-=| The first thread reached its limit at 16 pages. Still no sticky. To report a sticky, click the small "nuclear" report icon on top the quote button to your right. Thanks. |=-

-=| This thread is about Warlock arena tips, tricks, tactics, strategy & information in general. It also includes my personal spec, user interface, preference & opinions. My opinions may differ and is not necessarily the best nor the worst. I'll always happily go into discussion and answer any questions that you have :) Enjoy the thread. |=-

-=| There is a lot of good information and discussion from the first thread, if you'd like to take a read through it's at http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=115042459&sid=1&pageNo=1 |=-

((Updates))

29th of August
- Bumped the thread, some might find it usefull. Still no sticky =(
- I finally started arena-ing seriously again after a little over a month. Our paladin got hacked, and we disbanded the 3v3.
- Joined up a friend's 3v3 who was at 1700. Went 35-1 first week to 2050, and 62-6 so far with priest/rogue/felguard-lock setup, now at 2166. :)

24th of July
- Added 2v2 Guide
- Added 3v3 Guide
- Added 5v5 Guide
- Added Factions & Heroics Guide
- Updated Tips & Tricks, and Specs with new submissions from fellow locks
- Haven't done 3v3 for 2 weeks T_T
- Finally did 5v5... went 15-0 this week, went up to 1960 then everyone fell asleep.

11th of July
- Added a totem stomping macro that works pretty well
- Added a new item at tips & tricks for people who have bad latency

10th of July
- Thread got overloaded at 16 pages and couldn't receive any more replies. This is part 2.
- Updated tips & tricks with a Curse of Weakness insight form Vennigs

9th of July
- 8-2 this week, up to 2074 :) peaked at 2100 but meh, can't always win hehe.
- Added tips section submitted by Snuffer

8th of July
- Added Kcolraw's description of his 23/4/34 spec
- Added tips section submitted by Morth

7th of July
- Added My Keybindings section upon request

6th of July
- Added Arena Professions Guide
- Rearranged post, and made section separators clearer

5th of July
- Added 23/4/34 spec
- Added 7/7/47 spec
- Updated Addons Section

4th of July
- Added a guide for starting out in arenas

3rd of July
- Added 5/35/21 nuke spec
- Added 20/41/0 drain spec
- Added 8/21/11 felguard spec (my spec!)

1st of July
- Added a brand new section: ARENA SPECS. you can find it under the addons section.
- Added user submitted macros
- Added a few more tips

((To-do))

These are some ideas of new sections which may or may not come, I'll gladly accept suggestions as well:
- A professions guide (done)
- A heroic/faction guide (coming soon)
- A enchant/socket guide (coming soon)
- Consolidated 2v2 strategies -> Strategies for lock+healer and lock+Dps combos vs other popular 2v2 teams

((=======))

Hi. I'm just a little bit bored right now. I'm here for comments and suggestions regarding my spec and UI. I'll be happy to answer any questions that you guys have.

It's basically a little how to arena jump-start pack for you guys. Most of my secrets and hot macros are revealed here!

:: About Jayna ::

At the time of posting, I'm currently the highest rated Warlock in BG9's 3v3 bracket. Thanks to my really really good team mates russ and mounsif of course :P
(update 2074 now, if everyone elses rating doesn't change we're 2nd again, otherwise if they gain on us i'm still happy with the rating lol)
(note: since one particular not so popular warlock is knocking on my 2v2 and 5v5 rating, I'd like to note here that I use 2v2 to help random buddies of mines help get arena points. and 5v5 to help get my gf points. but i'm here to prove something so in the coming weeks we will start focusing on 5v5. cheers :)

70 UD Lock (WOTF!!)
12.8k hp
1144 spelldmg (both with demo talents and fel armor)
449 resilience
and 400 ms latency

I've been almost every spec except heavy destro for season 1.

