DecimusGarona

If you plan on "tanking" anything in the arena as a warlock, I would strongly recommend getting 10k hp and 200 resilience, minimum. This means investing in arena armor loaded heavily with stamina and resilience gems and enchants.

 

Oopsies

As I've progressed more and more up the 2s ladder I'm finding that DMG hardly matters anymore. 80% of the games I'm in have me chasing the opposing healer into a corner to mana drain while the the DPS on the other team chases my pally around pillars either trying to drain or kill him.

Whats the most Optimal way to drain an opposing healer who's sole priority is avoiding you? Should I CoX them to catch up for a fear? Should I spam rank 1 corruption and siphon life (I also have 1 into Shadow Embrace, 23/38 specced) until they fall behind and then tag them with a mana drain that hopefully wont be dispelled first? Which curse should I use? CoS to make sure everything lands (or at least assist... most ppl are starting to get a good chuck of shadow resist), CoA on pallies so eventually they have to stop and heal so that I can fear them? At lower levels I would get an easy fear off and then they would be helpless and exposed... but these days its getting to be quite a bit harder.

We win 90% of our fights versus Warrior / Pally, but were having trouble against this one team that played flawlessly. It started off as usual, I position myself towards the center of Nagrand and drain tank the enemy warrior until the opposing pally had to come out to heal. My pet was on the pally the whole time, and he would run circles around the pillar to cleanse my corruption, SL, and drain life making it so that his warrior was taking minimal dmg. The warrior saved his bash and intercept until the pally had to actually land a heal, so that he was relatively unmolested. Eventually my pally ran out of mana spamming flash heals and I died. Whats the proper way to handle this situation? Part of the problem might be gear as I'm only up to 321 resil, but even so I think I could execute better if I knew exactly what to be looking for.

 

Noximus

Apply CoW to the warrior. If the warrior always remains on you then you should DoT up the pally and drain (the pally) life while tanking the warrior. The pally will eventually bubble, DoT up the warrior, DoT up the pally (once the bubble is down) and Drain Mana the Pally. Using Death Coil to make sure the warrior doesnt interupt your Drain Mana. This should garantee that the pally runs out of mana fairly quick and allow your pally to maintain his mana pool.

On the other hand, if the warrior eventually switches to the pally (which he shouldnt) then you can let your pally tank him and bubble heal while you're still draining the other pallies mana. If this happens, it's usually a garanteed win.

Extih <Apocalypse> - Raid Leader - 70 Warlock (Retired)
Noximus <Apocalypse> - 70 Warrior (Retired)

 

toader

I tried a 23/38(ish) build once, and I absolutely could not stand the play style. I see many locks using it though.

In your descriptions of battles against warr/pall, I see no mention of fear. Do you guys not fear the paladin?


I am also on a lock/paladin team. I am a Felguard (noobguard) spec myself. I've tried UA, tried 23/38, etc...but I always come back to Felguard as I do best with it. I did ok with UA, did awful with 23/38. I must have been doing something wrong.

When I face Pally/Warrior, I put my pet on the warrior, and DoT up the warrior as I can. I keep CoT on the paladin, and try to keep him feared. I generally try to treat it opposite of the way you guys do, I try and treat it as a burn fight more than a mana battle. If I have good luck keeping the paladin feared, then between my pets, my dots, SBurn, and Deathcoil, I have a very solid chance to nuke down the warrior while the paladin is feared too far back.

Of course, I've never faced any super great paladin/warrior teams yet, as I'm not a high rated player yet. Maybe my strat works against poorer players, but won't work against better teams. Who knows.



I would love to hear some advice on how people play a 23/38 build. I found the DPS to be VERY VERY lacking. Maybe my pally partner and I just arent/werent used to extending out fights.

http://img158.imageshack.us/img158/4982/gognomenj4.jpg

 

Lionus

Are you talking about 2v2? Why do you DoT the warior? You will only give him rage. Go for the paladin first, force him to bubble and kill him afterwards. Just ignore the warrior.
i only put CoX on the warrior and keep running around so he cant catch me without intercept.
During that time i DoT and instant SB the pala.

 

tristantio

Against the 2v2 teams that have a good pally/warrior combo using vent, it's next to impossible to fear the paladin too far out of range for heals on the warrior, because the warrior will know when he has to come back into range to get some heals, meaning the paladin will be able to put his mana to full use.

Without any other bonuses from soul siphon, drain mana will take 1000 mana from a mana user. Typically a well geared healer will be able to turn this 1000 mana into around 5000 points of healing, so for all intents and purposes if you aren't using a burn setup, draining a healer's mana is so much more effective because you're effectively removing 5000 health from the possible heal pool available.

That's why it's better to beat on the paladin with felguard and have Curse of Agony on the paladin while you drain his mana and Curse of Weakness on the warrior to slow down some of his offensive damage output.

