Warlock PvP Spec

[kuzzel 0]

Hey, so i decided to try out Soul Link since im getting more into PvP than PvE, but having a hard time finding much info about the spec. On forums etc i only see people saying its a useless spec and they should go SM/Ruin or Destruction for PvP.

Is Soul Link really that bad? I'm currently SM/Ruin specced but i wanted to try out a new spec but i cant decide if i should stay SM/Ruin or try out Destruction/Soul Link.

 

 

[Lifealert 19]

Soul link is not the meta because in current BWL gear you cannot do enough damage to make it worthwhile. SM ruin is the meta for several reasons: 

1. Best of all worlds: You get destructive reach and grim reach. With NF SL you have lose destructive reach but gain grim reach, but SL SB spec you don't get either talents. All spells have increased range with SM Ruin. Not to mention you can shadowburn and nightfall under the same spec in comparison to any soul link spec

2. PvE/PvP viability. The spec works for both pvp and pve so you don't have to spend gold to respec like other classes might have to do. 

3. Burst damage. Soul link is about survival and not damage. As SM ruin you'll see some big shadowbolts and shadowburns. 

I did the math and figured out I had something like 11k+ effective HP when considering health pots, healthstones, the different buffs from master demonologist but it didn't matter. The damage sucked and you have less utility overall. Try it for yourself if you have the money, but I say conflag is a much more fulfilling spec. Having an additional on demand ability on top of shadowburn is really nice. Maybe when everyone is in Naxx gear soul link will mean something since we'll need the survivability to survive getting 1 shot from other classes. I didn't play on warsong or any fun server where people were in full naxx gear so I really have no clue. 

Edited January 30, 2017 by Lifealert

[kuzzel 0]

Thanks for the answer, yeah i can totally relate to the "You'll see some big shadowbolts and shadowburns", one of the best feeling to get a 2k crit with nightfall proc and a 1k+ crit with shadowburn after, from time to time i actually 2shot people with it. Back when i played DS/Ruin spec i had 5/5 Demonic embrace, which i really miss having, but if im not mistaken i cant get it if im going SM/Ruin.

One other thing im curious about is if i should change my spec a bit, it currently looks like this: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#Iq0VqRbkqZZgx0tM0z

I looked on some other people that had 3/5 points in suppression but i only have 1/5 since i got 3% hit from my gear (currently running with bloodvine chest & boots beacuse i havent been lucky enough to get anything else), ofc i will swap em out once i get something better.

Is there any changes you should do on my spec im currently using? I also use 5/5 imp life drain to make it easier versus warriors.

Altho the painful bit in PvE is that i can really feel that im not using imp life tap, makes it really annoying and from time to time i even bring Demonic runes with me to make it easier mana wise.

Edited January 30, 2017 by kuzzel

[Dexev 3]

This is interesting because there's a few ways of making an SM/Ruin build and I'm not sure what's best, would be nice to see some opinions. 

I find myself using Searing Pain quite a lot so I'd use the two spare destro points for 4% crit there.

In affli I max Improved CoEx and just run with 4/5 SM. I find it one of the most useful spells. very powerful in WSG especially. 99% of PUG mages don't decurse anyone but themselves. I'm gnome though so CoEx kiting is probably more of a thing. Most builds I've seen linked take 3/4.

I think I'm right in saying you only need 3% hit for PvP cap so if you have it from gear you shouldn't need any points in Suppression at all. Side question here - does hit from gear improve your pets hit chance as well or was this added later? I hate spelllock resists.

It's pretty standard to take Improved Life Tap in any variation as well. It's still a good talent for PvP - you lifetap a lot. 

I have fel concentration maxed but I don't really end up drain tanking very often at all so I am wondering if it's even worth it. It's very rare I let a Warrior charge me and then I just EA or coil the intercept. Improved CoA is pretty crap but at least it'd get regular use. All these points seem pretty filler really.

