The only way to get out of a Rogue's stun as a Warlock is to use the PvP trinket (Medallion/Talisman of the Horde/Alliance). Here are a few tips for fighting rogues:

* Never ever bother casting a spell against a rogue except Fear. To help with this, go buy Dreadweave Gloves or the arena versions if possible. These gloves give 50% pushback resistance on Fear which helps a LOT.

* Try to avoid letting the Rogue open on you. Paranoia helps a lot for this and you should keep a Felhunter out for fighting casters anyway (*** unless you're Felguard spec ***). Putting your felhunter on aggressive will sometimes (though rarely) pop a rogue out of stealth before he can open on you. It also helps to leave Devour Magic on auto for this reason since the felhunter won't have to run to pop the rogue out, though this does assume he has a magic buff on him. Mostly though, listen closely. You'll hear the stealth noise when rogues enter paranoia range. Use tab to target them quick, toss a dot on them, and run.

* Save your trinket for Kidney Shot. Most rogues will open with a Cheap Shot and follow it up with Kidney Shot once they have a few combo points. Kidney Shot lasts longer and since it's a finisher it means the rogue will have wasted combo points on it.

* Death coil after you trinket the kidney shot. This will give you a little bit of breathing room. Ideally you can get a full duration fear off on the rogue. If you do, dot them up and spam drain life...you've got the advantage. Most good rogues will pop Cloak of Shadows after a death coil, though. They may also trinket the fear or death coil. If they're Undead they'll just WotF out of fear.

After this little back and forth you don't have many options. Keep your dots up and spam fear to get as much breathing room as possible. Drain life back whatever health you can manage while they're feared.

Undead rogues are much harder than others because of how many ways they can break fear.

The final thing I'll say is that gear and spec matter a lot. Having 300+ resilience and 11k+ hp will help you survive through a Rogue's stun lock and give you a fighting chance. Having 450+ resilience is even better. As far as spec, having soul link will help you to mitigate a lot of damage. SL/SL or Felguard are your best bets for survivability in PvP. Affliction or Destruction are asking for a quick death.

In the end, though, rogues are the most difficult one-on-one fight as a warlock. Good luck!

Is there anyone who can give advices on fighting Warriors?

From what I was able to gather reading various forums, this should be good advices:

• DO try to fear them. First time they will blow berserker rage (10 seconds, it's the icon with the pink tauren)
  Second time they will pop death wish. They will be immune for 30 secs but take more damage. Third time
  berserkr rage again, and from this point on they are perfectly fearable. This only applies to arenas,
  or in BG if you already know the warr blew his cd's (1v1 you will just not last this long).
• In 2v2, it is often a good idea to try to gib them while cc-ing their healer, especially if they do not switch in
  def stance or similar during the cc on the other one, which is ALWAYS the case at ratings below 1800 I would say.

Nothing else comes to mind right now

But questions like:

• Is CoW useful? And how useful? How bad is for a warr to loose 350 AP?
• In an arena perspective, is it a good idea to full dot / dps the warrior during deathwish while cc-ing the healer?
  Is exploiting the fact that the warrior takes more damage during the buff a good idea or is it bad in general to feed
  him with rage while under dw?
• How do you keep track warrior buffs and especially cooldowns on dw and berserker rage? NECB is just TOO spammy for
  me, there is no way I can see what's the bar of the buff/cd while cc-ing the other, moving out of los of stuff, doting
  around, draining, refreshing CoTs and such. In other words, how do you effectively fear the warrior, do you have any
  tricks?
• Is there any particular moment where it is useful or more appropriate to use death coil? I often find myself unsure
  on whether use it, essentially because dc will often put him in intercept range, so I am trading a 3secs horror, 2mincd
  for a 3secs stun, 15s cd.

Any suggestion is highly appreciated.

Hi all,

Ippocrate!

Warlock S3 Glad here, I will try to share my experience and answer your questions, maybe you find it useful.

I do not agree with you that gibbing the warrior is only possible below 1800. It is possible all the time, even versus best teams if you constantly look for good moment to do it during the fight. It does not have to be mana war in every game. Watch his cooldowns, watch his healer cooldowns and react, be flexible during the fight - it is obvious, but people say it and not really do it when it comes to arena fight.

• CoW: it is useful, I even prefer having 1/2 Improved CoW than 1/5 Suppression. All depends on situation, I use it vs war/shaman or rogue/shaman, rogue/dpriest and I am swapping it with CoA.

