Tectonic

I'm trying this unusual combo with a mage friend since we both play a lot and we enjoy playing together. I am seeking advice from anyone who has attempted this setup or has ideas on how to make it work.

Currently my spec is 27/34 sl/sl and the mage is full frost. So far I've been the focus of every team and I die almost instantly despite 13k health and 421 resilience. Our intended strategy was to cc the healer using spell lock, counterspell, fear and sheeps (when not a druid) but so far it hasn't worked out too well. We're sitting at a 50/50 win-lose ratio so our rating hasn't budged after some 40 games played.

It would seem that my spell sequence isn't optimal and that my dps suffers the consequences. Typically I get CoT on the healer and start dotting up the dps. The healer trinkets out of sheep and removes my dots as I apply them. Having a hunter, warrior, rogue or some other class beating on me tends to bring my dps to a halt since the dots just get removed.

I'm looking for ideas on how to make this setup work. I must admit that it is rather challenging and beats running any of the easy 2v2 and 3v3 combos I've been doing on my warrior. Any ideas and advice are quite welcome.

 

pheno

I play with the same setup together with my little brother. The combo is challenging and interesting and, in my eyes, hard to master. Nevertheless, warlock/healer teams can not be defeated by this combo (if the warlock is standard sl/sl). That's kinda sad.

But with perfect usage of your ccs and suiting dr cc changes, lots of teams should be handleable for your setup. Also, you can say that you combo isnt something usual and outplayed

- That's why we're warlocks, not lovelylocks! -

 

Optimized

Warrior Healer should actually be very easy for this set up as they'll just sit in berzerker stance and take tons of damage from your mage/dots while you lock out the healer (druids are tougher as they have more instant heals and you can't poly them, priests can sometimes be tough if you don't apply enough pressure to make them cast counterspellable heals, and let them dispel all your dots/freeze effects). Rogues can be very difficult, as you can die in the time of a kidney shot or cloak of shadows. Against warlocks you really need to have a spellstone and your mage needs to ice block dots off before they tick too much. If you both watch your hp it's not too bad.

 

Nadagast

It's a pretty decent setup, well played Druid + Warlock/Warrior is pretty much impossible to win, and Holy or Disc Priest + Rogue is hard too, but other than that you have a chance against almost anything, if I remember correctly. I played this setup a lot in S2 after my Rogue quit

Any team with a Pally is pretty much a free win, if you are looking for advice against specific setups post em

 

Jacktwok

I ran this setup to a duelist rating last season and I have to say that your assertion is incorrect. Warlock Druids is fairly impossible against any competent team, but any other makeup with a warlock and a healer is very prone to your lockouts. Warlock Pally is the easiest and Warlock Priest is the hardest with Warlock Shaman somewhere in the middle.

Anyway, Our basic strat involves bursting down a target while locking out heals with counterspell > sheep > fear in that order. It also usually involves curse of tongues on the healer. Against anything with a pally your mage will find it VERY easy to make the pally obsolete. Against a priest you will have to be ready to follow up your CS with an immediate sheep if he is able to resist your cast.

You're not a combo with much lasting power. You miss a counterspell once you may make it with a quick recovery via more CC but otherwise missed crowd control will result in a quick death. Double DPS require you both to know who to kill and to do it as quickly as possible in order to gain a favorable 1v1 match up or better yet a 2v1 match up. My lock runs with a felguard and not sl/sl.

It is a pretty difficult combo to master and with the large amount of druid healers now you will find yourself in a situation where you won't be able to win many matches even if you have a large amount of skill over your opponents due to how bad druids beat your combo. But by the same token you will give many other teams such as shadow priest rogue and warrior pally/shammy a good dose of that same medicine.

 

Tectonic

Did you preffer the Felguard's DPS over the Felhunter's Spell Lock and Devour Magic?

 

noop

I've played this setup as a mage for a while, we both had pretty decent gear and we were up at a maximum over 2200 rating.

Accually every 2dps setups is free rating for this combo, all you have to do is use your crowd control right. Also all warrior teams except warrior+druid is pretty easy. If you want tips for some specific setups just let me know and I'll tell you the best I can.

And by the way, the warlock I played with was specced 7/43/11 for the burst from shadowbolt+shadowburn.
Usually the warlock was the "tank" anyway so drain life wasn't really used much even when he was sl/sl specced.

 

Jacktwok

I really find that teams with healers are eaiser for the most part as long as the healer isn't a druid. Some double DPS is easy money, but some is very hard such as rogue mage and rogue lock. Thats been my experience so far.

Tec, I really feel the 2nd spell lock is needed for anything but druids, but even against druids its not an equalizer so we've found more success with the felguard.

 

Tectonic

That's just it. I end up tanking and not being able to do much of anything so I have to re-evaluate my spell sequence. I'm definitely going to spec something with shadowburn for the added instant DPS. I don't find that drain life is usefull at all since the 2.3 changes to MS and interrupts. I end up trying to fake an Immolate (only works against very stupid players) and even then, nothing works vs. improved kick. I'll keep at it though and see if I can finally master this tough combo.

 

Jacktwok

Sorry - I meant to say is NOT needed against anything but druids.

