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Warlock Arena Guide. How to play, and How to get there
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Post by
Infleto
UNDERGOING UPDATES
My Background
I have made 2 PvP guides on wowhead in the past. I have played for 4 yeas now. Currently I PvP on 2 lock alts and my pallie. I only play 3s. My warlock teams are RLTree and Shadowcleave. On my plallie I heal in a TSG. I have played many successful pvp team in WotLK: Warlock - WLD, LSD, and MLD, Pallie - TSG and briefly beast cleave.
Table of Contents
Gear and Talent Trees
New To PvP
Arena Aff
Arena Destro
Arena Demo
Arena Teams and Replays
Aff
Destro / Demo
Team Coordination
Communication
Tools
Addons
Useful links
New to Arena
New To Gearing in PvP
PTR Effects
Question and Answer
Thanks For Editing and Verification To:
asakawa
lock13
Post by
Infleto
Gear and Talent Trees
There are many glory moments that come with PvP. Unfortunately, Gearing is not one of them. The right of passage for any PvPer is going through "The Grind". It is a time of defeat in Battle Grounds and constant arena team switches. When a player emerges, They are geared and ready to rock.
NOTE: All Profiles are Human as Humans give the best racial for PvP Warlock. If you are not Human you will replace
Badge of Dominance
trinket with
PvP Trinket
New to PvP
Grinding Gear and Talents (Profile, click it to see gear and spec)
.
In the above profile the first Talent Tree is Destro meant for BGs. But hey, it's BGs who cares. Demo is fun too. Do whatever you want for a BGs talent tree. The 2nd Talent Tree is a Aff 3v3 arena grinding spec. It is solid, don't mess with it. The stats setup on this gear is focus on Aff arena. I do not see it necessary to focus gear stats for BGs performance as the goal is to get in to the arena. Move on to the other profiles after you are close to the gear here.
Starter pvp gear comes form honor gained through Battle Grounds, and so, is the start of your "grind". Generally speaking, At low gear levels do not worry about getting kills, dieing, winning, or losing. A player can't change the outcome at such a low gear level. So, just stay with a group and get through it. I know grinding for honor gear is not an ideal way to spend a day and we will all pay Blizzard back for it. Know that grinding BGs with low gear is not real PvP. The truth is you can't fully build any PvP skills until you have solid gear. Every reaction you learned before is form dieing too fast. Get through "the grind" and you will be smashing faces before you know it.
It is best to grind random BGs and TB until you have your 5 piece set and a trinket. After you gain this you can start to look for 3v3 arena teammates to grind conquest points. Don't be too choose just yet. Play with whoever is online. I would not recommended doing 2s. There is a cap on the amount of weekly conquest points you can earn. It takes 5 wins to get the maxim and the cap resets every Tuesday. Within 2 weeks of arenas you can get your Tear 1 pvp weapon!. keep at it until your gear looks like the starter profile above. When you do your grind is mostly over. Now you can start looking at climbing up in ratting with a solid arena team.
Arena Aff
Aff Arena Gear and Talents (Profile)
2 glyphs are open. Your team setup will dictate what they are. see the section "Arena Team: Aff" below.
This gear set up has: 4% PvP hit cap. Spell pen cap. Prioritizes Intellect over other main stats. Prioritizes Hast then Resilience over other off stats. This come as the recommended setup for Arena PvP.
Arena Destro
Destro Arena Gear and Talents (Profile)
Burning Embers is taken as a junk debuff to help over Immo form dispels.
This gear set up has: 4% PvP hit cap. Spell pen cap. Prioritizes Intellect over other main stats. Prioritizes balancing Crit with Hast and Resilience over other of stats. I do not recommended destro over Aff or Demo. Destro's burst dose not fell strong enough to be as effective.
Arena Demo
Demo Arena Gear and Talents (Profile)
Demo game should be over fast. As so, I did not take 1 point in Mana Feed. If you find your felgard OOM pick up one point.