• vs Warrior:
  If warrior is with shaman, your healer is druid and they pop windfury/heroism/bloodlust/trinket/dw after stacking sunders on you (or even without sundering), you better start running and help your druid to keep the war cycloned/rooted (fear/dc the shaman, not allowing him to interrupt your druid's cyclones). Play with Felhunter, keep CoT on shaman, switch CoW to CoA on war, try to gib him, but wise (read below). If only mana war is possible or they kill the first pet way fast, get your Void with FD (remember that shaman is waiting with purge for your FD, so hide a bit).
  
  If warrior is with druid and pops dw, try gibbing him. Do it wise, hide behind the pillar/pull him to starting room/under the bridge, sure you will survive his dmg and be sure you have your Deathcoil ready. Use it after immolate on war while he is at ~60%-70% and finish with Incinerate, Searing pains, Drain life and hope for Nightfall proc. Your healer should help you and dps the war with you or stop his healer. You can also use your deathcoil when he tries to go back to his healer or use it on his healer - depends on situation really. If they manage to get your puppy and you are unable to summon new one without FD, get Void and there starts classic mana war. Get VST if possible.
  
  Playing very agressive always worked best for me. You also need very fast "micro management" to be effective. The truth is that phys dmg is op^2 since they have that supid armor ignore mods on items. Fear the warrior after he used his intercept on your healer.

• Did you try 5/5 Shadow Embrace + 5/5 Master Demonologist + 3/3 Demonic Resilience? This is the max mitigation to phys dmg we can have (combined with +armor items, but I would not suggest gimping your spelldmg so much). Check the first part of video from Heidiheinken: Heidiheinken - Highest Destrolock By mofogie

• Using deathcoil: use it in situations described above. There is also one more important DC usage - as a finisher / additional damage dealing spell when you try to burn someone down. On full doted opponent when you got your nightfall proc - try casting bolt, hit bolt button agian and launch dc after 2 bolts. Yay that hurts.

• Now about buff/debuff tracking. Forget about NECB. For diminishing returns use ProxDim, for their cooldowns use Afflicted and Antagonist.
  
  Oh and there is one more godly addon that will do the job for you ! - PowerAuras.
  Check how it works here: YouTube - Power Auras
  Download form here: Power Auras (continued) | World of Warcraft Addons | Curse
  
  Set it to show if the warrior has Berserk Rage, set it to show Death Wish. Now set it to show when your enemy target does NOT have Berserk Rage and when he does NOT have Death Wish. Here you go \o/
  
  I use it for showing:
  - my buffs - bloodlust, nightfall proc, power infusion, meta gem procs,
  - my buffs missing - when I do not have Fel Armor (if you meet annoying dispeller - it helps you with spamming Fel Armor during the fight arena and you win this mana fight vs dispeller).
  - their buffs - when they launch Pain Suppresion, Diving Shield, BoP, BoF, etc
  - my debuffs - wound poison, mortal strike, etc.
  Cool stuff.

I am sorry that this text was soo long Sorry for typos if any.

regards,
C4hir

Hey Guys,
I need a little help and maybe you can help me out.
I'm playing (nobody would have thougth) a Warlock with 4/5 S3 (Dreadwave (S2 Dreadwave Shoulders), S3 Wappon, and the Epic BG Stuff and I've got round about ~13,4k Life, 466 Resilience and (with Felarmor and Felhunter) ~1,2k Spelldmg. All in all, nice Gear from my point of view and I'm 25/36/0 skilled.

My Gameplay @ 2v2-Arena is usually trying to fear the CC Target or using fear for interupting Heals, running through the Melees so it's harder to follow me, using CoEx for kiting and trying to stand @ Range or between the enemy DPS and his healer to be able to fear the CC-Target and giving DPS on the Focus target with Corruption, Siphon Life, Curse of Agony, Immolate and Searing Pain/Shadowbolts. Oh, and I usually play with a Rougue.

And now I'll come to our Problem: Discipline-Priests/Heal-Schami + Warri/Warlock, those Combos usually keeping us @ ~1,8k Rating. We loose 2 Games, win 2 Games, loose 2 Games, Win 2 Games... normaly we meet People with our Gearstats (nearly full S3) or (and that's frustaing and I know that many of you know the problem) full S3 Geared People who play another Team @ 2,2k Ratings.

Do some Guys here have any plany to use against Disci-Priest/Heal-Schami + Warri/Warlock?
Would be very nice if someone would share his experinces.

Thanks

As an SL/SL lock if you're going to fight a Warrior, Rage starve him and go for his partner. Whip out your Voidwalker for a 20% dmg reduction and slap a Curse of Weakness on him. Don't get Improved CoW, it's trash and not worth talenting for a ridiculously low return. Once he starts attacking, he'll definitely notice that his Rage returns from dealing damage are not what he was hoping for. If he starts blowing CDs to try to amp up his Rage meter so he can burst to keep himself effective, Sacrifice the Voidwalker and insta-summon another when your shield goes down. Don't DoT the Warrior, it'll just feed him Rage to kill you.

