Gnomeover

You are horde! BG Honor comes SO quick! Compared to alliance... Anyways think about it this way. Just get 500-1000 honor a day... Or make some sort of manageable quota. Don't grind out the honor if you don't want to. Eventually you'll wake up and realize you can buy a piece. Then just start over with your small quota and repeat!

 

Fruit

Last night I decided to work on my pet micro, and wanted to make a macro that switched between stay and follow modes on the fly, because sometimes I'd hide a pet out of LOS (ie in dot/purge wars) and clicking stay and follow became cumbersome. However, no matter what I tried I couldn't get a simple, spammable macro that would switch between the two. The logical one was

/petstay
/petfollow

but no go. Anyone help me out? It's possible I've overlooked something embarassingly simple.

 

Donegali

Hi all, I'm a long time reader, but first time poster, I have read the majority of the posts in this thread but have some questions of my own.

I've just started an arena team with my wife, a holy paladin. Neither of us are particularly well geared with the paladin wearing only greens and blues, whereas I have a few of the BG epic pieces and a couple of PvE epics. Neither of us have stepped foot into arena in the past. We are currently grinding the battlegrounds to gear us both up as much as possible but would like to get some matches going very soon.

I've specced 23/38 for the mitigation whilst we start to gear up but I'm worried that we are going to lack damage. The paladin is specced 41/20/0 and has had a good amount of practise in the BG's 95% of the time leading the healing at the end even with only +600 healing.

Without trying to be too vague, is the 23/38 spec right for our current setup or would I be better going for 43/7/11 to keep Demonic Embrace but actually be able to deal some damage? Also, we are going to be adding a holy or shadowpriest to the roster to play when the wife isn't about, which spec would be best for the build I'm using holy or shadow?

Apologies of this all seems a bit vague but I have tried to narrow it down to specific questions.

 

Fruit

You'll do very little damage yes, but against 2 dps teams you'll gradually wear them down whilst being extremely tough to kill, and against healer/dps teams it's a race to see who's healer goes OOM fastest. Ride that drain mana button to victory, and also make sure your pally knows how to LoS - it'll take some getting used to the arenas, but jumping in and out of LoS and knowing how to kite around pillars is a necessary tool.

 

Maykel

I'm fairly new to these forums and have tried gaining some more information about my issue but I'm still undecided.

I'm going to play to play with a warrior/warlock/paladin setup and I'm not sure what spec I should go for. I don't have full PvP gear yet but at the moment i got 12.4k health and 388 resillience in my PvP gear. So now my question is, what spec would people go for? Affliction, SL felhunter/hybrid or Felguard?

Hopefully some people can come with some good arguements/suggestions so I can make up my mind :>

 

Optimized

I was seeking some advice for what to do when I'm being focused in 5v5 as affliction. I don't know if I'm supposed to play differently if I'm being focused. I try to run around and get behind pillars to break casts, and make sure tongues is up on all the casters and exhaustion on the warrior. My team criticizes survival as they are not able to kill anyone and say that by me just running around we're losing the game anyway as our healers run out of mana. I wanted to hear about some things I can do while being focused and any tips anyone might have. One thing I would like to try is faking casts to draw out pummels, as typically if I stop running for a second to cast an UA or Fear it gets pummeled immediately Is there some mod that can tell you if you've been pummeled? Any help would be greatly enjoyed. Last night I was getting rocked by a 2 warrior / 2 Paladin / shaman team.

I have seen some players perform very well while being focused (particularly some mages seem totally unphased, also some excellent priests seem to still get mana burns off). I didn't know if they knew something I didn't.

 

Symbul

It's not all in what you do but what the rest of the team does. Running around breaking ranged los is all well and fine but for example you are not going to get double melee pressure off yourself with the tools available to a Warlock (beyond HoT and DC). You need the rest of the team to step in and provide you the leeway you need. There are many ways to accomplish this.

Also, stopping every now and again to cast is counterproductive. Your first cast in the 10sec pummel cycle is going to draw the pummel. The next cast is what might actually land, presuming the Warrior didn't mess up on the first one. If you cast, get pummeled, wait, then cast again you're just going to get pummeled again. Faking works sometimes but not always. It's a fine line from too fast to too slow when it comes to faking.

