CREATOR OF THIS GUIDE IS NO LONGER ACTIVE.
Warlock's basic PvP Guide
Ok, a recent request gave me the power to actually make a proper Warlock's guide.
--- Important ---
I would like to set this guide for starter warlocks, beginners, with basics, talents, stats priority, glyphs and some more. For advanced tactics you should take a look at this, where me and other amazing guys wrote some situational and core moves a warlock can/should do.
Keep in mind this will (as title says) be focused on the PvP aspect of our class, since i didn't have the time/possibility to level up a warlock in Cataclysm and do PvE...i am playing this class in the Warsong realm.
- Introduction ---
From ashes. A Warlocks is one of the 3 cloth classes in WoW. It somehow stands between Mages and Priests, combining damaging spells with self-healing abilities, all along his/her companion, a Demon.
- Role ---
Warlocks in PvP have 2 main roles: damage dealer and crowd controller. His/her fighting place is outsite of the crowd, far or on an avarage range, where he's free to cast spells or lock someone in fear (and other kind of CC).
Ok, now you should have an idea of what a warlock is. They don't have a Mage mobility, nor a Priest healing capability. They heavely rely on CCes to fight and help allies in battle.
- Races ---
I am a big fan of "Play the one you like", because it is real: if you like to see your pg when you log-in, if you like how it moves, how it casts...i can surely tell you will perform a lot better, because you will enjoy using it...and your mindset is an important aspect to achieve success. Anyway i'll give some advices:
Alliance:
- Humans is the dominant PvP race because of the free trinket slot.
- Dwarfs are good because of Stoneform, which removes Poisons and Bleeds. Also, they have an innate Frost Resistance.
- Gnomes are small, with an anti-snare racial and increased mana pool.
- Worgens have a sprint racial and increased crit rating. They have an innate Shadow/Nature resistance.
Horde:
- Orcs have an additional damage booster racial, stun resistance and increased Demons damage.
- Undeads have an anti Fear/Sleep/Seduce racial and an innate resistance to Shadow. They can eat corpses to regenerate Mana/Health.
- Trolls regenerate health faster, have an Haste boost racial, reduced snare effects and increased damage versus Beasts.
- Goblins have increased Haste and a jump/rocket racial. Plus, they're small-
- Blood Elfs can silence nearby enemies and regenerate mana. Plus, they're innately resistant to Arcane.
- Professions ---
Professions are afterall one on par with another...regarding stats. But there are some that give much more befenifts that others.
- Alchemy: making our own potions/flasks/elixirs is great. Some of them come in hand when you have to burst (++intellect), others give temporary long buffs (+ haste, + resistance), or let you face some situations (absorb fire damage, invisibility...). It's a versatile and profitable profession i would greatly reccomend, for a beginner.
- Tailoring: almost considered as a standard profession for cloth classes. Making our own armor can save a lot of money, but the thing that make this profession great is the super back enchant: it gives a ++intellect on proc, it's very powerful. Also, you can craft nets, a root that can be very very powerfull. Consider it as a possible solution.
- Engineering: king of the PvP professions, it gives you almost every tool you could imaginate, to face every situation. Slow fall, rocket speed, rocket launch, invisibility, power shield...everything, but keep in mind this is for World pvp and Battleground: many tools are disabled in arena.
- Herbalism: once capped, it gives you a powerfull ++haste on cooldown...can be very very usefull.
Other professions could be worth mentioning, but afterall they all give the same amount of stat bonuses...i can avoid them.
- Statistics ---
Intellect is your base stat. Other ones vary between specs; check them in the talent section.
Must have stats:
- 4% hit rating
- 10% haste rating (this is usually called soft cap, and the one i reccomend to start with); if you are really comfortable using Dark Intent, stop your haste at 7%.
- 195 spell penetration
- Resilience may greatly vary, it depends on your gear. Stack it with Gems and Enchants if you think you're recieving too much damage.
Gems:
- Red: +40 intellect
- Yellow: +20 intellect and +20 haste
- Blue: +20 intellect and +30 stamina OR spell penetration to reach the cap of 195
- Meta: +54 intellect and 3% increased critical effect (if you are Orc, consider using a -10%stun duration: in addiction to your racial, you will avoid 25% of a stun)
Reforging:
You want to achieve the 4% hit and 10% haste. Reforge first any Critical into these stats, only then start reforging mastery, until you get the caps. You want to leave mastery as high as possible.