Season 2, I've been exclusively Felguard spec:5/45/11

-=| Table of Contents |=-
:: Guide for Starting out in Arenas ::
:: Arena Professions Guide ::
:: Factions & Heroics Guide ::
:: My User Interface + UI Related Tips ::
:: Focus Target 101 ::
:: Notable PvP Addons ::
:: Arena Specs ::
:: 2v2 Guide ::
:: 3v3 Guide ::
:: 5v5 Guide ::
:: Tips & Tricks ::
:: Macros ::
:: My Keybindings ::

========== :: Guide for Starting Out in Arenas :: ==========

This applies to:
- People who have never done arena before.
- Those who newly dinged 70.
- Those who aren't resilience geared yet, or are just not geared at all, etc.

Gearing up:
- Obvious stuff: Run instances with the most Warlock drops there are.
- Get maximum stamina enchants, and spellpower enchant on your weapon.
- PERSONALLY, I'd recommend having 0 crit gear. Becaue a lot of your opponents (even the sucky ones) could have already amassed 300+ resilience easily, and you'll pay huge luxury tax on using so-so crit gear. A lot of people already have over -11% crit from resilience, and more from talents. Go for spelldmg, and 1% spellhit rating. You'll take 2% from talents for affli spells. This however still leaves an additional 2% chance to miss on non-aflli spells (thx to berlyntroll for pointing that out)
- This is not saying crit builds are not good. They're good, but you need the gear.
- I'd personally recommend not going for the blue honor gear, you'll eventually upgrade them with epics. However, if you're a hardcore farmer, and you can afford getting all the epics + the 2 piece blue for resilience (including glove for the interrupt resist bonus), then by all means go ahead.

What brackets to play in:
- If you can play really well despite your gear, 3v3 is an alright choice.
- If you don't have time to organize 5v5 or even 3v3 games, 2v2 is fine. Just make sure you get points every week (you need 10 games).
- If you have the time, it's probably best to organize 5v5s. Cos if you can glide at 1600+ rating (Which shouldn't be a problem) you can get VERY DECENT points each week.

Play EFFICIENTLY:
- If possible, arena when BG holidays are not up.
- Just play the games that you need to play, and only focus on 1 bracket. Your time is valuable.
- On every hour of your free time, farm instances that beneift your gear up process the most. (Forget helping your lowbie friends if you seriously wanna quickly jump into arenas :P)
- When BG holidays are up, drop all instancing, and focus on BGs, and once again SKIP The blues, go epic!

Getting your first resilience gears:
- PvP Honor and buy the epics.
- Whenever Terokkar Forest spirit towers is controlled by your factions, run those instances. Get 18 shards for the Exorcist's Dreadweave helm (20 res), and get the ring for 50 shards (12 resilience)
- Do Halaa PVP, you can get resilience belt, leggings, and the almighty 10 resilience gem. Get a friend, or use another PC to log to a toon of your opposing faction and just farm him. Do it with friends, make them tip you for it! Furthermore, you can start massive pvp wars this way. (I made the hugest halaa pvp ive ever seen with this method!)

Additional notes:
- Make sure you get a good team setting, I made 2v2/3v3 recommendations above. 5v5s are easier to balance. If you came from a PVE background with high dmg but low resilience, a 4 dps + pally team can work very well.
- Make sure you understand your role in your team. Control healers with fears stuns cot and silence. Burst out at the right time. Or spam dots, or w/e. Know your role, and play it right.

- Read the following professions, heroics/faction guide (coming soon), and enchant+socketing guide (coming soon)to help gear you up for arena.

========== :: Arena Professions Guide :: ==========

You can use certain professions to help get a jump-start on arena.

Keep in mind I'm not gonna write a profession guide on how to get your skill up, or how many reagents you need to craft whatever is mentioned here.

For Boots, Shoulders, and Chest:
For starters, take Shadoweave Tailoring. Get it up to 375 and get the full set, and in my very own opinion, stack it up with 12 sta gems. You can opt to take 8 resilience on the yellow sockets to get the spell hit socket bonusses, but this is not necessary.

For Helm:
If you are done with that, you can grab Engineering, and craft the BOP epic helms. They are very good for PVP especially vs rogues due to their stealth detection buff. Alternatively, you can just craft a Battlecast Helm which is decently good.

