Arena Guide - Warlock


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Welcome to the TenTonHammer Arena Warlock Guide!

Gear

As an arena player, you must keep in mind that your gear will need to vary significantly from the PvE gear you're used to having. For all specs, you will need Resilience gear, and resilience / stamina gems in them. Currently each level of badge gear vendor has a set of PvP armor available for you to purchase, so you can earn PvP gear by doing heroic dungeons and raids as well as by gaining arena and BG points.


Why do you need stamina and resilience over spellpower and the others? Simple, high crits will kill you quickly, and you want to avoid that as much as possible. Once you have enough arena points to spend, you should first spend them on rings and trinkets.


Don't forget, first and foremost, to use (or buy!) your Insignia to remove all effects impairing your character from being controlled from the Honor vendor!

Popular Talent Builds

All 3 Talent Builds are worthwhile provided you go for each's ultimate and mix & match the remainders. It depends on your playstyle and your teammate(s) to be the best you can be in the Arena. Outlined below will be the use of each:

Affliction: Effective in all arena matchups, this build lets you cast unstable affliction on your enemies, stopping the paladins from mass-cleansing your DoTs or forcing the paladins/priests to heal themselves or bubble instead of cleansing themselves! Should they do it anyway, it's a surefire damage spike that can lead to your victory. Don't forget to use instant Howl of Terror!

Destruction: High and fast numbers, protection vs shadowpriests and warlocks - this build allows you to use a high damage output at the expense of no DoTs and less mana than the others. Ideal in 2v2 and 3v3, starts to lack some in 5v5s that are not burst teams. If paired with another high damage class like mage or another warlock with the same spec you may see numbers rising quickly, goal being to kill your enemies before your mana runs out and before they can heal.

Demonology: Stability - you will be nearly unkillable if they focus you since you use soul link and have improved resilience and HP thanks to the demonology tree's talents, your goal should be to DoT your target and cast fears around to disrupt enemy tactics while having your pet on the healer / manauser.


Tactics

Pet choice should almost always be a felhunter. Succubus and Voidwalker are good in some matchups, but since you can't know who you're up against and there's almost always a mana user, you should have a felhunter out at all times. Plus, the insignia to remove impairing effects will make your succubus a one-trick pony who's very easy to take out.

Before you start, you should hand out healthstones and buff everyone with Detect Invisibility, if you're on a 5v5 (or on high 3v3s), buff everyone with waterbreathing last as well, so when a purge or dispel comes, they take that out first instead of another important buff.

If you see a paladin, either try to burst him down to low HP so he bubbles (or dies) and wastes it, before dotting him up for the final kill. Curse of Tongues works wonders on paladins and priests, followed up by a Fear.

Fear is your friend, use it, abuse it. Along with Curse of Tongues, it should be one of your priorities during a fight (aside from DPSing)!

Shadowburn is very, very useful on targets - use it to add pressure to a healer or finish off another player. You will not be reimbursed a shard should the target die, but you can easily just go find new shards to use to your advantage.

If you're on a 3v3 or a 5v5 and notice the fight is going too long, or if your goal is to outlast the enemy team, use Drain Mana on the enemy healer. It will singlehandedly shift the battle around since the healer will either burn all his mana way quicker, or go out of range so your other teammates take advantage of this and kill whoever he/she was supporting.

Stay tuned for more updates to this guide, remember, you will win some, you will lose some, but in the end, play to have fun!


Got different tactics, tips, strategies, questions or comments? Email me at [email protected]!


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Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

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