Warlock PvP Overview

Aye, was about time I sat down to write something again. It has been somewhat crazy at this end for a couple of weeks now. Had to replace my Nvidia graphics card when the old one decided to step out, neatly right when I was about to take the factory in Isle of Conquest. This, in fact, gave me the idea for today’s entry; it has been a working process to gear my warlock for pvp and now that I am there, it’s a good idea to gather my thoughts so far.

Currently, Tië is a destruction warlock in full PvP gear, sitting with ~1k resilience, 2655 SP, and 24.7% Crit. Fairly nice numbers, considering that my gear is fairly basic. At the moment, no wrathful pieces, only a full furious set and relentless off-pieces. Still do not have any PvP weapons, but once I tackle arena, should reach 1800 rating for a Wrathful Gladiator’s Battle Staff.

I fine on battlegrounds, usually ending up running a few with some other guildies. As a class, warlocks are pretty awesome when it come to PvP. We have two working specs on that field, destro and affliction, both which are deadly when properly played. I chose destruction for the burst damage that it provides, essentially letting me blow stuff up with only three spells. The big downside for being a warlock is that everyone, especially warriors and death knights will look you up wherever you go. Warriors in particular are devastating if they can nail you in their bladestorm. The ability is getting a slight nerf, but nothing that would really affect us, so if you’re playing as well, remember to always make an escape route –> Demonic Circle: Teleport.

In some cases of course, we have the luxury of going completely unnoticed, which makes things really festive for us. Quite a few times, seems people have gone through trouble to ignore me, letting me basically just sit down and nuke the crap out of everything that exhales.

If you are building a warlock for PvP, make sure you understand the stat distribution between the specs. In general, they both need SP but destruction prefers high Crit and Affliction benefits more from Haste. As a destruction lock you will generally setup for bursts with Curse of Elements, plus Immolate and Conflagrate. From there, spam Chaos Bolt and Incinerate. One of the tricks is actually getting to the burst and for that, we have a nice array of CCs; Shadowfury, Howl of Terror, Fear, and Death Coil. Even with a druid healer, if properly executed, you can keep him in CC while you setup and finally blow him up with a burst. Alternatively, if running with a mate, you can just focus on CC’ing while your mate goes medieval on him.

The choice of minion varies between warlocks but generally they come down to two choices; the succubi or fel hunter. Some use the void because the sacrifice gives such great protection, but other than that, he’s pretty useless. Succubi has seduce and fel hunter can devour magic and silence. I find the hunter more useful, because your opponents will so often be spell casters and seduce gets broken easily by a clueless team member.

All and all, I enjoy playing warlock on PvP. Like the mage, we combine damage with a lot of control, making the part we play very crucial. Getting started is still the Achilles heel of the whole PvP side of the game. To be successful in battlegrounds, you need a lot of the corresponding gear and getting it is a slow process. Though once you get there, it is rewarding. Patch 3.3.3 is also going to provide us with a small relief to the endless honor grinding and there are even more useful updates down the pipeline. So if ever, seems now it is worth the effort to get into it.