This gear set up has: 4% PvP hit cap. Spell pen cap. Prioritizes Intellect over other main stats. Prioritizes Hast then Resilience over other off stats. This come as the recommended setup for Arena teams that used Destro in WofLK
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Post by
Infleto
Arena Teams
Generally Warlocks do best in 3v3 caster+melee+healer teams. Any melee with a healing debuff is Ideal, As far as healers go, Druids have the best synergy with warlocks. Priest healers are not Ideal do to DR with fear. Double caster + healer teams are strong late in the arena season when PvE gear can come in to play.
Aff Arena Team
General, All of the following Aff teams come highly recommended and are all 1st rank viable. The best is RLS, then MLS > Shadowcleave > WLD > shadowplay.
Spread damage - This teams normally uses some form of healing Debuff + Dots on the whole enemy team. When someone is low both you and your teammate can go for the kill. During this the warlock makes getting the kill easier by CC'ing a enemy whom can stop your or your teammates damage via Death coil and Fear and interrupting incoming heals via Spell lock. The Warlock dose not truly Nuke the target until they are at 25% for DS. Fear is focused on cutting incoming damage by controlling the strongest enemy dps when the team is not close to a kill.
Focus damage - This teams normally uses a 2nd DPS that is CD based. The 2nd DPS tries to stay on one target for as long a possible. Only switching targets when they are forced to via enemy CD use, Loss of LoS with your healer, or the need to peel for a teammate. Warlock dots are only needed on whoever your 2nd DPS is on and off damage is last in priority. The Warlocks acts as and enabler for his teammates. His time is best spent keeping his teammate free to dps. This is done buy controlling a enemy whom can stop your teammates damage especially when close to a kill. Off target dotting is still used, it just should be use after all of the above
Shadow Cleave, Warlock, DK, Healer.
Arenajunkies Info
Videos with Voice.
Pressure - Spread damage but can act like a Focused team if the DK ever gets on a healer. Kills come slow and after a good interrupt chain on heals or OOM. Warlock portieres are to control the damage dealer form the other team. Then spread damage around opposed to training a "kill target". The DK should stick to one person to stack Necrotic Strike then switching off. It plays slow until their healer is in the open then DK should stay on them for as long as possible as the lock fears who ever can peel your DK. When someone is dipping (60%) save your next Spell lock to line up with DK's interrupt and go for the kill. Dot them up and nuke in to them. DS when under 25%. With the DK on them, One of you will land the kill
Positioning - Mostly you should stay in LoS of your healer, Away form but in rage of your portal, and In LoS of you kill target. Vs Range teams stay to the side of LoS items. Vs melee keep in the open.
Peels - Most peels for the Healer and DK come form the warlock in this set up through fear and Coex. The DK should peel with DG + Chains of ice or Mind freeze for the warlock or for the Healer when Fear is on DR.
Glyphs- Portal, HoT
RLS, Rogue, Warlock, Shaman. Can be played with a druid.
Arena Junkies Info
More
Videos with Voice.
Pressure - Spread damage. The Rogue can lock down the other team to let the warlock free cast. With 3 targets Doted every think can be a kill target. The rouge should jump on who ever he can reach.
Posistioning - To start off, stand behind LoS with your healer so it is easier to get the sap. Then stay in the open Vs melee, have LoS vs range.
Peels - Rogue peels are the strongest in the comp. Yet all is used when in melee range or close to it. Do to this, whoever the rogue was peeling is now the best choice for your team's pressure. So When the rogue peels the team also is changing it's kill target. The Shaman should try to peel first, if he cant if falls to the lock, if he can't the Rogue can pick it up.
Glyphs- Shadow flame, HoT
WLD, Warrior, Lock, Druid
Arena Junkies Info
Pressure - Spread damage. Warrior lands the kills. Warlock Portieres are to spread damage. Then focus fear on controlling damage. When incoming damage is low, focus fear on whoever can control your warrior. Fearing when damage is low is last priority as most of the warlock time is spent doting. The over all Ideal is for the warrior to attack one person for 5 or 6 sec. Then he will switch to the next nearest person unless it feels like they will drop right then. It dose not matter who he switches to. Doing this keep MS up on all of them. MS + DoTs will make one of them dip low. The warrior will eventually switch on the the right person at the right time and they will die. Death Coil+BladeStorm can help things along, but most kills should feel random. No need to cc healers.
