What are ways that you go about fighting PvP with Warlock that differ from PvE?

[Pheophyting]

So in my opinion, PvE Warlock is pretty straightforward. The mechanical rotation differs depending on Shadow vs. Ice build, but the general idea is the same. Put out as many dragoncalls/dragon helixes as possible (often aided via soulburn, wingstorm CD reductions, rupture cooldown reductions, leech insta-casts, etc.) 

 

My Warlock is the first class that I have ever made and I am a relatively new player to BnS. While I feel very comfortable in my PvE rotation (currently running a shadow build), I struggle in PvP where my rotation is often interrupted by a well timed block, my crowd control can be tabbed, I have to deal with things like stealth and my opponents CCing me, managing my thrall's position becomes super important, and overall I feel like other classes simply run circles around me despite the warlock, at all levels of play, being considered a very strong PvP pick. 

 

If you break down PvP into 2 basic categories, attack and defense, how would I best play to the Warlock's strengths in both categories?

 

Also some misc. questions:

- Warlock's block seems to be a very key defensive ability due to its extremely low CD. When should I interrupt my offensive rotation to block? Does it vary from class to class? What things should I be observing from my opponent which I should take as a cue to block? My CC wearing off? Opponent's gap closer coming off CD? Etc.

- Should I save bastion for replenishing focus? Or should I use it purely as a defensive ability in prediction of my opponent's offensive rotation with little to no regard for bastion's focus recovering capabilities?

- Shadow Warlock seems to be very dependent on hitting RMB (salvos) to generate spectral orbs for those sweet sweet dragon helix rotations. My opponent blocking my salvos (especially while they are CC'd) puts a halt to my offensive rotations. How do you deal with this? 

- During that 1 second between your RMB and salvo, what skills do you generally use? I hate just running and waiting for that 1 second so I often weave in a LMB or something but I'm sure there are better options than that.

- When is the best time for me to put down my soul shackles? It's a pretty high cooldown and I feel really vulnerable if my opponent manages to escape from it.

- How should I be using my thrall in PvP? Should I be keeping the thrall between my opponent and myself sort of like a wall? Or should I just have the thrall near me?

- How do you deal with stealth as a warlock? Even if I see the assassin's shadow/shimmer, I have a hard time trying to avoid CC/damage. Should I use my thrall's E to knock the opponent out of stealth? Would it be wise to put that on cooldown just to get an assassin out of stealth?

 

Sorry for the huge amount of questions. I really love this class in PvE and would like to transition to a higher proficiency in PvP! Thank you all so much for your time!

[Nyaha]

Rotations in pvp? In B&S there are no such things. Here we have combos. Your goal is to CC your opponent and deal damage while they are CC'd. You will have to learn other classes to be able to defend and attack efficiently against them.
PVP play is very diffirent from how you do pve, so simply forget all you know about pve when going to arena. Buy a page for your skillbook so you can have a separate build on a quick switch and experiment with it. You can also forget about using ice or soulburn in arena - they are no good for pvp and will only work vs very-very poor opponent or an afk target.

 

My english is too bad to explain all the basics. You can just google Nodah and watch his warlock arena pvp videos to learn from his play.

And you can also check my short trashy tag pvp video - there are a lot of basics things you can learn from analyzing those 2 minutes *totally not a shameless self-promotion :)*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-i2Mr0NngE

 

[Karurosuda]

First of all, you must know that there is a neutral meta in pvp compared to pve.

Because all classes are equipped with several defensive options which normal mobs will almost never use, there are certain steps one has to keep in mind before they start doing damage.
Know that if you burn your opponents options for CC escapes, you can essentially win the fight. Achieving this goal takes a bit of knowledge; for example, you have to know what kind of options the specific class has against you offensively and defensively, as well as their escapes should they fail.
 

For example, if you are fighting a SF then you may be inclined to block many of their attacks as several of them do not pierce parry; however they have a specific spec for their F skill that immediately approaches and dazes you right through your spammable block should they choose to spec it (and they should, seeing as how it's warlocks most neutral defense); they also have 7 ways of i-framing themselves which also acts as their main mobility, one of which is a bubble iframe that withstands 5 hits, but will end immediately if you throw lmbs into it 5 times. Kit knowledge of other classes is VERY important in pvp as you can more easily identify counter-kits for your given situation. 