Edited January 30, 2017 by Dexev

[kuzzel 0]

 

37 minutes ago, Dexev said:

In affli I max Improved CoEx and just run with 4/5 SM. I find it one of the most useful spells. very powerful in WSG especially. 99% of PUG mages don't decurse anyone but themselves. I'm gnome though so CoEx kiting is probably more of a thing. Most builds I've seen linked take 3/4.

I think I'm right in saying you only need 3% hit for PvP cap so if you have it from gear you shouldn't need any points in Suppression at all. Side question here - does hit from gear improve your pets hit chance as well or was this added later? I hate spelllock resists.

I have fel concentration maxed but I don't really end up drain tanking very often at all so I am wondering if it's even worth it. It's very rare I let a Warrior charge me and then I just EA or coil the intercept. Improved CoA is pretty crap but at least it'd get regular use. All these points seem pretty filler really.

Yeah, whenever i use CoE i combo it with Amplify Curse, otherwise it feels kinda useless, since melees got things that slow you more, like poison, hamstring etc. Sadly i was dumb enough when i made my char so i rolled a human thinking "Meh i will never PvP, i'd rather have the reputation bonus i get from humans", and well, here i am feeling retarded ^^.

Is it really 3%? From what i've heard it's 5% for hit cap on level 60s, might be wrong tho. I have no clue how hit works for pets, i cant recall my spellock has ever resisted, might be wrong tho, havent PvPed for a very long time, i will most likely hit rank 7 after this rank update.

From my experience i use Drain Life alot, atleast versus melees so i don't have to pop my healthstone/hp pot every fight unless they're really good geared, i also use CoA quite alot versus casters, since even if i die and i got full DoTs on them i have a high chance of killing them, even if im dead myself.

[Lifealert 19]

http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#IA0bGRbkAZZxx0tMbz

the spec I use

 

fel concentration isn't worth it, and so isn't improved drain life unless you have the t1 3 set bonus. I don't drain life much unless I know pummel/kick/cs has already been used. Improved life tap is a must. 2 points in searing pain crit trumps 2 points in cataclysm for pvp.

 

Fighting warriors is somewhat easy if you have deathcoil, and pretty much a win if you have a LiP. Use deathcoil and cast an immolate+sp/shadowburn after you've put up full dots including an improved agony.

Edited January 30, 2017 by Lifealert

[kuzzel 0]

Hello, sorry for late answer, been busy IRL with work etc.

Seems like imma go with your spec, since i havent used any LiP's yet i thought imp life drain was good enough, guess imma have to get some now when im actually trying to rank :P.

Thanks for all the help & good luck in the future! 

[Dexev 3]

From everything I can find you have 96% chance to hit a target of the same level - but in vanilla/TBC hit chance caps at 99%. That means +3% hit chance needed for PvP hit cap.

So why 3/5 Suppression for a PvP build?

[Slicy 11]

To get less resists from players having high shadow res (from gear as well as buffs). The other reason is that they are the least worst talent spending options at your disposal to get to next lvl of talents. Your other choices for 10 talents points in affli after you've filled up Imp. Corrupt. and Imp. Tap are awful.

[Dexev 3]

I've always been under the impression these type of talents only affect +hit chance, NOT spell resistance. Quick google- http://vanilla-wow.wikia.com/wiki/Spell_penetration - seems to back that up as well. If it does affect resistances then it's obviously the best option but I can find no evidence this is the case?


 

[Larsen 3]

Drain Life can be pretty strong against the classes that don't have an interrupt. It's viable for horde locks as they don't have to play against shamans. It can be a bit hard to fit the drain talents into a spec without giving up something like CoX and Imp. CoA, but if you can live without those, it's not a completely ridiculous idea. With just reasonably decent gear like the R10 set and Underworld Bands and stuff like that, you'll drain like 130 per second. That's a lot of healing. An added benefit of DL is that it doesn't count as direct damage so it doesn't break fear the way SB does, you can just dot and drain someone through a full fear duration.

