[PVP] 4xWarlock/1xPriest-thread

[cepheus]

I recently started pvp-boxing when my locks and priest hit lvl 70. In under two weeks now ,I've gotten full gladiator, se1 weapon and next on my list is the pvp-trinket. So they are beginning to ble fairly well geared.

I see a lot of threads for people doing 4/5-box shaman, but a little less with the lock/priest setup. Therefor I would like to have this thread focus on expirences with lock/priest.

What I would like to know is:
- What spec do you use(for both priest and locks)
- Expiriences with different specs
- What BG do you like best?
- Do you do any arenas? If so, just with 4 locks+another players healer, or with all 5?
- Any handy macros?

[cepheus]

As for myself I can say that I'm currently using a 40/21/0 spec that is based on demonic sacrifice for max dot/seed dmg. I find this spec pretty nice since I usually dont have a need for 4 pets. It also gives me 5x instant fears that is very handy.

I leveled up with a demo-spec from 60+. I think that would be one of the best choices before you get seed, because 4 felguards gives you a lot of aoe dmg/tanking while you can both dot and hellfire ALOT of mobs.

As for BG, I have done all of them. When I'm solo, I usually do AV. Here my tactics is usually to defend Galvanger. 4x Seeds is just insanly fun here. I usually hide myself at Galvanger so noone really know how many/what classes that stand there. Using this tactics, I can potentially wipe 10+ people comming to kill him alone. After most give up on Galv, I usually go for either to clear bunkers(if few are attacking) or defending the base/graveyards(if there are enough hordes attacking) When I'm defending I can often hold them off long enough for my side to win the battle.

As for AB/WSG/EOTS I usually do this with my guild groups, as this BG's requires a lot more teamwork, and is hard to do with 3-4 people allways following you around to look. However if you have a good group, you can really do well here too.

I havent done any arena to speak of yet, but I plan to use my 4 locks in arena with a friend as a healer. I think healing too in arena would require too much attention to be any efficiant.

I have a lot of macros, a bit too much to post here, but if anyone want any tips for anything special, just ask away.

[Skuggomann]

For PvP: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=Ii0riRfzVtfocxc0I
(DoT upp and runn! thats my mottow)


For PvE: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IV0bZZExbtrhtVuAo
(try toget a firemage wit you for teh 15% fierbuff

[cepheus]

For PvP: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=Ii0riRfzVtfocxc0I
(DoT upp and runn! thats my mottow)


My locks' build is quite similar to that, just that I have demonic sacrifice instead of Unstable affliction. In theory UA sounds good, but in most cases I really dont have a need for it when I can dot people up with 12 dots. Its just another dot, and mostly just a waste of mana/time to put it up. People will most likely die anyway. Against a dispeller I usually just dot 12 dots, and throw a castsequenced deathcoil. At the time deathcoil wears of, they are usually dead anyway :)

[gamdolf]

I'd recommend something like this for the locks.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=Iq0rrRfzoZbxczIiz0es

It's a different variation on a SL/SL build. I don't think that you are going to use the other curses as often because of how fast you will be putting out damage, so 2 points in improved CoA instead of fel con. Dispelling also shouldn't be a big deal because of the sheer number of dots you are putting out, so shadow embrace for the dispel protection isn't necessary.

Basically just run around using your 3 instant cast dots, then if you get people dotted you can drain for some serious damage.

I'm not sure how nightfall procs will work multi-boxing, so that might not be necessary to get.


I don't know a ton about priests, but the warlock build should work really well with 4 of them.

[cepheus]

Nightfall is kinda hard to monitor on all chars at once. And when it procs, it will seldom proc on all chars at once, and therefor you will most likly just waste a global cooldown on all the other chars when you're mashing the button to get it off.