Of course, this whole time DoT / Fear / Drain his partner to keep pressure up. Use your Deathcoil when: you're down 2k life, you're not affected by Mortal Strike, and you need an interrupt. Usually you can't meet all these requirements at the same time, but you can pick which ones are most important. Don't worry about Intercept, etc. from the Warrior when you're using Deathcoil, it's not like you're going to keep him from using it anyway. He can Hamstring you and then get all the Range he needs. It's important for you so that you can keep that option there to keep gimping his Rage and keeping him from his effectiveness. Finish his partner then 2v1 him.

I don't recommend that you ever waste cast times on Fearing a Warrior unless you're stalling, there's just too many things they can do to break out of it. Diminishing Returns means that by the time he blows all of his CDs you're getting a 2s Fear for a 2s cast time. Drain Life and Rage starve him.

"Just rage starve the Warrior" strats work until about 1700, and then the Warrior's healers actually learn how to play. If you're putting no offensive pressure on the Warrior, the healer has absolutely no reason to sit there in LoS and allow you to damage/drain them. You're Hamstrung, the healer isn't, and they just pillar dance you.

If you know of a way that your healer can stop his from pillar kiting you, I'm all ears.

I assume you're talking about playing Warlock/Healer against Warrior/Healer, since you mention pulling out a Voidwalker.

Mindflay? Mana Burn? Stomp? Entangling Roots? Cyclone? Psychic Scream?

They don't necessarily have to stop the Healer from running around a pillar, their goal is to remove the healer from the game by effectively removing its healing ability. Forcing shifts, mana burning, dispeling, etc. all waste precious mana for the Healer. As long as you don't start getting overly greedy and spamming Smite or somesuch garbage, mana efficient snares coupled with damage from the Warlock can outlast.

Otherwise, as long as you've got 2 ranged casters vs. a caster / melee combo, you've got the advantage that kiting isn't as effective. It's not like you're going to stop someone from skilling around a pillar, but honestly as long as you've got them on the defensive gorging through mana to keep plying a cheap stall tactic it sounds like things are going as well as can be expected.

I think we disagree significantly on how much of the opposing healer's mana you can go through like this - DoTs on one person can be healed through by a Lifebloom + Rejuv/Renew/Flash of Light/etc. Druid HoTs, for example, can be dispelled if your partner can do that, but it isn't doing much to win the mana war when the Druid just reapplies Lifebloom and still gets the heal from it. The Warrior is still dealing damage to you, and that damage comes with an MS debuff - meaning that to out-mana the other team, you need to effectively be dealing damage twice as fast as the Warrior is. Really, the only way this is going to happen is if your partner is a Disc Priest who is for some reason able to chain Mana Burn the other healer.

Try to get distance and put dmg on warrior. Get him out of LOS with his healer. That will make the healer to come in range.

Do people still use UA in arenas as locks? Is it semi viable in 5's or 2's? I was thinking about it today and I don't really see it anymore.

One new question that has popped up for me is whether or not to seek out spell haste in lieu of spell damage.

Pros: Lowered GCD for more dotting, faster drains

Con: Dmg useful with dots on but targets out of LOS, haste does nothing

To be specific, with the pendant, 2 rings, cloak, and battlemaster trinket you pick up 128 spell haste, lowering your GCD to ~1.39 seconds. To do so, you gave up 87 damage. Gems could tweak these numbers and what items you swapped out.

I see a lot of discussion on some boards about "faster fears omg so OP lets get haste" but to me the real beauty lies in the lowered GCD. You just took .1 seconds off the time in between your dots, which can really add up if you're playing a team with a pet and you generally get 9 or so out to start plus refreshing them. Add in that you get the faster fears and drains and while the 87 damage still looks very steep, you're starting to see some benefits.

Sticking with the +dmg trinket would leave you with 88 spell haste, and ~1.42 second GCD. You would only have sacrificed 40 dmg total for that boost, which certainly looks worthwhile to me.

So, has anyone been messing with a haste and dmg set (I've been gone from arena for a while so I didn't look at these choices during S3)?

I think it really depends on who your teammates are, to be more specific, how well they can peel melee (particularly rogues) off of you. The less peel capability your teammates have, the more I would value spell haste, because you are relying more on needing to be able to fear melees that are right in your face to give yourself some breathing room. The more assistance you have from your team, the more I would value spell damage. This also assumes a team where you are typically the one being focused. On teams where you are usually not focused, I'm going with spell damage over haste.

