3v3 Arena: Warlock Spike Theory

[ClintonM]

Spike Theory:

Three Warlocks cast all their instant dots on enemies, using 3 instant HoTs to keep them feared during the process. Fear itstelf is then used to send keep them feared.

Dark Pact or Life Tap is then used once to regain mana, then every warlock focuses on one enemy and uses Drain Life, causing 3,000 DPS solely from the focused drain life, also regenerating their health. (Don't forget about the 3x stacked UAs, 3x Corruption, and Curse of Agony)

The party then focuses on the next person, etc. etc.

Safety Nets:

3x Death Coil
Improved Voidwalker
- Increases Sacrifice Bubble Potency
Improved Healthstone
Master Summoner
- Re-summon Voidwalker for second Bubble if needed (probably not)
- Soul Stone

The Three Builds:
Agony: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IE0riRfzVtbobxuzcb
Curse of Shadows: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IE0rVMfzVtfobxuzcb
Exhaustion: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IE0rVRfzqtbobxGzcb

Although this Arena team is COMPLETELY unorthodox and many people will already see "faults" with it, I have always played unorthodoxly and do not intend on changing. I believe my one RL Friend that plays a warlock might be interested in trying this out, so I'm going to be looking for one more on my realm.

I've already been told this is the "Raiding Spec", High DPS with low survivability... But then again one person changed their view when they saw me kill a 70 BM Hunter with a build that wasn't focused on this concept beforehand.

I've thought of everything with this build and have field tested it in both world PvP and BG situations, so ask me any questions an I should be able to answer them for you ^^.

[ScottieIWU]

Any healing team with a decent healer should be able to immediately wreck this crew. Not to mention with any amount of resilience, you're looking at a huge chunk less on dots, with the only possible way to recover from that being to fear the healer. But, if they're any good, a shammy will have a tremor totem down, the priest will be fear warded (and disc), the druid will be stacking full range hots and could always just NS/Swiftmend, and a pally will just bop the person.

Moreover, the DPS team will no doubt have some means to control your healing from DL. Be it an MS warrior or a (hopefully) decent hunter tossing the MS up on at least one person, not to mention the possibility of sheeps, counter-fears, and purge/dispels on the void bubbles.

Warlocks are occasionally ridiculously OP, so I'd say you would (depending on how well it's played) see moderate returns up until the 1800s or so, when it will get progressively harder to handle. Keep in mind, too, that as you get higher there are only so many teams and they're going to eventually adapt themselves to meet your team. You might see a huge spike at first (because nobody knows wtf is going on) but I'd say that would be temporary.

Also, beating a BM hunter as a warlock isn't all that special. Actually, beating any hunter isn't. With BM it's just a matter of either being on-the-ball with a fear before he can even use TBW, or outliving him (via LOSing and your absurd amount of health) until you can fear him and wreck his shit. I've played both MM and BM specs in arenas and very rarely do I find myself doing anything but squeaking by (if not losing pretty hard) to equivalently geared/skilled locks.

But I wish you the best of luck!

[Vhaeraun]

I can attest to the locks kick serious ass on hunters; slaughtered a level 28 hunter in Ashenvale at 21 xD

[ClintonM]

? I've never had problems vs Arena geared Shadow Priests or healers for that matter 1on... What're you talking about?

My other RL friend's the best Warrior I've ever seen at PvP and I beat him... He was shocked. I've taken Shammys with Tremor Totems due to good pet control, so that shouldn't be a problem (fear away from their totems = OMFG Death ^^).

The only real threat I've had is against BM hunters... And that's gone away since I leveled to 68... I beat one fully geared for PvP.

I guess we'll see ^^... I KNOW that it'll get me far actually, people will have the "WTF?!?!" factor to deal with for a while until they figure out how to beat it (I already do, and it's hit/miss).

I'll tell you how it goes in a few weeks.

[StealthyDeath]

No offense to you or your friend, but any competent Warrior should wreck Warlocks easily since they should be using either Death Wish or Berserker Rage against fear combined with Mortal Strike to counter Siphon/Drain Life.

In your argument with 3 Warlocks on one side they could be defeated easily against a standard Warrior/Rogue, Healer and Caster.

If you fought against a Warrior, Priest, Warlock the situation (or it normally happens to me) is the Priest should be fearwarding themselves, the warlock should have a felhunter and the Warrior is ready to use berserker rage after seeing it is 3 Warlocks in the first few seconds.

Against your warlocks the priest and warrior will be immune to the first two fears and the warlock can have his felhunter eat the fear, the priest dispels it or trinket out of it. In addition, one of the warlocks is probably going to be hamstringed and pummeled by the warrior when they try to cast fear or UA and get hit by MS.