Positioning. - LoS can really help this team so stay close even vs melee. When LoSing pop out to dot then hid. A common tactic is for the Druid and Warrior to run for LoS next to the warlock's portal. The Warlock will Shadowflame the enemy and then port to his healer. The Druid then has 4-6sec to catch up on heals. This can also get the other team to LoS their healer for and easy kill
Peels - The Druid should handle most of the peeling via cyclone/roots. The Warrior should handle most peels for the druid. Intervene back to the druid and slow who ever is on the druid and the druid shifts in to travel and runs. This can even be done vs caster given LoS. Warlock's Shadow Flame is the only true peel he should use. It helps with Melee kitting and Range LoSing. Fear is not as needed..
Glyphs - Shadowflame, HoT
MLD, Mage, Lock, Druid
Arena Junkies Info
Pressure - Focused damage. Warlock or mage can land kills. Warlock portieres are to fully dot one target. Then to cc the healer. When you can't fear the healer do to DR or LoS, fear is used to cut damage. Nuke in to the kill target with SP/ DL. Kills normally come when Spell lock and counter spell are off CD and chained. Locks can get a lot of DS kills in this team so look for them.
Positioning - Stay in the open all most all ways. This keeps the other teams in LoS of you Longer. with your healer close to LoS. Vs Melee you all should stay as far from LoS as possible.
Peels - Not much to say. everyone on the team has 3 or more strong peels, use them, a lot. The main peel will come form who ever dose not currently have a cc the healer. Melee peels come form the mage. Their pressure will be on you a lot at the start, but your druid is mostly the kill target.
Glyphs- HoT, Portal
Shadow Play, Warlock, Shadow Priest, Resto Druid
Pressure - Spread damage. I dislike it when the advise give to warlocks is "dot every thing" but this time it is true. Use fear defensively, but try to help your shadow priest free cast when choosing who to fear. Slience, DC, and spell lock should be save when someone drops below 60% chain them together when hopping for a kill. Kill come as a surprise almost and feel random. If your dots are getting spam dispelled, You have to land a cc on the enemy dispeler to get damage rolling.
Positioning - You can stack behind Los pop out and dot some one then pop back in. lols it will get the enemy healer to burn through mana with dispells.
Peels - Cyclone and roots play a major roll here do to the DR on Fear. so keep that in mind
Glyphs - ShadowFlame, Portal
Post by
Infleto
Desto / Demo Arena Teams
Currently all the following are not 1st rank or top tier viable. This may change latter if new higher tear PvE gear can add more burst damage. Demo can doing every thing Desto can do atm with out being locked down by dispels. If Desto or Demo teams improve in rankings. I will expand this section.
MLD, Mage lock Druid
Pressure - Get a fear/sheep off one someone then cast in to the other. When the CC'ed player trinkets out of the fear/sheep switch to them with Deep freeze in to a Showfury/Felgaurd Stun. Use your damage CDs and burn them. Call out interrupts on the next incoming heals. The druid should cyclone to Prevent peels. Fear/sheep is mostly use to force a trinket so Shadowfury/Fealgaurd Stun + Deep Freeze will stick. If you fell to get a kill, stop spamming damage and use fear/ sheep to cut incoming damage. When you have your CDs back up again, try for a kill again on who ever is away form LoS and has no trinket.
Positioning - Stay in the open away form LoS when you have your CDs available. When you use most of them get back to LoS and CC until you have your CDs again. Get back in the open when you do.
Peels - Kill some one, no need for peels. Yet, If you don't get a quick kill, This team has 3 spammable CCs on different DR use them, at random even there is know need to figure out who should save what for a peel. This team has 14 relabel peels: Cyclone, Roots, Bare Bash, Fear, DC, ShadowFury, Spell Lock, Shadow flame, Sheep, Nova, FB Slows, CoC, Counters spell, Deep Freeze. I am sure there are more that enough peels for this team.