One reason I went deep into affliction instead of Soul Link is to get instant fear. When you cast sequence this, you have pretty good defence without a pet. This means that I can most of the time use demonic sacrifice for 15% extra shadowdamage wich is quite nice with this many dots :D

I also use a slightly different spec on each lock to maximize the utility I get from talents. One lock are specced with Shadow Embrace to reduce physical damage, one is specced Malediction for CoS, One are specced CoEx for slowing. Everyone exept the one using CoS have imp. CoA. As for health stones, I also have 3 different ranks. Quite nice to summon all soul wells before a fight starts:D

[Kayley]

How well do they do PvE wise? 4 warlocks and a priest I mean :)

cepheus - any chance you can show a little footage of yourself in action? (BG of your choice hehe) I've been needing an excuse to give some love to my 'locks/priest team :D

[cepheus]

How well do they do PvE wise? 4 warlocks and a priest I mean :)

cepheus - any chance you can show a little footage of yourself in action? (BG of your choice hehe) I've been needing an excuse to give some love to my 'locks/priest team :D

I havent gotten around to post any pictures online, but here is one taken by an ally in AB :P http://frip.dk/overdeliver/sicko.jpg

PvE wise you really cant expect to do any instances solo. you will need a tank here. But I've cleared most of karazhan(prince including) with my priest and locks toghether with some guildmates.

[simpletom]

i would spec 2

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=Iq0rVRckoZbxczIiz0es

and the other 2

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=Iq0riRZbxczIizMesk

this gives you up to 11 debuffs

2 sl sl warlocks will be

corruption x2
curse of shadows
curse of tounges/curse of exhastion (depends on melee or caster)
Siph Life x2
shadow embrace (specing both with this will still only give 1 debuff it doesnt stack)
and pet of choice 2 felhounds ( i would stick dispell on auto, and silence on macro, could do both on macro but i would just leave it you have a priest main dispell, and the cooldown is just 8 seconds so 2 hounds a dispell every 4 seconds not worth macroing)

the Demon Locks

corruption x2
COA x 2
pet of choice obviously the felguards, if you leave their charge on auto its amazing how clever the ai is on this, i would have it on auto but also a macro for panic becuase this can also be used to silence really effectively if your changeing the targets.

so with this is 11 debufs boosting drain life by 44%, and draining should be very condtional as their is so much on the target he will fall pretty quickly. If its a disp priest in full s3 or somthing thats when you would need the drains, if its a fresh 70 with just blues from instances and no real pvp gear you shouldnt have a problem letting dots do thier job.

SL is very overpowered and i personally if pvp is your goal would never spec away from it. if you dont have this in arena getting focus on one of your warlocks could be too much for your priest to really heal for.

[cepheus]

Very nice feedback here simletom :D I might try something like that. As for now I only have done normal BG so far. With this I really like a affliction/ds spec since it gives tremendous amount of dot and seed damage. But I'm soon going to try arena, I guess your tips here will be much better for that.

[Manaburner]

My 4 Lock/1 Priest team hit 70 last week and i've been grinding the battlegrounds nonstop. Since I play alliance (oh the pain....) I don't have WOTF to fall back on so mass fears are very, very painful for my team.

My locks spec:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=Iq0rrRfzoZbxczIiz0es

My priest is specced circle of healing - it's quite impressive with a lock group.

I try to use my felguards defensively, getting them on any player that can mass fear (warriors, priests and to a lesser extent other warlocks). That way if they fear, 4 of the fears are eaten by the pets.

Shadowburn is hotkeyed with the priests Shadow Word:Death to insta-kill anyone with less than 30% health that needs to die quickly. I castsequence my dots with life drain and that usually kills people about 2 seconds after the felguards stun them. The nice thing about life drain is that it locks onto the target no matter where they move, and with talents it drains for a *lot*.

Keep in mind I've just started, but AV (as Cepheus stated) is the real money maker. WSG and AB are a bit painful. Surprisingly, I win about 70% of EOTS though. I basically run from DT to BE towers and then police the flag spawn point and the rest is taken care of by PUGS. It just doesn't yield that much honor.

I'll post later with my findings as I haven't had *that* much experience with BG's yet.

