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style="font-weight: bold;">Introduction to Walocks PvP



PvP
Basics

PVP or Player versus Player combat is very different from battling
NPCs. Other players will react much differently and PvP battles can be
very unpredictable. For this guide we are going to review some basic
stratagies to help make you more prepared to have successful PvP
experiences. We’ll start with “the who, what and
where” followed by some specific warlock information.

Who

Warlocks of any talent school can PvP. In the past, particular talent
schools were more favorable but recent rebalancing has made each
specialization fully capable of victorious PvP combat. There are
certain talents in each school that are geared for PvP advantages. You
will see talent builds for PvP can be very different from Raid or solo
Builds. There are a few “Must Have” talents for
each talent school and we’ll note them below. With the many
venues of pvp, certain talents will be more beneficial than others.
Arena builds can vary from Battleground build and world PvP builds will
include more PvE talents, just be sure to look for some of these
specific PvP talents.

Where

I know you are anxious to get started so let’s start with the
where. There are many venues for PvP. There are Battlegrounds, Arenas,
zones and world PvP. Other than, win and don’t die, they each
have their own style of objectives.

Battlegrounds

Battlegrounds can be entered at any major city. Speaking to the
battlemaster master will allow you to enter a queue for the
battleground. Some battlegrounds are only able to be entered at certain
levels. The battleground will start when the queue contains enough
players to participate. The players are pooled together from different
servers in a battlegroup. Each server is a member of a battlegroup. You
can find which battlegroup your server is a member of by visiting this
page href="http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/pvp/battlegrounds/battlegroups/"
target="_blank">here.



You can also join battlegrounds at their portal entrance. Not every
battleground has a portal entrance, such as Eye of the Storm. Here is a
list of where you can find some Battleground portals:

• Warsong Gulch: Ashenvale
• Alterac Valley: Hillsbrad
  Foothills
• Arathi Basin: Arathi
  Highlands

You can communicate with your fellow players in your battleground by
using the battleground channel. The command for using the battleground
channel is /bg. So to say “let’s win
this” in the battleground you would type the following:



/bg
Let’s win this one!



Eye
of the Storm

Located in the outlands, this battleground has four bases that should
be captures by occupying them and a flag that can be brought to an
occupied base for extra points. This battleground has level brackets
for levels starting at level 61 and contains 15 players for each
faction. The first faction to reach 2000 points wins.

Arathi
Basin

This battle ground is about collecting resources. You get resources by
controlling resource “nodes”. Any player is able to
enter this battleground starting at level 20 and will have 15 players
from each faction fighting to be the first to acquire 2000 resources.
The pace of resources captured is based on the amount of
“nodes” controlled.Located in Arathi Highlands, and
able to be entered at level 20 this is a very competitive fun, fast
paced battleground.

Alterac
Valley

The most unique battleground in WoW, this combined NPC with PvP. Able
to be entered at level 50 and a massive team of up to 40 for each
faction, the goal is to destroy the opposite factions Generals(NPCs) or
reduce their resources to zero. Located in Alterac/Hillsbrad, you can
battle players and reduces their resources by 1 for each player killed,
capture a tower to reduce by 75, or kill a captain to reduce by 100.
Each faction begins with 600 resources and it’s a race to win.

Warsong
Gulch

A fun capture the flag style battleground which can be entered as early
as level 10. This battle ground pits 10 vs 10 on a race to 3 flag
captures. Solid strategy and teamwork in this fun unique battleground
will have you focus on mobility as much as resilience as you find ways
to safely return with the enemies flag.

Strand
of the Ancients

Similar to Wintergrasp, this battleground is a turn based attack and
defend style and incorporates the use of defense resources and
offensive vehicles. You can enter at 70 and find yourself competing for
the best time for capturing the fortress. Each faction is given the
opportunity to attack and defend the fortress and the faction with the
fastest time is deemed the winner.

World
PVP: Wintergrasp

This new style PvP has new objectives and resources to use as well as
vehicles. The goal is to attack and capture the fortress or defend it
using a combination of PvP battle versus players and vehicle/defense
resources. Ultimately defending or attacking the fortress in battles
that are scheduled, you will find a raid instance for additional
rewards when under your control. When this battle is won, the entire
faction receives a buff throughout Northrend for your efforts. The
entire zone is PvP all the time, even on PvE and RP servers you will
find yourself flagged upon entering.



Arenas



Arenas are a new competitive
form of PvP that allows you to team up in groups of 2,3 or 5 player
teams verse another 2,3 or 5 player team for a fight to the finish.
Last one standing wins and can be done at anytime and can be entered by
talking to the arena masters. Arenas are rewarded with honor weekly
based on ranking and are reset each season. Battles take place in a
special arenas zone once your team queues up. Strategy and
communication are key and rewards are amazing for those that can master
the art.



PVP
Talents

Sample PvP talents for each talent school

• Fel Concentration

An often overlooked talent for PvP, we often find ourselves with a
“Tank” and will be taking hits, this talent will
allow you to continue casting even while being attacked.

• Improved Fear

This talent buffs your best PvP defensive spell. You will be fearng as
often as possible and this will slow the enemy by up to 30% to help
keep distance from you.

• Grim Reach

Another often overlooked talent, warlocks are most powerful from afar.
This 20% boost to possible distance lets you engage at a further
distance so your DOT can start working.

