Saturday, July 6, 2013

The Art of Warcraft: Warlock















The Art of Warcraft
In order to be successful in pvp you must recognize each class's character animations and icons. Be on the lookout for spells relevant to your class and learn how to counter them. This guide updated for 5.3 mist of pandaria.

Know Your Enemy Class Guides
 Death Knight
 Druid
 Hunter for class pvp guide click here.
 Mage
 Monk
 Paladin
 Priest
 Rogue
 Shaman
 Warlock
 Warrior for class pvp guide click here.


Important Warlock Cooldowns
For the most part warlocks have three major defensive cooldowns, Unending Resolve is a baseline spell for all warlocks and the other two are chosen via talents. I have posted below the most common and need-to-know spells that warlocks use.

Unending Resolve

The Warlock hardens his skin, reducing all damage taken by 40% and preventing his spells from being interrupted or silenced for 8 sec. (3 minute cooldown)









Warlocks can feel like tanks at times. But after they have blown their defensive cooldowns, they rely on CC and portals to stay alive. Unending Resolve is mostly used defensively but warlocks will sometimes use it to cast Chaos Bolt, summon a pet, or demonic portal.

Try not to pop offensive cooldowns while they have Unending Resolve because the warlock will probably not die, and don't waste interrupts during this cooldown.



Dark Regeneration (lvl 15 talent)

Restores 30% of you and your pet's maximum health and increases all healing received by 25% over 12 sec. (2 minute cooldown)











Most warlocks take Dark Regeneration, but it alone isn't usually enough to keep the warlock afloat. Usually, the warlock would chain Dark Regeneration with Unending Resolve or Dark Bargain, and this is true especially against cleave teams, because a cleave will usually force a warlock to pop all of its defensive cooldowns, causing the warlock to become tanky for the duration of the effects.


Dark Bargain (lvl 45 talent)

Prevents all damage for 8 sec.

When the shield fades, 50% of the damage prevented is dealt over 8 sec. Can be cast while suffering from control impairing effects. (3 minute cooldown)









On the warlock's part, great for now, bad for later. You have to ask yourself if you can pump enough damage into that shield during those 8 seconds to deal enough damage to kill the warlock when the shield fades, over 8 seconds. 


Sacrificial Pact (lvl 45 talent) 

Your demon sacrifices 25% of its current health to shield its master for 400% of the sacrificed health. Lasts 20 sec. 

If you have no demon, your health is sacrificed instead. Can be cast while suffering from control impairing effects. (1 minute cooldown)






Sometimes, the warlock can use their tanking pet (the Void Lord) in combination with Sacrificial Pact for a HUGE shield. Sometimes using this spell will kill their demon, but the shield is still worth it even if it kills their demon.

Warlocks DO have to choose between Dark Bargain and Sacrificial Pact, but it comes down to preference. The warlock can still die to Dark Bargain, unlike Sacrificial Pact, which has no real drawback, except maybe they'd have to summon a new pet.

Dark Soul

Afflictions: Infuses your soul with the misery of fallen foes, increasing spell haste by 30% for 20 sec.

Demonology: Your soul is infused with demonic knowledge, increasing your Mastery by 18000 for 20 sec.

Destruction: Infuses your soul with unstable power, increasing your critical strike chance by 30% for 20 sec.





It's the basic DPS cooldown that all types of warlocks have. You should definitely watch out for it because it does put a lot of pressure on your team. CC the warlock, run out of LoS, or generally try to avoid as much damage as possible.


Demonic Gateway

Create a demonic gateway between two locations. Stepping into the gateway causes any party member to be instantly transported to the other gateway.

Limit 5 charges. The portal generates one charge every 15 seconds and lasts 15 min.








Warlocks cannot live without Demonic Gateway. It's needed for arenas. Once their main defensive cooldowns are blown, the warlock is squishy. They need the gateway to escape.

The thing about this gateway is that anyone from the warlock's team can use it. It's very hard to kill a healer (or anyone, really) who can use their warlock's gateway to escape.

You can try to stop the casting of the Demonic Gateway at the beginning, but the warlock might easily cast one later in the match if your team is not paying attention.


Demonic Circle & Demonic Teleport

Demonic Teleport: Teleports you to your Demonic Circle and removes all snare effects. (30 second cooldown)

Getting cc'ed in the open unable to port is a warlock nightmare









Never follow a warlock when he jumps down the Z-axis, unless Demonic Circle is on cooldown or you can prevent

If you're double melee, one melee jumps down, and the other one stays at the portal so that when the warlock ports back up, you can land the kill.

If you silence and stun the warlock at low health, he will not be able to port away from you.


Warlock Pets

Fel Imp

Sear Magic: Burns harmful magic off the target, removing 1 harmful spell from up to 3 friends within 15 yards of the target.

10 sec cooldown. 


Cauterize Master: Burns the Master's wounds, dealing a small amount of damage, then restoring 12% health over 12 sec.

10 sec cooldown.




A favorite pet of the warlock, the imp dispels magic, so it can dispel fears, traps, polymorphs, hexes, silences, and magical stuns (paladin's Hand of Justice and shaman's Capacitor Totem). These dispels are used to free the warlock's healer from enemy CC.