For Leggings:
Battlecast Leggings are okay. Up until this post I'm still using it, will be replacing it this tuesday.

For Belt:
Unyielding Girdle is very cheap to make and has a good amount of resilience on it.

For Weapon:
Get a blacksmith to make you the spelldmg dagger.

For those who are Maxed Out:
If you already have an amazing PVP set, drop 1 profession and take up enchanting, and enchant both of your rings. I have +12 sta on both mines. It cost me roughly 1500-2000g to do this, but is in my opinion well worth it.

:: Factions & Heroics Guide ::

Starting out arena and want to efficiently get some good reputations up to get gear and run heroics with warlock loots? This may greatly differ with everyones idea, but this is my recommendation.

Aldor
- No useful epic rewards
- Shoulder enchants best suited for non crit builds (me.)
- Just get this to revered first for the shoulder enchant, when you have nothing better to spend your money on, get exalted for the greater shoulder enchant.

Scryer
- A decent sta/int/spellcrit epic ring
- Shoulder enchants best suited for crit builds.
- Just get this to revered first for the shoulder enchant, when you have nothing better to spend your money on, get exalted for the greater shoulder enchant.

Sha'tar
- Quickly get it to revered for the 22sd 14spellhit head enchant.
- Heroic mech is an easy place to farm badges.

Lower City
- Get revered so you can run heroic sethek halls, you can get the 2h staff there, Terrok's Shadowstaff.
- Heroic Shadow Labs has a nice epic belt [Belt of Depravity], and a decent leggings (it has spirit..)
- Heroic mana tombs can drop Bands of Negation, a nice epic bracer.


Thrallmar
- Get revered to run heroics, exalted for the epic 1h sword.
- Heroic Ramparts can drop an excellent 6sta 5resilience gem.
- Heroic Furnace has Talisman of the Breaker, a caster anti silence/interrupt neck.

Cenarion Expedition
- Get revered to run Heroic Slave Pens (boots), and Heroic Underbog (wand.)

The Violet Eye
- Epic spellcrit/spelldmg/sta/int rings.

The Keepers of Time.
- Revered to get [The Continuum Blade]. My favorite pre-epic PvP weapon.
- Exalted for a stamina/resilience trinket, which is not too bad.

Ogrila
- For an offhand, but the heroic Shadow Dmg offhand is better imo.

I believe I mentioned all of the reps that are worth getting to upgrade your PvP gear for those starting out in arena. If I missed any please let me know.

========== :: My User Interface + UI Related Tips :: ==========

Screenshot right here: http://gallery.filefront.com/Qatare//633082/

The most important thing about addons is to only use what you need, and make sure that you are comfortable with it. If you recently made a big change to your UI, get a lot of practice with it before jumping into rated matches.

Positioning of your UI:
-Make sure the important stuff are near each other. Your eyeballs dont move instantly so make sure a slight glance lets you see all the critical information from your UIs.
-Don't clutter.
-Important stuff should be BIGGER: like my focus frame on the bottom right of my healthbar.

Action Bars
-All the buttons that you see in the screenshot are NOT BINDED.
-The big ones are those with important PVP cooldowns.
-The small ones are stuff I click on, like trade channel spam and that stuff.
-You don't need your buttons cluttering your screen, memorize them, and hide them using the addon Bartender3.

Focus Target Frame
-This is the most important frame in arena. You can set focus targets from keybinding.
-My focus target frame is the bottom-right one, the biggest one right there.
-Use AG Unit Frames, and scale the focus target to make it bigger than all your other frames. This is so that when you see your focus casting a heal, BAM, silence!
-You can make macros that are directed to your focus target. You can cast stuff at your Focus, while you're actually targeting somebody else.
-For example, to silence a paladin who you have set as your focus, or to CoT them. I'll post my macros later.

NaturEnemyCastbar settings:
-Make sure you split them.
-In arena, you dont want to waste time finding out what is the remaining time on that spellock, or that rogues cloak of shadows amongst the million cooldowns that NECB tracks. Spread them out, and remember where they are.