 

One general thing you should know is your basic burst combo; each class has a different way of doing damage all at once, and several of them consist of airborne combos (only very few classes can escape this CC type, summoner for example can). WL's will generally stun the enemy and have thrall (specc'd with void slash) launch them into the air, during which WL bombards them with RMBs and 4s. Before the combo ends, they will relaunch you with 2 (HM skill launches twice, I highly recommend you get this skill) and repeat this process for massive damage. If the opponent tries to use their escape after they land, time your 3 daze or x stun (depending on what you have available) in accordance with your opponents iframe uptime to recatch them in a CC, activate time distortion to reset your 2, and do it all over again. If this is all successful, you've most likely won the round because that combo does a massive amount of damage. This is all assuming you're shadow build btw, which is largely accepted as the better build for pvp.

If both of you know a good amount of what you're doing, whoever wins the footsies in the neutral game wins the round. What will usually happen is both opponents will have exhausted half their resources trying to counterplay each others offense and defense, so most of the damage will come from small opportunities in which some lets their guard down. Maybe another WL blew their Z on a bait rather than a serious offensive attempt, or a SF is out of Qs/Es/SSs and can't escape a snare CC leaving them vulnerable.

You should always have something in your kit off cooldown that will bail you out of a situation before you lose too much health; there are even sometimes you want to stall your escapes in hopes that your opponent uses too many of their CC's to keep their combo going, then escape after you're sure they can't recatch or 'tech chase' you. It's these kinds of things you want to keep in mind when going into PVP.

 

Now to answer some questions:
-As I've said in my SF example, it's very situational when you 'want' to block; however keep in mind that specc'd to airborne, a successful block against any attack will allow you to launch your opponent, no matter where they are. Be aware that you opponent may expect this and put up a defensive measure, so its you must learn whether its best to hold off on that F key to see if they'll take the bait, or use it right away in the surprise of the moment. Know what classes have a 'pierce defensive skills' ability and which don't, and recognize whether or not they've burnt it mid battle to decide when it's best to use your block.

-Bastion should always be used as a defensive option against people too close to you. Your job as a warlock is doing damage from a safe distance and making the get away if people get too close; against other ranged classes, you'll want to obstruct their ability to target you as much as possible. Moving out of their range, speccing 'disable targeting' sanctum, and using thrall as a meatshield are all good ways.

 

-Refer to what I said about your main combo; if you have the appropriate spec and Hm skills, your salvos are instantly cast on CC'd targets, and therefore give you free helix's.
 

-Refer to above. You don't want to cast salvo the normal way; make sure your skills are specc'd to be pvp compatible.

 

-Your AoE soul shackle is a risky spec since many classes can simply backstep out of it, and you lose the potential to do your max burst combo (which requires the launch spec)

As such, I only recommend it for classes you know will be highly immobile.

 

-Thrall is your best friend in pvp, he will shield you from being targeted, combo with you, and can bail you out of a CC for free (your q can be used even when CC'd).
Keep him  out and close as much as possible.

 

-When a sin stealths, they do so with one of 2 intentions: Stalling, and a free CC. During this time, you want have your defensive skills at the ready; sins have a feint figure when stealth'd, but you must learn to spot them in it. If you see them approaching too close, put down a sanctum so they can't CC you and it will either draw out the stealth timer, or force them to show themselves prematurely; if your sanctum is down, keep thrall close or use your z. Have SOME defensive measure to keep them from pulling off their combo.

Your wingstorm can also be used without a target, and is auto-fire; hitting a sin with this will end their stealth as well, 
 

All in all, just play a lot of pvp; you WILL get VERY frustrated at times, but in order to learn and apply all these things, you have to go in and get your hands dirty until you understand for yourself. Do yourself a favor and go watch some other WL pvp videos as well; study from the masters, learn from their successes, mistakes and failures as you do your own.

 

Have fun.

 

[Southwind]

@Karurosuda nice post, maybe you have also some tips for summoners?

It's a hardest matchup for me when i play WL, and still don't have any good idea how to deal with them. 

[Karurosuda]

21 hours ago, Southwind said:

@Karurosuda nice post, maybe you have also some tips for summoners?

It's a hardest matchup for me when i play WL, and still don't have any good idea how to deal with them. 

Unfortunately I'm not too good with summoners.
All I can say is the sooner you can get rid of their cat, the better; half their kit is cat dependent and they're sitting rats without them.