If you find that you are always the tank in your team then my advice is to simply spec into Soul Link of either variety.

 

Optimized

Thank you for your reply. Could you please elaborate when you say there are many ways for your team to provide the leeway I need. I would like to go back to them with some feedback. In the case of the 2 warrior/2paladin/resto shaman team. The mage on my team mentioned that as soon as he sheeped one of the warriors it would get dispelled. Also, nova's weren't very effective as they would get freedomed to break the nova faster than our shaman was able to purge. Our shaman said that he's not able to stop healing me too often or else I'll go down.

One takeaway I have on your comment about pummels is maybe I can open with an immolate when being focused and hope that gets pummeled. I can see where someone might be exited to just pummel anything and mistakenly lock out fire. I've been trying to fake casts but as you said it's not really very reliable.

 

Symbul

You're a Warlock so I'll presume it's melee, usually fronted by a Warrior, giving you the brunt of your troubles so Fear is out for the most part. You can land Fears late in the game but you'll have to be lucky or catch him with his pants down to get any mileage from Fear on a Warrior while he still has DW and trinket up.

Immolate before cast-time Shadow is almost universally a good idea. The good ones don't pummel it, but then you've still cast Immolate. Immo+instant dots is a not-insignificant contribution to the dps train.

Well, #1 is straight forward CCing the people on you. You mentioned you've been running around pillars breaking LoS, and most Warriors will follow if they smell a kill. Punish them for chasing you by having either a damage train, novas or Polys waiting for them when they come around and break LoS of their healers. I haven't fought a good Platespam team lately, they gave us trouble earlier but the ones we've faced recently have crumbled. Are you going for Warriors much? Focusing a Warrior works better than a lot of people still believe, and an early Warrior kill will mean GG (unless they brought two). Just running out of LoS is not enough, you have to back that up with some payback if they do chase.

That said, none of this is fool proof. Double melee teams on me still give us trouble sometimes. We run the same setup you do but with a Moonkin instead of the Mage. What's worked most consistently for us is putting full pressure on their Warrior/other Melee, or do a swap between the opposing Priest (priests absolutely rape us if uncontested) and a Melee. Just be wary of halfhearted dps on a Warrior, only do it if you're able to do enough to make him go defensive.

 

Kobal

Since this is an advice thread and I could use some...

Until now I have been mostly playing PvE on my warlock, with the casual weekly 10 games on a 5v5-team with co-raiders to get a modest amount of arena points. I am aware that I am not that good at warlock PvP yet.

Now that it is basically official that I will need a 1850 personal rating to turn those hard-earnded arena points into an S3 arena weapon this was sort of a trigger for me to at least try to get better at arena PvP. So what I need now is some advice to get started.

Since the main goal is to get to a skill level, where at least temporary a personal 1850 rating is achieveable, I will most likely focus on 2v2 arenas, as it just feels a little "easier" to get the rating there and it is always better if you have fewer people to coordinate your schedule with, in particular if you need to practice your coordination. Please correct me if my assumption is wrong and I should try another bracket.

The two main questions I have are:

1) My PvE-Spec is 0/21/40. While this is sufficient in BGs, especially Alterac where you can just stand back and nuke from max range , it is obviously a no-no when heading into the arenas.

My current defensive stats are around 11k hp and 150 resilence, so it seems soul link is a must. Which leaves two specs, 24/37/0 or some Felgurad variant (20/41/0 or 7/43/11). The felguard spec would seem easier to play, because of less micromanagement, but is it better for my purpose?

2) Assuming I have the choice, which classes should I try to team up with? From reading various forums it seems like a priest or resto druid would be a good choice.

Probably the answers to 1) and 2) depend on each other.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

Optimized

Getting Felguard or Curse of Exhaustion/Siphon is, in my opinion, a matter of personal preference. I think both perform failry equally but differently. I tried felguard and felt intercept was awkward and really wanted a silence so I switched to 24/37 and thought it was very strong for 2v2. Druids are probably the best compliment to a warlock in 2v2 because they can really control the classes that give you the most problems. Through roots and Cyclone a druid can keep melee classes off of you fairly well as well as provide efficient healing which should win most mana wars if you're draining mana.