========== :: Focus Target 101 :: ==========

Ochem requested that I go in-depth for people who have no idea what a focus target is, here it is:

I'll give a scenario to make the explaning easier. Imagine you are up against a 3v3 group: Shaman, Shadowpriest and Warlock. Your group decides to kill the Warlock. So you will be targetting the Warlock to dps him down, however, you have set their Shaman as your Focus Target.

To set the focus target, go to keybindings, and scroll down to targetting functions. Find the following:
FOCUS TARGET -> This keybinding is to assign your current target as your focus target.
TARGET FOCUS -> Once you already have set your focus, (e.g. the shaman), if you are currently targetting anything else, clicking this button will change your target back to the shaman.

If you use addons like AG_UnitFrames, or PitBull, your focus target's health and mana bar and casting bar can be permanently placed on your screen, regardless of who you are targetting. Therefore allowing you to see when the shaman is casting a heal, and the crutial time to silence them. Or when their fear debuff has dissapeared (time to re-fear?), or when their CoT has run out.

Macros allow you to fear, COT, silence, deathcoil your focus target, without ever having to target them. Allowing you to focus more on dps-ing your target, or cc-ing their shadowpriest or warlock.

Hope that helps :)

========== :: Notable PVP AddOns :: ==========

ag_UnitFrames -> Super important for the FOCUS TARGET frame. Less clutter than PitBull.

ArenaMaster AND Arena Live Frames -> These addons show the name/class/health% of your opponent team in arena.
Use both. sometimes one acquires targets faster than the other. You'll want to HOVER your mouse over your targets A.S.A.P. in arena, so you can click on them later on during the fight.t

Arena Unit Frames -> I personally have never used this, but some responders vouched that this is THE best.

CooldownCount

cyCircled AND Bartender3 -> This is what I use for my actionbars.

ItemRack -> Quickly switchgears.

Natur ECB -> All the cooldown stuff and buffs all over the bottom part of the screen.

Quartz -> Replaces the cast bar. It has 3 castbars: yours, your target's, your focus target's.

ScrollingCombatText

Spellbinder -> Allows you to bind buttons directly to spells. (Bypassing the actionbar mechanism) --> Thx scyllah

ElkBuffBars -> The nifty looking buffs at the top right corner of my UI

========== :: Arena Specs :: ==========

I'll copy paste some of my favorite arena builds. I've tried nearly everything except heavy destro specs. I won't go into details on specs, but I'll try to give a general idea of what these specs are good for.

Note:
- PVP chance to hit is capped at 4%. I assume people should naturally have +-2% from gear, so I only always take only 1 pt in the chance to hit talent (+2%). Adjust this with your own gear pls.

24/37/0 http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=Iq0rrRfzoZbxczIiz0es
- This spec has extremely hard hitting dots excluding UA and is highly survivable.
2v2 ->
- Partner up with a healer: dot 1 of thier targets, chain fear/CoT/spellock their healer. If your against double dps, dot both while playing defensively (use LOS etc). I recommend partnering up with a Holy Pally/Priest/Druid.
- Partner up with a DPS: same stuff, dot 1, control other. Make sure you control their healer very well. I recommend partnering up with a Mage or Rogue for a double DPS team with this spec.
3v3 ->
- Good team partners: (Reso dru/mage) (Pally/warrior) (Priest/rogue) (Priest/Mage) (Resto dru/rogue)

13/37/11 http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=Aq0rboZbxczIiz0esZxx0z
- Same team setting as 24/37/0 spec.
- This build has shadowburn, but no nightfall. Better controlled burst. I regard this as one of the best 3v3 arena specs.

42/7/11 http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=Nq0riRfzqtbobxZxx0z
- The classic UA/shadowburn spec.
- I left out 1 point, spend it wherever you want. And thanks to the poster that mentioned I forgot to spend 2 talent points. (Soulleech)
2v2 ->
- Partner up with a resto/elemental shaman or a shadow priest. Heal specced priest/pally works well too.
- You can partner with a shadowpriest for insane shadow dmg dots. Just watch out for those teams who bring shadow resist gear.
3v3 ->
- Pally or Elem Shaman + Shadow priest works well with UA specced locks. Ive seen gladiator teams with these settings.

