sylveni

I'm curious to see other warlocks opinions on the new spell penetration offhand & wand thats coming in season 3. I had been planning to pick up the season 3 offhand and wand once it started since I currently don't have either, but now I am unsure whether to take the spell penetration varieties or not. Are they the better purchase choice over the normal ones?

I guess it ties in to the question of how much penetration is useful (70?). Considering the cloak enchants, the arena offhands and wands, and the honor rings, what is the best arrangement to tradeoff between stats and penetration?

 

Gritz

Last I read, the Spell Penetration offhand was removed from the PTR.

 

• frmorrison

MotW talent buffed gives 40 SR and a Priest gives 70 SR. I guess it matters who you have troubles with and how often you removes the buffs of your target.

I think at least 40 pen is a important goal (for MotW), and do not see much reason past that.

 

weet

Assuming season 2+3 rings (10+14), cloak enchant (20) and the new penetration wand (which is a loss of 14int + 4 damage for 20 more), that puts the default penetration that most warlocks will be at around 64, which is quite a lot.

I think the more interesting question is whether it is worth going for the season 3 Felweave set for affliction builds given the very small mostly int/stam/damage tradeoffs for more crit.

 

• Symbul

I'm pretty sure I'll be getting Felweave this time around (5/5 Dread now) if only for the variety. If not for Imp SB debuff, crits on a max resil target would be all but useless though with a 150% spell. I'm Felguard/Shadowburn specced atm but with Affliction tendencies. Just doesn't work out well enough being the only soft target on the team with Affl. Need a Priest to use as a bodyshield.

 

Tizzlewump

A friend and I have rolled a priest/warlock pair to grind up together and do some 2v2 on a new server. I'm posting because I want to know what the conventional wisdom is this setup. We assume SL/SL is the strongest build for the warlock, but have no idea whether a shadow or holy priest is considered the stronger partner. My main concern is that what appears strong in the low brackets will weaken in the high brackets and our priest will be stuck with the wrong pvp set just when it starts to get fun. So, assuming we want to be as competitive as possible at the highest rating possible,

1. Shadow or holy?
2. Is anything better than SL/SL? (Probably depends on #1.)
3. If we were to reroll the priest for a different healer, what would you pick? Does that change #2?

Thanks for taking the time to share if you choose to.

 

Gnomeover

You can do SL/SL + Holy/Disc or UA + Shadow. Personally If you are re-rolling for 2v2 you might as well go Druid instead of Priest imo.

 

zarikdon

The problem with starting as UA + shadow this late in the arena system is that a shadow priest really requires a lot of resilience to be effective, especially to avoid being completely locked down and killed by a mace rogue. If you're starting from scratch and you have to play with a priest, I'd go with SL/SL + holy/disc first. However, it could be that since S1 gear is going to be available with honor starting in S3, getting enough resilience won't be as much of a problem.

If you're looking for some variety however, and your warlock has access to some decent resilience gear, I might recommend trying a frost mage/felguard lock combo. I started running a team like this late in S2 with some moderate success, and it makes games extremely fast and exciting. The amount of anti-healer CC available to you is incredible, and most DPS+healer (especially warrior) teams are fairly squishy.

 

Optimistic

Does anyone know if classes with two sets (ie: Warlocks) will still be able to use both sets for two +35 resilience bonuses in 2.3? I've been struggling to find any concrete info on it.

 

Presarc

No, you won't be able to.

 

Kahra

That is incorrect - the warlock sets are still considered different. Blizzard has only made gear from different seasons (but belonging to the same set) identical with respect to the set bonus (and I have verified this on the PTR).

 

Cronjob

I'm currently running a druid in my 2 v 2. Works well the only time we have had a problem was with a MS warrior + healer(especially druid) where all they do is burn my pet down first. Usually the cyclone my druid and the warrior finishes off my pet, although I think I have an anwser to that strat, just havent had a chance to use it.