[bob]

what do ppl think about a 4x lock 2x shadow priest pvp set up? maby with the frozen shadowweave 3 set bonus http://thottbot.com/?set=553
shadow dmg+++ :lol:

[simpletom]

hello bob, first of all im not sure if you mean 3xlock 2x shadow priest or 4xwarlock 1xshadow priest, or you actually mean 4xlock and 2x shadow priest which would mean 6 characters so you would create for yourself a few problems with leveling a 6 man group not impossible but not easy or effective.

fist of all dont confuse shadowweave as a pvp set its far from it, the bonus is sadly not good enough for pvp, if it was for pvp when this set is intended for pve then they would nerf it.

On all acounts stay away from shadowweave for pvp whereever possible, it lacks the basic stats for pvp, stamina and resilience. you could socket these true, but then it defeats the purpose of this set, its for you to bridge the gap alot easyer to collect raid gear from instance gear.

if you check out the priest forums sadly shadow is a pve build right now its seriously lacking in pvp, compared to disp spec priests. They need some serious changes to be made more useful in pvp, its not that they cant pvp, far from it they deal insane damage, can heal when needed, shields, dispell, burn mana, fear... the list goes on priests are insane, this is why they are targeted very early on in a match and you cant really miss them they stand out like a sore thumb in an arena or battleground, they lack defenceive skills which means they drop very fast when focused. So at the moment i think any team with a shadow priest in it needs another healer to keep them up as they cant expect that VE no matter how good is going to keep them allive. For pve they are awsome crazy mana batteries, 1100 spell damage shadow priest shouldnt ever really go oom.

I can see why your considering a shadow priest to what it brings to the fight for warlocks namely a 20% buff in their shadow dps when you add shadow weaveing maxed and misery debuff together. 20% isnt really worth the loss of the healing, and you could heal but its alot of fiddleing about for the priest to shift in and out to heal even more so if they are being focus'd. Specing the warlocks like i listed above should give them plenty of healing back from drain life, your deep demon locks lack siphon life which means that if focused you would need to heal them more than the SL/SL ones, but the beauty of haveing 2 of each spec is to the untrained eye would be very hard to determin which ones which.

Consider this set up as
SL/SL locks are your tanks as they will still do the most damage but they will also handle far more damage than your deep demon locks.
Deep demon locks, these are effectively here for some AI abuse, the Felguard is insanely clever in a small area like an arena, leave charge on auto and i will constantly save your ass, also stick it one on a healer and leave him their, this will stop the healer ever running out of combat and drinking saveing you a whole lot of issues. Any clever arena team will counter this by killing your felguards and felhounds, no problem just get them back into combat, that 3-6 seconds per pet that the team have to work that out and start beating on them should give you a large enough window to drain down someone on that team.
your priest is the groups healer, use your aoe fear spareingly, more than likely someone either a warlock priest or warrior is going to make up atleast one of the members in the oposeing team, so they will charge in and try to aoe fear to scatter your group a well timed offensive aoe fear will save you from that.

This team and setup with priests and warlocks is a drain team, your main objective is not really to nuke down someone as aff/demon locks cant nuke (nukeing really implies that you could totally destroy a target who potentially has over 13k hp so fast that the oposeing teams healers couldnt manage it), and i wouldnt advise destruction for pvp, mastered its not bad, but then you need to build your team up to comensate for the destruction warlock, much like a team with a shadow priest needs to. So your goal is to put enough pressure on the oposeing teams healers to keep them healing on demand and consantly forceing them to drain all their mana.

You priest should really be only topping off your warlocks hp when ever needed or if they are focus'd start throwing out flash heals on the warlocks.