LSD, Lock, Ele Shaman, Druid
Pressure - Fear whoever can dispel Flame shock and Immo. Dispels mean no pressure. When the dispeler trinkets Fear. Hex them and go for a kill add in Spell lock at the end of the Hex if needed. Cyclone should be use to stop peels when going for a kill. Shadow Fury/Felgaurd Stun is not limitedly needed can be use in many was: to peel, to stop peels, to stop the dispeler, or to stop the kill target form LoSing.
Positioning - Stay away from LoS. if you are forced to LoS Ranged teams you are all ready behind.
Peels - Vs Range use wind shear and grounding totem. Vs Melee use druid or shaman roots. Shadowfury/Felgaurd Stun is a good peel for anything and on a short CD. Use fear/cyclone last. Fear is needed on the dispeler. Cyclone is needed to stop peels when going for a kill.
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Post by
Infleto
Team Coordination
Communication
Vent or Skype with a mic is a requirement in arenas. If you have it, you have a chance to succeed. With out it your team will be playing blind (Or deaf). By far the hardest thing to learn in PvP is what to call out over vent and what to do when it is said. Next to being geared. This is what gains a team ratting in arena.
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Post by
Infleto
Tools
Links
Shaired Diminishing Returns of CC Table
Warlock Abbrevations
Macros
Rogue finder macro. Spamming it will pull them out of stealth if you spot them for 1/2 a second.
#showtooltip Curse of Exhaustion
/console targetNearestDistance 15.000000
/targetenemy
/console targetNearestDistance 41.000000
/cast Curse of Exhaustion
/dismount
Addons
My rule with addons and UI is, Dose it make me click less and move my mouse less? Dose it help me
understand
what is going on in the arena? Dose it help me DoT, Fear, Nuke, and peel? If not, get rid of it. With Add ons like Scrolling combat text. you really do not need to see how much Drain
life is healing you for or, how much damage your dots are ticking for. All of that is distracting spam cluttering up your screen. I turn it off. Target of Target, Target of party, even the map. all unneeded for arenas.
Gladius.
#1 Arena add on. It will change the blizzard's enemy team UI into something useful. It shows their class. It can track trinkets, tracks major buff and debuffs. It shows their cast bars which is how I do all of my interrupts via DC and Spell lock, it even keeps track of who you or your teammates CC and the cc's DRs. It allows for actions on mouse over clicks. I would fail hard in the arena with out it.
My Gladius set up is.
Make it bigger, I dubbed the size of the cast bars. I enlarge Spell Names on the cast bar and Health %. I show trinket as a Large icon. I shrink the text about class / name / Max health,and I lock it in place.
I Moved it right next to my character on the screen. I place it almost in my way. It is the most important thing on my screen. I have to click on it fast. I even keep my mouse hovering over it.
Mouse over actions.
Right click, Target player
Left click, Fear
Shift - left click, set focus.
Middle mouse click - spell lock
Button 5 click - DC
Button 4 click - Soul swap
The spells listed are whats is important. boned them to what ever mouse button you want. but their is no harm in just stealing mine and getting use to it. This lets me Fear, Soul Swap, Sell lock, and DC with out changing targets. It makes Doting and Fearing Faster and cleaner. The people I fear when using gladius do not get a "aggro" warning which would help them to know when to LoS my cast.
Tidy Plates
Ok it is story time, back in the days of WotLK there was an arena team set up called BeastCleave. It had a Hunter, Enhancement Shaman, and a Holy Pally. It was also know as name plate cleave. There would be up to 9 enemy name plates on my screen form pets, wolfs, totems, and players. Warlocks had to find which name plate was tremor totem and smash it before we could do any thing. This add on removes any name plate you do not wish to see.
This add-on will change the size and color of the name plates. I make player name plates the largest and their class color shows up on it, I make pets 2/3rds the size of players and they show up red. I only make tremor totem and manna stream totem show up and they are 1/3rd the size of players. This add-on was a beastcleave be gone tool. It's current use is for totems helps identify which class is where.