The DPS is a bit low on its own, but you'll also proc Nightfall like crazy when you're draining so it ends up being quite a bit more DPS than the DL itself seems to do. Consider that Corruption is a 4% chance every 3 seconds and DL is a 4% chance every second; you get three times as many Nightfall procs from DL as you do from Corruption. If your crit chance is low, DL isn't that much less damage than SB spam once you factor in the constant Nightfall procs and the fact that SB output drops like a rock the moment anything begins hitting you whereas DL DPS is unaffected by damage intake.

Interesting thing about Fel Concentration is that it basically just reduces the effective mana cost of DL. You don't drain any slower when the channelling is pushed back from damage, it just ends sooner so you get fewer ticks. If you're not worried about mana consumption, you can just start draining again. Only once you've spent too much mana on it will it actually matter if you had pushback protection. If you didn't run out of mana during the fight, you didn't really gain anything from Fel Concentration. I would still take it if I was going for a drain spec but it isn't strictly necessary. In theory, if you had unlimited mana, Fel Concentration would basically do nothing. While you don't actually have unlimited mana, fights often end before you run out.

If you're playing on Elysium in crap gear with little to no crit, taking the drain talents is not the worst idea in the world. You can have an Affliction tree that looks like this and not miss out on anything really crucial. I don't use the spec myself but I have considered it as SB feels pretty terrible in PvP without any crit gear. Obviously you still take Ruin but you don't have to use it in PvP.

[Larsen 3]

double post

Edited February 3, 2017 by Larsen

[Lifealert 19]

Now that channeling leeway has been introduced, drain life seems more appealing. 

[suhail1200 3]

Seduce nuke as horde is ez.

Get damage and healing gear , be soul link , try to hit 5k hp currently and boom,players do no dmg XD.

Soul link+drain life is OP as hell and with double void with fel dom makes it more op.

[Magrim 0]

I got it all figured out. First off gear use this calculator 1 sp/shadow sp=1, 1 sta =.75 everything else is zero but you want a decent mana pool (usually under hp) and you want enough sta to avoid being stun locked by a rogue till death. This means that first generation shadow wrath gear (this version may not have two generations, Blizzard nerfed it 33% after about the first year of releasing it). is some of the best gear till tier two and in a lot of cases till tier 3. 

Couple points, dark pact is awesome gives you pretty much infinite MANA, I use felhunter and you want to keep all his spells at level one. Ruin you have to stand still to cast shadow bolt and that means you're probably going to get killed by a rogue so it really doesn't happen that often plus you geared pure dmg so you don't have any +CRIT to make use of anyway. No imp drain life because that talent applies before spell dmg same with imp coa. 

+ Hit always helps with binary spells and helps fear break less(fear is considered a binary spell)

I'm not 60 here but in the original I was always top dmg, top kills, sometimes KBS and most of the time top healing, lol.

http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#IE0bVRbkyoZxx0pM

[Lifealert 19]

My thoughts to the poster above:

- 5/5 suppression is not needed for pvp. 

- Abandoning Ruin (100% critical damage increase on destruction spells) for Dark Pact is not smart. Large shadowburn crits will sometimes make or break a 1v1 or even a 2v1. Large shadowbolt crits will sometimes help make or break a fight at blacksmith/wsg flagroom. Huge soulfires are just fucking fun.

- Being SM ruin means you do not have to change specs for pvp and pve play as the spec is one of the best for raiding and pvp. However if your guild has more than 4 warlocks then corruptions can be a problem and you may be asked to switch to DS Ruin and not put up corruption.

 My spec: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#IA0bGRbkAZZxx0tMbz . Improved CoA can be exchanged for 5/5 fel concentration. Don't actually know if 6% increased agony damage is better than an additional 42% reduction in interrupt chance on your drains. I will try it out this week since I am switching from destro back to SM Ruin. 

[Magrim 0]

31 minutes ago, Lifealert said:

My thoughts to the poster above:

- 5/5 suppression is not needed for pvp. 