Observer

Optical Blast: Blasts the enemy with lasers, dealing Shadow damage and silencing the enemy for 3 sec. (24 sec cooldown) 

If used on a casting target, it will counter the enemy's spellcast, preventing any spell from that school of magic from being cast for 6 sec.

Clone Magic: Steals 1 beneficial magic effect from an enemy. If an effect is devoured, the Observer will be healed and gain 60 Fel Energy. (10 sec cooldown.)



What an annoying pet. It's got two important abilities. Optical Blast works as a silence. Clone Magic dispels shields and buffs from the enemy, making the enemy squishier.


Wrathguard


Axe Toss: The Wrathguard hurls his weapon, stunning the target for 4 sec. (30 sec cooldown)


Mortal Cleave: The Wrathguard's current target is also wounded, reducing the effectiveness of any healing received by 25% for 5 sec.







Wrathguard is a demonology pet. Watch out for its Axe Toss, which stuns you for 4 seconds. If the wrathguard is on you, it afflicts a healing reduction of 25%.


Shivarra

Mesmerize: Mesmerizes the target, preventing all actions for up to 30 sec. Any damage caused will remove the effect.

Fellash: Deals Shadow damage and instantly knocks back all enemies within 5 yards.











A very popular pet for warlocks in 2's arena, which can take a player out of the game for a long time. You can avoid it by running around a pillar, fearing the pet, killing it, interrupting it, Feign Death, or whatever you have. It will keep casting Mesmerize until it DR's (at least 3 times). It's better to avoid it than to get caught in a CC chain. You can LoS it or kill the pet.

Miscellaneous & Utility
Fear

Strikes fear in the enemy, causing it to flee for up to 20 sec.

Casted. No cooldown. 




Fear has no cooldown. It does break on damage, but it's unlikely if warlock is not targeting you (the fear will continue even if you are fully dotted). Fear will break if they use Dark Soul and refresh the dots on you.

The fear only works on the target, but can be casted on multiple people.

If you're a healer, try to LoS as many fears as possible. Set the warlock on focus.

Soulburn

Drain Life - Healing increased by 50%
Demonic Circle: Teleport - Movement speed increased by 50% and you are immune to snares and roots for 8 secs.
Soulswap - Instantly applies Corruption, Unstable Affliction and Agony
Summon Demon - Instantly summons your demon. 60 second cooldown on next summon





Affliction warlocks use Soulburn in order to instantly cast a full row of dots at the cost of 1 shard. After they use up all their shards, they will try to kill an enemy pet (including Shadow Priests' Aberrations [low hp pets, 1-shottable]) with Drain Soul to get their shards pet.

Affliction warlocks also like to use Soulburn during Dark Soul, causing the dots to tick harder.


Unstable Affliction

Shadow energy slowly destroys the target, damage over 14 sec. 
 
If the Unstable Affliction is dispelled it will cause damage to the dispeller and silence them for 4 sec. This damage always critically strikes.



Unstable Affliction is also known as "dispel protection," because it will silence the healer who tries to dispel the damage and will always crit on them. This ability is the reason why casters (like ele shamans and boomkins) like to play with warlocks because they don't have to worry about their dots being dispelled.

As a DPS, be wary of asking for dispels from your healer when you have Unstable Affliction up because you may kill your healer as a result of them being silenced.


Howl of Terror (lvl 30 talent)

Howl, causing 5 enemies within 10 yds to flee in fear for 20 sec. Damage caused may cancel Howl of Terror.

When hit by a damaging attack, the cooldown on Howl of Terror is reduced by 1 sec.



This is the favorite AoE fear. 10 yard range. Try not to stand too close with your group against warlocks with this talent. If you see a warlock run into your group, run away from your teammates to avoid the AoE fear.

If you are on a melee cleave team, split the damage so that only one of you gets feared.

Shadowfury (lvl 30 talent)

Shadowfury is unleashed, stunning all enemies within 8 yds for 3 sec.







Sometimes, when there is another teammate with an AoE fear ability, a warlock will take Shadowfury instead of Howl of Terror. This works with priests' Psychic Scream. So the warlock will Shadowfury-stun the enemy team, and then the priest will run in and AoE fear everyone right afterward.

Shadowfury doesn't DR with anything.

Unbound Will (lvl 60 talent)

Purge all Magic effects, movement impairing effects and all effects which cause loss of control of your character or demon.





This works as an extra trinket for the warlock against caster teams.

Blood Horror (lvl 60 talent)

While active, any time an enemy melee attack deals damage to the Warlock, the enemy will run in horror for up to 4 sec. 1 charge. Blood Horror lasts 1 min.





This talent is taken when the warlock is fighting against melee teams.

Chaos Bolt 

Unleashes a blast of chaos, causing Shadow damage.

Chaos Bolt always critically strikes. In addition, the damage is increased by your critical strike chance.



Destruction warlock ability. ALWAYS hit like a truck. Try to avoid it through interrupts, LoS, and defensives. 

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