Doom_CooldownPulse
This addon will track my CDs. Before this add-on, I would find my self using 1/2 my CDs in the first 20sec of action in an arena match. They come back off CD but, I would not realize it. Have you ever seen all 3 enemy players stacked on top of each other and ran in for a triple fear only to find HoT was on CD. Have you ever been on peeling duty for your healer with shadowfame slow? Even tried to use it but it was on CD? It dose not work too well. Even haunt falls off a lot when you are doting different targets.
This addon will Flash a big icon on your screen when ever a ability comes off CD. I moved the icon location right under my player as to never miss it. I enlarged it and slowed its flash time. This add-on helped me to use more of my CDs and not unknowingly horde them most of the match.
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Post by
Infleto
PTR Effects
On the PTR we are nothing that effect pvp.
I will Answer questions regarding Arena gear, Arena spec, Grinding gear, Arena teams, UI, Addons, and Coordination. All questions about your gear, spec, or team must have an armory link or profile.
I will not Answer questions about BGs, 1v1s, 2v2s, Nerfs, Buffs, Next patch wishes, and Crazy arena team setups. If the team is not currently viable pass 2.5k it is not worth discussion. My Goal is to help players get to a high level of play. Not to help your team of Aff + Fire mage + combat rogue reach it max potential of 1.5k ratting because it is a dead end comp. Now if you are playing a good set up and are struggling with it. I can help
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Post by
asakawa
"coronation" is the ceremonial crowning of a monarch. not sure what you're saying but it's probably not that ^_^
liking your guide already from just a layout point of view so keep up the good work.
also, remember that they added the \ tag which is great for making linked indices.
Post by
Infleto
"coronation" is the ceremonial crowning of a monarch. not sure what you're saying but it's probably not that ^_^
liking your guide already from just a layout point of view so keep up the good work.
also, remember that they added the \ tag which is great for making linked indices.
Yes, I am doing a section on crowing ceremonies . . .
>.< fixed, I do not know how to anchor tag.
Post by
asakawa
>.< fixed, I do not know how to anchor tag.
an explanation of anchors
and
a more in-depth description
.
Post by
Infleto
>.< fixed, I do not know how to anchor tag.
an explanation of anchors
and
a more in-depth description
.
Added some and added more content,
Post by
vykas
This is a great start. And I appreciate you allowing us to make fun of your spelling (though I will restrain for now)! But I do hope you have someone doing some sort of copy editing for you, because there are a good number of typos.
I would like to see the tools section more fleshed out--maybe add a macro section.
Also, could you please spell out Affliction, Destruction and Demonology (probably just my own personal preference)? Sometimes abbreviations make it difficult for new people to understand what you are trying to say.
Post by
Infleto
This is a great start. And I appreciate you allowing us to make fun of your spelling (though I will restrain for now)! But I do hope you have someone doing some sort of copy editing for you, because there are a good number of typos.
I would like to see the tools section more fleshed out--maybe add a macro section.
Also, could you please spell out Affliction, Destruction and Demonology (probably just my own personal preference)? Sometimes abbreviations make it difficult for new people to understand what you are trying to say.
I am adding links to things like macros, DR tables, abbreviations. I do not wish to reinvent the well (just kidding wheel).
Typos are every where. I will have some one looking over it so that should be fix soon enough. Just keep a look out
Post by
LookOut
Just keep a look out
You rang?
(never gets old ^^)
Anyways, very interesting guide. If you need help with the typos, I'm up for that.
Post by
asakawa
you're offering your typos?
Post by
LookOut
Yes, they're leet!
Meh, editing the wording, totally didn't read it that way :)
Post by
asakawa
^_^
Post by
539323
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Infleto
OK sticky requested.
Q&A is open
Editing suggestions will still be received
How do I get rid of the scroll bar under the tools section?
I will now accept valid changes to the posted information.
Post by
asakawa
good work! i really like the layout and overall thoroughness of your guide. reported for sticky.
i hope that some experienced PvPers will chip in with some opinions and contributions. i know from other guides i've made that constructive, knowledgeable criticism is always very welcome and i'm sure you feel the same.
i'm not seeing a scrollbar and i use a widescreen monitor so it may simply be a monitor resolution issue.
edit: you do have an unclosed \ tag at the end of that post though (along with an extra \\ pair) which is preventing your link back to the contents from showing.
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