- Abandoning Ruin (100% critical damage increase on destruction spells) for Dark Pact is not smart. Large shadowburn crits will sometimes make or break a 1v1 or even a 2v1. Large shadowbolt crits will sometimes help make or break a fight at blacksmith/wsg flagroom. Huge soulfires are just fucking fun.

- Being SM ruin means you do not have to change specs for pvp and pve play as the spec is one of the best for raiding and pvp. However if your guild has more than 4 warlocks then corruptions can be a problem and you may be asked to switch to DS Ruin and not put up corruption.

 My spec: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#IA0bGRbkAZZxx0tMbz . Improved CoA can be exchanged for 5/5 fel concentration. Don't actually know if 6% increased agony damage is better than an additional 42% reduction in interrupt chance on your drains. I will try it out this week since I am switching from destro back to SM Ruin. 

Suppression needed no, in that sense nothing is needed but armor is beneficial and so is suppression. You need a better understanding of how binary spells and fear breaking works.

You prob need to shadow bolt in a 1v1 because you've geared + CRIT. However when you build shadow dmg only, a regular shadow bolt deals about three quarters of what just one of your CRIT does but the chances I think max out around 15%-20% so 85% of the time my shadow bolts deal 150% dmg you deal and I still have about an 8+% chance of critiing which would be way over your crits not to mention everyone of my other shadow spells is doing far more dmg. This spec isn't designed for 1v1 because battlegrounds aren't duels, it's designed for mass PvP.

[Dexev 3]

I kept with Dark Pact spec for quite awhile after I hit 60 and I was very reluctant to spec out of it because I found Dark Pact very good. To be able to constantly fight and regen mana without killing yourself is pretty strong. It was also a massive troll in some cases like against hunter viper sting.  People talk about warlocks not having to worry about mana but I find most the times I'm dying in BGs its because ive had to lifetap really low to keep fighting. This was not really an issue with Dark Pact build. The problem with this analysis is that it goes out the window when you have healers.

As a fresh 60 with low hp and base mana it also allowed me to keep the stamina talent and a 4k hp pool - and with virtually no +dmg and no crit from gear all the points spent to get down to ruin just didn't seem worth it in comparison. 

However the more geared you get and the more organised you play ruin just gets better and better. A locks role in groups essentially comes down to throwing CoT on casters, utilising spell lock and devour intelligently, the odd fear and then helping burst down targets. Dots aren't really killing people with healers and dispellers in the scenario but 200% crit shadowbolts and shadowburns do.

@ Magrim - I don't really understand your points there. Suppresion only affects +hit doesn't it? Aren't binary resists related to spell resistance which suppression doesn't affect? With the hit cap only being 3% in PvP you should never need more than two points. Ideally I think you want the hit from gear anyway. I've got no hit from gear and coil resists are infuriating - it normally means death in small scale fights and I've lost battlegrounds due to it at times. I've still no idea if hit effects Spell Lock but same kinda thing there if it does. Any other destro resists are also annoying.

As for gearing shadow damage over crit is there really much difference? Aren't most the best pieces just as they are. I suppose there's things like using Robe of Volatile Power over other robes but this seems excessive. You must be talking quite significant damage differences.. I mean the average shadowbolt doing 150% of a crit geared lock is an insane + damage difference and I dont see where this is coming from. In my gear level I only really have one choice and that's ab belt for the crit or say felheart boe for better stats. That's juat negligible overall.

@ Lifealert - why 3/5 suppression? I'm genuinely curious if I'm missing anything regards to + hit etc

[Magrim 0]

21 hours ago, Lifealert said:

 

[Magrim 0]

Binary combines +hit and resistance in a multiplicative way. Fear also keeps running this check along with damage that's being introduced.

You can't use tier gear to get to the kinda of dmg I'm taking about. Also I never played even matches of tanks and healers and what not so usually you kill the healer first. If there is one...

Edited February 16, 2017 by Magrim

[Lifealert 19]

On 2/15/2017 at 2:09 PM, Magrim said:

This spec isn't designed for 1v1 because battlegrounds aren't duels, it's designed for mass PvP.