Alot of people who have played a 4 warlock and priest may disagree with alot of the points and talents ive posted above thats fine, this is just my own experience as a solo lock and solo priest, i did put alot of thaught into this sort of boxing group before decideing what i was to do.

here is what i would spec my priest like

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxMGkhMZfVtccMoVhAo

this build would be pretty much the best thing to go for while you are collecting gear and in the lower rateings this would be fine.

when your fully geared up with some 12k hp 400 reslience and 1500 healing.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxMGkGMtrcqtfmt

somthing like that will offer you plenty of offensive as you will have to expect any team with brains is going to focus your priest. I would choose disp over holy in higher brackets as your priest will end up doing most of the 'tanking'

noone as of yet does a full arena team as it makes things very dependant on reaction times, i think this team set up could do it becuase of how clever the ai of the felguards are. they bring in some very clever aspects to an arena.

note also how i always take one or the other on the talents which give an effect on takeing a critical blow, this is becuase it will only proc one of the effects at a time, you dont want blessed recovery procing when you could of had focused will on you instead, and spell warding is a grossly underrated talent and i wouldnt spec away from it ever for pvp.

personally i went druid shaman team makeup becuase i want the ability to nuke a target rather than drain, the problem with a full drain team is its going to drag out the game alot longer, the longer your match goes on for the longer your giveing your team to think and adapt to your teams makeup give them long enough and they will counter you. You can only apply a instant dot once every 1.5 seconds, thats pretty much 3.5 seconds per target, then you have to refresh dots when removed and when, paladins, mages, warlocks, priests, druids can all remove your dots they are going to get removed. does make the fight drag on alot more.

no expert on 5v5 4 warlock 1 priest arena teams but thats the problems i could forsee giving this team less of an edge than say a shaman or another burst team makeup. I wouldnt like to say that this team wouldnt work becuase i honistly think it could do, but would take maybe 3 times longer than a shaman team would be to learn properly. Shaman are pretty simple you have really 3 offensive skills, lightning bolt, chain lightning and a shock, 2 are on cooldowns of untalented 6 seconds, so pretty much leaves you doing, LB LB LB CL SHOCK LB LB CL SHOCK sort of combos, not as simple with a warlock.

i think this team would do well because of the load of damage puts way way to much pressure on the oposeing teams healers. it is a pretty insane drain, and would love anyone who takes this into practice to film it and post it on the forums for others considering this build to get a taste of what to expect.

lastly any shadow damage team running into a destruction lock is going to have to wand them to death or expect them to be immune to every spell you throw at them, from you constantly procing Nether Protection, as far as i remember has no internal cooldown, at least it didnt when i had my distruction lock in 2.0

sorry for the long post but had alot to say on this team makeup as i was seriously considering it for a long time, i just hope that some of it was useful to you.

[simpletom]

forgot to add one thing, spellsurge weapon enchant

http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=28003

is in my opinion better than healing or soulfrost for your team

so an entire group with this enchant is looking at about 50mp5 when its broken down, it gives you 100 mana has an internal cooldown of about 50 seconds and its more like a 30-50% chance to proc, so nearly a garantee'd proc for each member every 50 seconds results in 10mp5 per person for the team on all 5 casters works out like 50mp5.

this would save you haveing to life tap too often, while also secureing that the priest doesnt go oom too fast.

[bob]

thanks simpletom 4 taking the time to post such a comprehensive reply, the team i was looking at was a 3xlock 2x shadow priest, sorry about not checking before i posted you gave me lots to think about

[pinotnoir]

I am doing 3 shaman right now but 4 locks and a priest would rock in pvp. I have a 70 lock thats sl/sl and he is a force in pvp. In arena we drain healers mana ftw and out last people. I couldnt imagine what a 4 lock 1 priest would do to healers mana x 5. Mana burn and drain would suck out there mana so fast it wouldnt be funny.

I would spec two locks sl/sl one for UA and one with felguard. Just thinking about the possibility of 4 locks and a priest make me want to try it some time.

[simpletom]

much the effect any class boxing, overload oponents with damage = loss of mental control ie OMG WTF AHHHHhhh.... dead. Dont give them a second to react and they will never learn.

best seen in this video of ellay pwning a team

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=pRwosHrsGNE