Enchants:
- Head: Arcanum of Vicious Intellect
- Shoulders: Greater Inscription of Vicious Intellect
- Chest: Mighty Resilience
- Legs: Powerful Enchanted Spellthread
- Hands: Haste
- Wrist: Mighty Intellect
- Waist: Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
- Back: Greater Intellect
- Feet: depends on playstyle, use Haste if you need to reach the cap. If haste is capped, choose between master/speed for damage, or stamina/speed for survivability.
- Main Hand: Power Torrent
- Off Hand: Superior Intellect
NOTE: always prefer a main/off hand gear set instead of a staff one. It will give you more damaging stats. If you can only afford a staff for now, put Power Torrent on it.
- Dark Intent ---
Dark Intent is a powerfull ability that affects two players: you and your friendly target. Once casted, it gives both of you 3% haste. Also, when you do a periodic crit, the other gains a 3% increased periodic damage. When the other periodic crit, you gain 3% periodic damage. It can stack up to 9% damage increased, and also applies to healing, for a max of 9% increased periodic healing.
NOTE: it boosts only PERIODIC healing/damage, also known as DoTs/HoTs...direct damage/healing is not affected.
It is really really useful, but, you have to choose the right friendly target.
Definitely, you don't want to cast it on players that actually can't do a periodic crit. Blood Dks, Warriors...for example. Here is the chart of your priority:
Healing friends -
1) Restoration Druid
2) Holy Priest
3) Restoration Shaman
4) Holy Priest
5) Discipline Priest
6) Holy Paladins
DPS friends -
1) Balance Druid
2) Shadow Priest
3) Fire Mage
4) Feral Druid
5) Frost Mage
6) Survival Hunter
7) Combat Rogue
8) Arcane Mage
9) Frostfire Mage
10) Assassination Rogue
11) Elemental Shaman
12) Ret Paladin
13) Unholy DK
14) Frost DK
15) Enhancement Shaman
16) MM Hunter
This list has been done by a study, so it's math. Just take it and use it. The more one class do periodic damage/healing crits, the better. Anyway, if (for example) you have to choose between a green geared balance druid or a vicious shadow priest, pick the priest, even if it's number 2 and below balance druids on the list.
NOTE: This list (as the guide) is purely PvP bases.
- Talents
Warlocks can choose between Affliction, Demonology and Destruction.
Afflition: Damage over Time based spec; focus in pressure; mid/high survivability; high priority to shadow damage;
Demonology: Burst spec; mid/long casting time; focus on Demons and Methamorphosis; cnbine fire and shadow damage;
Destruction: DoT/Burst spec; fast casting combat; high priority to fire damage;
We'll cover one by one since our playstyle vary a lot from one spec to another.
- Affliction
Stat priority: Intellect > Mastery > Crit
I reccomend using this as your starter spec: Affliction
The prime Glyphs used are all must have, the best in slot you can take for affliction; one major glyphs is empty because you can take Howl of Terror or Soul Link, depending on the situation; minor glyphs are usually a personal choice, but in this case, Exhaustion is a must have.
It relies heavely on DoTs, which are:
- Corruption
- Unstable Affliction
- Bane of Agony/Doom (Agony is reccomended)
- Shadowflame (mid range/frontal cone)
- Shadowbolt becomes a "on proc" direct damage spell with Nightfall talent: you want to avoid casting it.
- Haunt is the other direct spell you want to apply everytime you can: it does damage, boosts you DoTs spells and heals you when the effect finish or the evemy dies.
- Drain life is the occasional spell called filler: you want to cast it between other main spells, and abuse it when you want to heal yourself.
- Drain Soul is your execute ability: it does a lot more damage when casted on enemies with low health.
Regarding courses, remember you can apply just one per target:
- Elements: standard course to improve overall damage.
- Tongues: only to counter other casters, it increases their casting time.
- Exhaustion: no cooldown spell which decreases enemies movement speed, reccomended only against meele fighters. It is takes with the Affliction talents.
- Weakness: reduces physical damage done by the enemy and with talents it also reduces their resources generation (energy, rage, focus).