20/41/0 http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=Nq0rVRbZbxczIizzesd
- I call this the felguard drain spec. I used it last season as a LOL-SPEC cos I always LoL at felguard locks. Then surprisingly I managed to get nearly 2100 2v2 lol. Since then I started liking the felguard.. a lot..
2v2 ->
- I recommend partnering with a priest.
- Use felguard stuns defensively, use it to let your priest get some heals in or to save your own butt.
- Use deathcoil defensively if you have to.
- The main playstyle was to keep your pet on their healer, while continually mana draining their healer until they are oom. (If they dispel very fast, spam rank 1 corruption and drain manas, once he stops dispelling, go max rank. Either way he SHOULD oom first.)
- Have your priest help mana burn.
- Once their healer is OOM, trinket and blow ur hardest dots and kill 1 of em.
3v3 ->
- I don't recommend 3v3ing with this spec at all.

8/42/11 http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=Nq0bZbxczIizzesuxx0z
2v2 ->
- I don't recommend 2v2ing with this spec.
3v3 ->
- I partnered with a Pally + Warrior and it works great. With this setting, always focus on their priest first, whatever spec it is. Kill them before you mass dispel your pally IF he ends up having to bubble.
- All 3v3 partners I mentioned before should be viable. The advantage of going with a warrior in this case is you don't need to worry about breaking sheeps or blinds from your Felguard's cleave.
- Remember, a felguard stun is a "lesser counterspell". It's a 30 sec CD instead of 24 sec, and always only lasts for 3 seconds. Positioning is very important as a felguard lock. Make sure you have that 8 yards to charge stun.
- Now there's some really nifty tricks with this spec and setting but I just can't give it out fellas :P Not for now at least. Soon enough tho he he he.

5/45/11 http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IVZbxczIizMestxx0z
- My current spec
- A variant of the FG spec that skips improved lifetap, and gets more crit instead. A lucky crit can mean a killing blow before you even need to do yourlifetap. In which you would have probably already won the battle.

5/35/21 http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=NVZbxczIiz0tsZxx0tr0z
- To my knowledge this spec yields the largest crit and burst damage, provided you can make room to cast your nukes.
- This is also my first spec when I started arenaing, it's very fun, but requires a lot of learning to pull off.
- If I'm not mistaken, cobweb (bg9 gladiator) used this build last season. He might still be using it now.
- 1 drawback is that resilience is bugged against ruin. Ruin spells gain double resilience reductions because it is calculated before the crit.. Dunno if this has changed or whether or not it is intended.
2v2
- I recommend partnering with a druid. Chain cyclone/fear one of em while you nuke the crap out of the other.
3v3
- I recommend partnering with a druid/mage for this build. Chain CC a healer with cyclone/poly/fear and nuke the hell out of 1 of your opponents.

7/7/47 http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=AV0bZbxZxx0tr0tAuAo
- Submitted by Pentacle
- The spec used by the warlock whose 5v5 got 2nd place in the Europe competition
- I personally have no experience in this build so I won't say much.
- However, you need excellent gear to be viable with this build, as you need to have a substantially higher crit chance compared to your opponents resiliences in the higher brackets.

23/4/34 http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=Nq0rVRbkoZ0LZxx0trothu
- Submitted my Kcolraw, currently rated 2100ish in 2v2s with this spec. Here is a summary of his description:
- Very gear dependant, needs a good balance
- Focusses on having many instant casts: Shadowburn, Nightfall, Backlfash, Deathcoil, Conflag for burst, and the usual affliction insta casts as well
- Squishy, but has a high potential of burst
- Siphon Life+Sha

:: 2v2 Guide ::

Team Setup Recommendations
- Warlock + Healer teams: Resto Sham and UA Lock, 23/38/0 or 24/37/0 Lock and Pally, any spec lock and Resto Druid
- Warlock + DPS teams: with mage, or rogue, or shadowpriest

I don't have much experience 2v2ing with a DPS-er..