The other combo I that gives us a hard time is a hunter shaman. They can usually destory my pet so fast that once its gone the shammy keeps me from popping another.

I really want to try a shadow priest as a partner, with full merci we should have a good time.

 

a505999

Thanks are in order to many posters in this thread. The advice is clear to understand and is greatly appreciated by a new warlock player such as myself. Seeing how arena works from the "other" end of the fear-button is quite different than I'd expected and the advice in here has clarified many of the initial frustrations I've already come across.

This is another advice request. My 2v2 team has a problem against rogues and warriors.

We are a 41/20/0 Paladin and a 25/36/0 Warlock. My toon is the warlock, in this case. Neither of us have over 50 resilience. The pally gear is T4/5 PVE oriented. The lock gear is only 9200 HP and 500 SDMG self buffed w/kings.

What I've gathered from the thread so far
(1) VS A ROGUE/HEALER
(a) Open with COX+Dots on rogue and COT on healer, felpuppy on healer
(b) Get Freedom to kite rogue out of LOS from healer
(c) Pally stun on rogue
(d) Fear rogue, then drain mana healer
(e) on rogue-fear-break/trinket/COS, fear healer
(f) Either FD-VW-Sac or BOP, fear rogue then drain mana healer
(*) repeat a-f
(g) kill rogue

(2) VS A WAR/HEALER
(a) sic felpuppy on war, shift to healer once war is in combat
(b) COW on war (no dots rage starvation), rush the healer with COX/COT+Dots on healer
(c) alternate fears between targets
(d) fake for pummel as needed with immolate, then alternate drain life and drain mana on healer
(*) repeat b-d
(e) kill warrior

This template is what I'm trying to form for a "playbook" so I can imagine the victory scenario as we enter a fresh arena game. I understand many games don't follow as planned, but with a rough outline I know what to start looking for and then I'm planning rather than panicking.

Does this match the general consensus for how a Pally/Lock would beat these two makeups? Thanks so much in advance.

 

Darkmantle

Your chances of find a serious arena druid with talented MotW is incredibly low. Furor is just so much better, as is stuff higher up in the tree.

Against warrior teams usually you will end up having to attack the warrior. Any competent healer will never move into los while their warrior isn't taking any damage. If that healer is a priest your gonna be in a world of hurt from dispeling you and dispeling all your damage.

The idea of pressure and forcing people to react to you is very important for a SL/SL lock. Because for the most part you don't have it. Against rogue/hpriest for example if the rogue has clos up the priest can heal him up and run and drink for 20 seconds because you just can't burst the rogue hard enough to threaten to kill him. The even more awful possibility of the priest bouncing proms shouldn't be discussed >_<

 

• trinket

Hey,
I run a paladin/warlock combo for 2's, and we lost 20 points to a warlock/disc priest.
Basically, I would have dots on me along with fear/spell lock while my paladin is having his mana raped by drain mana and mana burn. I'm going to start respeccing sl/sl for 2's, and was wondering if anyone had any advice against double drain teams.
Cheers

 

Darkmantle

If anything going Sl/SL over UA would make life worse fighting priest warlock. The priest could just dispel all your dps leaving you with no pressure whatsoever.

 

Noremac

I've only just started to get into Arena. Currently my 2's team is lock/rogue. My rogue friend convinced me to go UA, I hated it, and we got consistantly rocked. I had played some previous arena with an SL/SL build and I performed a lot better and we won some matches. Especially regarding my current gear situation (it's bootleg). Anyway, here's the variation of the SL/SL build i've been working on, which turns it into a SM/SL build.

WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Warlock -> Talent Calculator

I know there's nigh constant debate on the "grim reach" subject, but seeing as in 2's i've been having to CC the healer more than anything, I've found it useful in the past. I chose not to get demonic resilience seeing as taking big hits hasn't been a problem for me. Rogue stuns and warrior Hamstring (the bane of my existance) are easy enough to trinket out of, pop a CoEx and hit the gas.