Demons:
You want to use the Felhunter most of the time. Shadow Bite does damage, increasing it for every DoT spell your target has. It also has a dispell ability and a powerful Silence/Lockout.
The secondary pet you should think about is the VoidWalker, which can protect you with his shield( it is NOT so powerfull tho).
Soulburn:
Should be focused in Drain Life, Summon Demon and Demonic Circle.
The first reduces Dran Life channeling time by 50%, the second let you istantly summon another demon, the third enhance your teleport, increasing movement speed afterward.
- Demonology
Stat priority: Intellect > Mastery > Crit
Starter spec: Demonology
Prime are must have, but the free slot should get Lash of Pain or Incinerate, depending if you rely mostly on Demon damage or self burst. Major empty one could be filled with Seduction or Demonic Circle. Minor ones are free, but i find Health Funnel and Unending Breath the best you can take.
It combines Shadow and Fire damage with heavy demon support. Core abilities are:
- Hand of Gul'dan
- Methamorphosis
- Immolation aura
- Demonic Leap
- Hand of Gul'dan is one of your most damaging spells, and combined with aura of foreboding is even greater because of the root + stun system.
- Methamorphosis is the stunning moment when you release the demon inside you: it tremendously increases damage done and armor, while reducing snare/stun effects on you by 50% (!!!) and the possibility to be critically hit by 6%. This is the spell you want to cast to score one, two...(n+1) kills.
- Immolation aura is something like "cast and forget": amazing AoE damage that does not to be channelled. Combined with Hellfire can be deadly in crowd areas.
- Demonic Leap is something strange to manage, but is a good gap maker (or closer) with a stun if you land on an enemy.
- Immolate is the primary DoT you want to use, because of Molten Core talent. When is procs, start using Incinerate.
- Incinerate is also your main filler. If casted on an enemy with 25% or less health, it will activate Decimation...this is when you start spamming Soul Fire.
- For the Bane, use Doom, which is boosted by talents.
- For courses, just look back at Affliction ones, but remember you don't have Exhaustion.
Demons:
This is a spec where demons may greatly vary. Your main, single target damage one is the Succubus, with Lash of Pain.
The second, for multi-target and AoE damage is the Felguard, which comes also with Axe Toss, a ranged stun.
The felhunter loses damage because you won't use many DoTs, but it always has silence + dispell.
Soulburn:
Focus on Soulfire, making it instant cast, Summon Demon and Demonic Circle
- Destruction
Stats priority: Intellect > Crit > Mastery
Starter Spec: Destruction
Prime empty glyph shold be filled with Incinerate, but reduced Chaos Bolt cooldown may be great when additional healing is needed, or when you need to score a kill when the enemy have a absorbition-shield up.
Major one should be filled with Seduction or Demonic Circle. Minor ones as usual.
It combines both DoTs and direct fire spells. Core ones are:
- Chaos Bolt
- Shadowfury
- Conflagrate
- Soul Fire
- Nether Ward
- Chaos Bolt is the sure damage, because it ignores absorbition effects, for example Power Word: Shield. Talented, it also heals you for 4% health.
- Shadowfury is an amazing AoE 3 seconds stun.
- Conflagrate is our main damaging ability, dealing 60% of Immolate damage and activating Backdraft. Differently from other specs, the 10% Haste here plays a core role. With 10% Haste, Immolate recieve an additional tick of damage (it means that with less than 10% haste, immolate will deal damage , for example, 5 times, but with 10% Haste, it will deal damage 6 times), increasing Conflagrate damage by a good amount
- Backdraft reduces the cast time of your next 3 Incinerate by 30%...it's very important to cast Incinerate ONLY when Backdraft is active.
- Nether Ward absorbs some damage (of all kind), but most important, after recieving a spell damage (let's assume Fire) it will give you a buff, which reduce (Fire) damage recieved by 30%. Works with every school of damage.
- Soul Fire does great damage, applies one more DoT (Burning Embers) and increases our overall damage by 8% for 15 seconds. It also heals you for 4% health.
- Immolate is a must to be applied, because activates the usage of Conflagrate.
- For courses, Elements is the standard, but every situation is different, so anyone could be better than another
- For Bane, use Doom
Demons:
The most common is Felhunter, but another one is the Succubus, because of the combo Seduction -> Soulfire, for an immediate +8% damage boost.