 

Calantus

Here's a post from Kalgan (the developer in charge of class balance and suchlike) that I thought warlocks might find interesting/foreboding:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...eNo=4&sid=1#67

 

Nitemare

If something serious isn't done about resist gear in arenas then I know I will probably completely give up on 2v2s. Already multiple teams have just DECIMATED us with 300+ shadow resist gear (greens; BT resist gear will be the last nail in a coffin, 5 peices will guarantee a win while barely touching damage). You can't drain mana the pally, you can't get CoT or even CoS to land (8+ resists in a row), you can't spell lock or fear. You just get meleed to death VERY slowly by the warrior while you try to kill a 13k HP warrior with searing pain.

23/38 is a solid build because it 1) makes it VERY hard for a warrior to get rage against you, 2) makes you immune to knockback on drains with knockback up, and 3) gives you another few dot tricks to make cleansing more difficult. For me, a felguard was a red flag for warriors, they would two shot him around a corner and drop my sustained DPS to almost nothing but instants. A felhunter has MUCH more utility as well; devour will allow you to use CoEx to maximum advantage by keeping freedom off the pally and allowing you to close the gap for drains. I found it almost impossible to get casted spells off on a pally skilled at "pillar dancing" without CoEx on him, other healers are even worse when you have to contend with HoTs. Devour once again becomes a huge boon in being able to remove them.

 

• Maels

Pretty sure that's a joke more than anything.

 

Frieza

One question: i team with a combat mace rogue and currently am 9/41/11 .. do you think that a coex/sl build would work with this setup? Or is it a build that excels only when teamed with a paladin (or another healer)?

Usually our strats is plain simple: if we face healer/dps focus the healer and cc the dps. The only exception is when the dps is a warrior. In that case we try to burst the warrior (with awful results to be honest). Leaving the warrior alone and focusing the healer usually ends in me or my mate dead.

 

Nitemare

23/38 is meant to outlast. Partnered with a rogue, your best bet is to have the rogue CC their DPS and for you so that you can just unload everything you have on them while using fear/sap/blind/CoT (with spell lock) to CC their healer. I'd almost be tempted to try a bit of destruction or full affliction with a rogue. If the rogue is stunlocking a warrior that gives you all the time you need to land all your dots and start landing some heavy hitting nukes. Roll with a felhunter, CoT the pally, fear him off and get ready to spell lock when the warrior is low. The combination of poisons, CoT, and fear/spell lock should give you enough time to finish off a warrior.

A rogue/lock has a TON of CC available to them, I think you're much better off CCing the healer while killing the DPS rather than the other way around.

A few tricks you might try: 1) try to force a bubble or other cooldown usage VERY early with either blind or sap (at the worst the healer will likely blow their trinket on it allowing you to fear), 2) if there is a cloth based healer, weakness/CoT the DPS and CoEx/crippling him and go after the healer, stunlock should take the healer down with the DPS doing gimp damage, and 3) use LOS to your advantage, snare one or the other opponents and continually pull DPS or healer out of LOS of each other forcing them to either pull back or die (very effective against warriors who like to charge around pillars).

I've fought a few battles with a rogue partner. Against warrior/pallies I usually hang back out of LOS behind a pillar or under the bridge. The warrior sees a warlock and usually charges in like a moron (sorry warriors) out of LOS of his healer. I DoT the warrior up fully, strip off all buffs with felhunter's devour, and start to drain tank him. Meanwhile, the rogue had stealthed ahead into their midst. Once the warrior charges the rogue blinds or, ideally, saps the pally and runs to help me by 1) getting poison on the warrior (cripling and wound seems to work best, you have CoT if you need to slow casting), and 2) starting a stunlock on the warrior allowing me to start opening up with some nukes or other castables (UA, immolate, searing pain spam, drainlife for health, whatever). The pally is CCed far away from his warrior and usually either blows his trinket or his shield and rushes to help. If he runs around the corner and starts to cast a heal on the warrior after blowing his trinket, you can spell lock him and kill the warrior easily. If he bubbles you can pull the warrior back around LOS making healing hard and outlast the bubble (in most cases the warrior will break off due to his pally yelling at him on ventrilo allowing you to wait out MS and healthstone/bandage). Once bubble is down you can fear lock the pally, CoT him, and blow blind if needed. You still have PLENTY of CC available to lock down the pally long enough for the warrior to die and stun DR will have reset fully allowing for another stunlock during which you can restack all your dots.

 

Aonea

Well, I'm not a warlock, but I am part of a 2v2 / 3v3 team with one and I'm looking for some suggestions against certain match-ups.

Our 2v2 is generally myself (pally) and a warlock (affliction). Thus far, we do fairly well against any combo, but the one which seems to be giving us the most trouble is rogues. Specifically, mace rogues with a healer.

Any warlocks out there have suggestions how to give us a shot at them. Right now, its seems to be our hard counter, due to the rogues keeping my lock tied down with stun and interrupts and the healer, worst of all druid, just heals with impunity while I'm forced to heal through the stacking -healing poison.

It was especially bad, as we faced a couple rogue/healer teams last night, and while rogue/priest or shaman we stood good chance of downing, rogue/druid just seemed impossible. With the druid able to just spam hots and the rogue ignoring me to focus on my lock, we found no openings to get at the druid.