It's a shit spec for battlegrounds and 1v1s. And you'd be surprised how many 1v1s you'll encounter in BGs. 

You're draining mana from your Fel Hunter/succubus that you need for devour magic and seduction. Just use mana pots: the pvp ones or the cheaper ones off the AH. 

I really don't have to explain to you why 100% bonus to critical strike damage is a big deal right? Large criticals HELPS. Imagine playing a mage without the talent that increases critical strike dmg. Say goodbye to huge cone of colds that help win fights, or frostbolts. I've done a lot of BS fights at AB for example and what really helps my team the most is the ability to hit someone with curse of shadows and ZHC up really hard (on top of putting curse of tongues on the healers ofc). Without ruin I'd feel useless overall because I would be outdamaged by everyone. This is why Soul Link specs for battlegrounds are fucking awful.

 

23 hours ago, Dexev said:

 

@ Lifealert - why 3/5 suppression? I'm genuinely curious if I'm missing anything regards to + hit etc

You need another point to get to tier 3 and all other alternatives are garbage. 2% extra drain on drain life does not do anything at all due to the low SP modifier on the spell. I don't have to explain why speccing drain life/improved curse of weakness is bad do I? So go with 2% extra hit on affliction spells. It'll help for when you're putting up curses and corruption.

But what am I saying? You guys are on the fresh server and can't use corruption because of low debuff slots. Enjoy DS Ruin. 

[wickedwizard 2]

just listen to el lifealert. use the force. go for crit sm/ruin very very fun. Otherwise full destro if you're not raiding/pve 

Insta shadowbolt crits change otherwise unbalanced matchups. 

At end of the day you gotta figure it out yourself. 

GLHF warlocks ftw though

[Magrim 0]

Here's a vid I made playing a friend's warlock. Killed 2 ppl and didn't stop to shadow bolt once. 

A warlock shouldn't lose a 1v1 except to well geared rogues or warriors. If you make sure not to level your fel hunters spells then they have plenty of Mana to share.

@Lifealert what's the max CRIT rate you can get without sacrificing HP before tier 2?

 

 

 

[Lifealert 19]

This is not a fair comparison:You are playing TBC affliction where corruption, curse of agony, and drain life do significantly more damage than their vanilla counterparts. Notice that dots don't do as much damage as they can in vanilla due to lack of spellpen. 

Play whatever spec you want, but everyone will tell you that ruin is extremely important. You're missing out. 

 

And I don't know I play on anathema. Look at all of the gear including rank 10 gear and figure it out yourself. 

Edited February 17, 2017 by Lifealert

[Dexev 3]

On 17/02/2017 at 0:07 AM, Lifealert said:

You need another point to get to tier 3 and all other alternatives are garbage. 2% extra drain on drain life does not do anything at all due to the low SP modifier on the spell. I don't have to explain why speccing drain life/improved curse of weakness is bad do I? So go with 2% extra hit on affliction spells. It'll help for when you're putting up curses and corruption.

But what am I saying? You guys are on the fresh server and can't use corruption because of low debuff slots. Enjoy DS Ruin. 

So you are picking it because you use the spec for PvE as well? That's fair enough. My question was why, for PvP only, you would put a point into a talent doing nothing for you assuming 3% pvp hit cap is correct and Suppression does nothing against spell resistance. I take 2/5 for cap..the op that has 3% hit from gear should take 0 surely.

A garbage option is still better than something that does nothing afterall. 

On 16/02/2017 at 7:29 PM, Magrim said:

Binary combines +hit and resistance in a multiplicative way. Fear also keeps running this check along with damage that's being introduced.

You can't use tier gear to get to the kinda of dmg I'm taking about. Also I never played even matches of tanks and healers and what not so usually you kill the healer first. If there is one...

Do you have any source for this? As ive said before I always believed suppression does nothing against spell resistance.

My point with gear is that I don't see that difference existing with what is available currently. 

Also as lifealert said that video is not 1.12 gameplay.