Soulburn:
Focus mostly on istant Soul Fire. Summon Demon should be avoided when possible.
- Fakecast/Bait/Juke ---
This is a more complex argument, expecially for a beginner. Let's write some definitions.
There are 2 ways of fakecasting.
One directly jokes the opponent and makes him waste his Interrupt ability, leaving you the possibility to free cast for the entire interrupt cooldown duration.
The second involves you to sacrify one school of spells in order to be able to free cast with another school of spells.
I like to call them as Full Juke or Half Juke, but because warlocks have only the schools of spells (shadow and fire). If i was playing a mage, i would call them as "Full Juke" and "1/3 Juke"......LOL math.
Ok, jokes apart, let's discuss.
The Full Juke is the best you can achieve. It will leave you completely free to cast with any school of spells. Anyway, this is hard to do as, meele expecially, don't have a clear Interrupt animation and you, in most cases, won't know if they used the interrupt or not.
Here we have a usefull addon called InterruptBar which dispalys every Interrupt icons and let you see when they are used.
How to:
The Full Juke is an art; you need a near-to-perfect timing to do it.
Not only this, but also because you simply can't know when the enemy will Interrupt, if at the start of your cast, in the middle or at the last seconds.
The best you can do is to wait AT LEAST your cast to reach its middle time, then immedialy move to stop it or press ESC, or any macro you have to stop your own cast.
At this point, if lucky too, your enemy will just waste his interrupt on you, going for the cast but just taking a FULL JUKE!, leaving you with all schools and free cast time.
And now, the Half Juke.
I use this in most cases, because it is more reliable than the Full one.
The mind behind this is: you want to cast a spell, let's say Fear (shadow), and you want a sure cast. Ok then, you rogue, interrupt my Incinerate (fire) so i'm free to cast Fear.
This is it.
Note that skilled players will ignore this; they know what and when to interrupt.
How to:
Simple: do you want to CC? Start casting fire spells and let them Interrupt those; then, feel free to cast CCs with the shadow school.
Want damage? Do the opposite.
Important:
You probably know that some Interrupt abilities have also a Silence (Counterspell, Spell Lock...)
Juking them will leave you silenced anyway, but not interrupted.
In the silence time it's common to use your Wand: yes, this is how to actually use a wand.
In a moment when you can't do anything, do some additional damage.
- Macro ---
In my opinion, you can check any other class guide, copy one or another macro, and substitute spell names. At the end they are focus macro/mouseover macro ecc ecc...it's not really worth repeating them all the way.
Mainly i don't want to put any kind of macro in a starter guide, because usually macros are tools that come in hand once you have mastered your class potential, or when you want to simplify your keybind life. In both cases, using macros imply you know your class and how to bind spells, which takes usually some times.
- Keybinding ---
This is something i always promote when i can. Using keybinds and not using them it's not something like "ok, should be good anyway". NO, it is NOT.
Keybinding your spells makes you 40xbetter. Really.
First, it simplify your game experience. You don't need to watch where your cursor is, because you know where your finger should go to activate that spell, leaving your eyes on the enemies around you.
Second, it improved your reaction time by a LOT.
NO keybinds
- Looking at the situation - looking for the cursor - looking for the spell - moving the cursor - clicking the spell
With keybinds
- Looking at the situation - clicking the button on the beyboard - "free space for anything else" - "again" - "again"
See? Just keybinding you have 3 more rooms to think what to do next, look around...everything.
It really help. Could be a little frustrating the first times because you need to remember what buttom does which spell.
No problem: a simple way to do this is to keybind just 2 or 3 spells a day and learn how to use them....then the next day bind another 2, 3 spells and master the keybind, until you keybinded everyspell, or almost (even I don't use every keybinds, just because some spells are worthless to be binded...who would bind Ritual of Summoning in PvP 0o?)
- Conclusion ---
This is all i think, the basics. Feel free to post your own critics, opinions, something that i could use to improve this guide and more, more ,more...
Also ask in-game to the warlocks you think should be worth talking with, because nothing helps more than an active and friendly community....yes, we are warlocks, evil to the bones, but among us we should be nice people.