The priest would be healing and dispelling any dots that you have cast or mana burning you. The warlock will be probably attacking the warlock the warrior is on and fearing one of your three warlocks and their felhunter will eat your shields and the priest will be dispelling it. With high resilience the dots you probably cast are going to be doing less damage and one or two of the warlocks are going to be locked out for a few seconds because of the felhunter's counterspell and the warrior's pummel.

I normally run as a rogue/warlock/druid(me) so this is all speculation. Your safety nets are easily countered since the shield can be dispelled and using a voidwalker instead of a felhunter is unwise I think since you'll have a hard time countering any caster in combination with a melee. I can heal through most dots since resilience reduces it by a bit. Also you can not use soulstones in arena like you can do in the world or battlegrounds.

This is just my argument against your theory and I haven't seen any 3 warlock teams in any games 1800+ on my battlegroup.

[ScottieIWU]

Oh ya and DR. That'd kill this concept. Plus aff locks go down like a cheap thai hooker.

[ClintonM]

No offense to you or your friend, but any competent Warrior should wreck Warlocks easily since they should be using either Death Wish or Berserker Rage against fear combined with Mortal Strike to counter Siphon/Drain Life.
I'm guessing you've never had a Warlock use Deathcoil against you? My friend also thought the same thing until he realized that the bubble = 0 rage for him. Which in turn = pretty much no DPS.

In your argument with 3 Warlocks on one side they could be defeated easily against a standard Warrior/Rogue, Healer and Caster.
Because They can definately get out of 6 fears and 3 Death Coils?

If you fought against a Warrior, Priest, Warlock the situation (or it normally happens to me) is the Priest should be fearwarding themselves, the warlock should have a felhunter and the Warrior is ready to use berserker rage after seeing it is 3 Warlocks in the first few seconds.
Again, 1 Death Coil and all dots on priest = death in under 15 seconds. 2 Deathcoils for Warrior and 3 fears/HoTs left over.

Against your warlocks the priest and warrior will be immune to the first two fears and the warlock can have his felhunter eat the fear, the priest dispels it or trinket out of it. In addition, one of the warlocks is probably going to be hamstringed and pummeled by the warrior when they try to cast fear or UA and get hit by MS.[quote]
... See last two answers.

[QUOTE=StealthyDeath;579547]The priest would be healing and dispelling any dots that you have cast or mana burning you. The warlock will be probably attacking the warlock the warrior is on and fearing one of your three warlocks and their felhunter will eat your shields and the priest will be dispelling it. With high resilience the dots you probably cast are going to be doing less damage and one or two of the warlocks are going to be locked out for a few seconds because of the felhunter's counterspell and the warrior's pummel.
Good luck with Curse of Tongues and DCs. We have Anti-Fear Racials and PvP trinkets...

I normally run as a rogue/warlock/druid(me) so this is all speculation. Your safety nets are easily countered since the shield can be dispelled and using a voidwalker instead of a felhunter is unwise I think since you'll have a hard time countering any caster in combination with a melee. I can heal through most dots since resilience reduces it by a bit. Also you can not use soulstones in arena like you can do in the world or battlegrounds.
I never have to use a soulstone unless it's 2on1... So that's no need to worry. And with 3x instant fears and 3x DC there's no reason you wouldn't beat spellcasters. Druids are only minor problems with 1on1, but 3on1 (technically, DoTs from 3 warlocks) = one dead druid FAST.

This is just my argument against your theory and I haven't seen any 3 warlock teams in any games 1800+ on my battlegroup.
I've recently abandoned my 70 Warlock because simply put: it's too easy to win. It's just no longer a challenge or fun to play one anymore. My Pally I started is level 56 now and I'll probably take him to 70 and PvP with a rogue and Shadow Priest.

However, I do still want to try this one out. Anyone on Altar of Storms? ;) ;)

[ScottieIWU]

Because They can definately get out of 6 fears and 3 Death Coils?Two words: diminishing returns.

You might get an impressive amount of damage off, but honestly between DR and a good, knowledgeable and capable pvp healer, that won't work.

In early brackets maybe it will work, but by the end your team will get wrecked.

[GenocideAlive]

The problem with the entire scenario is Rogues and Hunters with shit like Blind. Basically, CCs in general. All of them end up with a 2v3 scenario, even if you blow your CDs trying to save yourselves, in the end you're a cloth wearer trying to survive MS and heavy spell pushback. You could use void in arena and save yourself a lot of damage (30% dmg reduction + shield!), but then you have no means of CC yourself (no succubus) and no +10% dmg bonus.

And whoever keeps saying that resilience is going to help with DoTs...seriously. Do you even know what resilience does? DoTs? The problem with Affliction locks isn't their damage, which is just-fine-thank-you, the problem is that they have no survivability. No -30% damage, no great crit reducing talent, no strong pet damage, etc. So if someone turns and starts beating on their face, they're pretty much going down like a bag of rocks in a pond.

Seriously, why do people comment on shit they have no clue about.