The thing to remember is that when you're felguard spec you have an added amount of DPS straight from your pet. That and your instant dots are where most of your DPS will come from when you're tanking. Knowing when to use the incercept to buy you time as well as your trinket and deathcoil is extremely important. If you are tanking chances are that your mage partner is completely free and we mages can do some nasty nasty dmg with shatter when that is the case.

 

pheno

As a warlock myself, I can say that an icemage and a warlock together can not force enough pressure on the warlock to bring any healer into the situation of heal spamming. The warlock dots and selfheal (combined with his possibilities of cc) are enough to give the healer freedom of actions. A single paladin bubble phase is definitely enough to make the mage fall as he has no heal except the healthstone. Even if the warlock and the icemage could inflict enough damage, they would always have the time as their hardest opponent playing into the warlock/healer team's hand.

- That's why we're warlocks, not lovelylocks! -

 

noop

For me and my warlock pal rogue+other dps class was kind of easy, hardest was rogue+shadowpriest for the dispelling of sheep, but still we managed to keep our win rating over 50% vs them. What you do is to simply put ur felguard ready for an intercept when the rogue opens, the mage should sheep him (this way he cant do CoS), and sheep instant again because he will surely use trinket! when the second sheep is about to run out just sheep again, or if you are silenced tell your warlock you are and he will fear. Rogues is mostly undeads so tell him to fear twice to be sure. When fear breaks you should crowd control him by using your novas right, first off use your pet nova so that you dont have to be near him, he will probably do cloak of shadows now so get ready while he closes up to the warlock to use frostnova again. If he breaks it by vanish/sprint or anything just sheep him.

If you keep this CC rotation on a rogue his DPS class 2v2 mate is probably already dead if you didnt let him drain life too much.

And if you manage to keep much pressure on the priest (if it's a shadow priest) he will probably not dispell too much, and a mage should spec into winters chill because he will have to dispell that too.

The two setups we never really learned how we should do to win is warlock+resto druid and rogue+disc priest. pretty much impossible setups but the best we found out to do was to nuke the warlock really much in the start so that the druid has to use nature's swiftness and then go on the druid. This way it mostly ended up being me (mage) vs the warlock (usually he's sl/sl -_-) and I didn't stand a chance.

 

Darkmantle

The way warlock mage wins sometimes against my warlock/druid team is to kill my felhunter. It kinda seems insane but they managed to do it plenty of times. Then with the felpuppy down they just chain cced me with fear fear poly poly until my druid was oom and got killed. Or better yet be lucky enought to fight on ruins and catch the druid out in the open.

 

Roe

^^ how does the mage stay alive long enough to outlast the druid with all the warlock dots? A couple of ice blocks should dump them and a health stone, bandgage, but still I don't normally find that convenience.

I am thinking it must take a bit of time to oom the druid. A couple of minutes perhaps? Or is my internal clock way off. :p

 

Taja

I have played this setup aswell over 2200 in season 2. As mentioned before rogue/priest is hard and generally every class playing with a druid is hard. Where warlock/druid is the most dreadful combo you can face.

Our tactics against some of the harder combo's is was as following (success not guaranteed)

warrior/druid: Warlock runs in with VW shield and starts dotting up the warrior and pulls him to the middle of the arena (somewhere open atleast). Mages comes out and starts with shatter combo right away. Sometimes you get intercepted sometimes not, but if you are just play it like a duel and keep up the pressure on the warrior. Druid comes out and usually casts a cyclone on either of the 2, trinket that and both set druid as focus. If warrior is on mage warlock can start fearing the druid while keeping all dots up on warrior. Mage can keep up the DPS. At one point in the game druid will be forced to cast anything, this is where your mage silences, followed by fellhunter silence (just for the silence, not lockout). Followed up by fear/or a potential second fellhunter silence. If warrior is on lock your mage just has to spam dps on the warrior and wait for the druid cast aswell. Even when focussed the lock should still keep up the dots.

warlock/druid: Pretty much an impossible combo to beat but we managed to squeeze out a couple of wins on good days. Let warlock open up as usual and put fellhunter on the lock. (interrupting casts and you need to get the lock dispelled). Mage starts to open with frostbolts once the game is underway. Most likely the lock will turn on the mage and the druid will come out. If so your lock needs to keep dots up on the lock/fellhunter where possible and druid as much as he can. Where also helping out the mage with a fear every now and then. Drain the druid also if you got a chance, force him into defensive play. Your mage has to play insanely defensive, nova into poly the lock and just run away while removing CoA and keep ice barrier up. If you play it just right (quite hard) you can survive for a couple of minutes easy without taking to much damage. (Note that your basicly doing nothing offensive here apart from a silence from time to time). Once the fellhunter is on about 50 percent try to burst it down with a shatter combo and perhaps a shadow bolt from the lock. If you succeed keep up CoT on the lock (basicly spam it) and try to silence the petsummon. (if you manage that spellsteal like a crazy man and get his fel domination. If he does get it a second one we just try to burst that one with a water elemental while sheeping the lock and fearing the druid. Hard to pull of but sometimes works.