Really I'm just not sure that the 2% from 1 point in SM is really worth it, but I couldn't see an extra place to stick that point. Since I'll be doing alot of CoEx kiting in 2's CoA will become less of a damage source, which throws out the "Imp CoA" talent.

 

tristantio

I would adjust the spec slightly to WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Warlock -> Talent Calculator

Having 5/5 Fel Concentration is many times overkill simply because it's extremely rare for a warrior/rogue to miss their pummel, and short of those 2 classes there aren't many you're going to have to channel through their dps, compared to what else you could be doing, such as fearing or dot'ing an additional target.

Also losing 14 magic resist to all spell schools imho is worth it for the trade-off of having Mana Feed so your pet doesn't ever run out of mana.

(Against another outlasting team your pet will run out of mana unless you aren't using devour, in which case your pet isn't using all it's utility that it could be during the match).

 

telcontar

I'm going to roll a warlock for PvP, mostly 2v2 and 3v3. I'm undecided on racial choice. I have a slight preference for rolling an Alliance toon, but that is not overriding. I've never played a warlock past level 20, so I'm not sure which racials are the most useful, although Orc racials look pretty strong (stun resist, pet damage). I'm interested in feedback from warlocks with at least some 2v2 and 3v3 experience.

 

doogless

Having played with them for the past few years, I truly hate Human racials. I'd recommend a Gnome if you're going Alliance - competent Rogues will just avoid you when you have Perception up, and Escape Artist is extremely useful with how painful being snared is. Maybe it's just a "grass is greener on the other side" type of thing, but I'd reroll to a Gnome if I could for PvP (not to mention having pink hair would be awesome).

 

Morgaliel

Hello all!

Quick question : do you use Spellstone in Arenas?

Although it seems really helpful, i haven't read anything about it.

Thanks.

 

Dakha

I do, I cast and equip one at the start of the match, and as soon as I see the team I'm facing, I switch back to my wand if necessary. There's no reason not to use it really.

 

Gnomeover

Always summon one at the prep time given. In 2v2 if you see an SL/SL lock and Healer it adds up.

 

Molochi

I run with a shadow priest, in 2v2. UA spec (43/7/11), priest is disc/shadow(20/0/41). We do ok, as her resil. goes up we are doing better and better currently at 1676. Rogues seem to be our problem though, good rogues. Not all rogues are that great, and certainly not in the 1600's bracket. Rogues can be tough. If you are running with a healing pally in 2v2, you shouldn't be demo spec. SL/SL spec damage is severely lacking from what I understand. You should spec to for more damage. Also with having low resiliance, you probably will still lose matches based on pure longevity.

You most likely need to find a new spec, possibly destro for burst dps, let your pally worry about keeping you up. Demo is viable in a 3v3 or 2 dps in a 2v2, the demo build for arena's is for longevity.

I also would not spec SL/SL and roll with a disc/holy priest even to just start out. While it would take them forever to kill me, it would also take me forever to kill them, because my lack of damage, especially with as low as damage as you have. I'm no expert but that is my opinion, just like assholes, everyone has one.

Edit: For clarity.

 

Cronjob

I disagree, anything that hits you can break your channeling. Hunter/Warlock pets, hunters shooting you, any class really except for maybe a shadow priest. Mages, druids, pallies, shaman. So the full Fel Concentration makes a huge difference.

This is the build I use in Arenas.

WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Warlock -> Talent Calculator

Demonic resillience helps a lot, especially if the other lock dots your pet and you up. Without it your pet dies really fast, who cares if it has full mana if its dead or dying too fast to use it. It also helps you at the lower gear levels and at the upper gear levels it makes you even more durable.

I usually dont have a problem with the pet running out of mana, on a few occasions it has but usually by then the game is pretty much over and we are gonna win, if not its easy enough to marco fel dom summon pup and its back in action with full mana.