Another random thing I thought of though is that it may be worth incorporating a small amount of haste, maybe just a battlemaster trinket, so that in situations where you are casting fear on someone at the same time they are casting a CC on you (fear, cyclone, sheep namely), that you land your fear on them from your small haste edge. It makes fear a more powerful interrupt ability in that regard.

im running lock and sp in 2s and im curious if i should do coa or cos? any input?

I'm in this boat too. I really don't know if it's worth getting the haste stuff or just going the more traditional route of pure damage. Has anyone done any tests?

I too am in the in a dilema as far as spell haste vs. spell damage. I already made up my mind that I was going to stack spell haste as much as I could without dealing a huge blow to my spell damage. However, there is one piece of gear I'm undecided about. Do you guys think I should buy the spell haste Battlemaster trinket or the spell damage Battlemaster trinket, pretty much, is 40 spell haste > 44 spell damage? (Sl/Sl is my pvp spec, no plans on changing.)

One nifty thing to do is pop your Healthstone after you've Deathcoiled the rogue (verify that his trinket has been blown first) and Abolish Poison has removed most of the Wound Poison stack.

Thank you everyone for their imput as a new lock to 70 I have found it very informative

I have been thinking greatly on whether to stack spell damage or spell haste and which would be the best for 2's and 3's which are the main arenas I play in

I have been thinking about it and I decided to go with stam. My idea is simply to stack 15 Stam gems in every possible socket to build up as much health as possible.

My thoughts behind this was as SL/SL you cant really burn down teams as all its all about tanking and draining the other team as much as possible. seeing DOT's gain such a small Co-efficient form spell damage it seemed to be that S3 and S4 gear would be able to hold a lock up as far as damage was concerned and gems wouldn't give it such a sizable buff to their overall DPS.

after talking to over with my arena partners the major issues we face in arena is me getting burnt down and / or pet getting burnt so I figured if I am dieing too fast do what a PVE warrior would do stack stam with a resil cap see how high I can get and see if it makes me more difficult for rogue and warriors to burn down

I was wondering if anyone else has tried this and can tell me if they found it to be a good way to work their gear.

"Just outlast" only works to a point. When you start facing better teams, you'll have to actually kill people instead of just waiting for them to die. Additionally, extra stamina is going to do very little to improve your ability to outlast. It provides a larger initial buffer before you need a heal, but it isn't reducing the rate of incoming damage at all, so you're not saving your healer any mana. Resilience is absolutely worth stacking as it actually provides mitigation.

Your pets dying is something you and your partner need to learn how to deal with. For example, if they draw your pet around a pillar and start killing it, slow-summon a new pet around the other side of the pillar from them. Against Physical DPS/Healer teams, if they drop your first pet, your Fel Dom'ed pet needs to be a Voidwalker.

For an SL/SL build, what's better for starting out, 2/2 Nightfall or 2/3 Emp Corr? I'm thinking Emp Corr, as this will let me hide and DoT a little more effectively as I learn the arena play style.

After doing a bit of research and looking at some of the top players on skgaming, I've come up with this build:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

The build sacrifices 3 points in Fel Concentration and 1 point in Master Demonologist for 2 points in Empowered Corruption and 2 points in Improved CoA. Lately, I've seen more 2/5 Fel Concentration builds, but I haven't been able to find an explanation for this revision to Unstoppable's spec. I understand that the resistances afforded by Master Demonologist appear to be not useful against arena level spell penetration, therefore 4/5 is taken as filler to rearch the Tier 7 talents. If I had to guess, the Affliction tree has been revamped for more pressure, with Improved CoA being maxed, and Fel Concentration being minimized to 2/5 to allow access to the Tier 4 talents. The 3rd point from Fel Concentration (first 2 moved into Improved CoA) and the last point from Master Demonologist fall nicely into Empowered Corruption.

It's because warlocks have been moving away from draining constantly and are more often spamming searing pain during times when they don't need to CC/curse/DoT. Partly this is because of nerfs to both drain life and drain mana, partly because damage is scaling so much higher than defence and healing that outlasting is harder than it was and so you need to put out heavy pressure to get a kill or force the other side to play defencive. (NOTE: not my personal experience, my warlock is a scrub, I just read a lot)

A lot of warlocks who partner with shaman have been going Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft too which I find interesting. If I ever get around to gearing my warlock more I may try it out. It would definitely help against melee/healer teams as it's very hard to keep the pet alive through heals and much easier to make the melee turtle up and get off it through damage spamming.