answer me some questions plz:
1. Since im low on Resiliance my Survival atm is pretty low compared to what it could be but atm im feeling like every other class exept a Elemental Shaman, Healer and other Affliction Warlock can kill me in like 5 seconds without me even getting close to kill him even if i happen to get all my dots up and maybe 1-2 Nightfall procs but even then i seem not beeing able to kill anything unless i get like 10 seconds full time on them and given the fact that im in full raid loot i dont get why. (tried around 10-12 GBs)
2. Survival: As stated above my Resiliance is low but with a decent ammount of resiliance (like around 3k+) how is it ? is it like in TBC / WotlK that with fear / kite / CoX that we still can drain kite other Melee to death or am i doomed as soon i got a melee on me ?
3. Arena: how you guys preform in 2v2 and 3v3 ? Im thinking to play with a Hunter in 2V2 and Shaman / Hunter / Lock in 3v3 (i know the setup isnt optimal)

1. Don't really know how to respond to that. If they are the same skill level as you, they will probably win due to you taking alot more damage but you should be able to kill some. Rogues should go down if you can kite them enough and save CDs for the kidney/cheaps. Unless you are wanting a step-by-step guide for how to beat people, I don't really know how to respond.

2. Survival is at a good position at the moment. Some melee can tear you to pieces if you let them stay on you for too long so, with a decent amount of resilience (3450 for me), you can Shadowflame kite them quite a bit of the time and use Howl of Terror/Death Coil for either offensive opportunities (to haunt/DoT) or to get them off you. We have Shadowflame, Howl, Fear, Death Coil, Teleport and Goblin Rocket Jump if you are goblin so have quite a few ways of kiting/escaping. The best thing you can do is to anticipate what they will do. Anticipate when the rogue might trinket so you are ready to death coil him or be ready to port away from the Shadowstep.

3. 2v2 is pretty awful at the moment. It is possible to get high rating but it is very time consuming and pretty hard as Warlock/Healer as there are so many setups which can power through you (warriors spring to mind). Hunter/Warlock is quite a bad setup really as a Hunter doesn't bring that much to the table but 2k is reachable to basically any comp. 3v3 Hunter/Shaman/Lock is actually alright. There are stronger setups you could play (WLS/RLS/MLD/MLS) but it is still good enough. 2v2, if you don't run with Hunter, I would advise Mage/Lock. I have played a bit of it myself and it really seems to reward good play. I played Holy Paladin/Warlock to ~2.2k this season and Mage/Lock is ALOT more fun.

[Deleted]

OK so i tried out some BGs wich my Warlock (mostly Raid loot with some HC mode items) Bought me the bloodthirsty shoulders and the CC removal trinket with resiliance (so im pretty low on Resiliance)
Could some at least fully Bloodthirsty Warlock answer me some questions plz:
1. Since im low on Resiliance my Survival atm is pretty low compared to what it could be but atm im feeling like every other class exept a Elemental Shaman, Healer and other Affliction Warlock can kill me in like 5 seconds without me even getting close to kill him even if i happen to get all my dots up and maybe 1-2 Nightfall procs but even then i seem not beeing able to kill anything unless i get like 10 seconds full time on them and given the fact that im in full raid loot i dont get why. (tried around 10-12 GBs)
2. Survival: As stated above my Resiliance is low but with a decent ammount of resiliance (like around 3k+) how is it ? is it like in TBC / WotlK that with fear / kite / CoX that we still can drain kite other Melee to death or am i doomed as soon i got a melee on me ?
3. Arena: how you guys preform in 2v2 and 3v3 ? Im thinking to play with a Hunter in 2V2 and Shaman / Hunter / Lock in 3v3 (i know the setup isnt optimal)

actually how much resi do you have?

[pkm]

do i have any chance in doing anything as destro/demo with 1k resil ?

[lightgil]

do i have any chance in doing anything as destro/demo with 1k resil ?

you would need more resil D: demo > destro atm though

[pkm]

ok then. To get the felhunter to hit hard do i need to be aff or demo? Also what is the pvp stat priority for demo?

[rzy]

i main a lock, dont always use DL as a filler, if you're going vs someone with an interrupt up use Searing Pain, as some people just see a cast bad and interrupt, getting locked out on shadow as affliction is HORRIBLE.