 

Maybe in the lower ranks you can focus their cat from inside an anti-target sanctum so the summoner doesn't have many options to attack you while the cat takes damage.
However they can put their cat into a defensive state to protect them, so it's at this point that you may want to go for the summoner; I'm not sure if they can cancel it early, but I'd imagine if they do they'd have a long cooldown to deal with before they can do it again, so refocus the cat if it so happens they try to use them to save their furry hide and leave the rat helpless.

 

In higher ranks though, I'm fairly certain most sums won't give you a chance and fill your screen with a garden before you wind up dead. Use your bastion wisely because they can easily 5-point strike it and waste it. save your thralls Q incase you need to make an escape, which you will; Sums are pretty much the rulers of crowd control and annoyance in the game, you need to play it safe.

[Zagaroth]

On 8/29/2017 at 3:43 PM, Pheophyting said:

So in my opinion, PvE Warlock is pretty straightforward. The mechanical rotation differs depending on Shadow vs. Ice build, but the general idea is the same. Put out as many dragoncalls/dragon helixes as possible (often aided via soulburn, wingstorm CD reductions, rupture cooldown reductions, leech insta-casts, etc.) 

 

My Warlock is the first class that I have ever made and I am a relatively new player to BnS. While I feel very comfortable in my PvE rotation (currently running a shadow build), I struggle in PvP where my rotation is often interrupted by a well timed block, my crowd control can be tabbed, I have to deal with things like stealth and my opponents CCing me, managing my thrall's position becomes super important, and overall I feel like other classes simply run circles around me despite the warlock, at all levels of play, being considered a very strong PvP pick. 

 

If you break down PvP into 2 basic categories, attack and defense, how would I best play to the Warlock's strengths in both categories?

 

Also some misc. questions:

- Warlock's block seems to be a very key defensive ability due to its extremely low CD. When should I interrupt my offensive rotation to block? Does it vary from class to class? What things should I be observing from my opponent which I should take as a cue to block? My CC wearing off? Opponent's gap closer coming off CD? Etc.

- Should I save bastion for replenishing focus? Or should I use it purely as a defensive ability in prediction of my opponent's offensive rotation with little to no regard for bastion's focus recovering capabilities?

- Shadow Warlock seems to be very dependent on hitting RMB (salvos) to generate spectral orbs for those sweet sweet dragon helix rotations. My opponent blocking my salvos (especially while they are CC'd) puts a halt to my offensive rotations. How do you deal with this? 

- During that 1 second between your RMB and salvo, what skills do you generally use? I hate just running and waiting for that 1 second so I often weave in a LMB or something but I'm sure there are better options than that.

- When is the best time for me to put down my soul shackles? It's a pretty high cooldown and I feel really vulnerable if my opponent manages to escape from it.

- How should I be using my thrall in PvP? Should I be keeping the thrall between my opponent and myself sort of like a wall? Or should I just have the thrall near me?

- How do you deal with stealth as a warlock? Even if I see the assassin's shadow/shimmer, I have a hard time trying to avoid CC/damage. Should I use my thrall's E to knock the opponent out of stealth? Would it be wise to put that on cooldown just to get an assassin out of stealth?

 

Sorry for the huge amount of questions. I really love this class in PvE and would like to transition to a higher proficiency in PvP! Thank you all so much for your time!

nice tips bro,

Ussualy i use X for starter, cuz with 2, your opponent can easy escape,

so i use X ( opponent will get stun/kd/daze) and then

use 2(opponent will launch into air 100% as i experience),

use 3,

and then send Q(thrall will launch enemy into air again xD)

and then use 4(blue dragoncall available cuz u use 3)

and then V,

use F(leech make opponent daze again xD), blue dragoncall ready, use it.

at this time, your opponent will get near u with only 30-50%HP(and really madness ready to throw everything at u),

use your Z and then SB, hit again with blue dragoncall

and V

hopplaa u winn 100-0!

 

u can use 1 or sanctum if nessesary

well this playstyle good or not i dont know but its good in bronze rank vs bronze rank like me, 100-0 for sure xD (i still learn too)

 

oh yeahh in 6v6 u will meet sin with perma stealth, although u hit them or cc them, the sin can be stealth and stealth again like no cd, really anoying

or with FM that can become ICE ICE again, the ICE reallly2 long to melt, that u can sit there and make a coffee, not like wl iframe only 5 stack hit.