Also, has anyone noticed a severe drop in damage done at the end of the game. Typically in our games I would do 25-35k damage before 2.2. Last night we played and I was only doing around 8-15k damage. I was expecting a 7-10% decrease with the resilience changes but that is about 1/3 the damage I would expect. I don't think I was playing any differently that would bring such a significant drop. Toward the end of the night I attributed it to a bug, but that seems like a handwaving response toward poor performance. I did notice I had to spend a bit more time controlling people with the reduced fear duration. In particular the 2nd fear seems to not last very long.

 

Cronjob

I'm with Opti on this one. with 24/37 I feel I have the tools to handle most situations or atleast put up a damn good fight. With 24/37 I can effectivly take on a 2 v 1 combo such as a healer/warrior. It doesnt always work out but it works out more often than if I would have had an FG out. The FG is a great pet but just doesnt have the utility of a felpup. The only time that a felpup is not as useful for me is against a warrior or rogue where I have to absorb a lot of physical damage. For everything else it works fine.

Give both a try see which fits your playstyle more and go with it.

 

Nadagast

Your setup is Resto Sham/Pal/War/Mage/Lock? I really think you should be specced Felguard. Afflic tends to be weak in 5s unless you are on a team with high dps (usually 4dps) where you might not be the first priority or you can put so much pressure on them that it's hard for them to pressure you. Honestly FG spec alone should be enough. 2 Warrior teams putting both warriors on you is really a mistake if you're SL. Just put your FG + dots (make sure you keep dots up!) on your teams focus target (I'd say kill a Pally vs Resto Shm/Pal/Pal/War/War) and try to get some tongues out on other healers, also you can use Intercept to interrupt a heal. The Mage + Warrior need to be able to land a kill on one of their healers. If the Mage poly's one healer, CS's the other you can force the divine shield. Then after DS is down do the same thing and get a kill on the pally.

Also with the reduced Freedom duration your shaman should have an easier time purging freedom. If you can pull the Warriors out of los of their healers and have the mage frost nova them that's a really good time for you guys to land a kill on a healer.

 

• frmorrison

I have been wondering if it is better to have another 35 resilience (I am plenty below the cap) or get the 0.2 sec off Fear 4 set bonus.


Looking at most top warlock's profiles they have the 35 resil bonus, but maybe they haven't got around to getting enough gear to try out the 4 set bonus (certainly before the change that was the best route).

 

Gnomeover

They are soon eliminating double +35 in a coming patch. I believe 2.3. So no matter what season gear you have you will soon be sporting 4 pc bonus. Also consider that .2 off fear may not seem like much but think about it this way -

A rogue has a 1 sec global cooldown. Assume they hit something as soon as you do. They now have .3 sec to react with kick now instead of .5 sec.

A war has a 1.5 sec cooldown. If you hit something at the same time there is no way he will pummel it.

Both these cases assume you are running conc aura and use dreadweave gloves making fear an uninterruptable cast.

 

doogless

It's kind of personal preference, but having the choice of the two I far prefer a 1.3 second fear to an exta 35 resilience. Think of it this way: a 1.3 Fear is faster than 1.4 Cyclone, 1.5 Poly, 1.5 Flash Heal, and 1.5 Flash of Light, and I'm sure some other spells too.

 

• frmorrison

For classes with one set (like Hunters), you cannot get double 35s in 2.3, but Warlocks have Dreadweave and Felweave, which are separate sets that have the same 2 set bonus. The devs may change this though to make it more "fair".

 

Gnomeover

-disregard post i misunderstood above poster-

 

• Dinian

Having confronted this same problem, I have gone ahead and started on the 4 piece vs double 2 piece bonuses.

Mostly due to the upcoming changes but also because I think the faster fear will really come in handy against other warlocks who forego this set bonus. The speed differential is enough to overtake their outgoing fear with a stopcasted-fear of my own.

I'm also betting that they will come up with a way to nerf the stacking of Felweave and Dreadweave bonuses. The wording implied that they are trying to make *all* PVP set bonuses for a given class share the same stacking. If that's the spirit of this change, I'm sure they will make Felweave and Dreadweave share the same stacking as well.

 

Cronjob

If thats the case then it wont matter if you mix and match anymore you will ultimately end up with the 4 piece bonus.