I think hes condsidered going SL spec, to see if it would improve our chances, but I'm hoping to find out if theres any way for us to make it work the way we are now.

 

Nitemare

Druid/rogue is probably one of the hardest combos any warlock/whatever team can face. Druids are the anti-warlock healer (disc/holy priests are pretty bad as well). HoT and swiftmend make healing a joke while pillar dancing, in my experience, if you ever get a casted fear off it's almost a miracle due to stuns, kicks, poison, and (most annoying of all) LOS. Honestly, SL would make the lock survive longer, but it wouldn't really solve your problem. Your warlock will still be doing basically no damage compared to the rogue. You still wont be able to CC the druid worth a crap. And you're still going to be out healed due to poison.

My advice, recruit an MS warrior.

 

Aphyrax

Question to all the warlocks and warlock allies in this thread. I started playing lock/druid recently. In lock/healer mirror matches, is it worth putting on shadow resist when you are the healer? Is SR effective to counter mana drain? Because those matchups are generally decided by who runs dry first. As a druid I can dispel CoS so I get the full benefit of SR.

 

Etre

I have to ask something ... and here might be the right threat I belive


I just fought a Gladiator lock in AV , very good PvP gear . He was SL + felhunter


I was on my alt , rogue.

Well , I have managed to cheap shot him every time , but when I linked in KS he could remove the stun somehow. It happend 3-4 times, and I am 100% sure that his trinket was on CD 2 times ....
I wonder how ... can you use 2 types of trinkets ? the one with res and the one without ? (not shared CD ?)
Something I am missing about locks ?

 

Krebosh

If you have CoeX you have very good kiting possibilities, especially when teamed with a paladin. CoeX on rogue and freedom on warlock. They have a few cooldowns to catch up on him but in the long run you should be able to kite him. Keep full dots on rogue and add whatever dots you can when the druid comes out to heal. Pet on druid so he cant drink while you wont have the same problem. Keep spamming CoeX if druid removes it.

Without CoeX it would probably be harder, but you still need to try and kite the rogue. Do what you can. HoJ + BoF. Intercept (if felguard) + Fear or just run with BoF. Spam fear and hope to get one through to force him to blow a cooldown to get back on warlock. Fake cast fear. Once you're away from rogue, keep dots on him and as much as you can on druid too. Fear druid if you can or keep fearing rogue to get him off you if the druid pillar plays.

In any way, you're most likely not gonna kill anything until the druid is oom, so keep doing damage to both and do whatever you can to get him to spend mana.

And you're in for a much more rough fight once the druid decides to go help his rogue by using tripple cyclone, stomp (if tauren), feral charge (if specced) and bash to interrupt you.

 

Vazu

Forget about beating healer/Rogue without Curse of Exhaustion.

 

doogless

Yeah, pretty much. I play a Felguard build in a Warlock/Druid combo because I'm too cheap to respec for raiding and arenas, and Felguard is pretty good for both. Most of our wins against Rogue/healer combos are due to their mistakes rather than our skills.

We've managed a few wins against Rogue/Priest in Lordaeron or Nagrand, but Blade's Edge we just don't stand a chance. It's too easy for their healer to go OOC to drink, and our whole playstyle relies on keeping their healer in combat while mine can HoT me up and drop combat periodically. His mana vs opposing healer mana will never be a war we win because wound poison is causing him to heal twice as much or use mana to remove it.

 

Vazu

Pretty much, yep.

If you let a Rogue stack 5/5 Wound Poison in 2v2s and can't get away to kite with CoEX.. GG

 

Darkmantle

I think the more important question is how is a rogue sacking 5 wounding when you have a druid healer. Does the priest keep dispeling abolish poison?

 

doogless

I'd never really understood why Rogue/Paladin was so much easier for us than Rogue/Priest. This is probably it.

 

DiscW

In 2vs2 I've run alot as affliction with a holy priest. The combo we've had the most trouble with has been druid+dps. Specifically druid+ warrior. There's very little I can do to get away from the warrior for any signifigant amount of time due to intercept-hamstring, and if I try to attack the druid he can just run away. Meanwhile we lose the mana battle thanks to mortal strike.

Any suggestions for that combo?

 

Cronjob

Can someone post this 24/38/0 build? I think I have it but I want to make sure I have it right. Or this 23/37/0 build.. I am currently full demo standard 6/44/11 build but looking for other options as I dont always run with FG and I feel its wasted.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=Iq0rV0fuZbxczIiz0es

 

toader

Not quite. You don't have CoEx, and you have too many points in Shadow Embrace. I also see the extra range on Affliction spells to be a very important talent to take, although some debate this. Personally, I like the range.

I would go with this:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=Iq0rVRdkoZbxczIiz0es

http://img158.imageshack.us/img158/4982/gognomenj4.jpg

 

Cronjob

Would it be better to take that one point out of emp corruption and put it into shadow embrace or vice versa? Which is better?