Warlock thread (5 and 4+1)

Since asonimie reported his/her adventures with warlocks, which inspired me to start a group of my own, I've been quite curious about progress and bg/arena viability. I know a bunch of you also play this comp, so I though I'd start at thread to report progress, findings and good advice on this composition. I'll start with my own, but if you have any guidelines, good advice, tips, tricks, whatever - please post!

I've been levelling up with heirloom gear, but no boosting or RAF, since I wanted the experience in the battlegrounds for each level bracket and since I'm also levelling a druid (4 locks + druid) to support them. Levelling is actually pretty fun with these guys and the combination of dots (run and dot and heal) + interact with target function makes a lot of previously tedious quests viable.

As for the battlegrounds:

10-19: WSG - I used to hate this BG playing solo, but multiboxing locks and druid it's my current favourite. I started at level 16. Compared to the 20-29 bracket it's very easy, in part because not very many classes have their more annoying abilities yet. I basically steamrolled whatever I ran into and it was a lot of fun. If I ended up with players who had a strategic approach (instead of running round in the middle like headless chickens), it would be an easy win.

I ran into a few haters ("omg, you cheater").

20-29: More challenging in WSG. I started at level 26 in this bracket and found it a bit more challenging that the 10-19 - but in a good way, since it actually forced me to think further than just dot + dot + dot. I ran into healers that actually knew how to support-heal, which was great when on my side and obviously not so great when on the other side.

I remember this trio of hunter, mage and priest which was really difficult to beat and they'd usually kill off more than one of my chars before I got the better of them. The priest would stand at max range healing the hunter and mage, while the mage tried to AE and the hunter DPS'ed. I think the hunter was twinked, because he was pulling some seriously nasty DPS. The mage was a good exercise in spreading out and still maintaining control and the strength of the warlocks were really showing here. They'd either focus on my main or my healer, so I'd switch mains during the fight and try and have them spread wide enough that he could only hit 2 with his AE. The problem was that with the healer moving around I couldn't really get to him without using follow, which would enable the mage to AE. If I went for the mage, he'd heal through and dispell my dots while the hunter was singling out my main or healer. I ended up simply fearing and using succubi's seduce and trying to go for the healer, but usually they would have killed off a toon before the healer was down. Tricky stuff, especially for someone fairly new to PvP like myself :-)

They're currently level 28, almost 29, so I'll try and keep this thread updated when I'm into the next bracket, but I should point out that this is some of the most fun I've had in my boxing career so far (apart from levelling up my first shaman team with my bro on skype doing the same dungeons :-).

I've got a warlock on my mixed team, 73rd at the moment (team is 73rd-77th).
I raided with this toon pretty much all of the BC raids, as Demo spec.
Had a blast, and its one of my most favorite characters.

I've recently started a 5x Warlock team, all of them are horde side.
Everything previous has been alliance.
No RAF, so went opposite faction, so everything will be new (and less painful without RAF).

Haven't transferred any wealth (via neutral AH yet).
I suppose will need to get a horde DK out of the DK area, and toons to watch each of the neutral AH's so no one snipes my 1 copper auctions.

5x Warlocks isn't quite the same as 4x Warlocks + 1x Druid, but its similar.
I'm thinking go deep affliction on each, with a smattering of demonology.
Most likely 4 with Soul Link and Felhounds, and one with an Imp for the extra Stamina.

Ok hint for anyone wanting to run 4 locks and one other comp. Make it shadow priest. Why you ask can heal if need be but best thing comes at lvl 70. The almighty pally screw you your still gonna die mass dispell. I have my priest whos actually holy run with locks in bgs. Big deal i lose one dps but i never worry about the stupid pally bubbles ne more. So make sure you put a priest so u run 4 locks and 1 priest. Plus the buffs to spirit and stam are nice for added hp and damage. Think about it felhunter succudbus felguard and imp. Added mana added hp and 3 extra stuns becuase they go off to anyone in area thats attacking you.

Amongst the arguments for druid healer is mobility - it's great in bgs, because you can run and heal, although priests have some nice tools as well. Fortunately I already have a level 80 priest and a level 80 resto geared shammie and a level 80 druid, so I can afford to do both and see what fits better :-)

As for now, the druid is working fairly well, although I'm suffering from lack of AE heals - I'm getting tranq at 30 which could be a big help, although it's channeled, so likely to get interrupted, but it's my only AE heal pre-60.

Update on tonights BG sessions:

I ran into a combination of some nasty mages who worked well together. Between those two and a healer I was under a lot of pressure. It's not alwas I get to spread far enough to avoid the AE, but I guess an option is to try and CC while I drain life and heal to the best of my ability. The problem isn't as much the mage(s) as the mage in combination with healers and melee. How do you guys counter them? I suppose felhounds at 30 will help a lot :-)

Also, I've been a little frustrated with the xp rate, becase it seems that whether we win or lose is very depending on whoever you're put in the bg with. You may get 5/10 low levels who are clueless or be lucky and get some high-levels who know what they're doing. It's especially annoying in WSG - I think 2 * 5 boxers could really do well together in that BG.

What do you do about gear at low levels? My first shaman team really suffered alot in any BG's because I simply couldnt find any half decent gear for their level. I find I level too fast with RAF and do very few quests that give items as a reward. As a result I dont think I really ever played them to their full potential before I made a melee team. Also in the 20 - 29 bracket I had a real problem with twinks who would steam roll my entire team making me feel just a little foolish :(

I don't RAF, so that's not really a problem. Since I quest from the start of the level bracket and to the upper middle of the level bracket (10-16, 20-26 etc.) I get some greens from quests and other than that I have 2 * heirloom trinkets, heirloom shoulder, heirloom chest and heirloom weapon, which helps a lot.

I find the 20-29 bracket a lot harder that 10-19, but from my perspective it's simply that horde-side players seem to be better at cooperating than alliance. I run into a LOT of immature players on the alliance side who will simply follow me around and watch rather than actually contribute, which is both frustrating and annoying, and I'm seriously considering switching to horde.

I've take a look at my bg realms stats and it's pretty sick how much horde wins:

http://www.warcraftrealms.com/bg_list.php?id=14&lb=7