On a side note what trinkets are you high rated warlocks using. I recently got the void star trinket which adds resistances to the pet and +48 spell power to me. With Resillience now affecting dots the best way to combat this is to have straight up spell power so I figured thats a good PVP trinket. My other is the eye glass, fear trinket or tailsmen for the free heal in a tight spot.

 

Zraknul

Earlier in the thread people mentioned CoEx vs rogues. This worked very well for me against rogue/druid and rogue/paladin, but I'm a bit puzzled on what to do against rogue/disc. My partner's a resto druid.

The rogue's managed to get to me both times in stealth, so I can work on that some. The main problem is the priest is dispelling dots/hots/abolish poison. The rogue also seems to be using shiv pretty frequently to keep cripple up against the poison removal and wound on his main hand. When I'd get space (with CoEx on) , he usually had deadly throw ready, which would get him back over. On top of that, my druid needed to avoid mana burns from the priest quite often. Any suggestions?

 

Gnomeover

cyclone is the best way to create distance and to avoid dispells and manaburns basically. as long as one player is always cycloned your are eliminating some of the varous factors that are running against you. rogue vs lock is always going to be an uphill battle.

 

• frmorrison

Regarding trinkets the VST (void star) is invaluable for Felguard warlocks and still nice for Felhunters, because more resists are better.


I would use that and the 2 min PvP trinket.

 

Nerull

Hello all,

I have pretty recently started doing a lot of 2v2 arena with my buddy a rogue.
Me being SL+CoEx/SL most of the time, we still have a very, very hard time of beating warrior/healer combo's and rogue/druid or rogue/rogue also very often still is anything but a fun experience.

The problem with warrior is that even the ones you face in the 1600-ish range all have 4+ merciless gladiator and lolherald. We try to go for the warrior first, but even at 250 ish resilience I feel its often a lost cause from the start.

Tactics we try on the warrior is to get a sap in and placing CoA on the warrior, forcing him into combat which means he gets no charge. My rogue buddy then often goes on the paladin for the fun of it , while we wait for the warrior to come after me.

Once the paladin is forced to bubble to either save his warrior buddy or just to save himself, things go downhill very fast. Sooner or later I get stunned, no more kiting and the warrior just tears me apart, after which my rogue buddy cant do much himself anymore either. He tries with blind on pala and go evasion at warrior, but this has almost never leads to victory.

With a druid its very hard for my rogue friend to catch him since the druids tend to stay in stealth , then pop NS + some hots and start their kiting game. Again same outcome, the warrior catches up with me faster than my buddy can get the druid ( he is hamstringed often ) as I cant finish the warrior fast enough by just having SL/Corr up and kiting around pillars with CoEx.

Priest is pretty much the same as druid although then my buddy can get a jump on the priest, but the warrior just finishes me faster and/or gets some healing in the form of renew / prayer of mending.

Since the warrior - healer is pretty common in 2v2 bracket, Im getting desperate and hope some experienced locks can give advice aside the common "you need more resilience", yes I know that the 250 resililence I have atm aint the best, but I cant get much higher unless I get more ( merciless ) gladiator pieces as it, got the veterans and merciless chest at the moment.

Also, with the 2.3 changes announced that healers get 1/3 of their healing converted to damage, providing these teams with even more burst ( think of resto shaman/warrior ) , is having a healer the only way left to go in 2.3 ?

Finally, should we just accept that rogue/warlock isnt cutting it anymore in 2v2, if ever ?
Not trying to make a whinepost about melee here, just asking how other warlocks are dealing with it in the 2v2 bracket without a healer backing them up.

Many thanks in advance for your thoughts

 

Gnomeover

first you can't be on seperate targets. that isn't how double dps works. you can't have your rogue get on the paladin just "for the fun of it". the rogue should go on the warrior in a druid or paladin match up because you aren't going to burn those guys down. stun lock the warrior so he is forced to slowly chase after you or to get on the rogue. if he is on the rogue both of you will be able to do better damage. fear, spell lock, and blind when appropriate.

as for a priest you i personally don't know if you want to go for the priest or the war first. perhaps someone else has better advice.

p.s. if 4pc wars are your problem while you are 2pc most advice is thrown out the window since you need equal gear in most cases. unless your the 2nd coming of christ in warlock form.