[Trujungle]

Hey was reading the boards and am new to them. I have a disp/holy priest that I play. I run a rouge/priest/mage. This to me would not be a very hard team to counter. Let’s say we just sheep the lock 1 and counter spell the other. The rouge would have 1 of you dead in about 8 seconds lol. This could go down 1 or 2 ways. Say rouge shadow steps hits expose armor poof you have no armor… Then he would build 5 combo points and either rupture of or eviscerate which ever was needed.

Meanwhile the mage is just ice lance you keeping the other warlock out of commission. Sure you may have enough helping you but as soon as you come out poof rouge blinds one that was sheeped and one that was counter spelled is now sheeped. While this is going on I am dispelling anything that can be thrown out. Accept UA which alone is about like through nerf balls at us lmao. Point being is you have no Soul link to protect you and without a healer you are toast. I honestly don’t think all this would even be needed because a UA warlock dies WAY to fast.

My whole point is there is just too much CC for your team to handle sure you can fear but a skilled mage and rouge can destroy you because the rouge will keep you where you can’t move while he is fighting you. I still think it would be fun to see this group though. I have faced 3 shamans before though lol. Resto, Enhance, Elemental.

[RavenCrusade]

You guys are coming at this situation as if you know what'll happen. You have to use different tactics for different teams, however, this team will be fearing any team they come up against. They have surprise and speed. Even when their tactic is figured out, they'll still be have speed on their side. The key with this team is that they can use the same basic tactic on any team, where as you, as an opponent, have to use an unorthodox tactic.

This is just my opinion.

[ScottieIWU]

You guys are coming at this situation as if you know what'll happen. You have to use different tactics for different teams, however, this team will be fearing any team they come up against. They have surprise and speed. Even when their tactic is figured out, they'll still be have speed on their side. The key with this team is that they can use the same basic tactic on any team, where as you, as an opponent, have to use an unorthodox tactic.

This is just my opinion.I dunno, speed is still kind of an issue. Let's assume they blow a fear out of the gate, then they still have to get a bunch of dots per person up. Assuming you're going with a curse, an SL, corruption and perhaps an immolate, thats 3 instants at a 1.5 GCD plus immolate's cast time. That takes some time just to get the "speed" not to mention having to refear etc.

I think that while this team might succeed on a first try against some teams, any team that knows what it's doing would never lose a second time around.

[WarInSerbia]

My friend couldnt miss the video in youtube where 40 mages in a raid group all kill Doom lord kazzak in one shot.pyroblast I think.Instant kill...

I never thought that massing classes in a arena team would actually work.I should get cable internet by the end of the week.Could you (if you can) capture that 3v3 action and show it to us?I've been in a arena team once.2v2 me (pally) and shaman with full t6 (tauren) vs a dreanei shaman and warrior.The only thing that sucks in my realm is that the players hate the arena's and battlegrounds.In the real ones there must be about 5k people online every hour...
Still I dont know where to get arena gier for lvl 70.Someone told me that you can get it in area 52 but I dont know where...


From my opinion this is the best 3v3 arena team.A priest,warlock and rouge.

[Trujungle]

My friend couldnt miss the video in youtube where 40 mages in a raid group all kill Doom lord kazzak in one shot.pyroblast I think.Instant kill...

I never thought that massing classes in a arena team would actually work.I should get cable internet by the end of the week.Could you (if you can) capture that 3v3 action and show it to us?I've been in a arena team once.2v2 me (pally) and shaman with full t6 (tauren) vs a dreanei shaman and warrior.The only thing that sucks in my realm is that the players hate the arena's and battlegrounds.In the real ones there must be about 5k people online every hour...
Still I dont know where to get arena gier for lvl 70.Someone told me that you can get it in area 52 but I dont know where...


From my opinion this is the best 3v3 arena team.A priest,warlock and rouge.



You can get the gear in arena 52 as you come out of the inn go left and straight across the street in the hut is the vendor. There is another vendor right outside of nagrand arena. To get the S1 gear just go to champions hall in SW.

another thing is it really depends on it though. If he goes up against a team with an undead lock or mage with a warrior on it GL fearing anything there. Maybe VS a Alliance Team you could rely on fear but in a horde team lol let me know how that goes. Now i am not saying that horde are over powered just a crapload harder to fear.

Okay so you want to fear me I am a alliance priest, First I use fearward then I use my trinket I think that is plenty of time for someone to kill you because I can also play the line of site thing. The rouge will use clock of shadows which will remove dots and GL on the fear game there.

I would like to see it in action though. It would be fun as hell to watch hehe :)

[WarInSerbia]

You can get the gear in arena 52 as you come out of the inn go left and straight across the street in the hut is the vendor. There is another vendor right outside of nagrand arena. To get the S1 gear just go to champions hall in SW.
k thanks

1v1 is always interesting,the only duel I didnt see so far is a mage vs a warlock.That should be interesting.