• Shadow Embrace

More optional than anything, but certainly helpful. Healers can change
the outlook of PvP battles with this -15% of healing to the target can
help a lot.

• Siphon Life

Adding another DOT and some basic healing, no reason to not have this
talent.

• Improved Howl of
  terror-*must have

This AoE style fear will get you out of many bad situations. In NPC
combat this is often not used, but will be used all the time in PvP.

Demonology

• Master Summoner-*must have

For this talent school, your power is in your pet. The loss of a pet or
having to change quickly makes this a must have.

• Metamorphosis-*must have

This is what will get you out of trouble is your enemy closes the range
gap. The armor increase and damage taken decrease should allow you to
survive should you be caught with a charge or sneaked up on.

Destruction

• Intensity

Another way to avoid spell cast interruptions while casting destruction
spells

• Backlash

Not only a boost to your critical strike chance, but the occasional
instant shadowbolt.

• Nether Protection

If facing another caster, this has a chance to reduce the damage you
take from magic. Don’t overlook this one.



There are many good builds. This is just a highlight of some of the
useful PvP talents. Combining several talent schools, you can have
great fun in PvP. Warlocks are often despised in PvP combat for their
survivability and damage.

What

What makes good PvP? How is PvP different from PvE? Simple questions
with not so simple answers. Ultimately PvP is about survival, tactics
and strategy. Very different from PvE you need to focus on more and
very different objectives compared to Solo and Raiding type combat. PvE
is about perfecting your role. Soloing is about perfecting your
environment, but PvP is about winning. You will find yourself up
against an equally motivated cunning enemy so we need to put ourselves
in the best position to win. There are some fundamentals that will help.

• Resilience

Resilience is a statistic that will provide almost no benefit in PvE.
But it is one of the most desired attributes in PvP. It is defined as
follows:

style="text-align: left; width: 469px;" border="0"
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style="width: 459px; background-color: rgb(204, 204, 204);">Resilience-reduces
your chance to receive critical strikes, reduces the
effects of mana drain spells and the damage taken from critical strikes
and damage over time effects.

Resilience scales with your level, so the resilience needed to have 1%
resilience for a level 60 player will be different for a level 80
player. At level 80 it will take 82 resilience rating to reach 1%
resilience.

Other
Statistics

Second to resilience is health and spell power. All PvP gear is loaded
with Stamina to help you obtain the highest health possible. When you
have the chance to modify your gear, you want to look for resilience
then health/Stamina then spell power.



Warlock
Specifics

• Role

Your primary role in PvP will be ranged damage dealer. Range is
important; you have very little defenses once an enemy is close to you.
Utility is your secondary role and includes buffs you provide to the
party, healthstones and the limited silence and crowd control you have.
Your ability to heal yourself gives an advantage that most classes do
not have. Use these abilities in your rotations and your ability to
Lifetap and darkpact means your will often have mana when other classes
are drained.

• Pets

Pets and pet choices are one of the most crucial aspect of PvP success.
PvP is about countering the strengths of your opponent. Each of our
pets has abilities that will help us counter their strengths and
contribute to our survival. Here are some of the ways pets will
contribute in PvP.

• Imp

Very squishy and easy to kill so not much use as an offensive weapon,
but they have a nice stamina buff and big range. If you are going to
use the imp it will mostly be used for stamina buff and should be phase
shifted.

• Felhunter

Most useful in PvP, this pet provides and nice intellect and spirit
buff, but mostly used for it silence or spell lock ability. The devour
magic is a luxury that shouldn’t be overlooked. More useful
against caster classes than melee but does decent damage when
attacking.

• Succubus

More used in PvP for crowd control, so this will be used more in
battlegrounds and zone PvP than arenas. The damage is ok but not enough
to depend on. Typically kept invisible until the seduce is needed. And
provide a nice escape from melee that gets too close.

• Voidwalker

Only real use in PvP is for the bubble from its sacrifice. Difficult to
kill for other players but the damage is so low they will often ignore
it.

• Felguard

The most damaging pet in the warlock’s arsenal. A common
mistake for most warlocks is to send this pet directly at a caster or
healer for its stun and interrupts, but a nice tactic is to actually
send it directly to a melee class, which is typically at range from
their healer, then redirect to the healer once healing is taking place.
This will guarantee the healer is at enough range for the Felguard to
charge and stun followed by constant interrupts.



Pet control is vital to the success of warlocks. It will take practice
and few macros to perfect the art of pet involvement. Pets are much
more active in PvP then in PvE style combat and provide much more
utility if used correctly.



Spells

• Fear

The most useful PvP spell in your arsenal. Two versions with single
target fear and your AoE Howl of Terror. Fear has to be managed as you
can break your own fear with the amount of damage you deliver while
your target is feared.

• Healthstones

These can change to outcome of a battle on their own. Be sure to get in
the good habit of distributing these before battle begins.

• DOTs

Every spec has DOTs and should use them. Some builds have less damaging
DOTs and keeping them up on as many target as possible is key. The only
exception is when crowd control will be used. In Battle grounds you
will find yourself using more utility DOT over damaging DOTs such as
curse of exhaustion. Arena will have you focus on your more damaging
DOTs. Just remember, get the instant DOT up fast, keep your escape
moves close by your fingertips and experiment. As you leveled to 80 you
had many spells in your book that just weren’t efficient
during PvE play that will dominate in PvP. This might be a good time to
browse through your spell book.