Strategies for 2v2 witha a healer..

Mana Burning Healers
- Put dots on your main dps target and/or the healer as well
- Chain fear and drain mana on their healer
- If theres a chance to kill 1 while his healer is feared, go for it!

Fearing
- You can easily kill a person in the duration of 3 fears and a silence. Especially effective vs a Pally Warrior team.
- Get the pally to bubble early. dot dot dot on the warrior and chain fear pally.
- After bubble is over, silence first, then chain fear 3x.

VS 2 dps-ers
- DoT both, and fear juggle them.
- You may need to use deathcoil and silence defensively.

Use Spellstones
- Start out equipping your spellstone, if you don't end up eneding them, re-equip your wand and life-tap bandage.

:: 3v3 Guide ::

Team Setup Recommendations
- 2 dps + 1 healer is the general consensus
- My own team setup: Felguard Lock, Warrior, Paladin
- Double DoT: Affliction Lock, Pally or Resto Druid, and Shadowpriest
- Triple CC: Resto Druid/Healing Priest, Mage, and Warlock
- Other combos: Pally/Priest, Warlock, and Warrior/Rogue/Mage

Comboing Down a Healer:
- Time your combos, don't overlap CCs. For exapmle, warrior charge, felgaurd charge, deathcoil, spam fear 2x. Work out combos for your own team setup.

Shutting Down a Healer:
- Set a healer as your focus target.
- Keep CoT up.
- Fear him.. follow him... re-fear.. follow him.. re-fear... silence/intercept. When he's immune to fear, cast fear on his DPS to just relieve pressure, then resume chain fearing healer while trying to kill someone.

Assist Trains
- Make a macro that assist your warrior and casts a burst spell of your choice.
- What my macro does is assist my tank, cast searing pain, and sends my pet to attack that target
- Whenever your team calls for an assist train, you press this macro and follow up with a deathcoil shadowburn combo for the kill.
- Here is my macro, replace hord with the name of your warrior:
/assist hord
/petattack
/cast searing pain

:: 5v5 Guide ::

Team Setup Recommendations
- My own team setup: Felguard Lock, Warrior, Holy Priest, Pally, Mage or Elemental Shaman
- 4 DPS team setups: Pally + Warlock + 3 other dps. all caster, or get a warrior for mortal strike.
- Mana burn team: Pally, priest, warlock, hunter, warrior
- Any other team? Go experiment :) 5v5s has so many combinations that work.

Assist Trains
- Make a macro that assist your warrior and casts a burst spell of your choice.
- What my macro does is assist my tank, cast searing pain, and sends my pet to attack that target
- Whenever your team calls for an assist train, you press this macro and follow up with a deathcoil shadowburn combo for the kill.
- Here is my macro, replace hord with the name of your warrior:
/assist hord
/petattack
/cast searing pain

Double Fearing
- When your team is dps-ing someone, and the opponent has 2 healers healing, be sure to fear BOTH their healers one after the other.
- Alternatively, focus on their squishy priest, and fear the pally.

Cursing
- Curse of Tongues is your best friend. BEST friend! CoT healers first. If you're up against 4 dps 1 healer teams, BE SURE to CoT all their dps-ers as well.
- Curse of Weakness on physical classes work well too!

Versatility
- One of the warlock's main strength is their versatility. Be sure to be versatile!
- When your team is getting hard pressed, e.g., healers yelling they got silenced, cc-ed, and any of your team mates are under 60% health, immediately fear every dps-er of your opponents team, and keep re-applying fear until your team is in the safe zone again.
- When none of the oponents are low, apply Curse of Weakness and reapply Curse of Tongues to soften them up. When someone is under 70%, do a double fear on their healers and follow up with a quick assist train.

Being the Point-Man
- When you're up against a heavy caster group, if you have soul link, you shuold be the point man, not the warrior. Since armor doesn't do jack to spelldmg, you're the most survivable.

Felguard vs Felhunter
- Felhunter does a 3 second silence, and a 4-5 sec lockout if timed right (concentration aura, neckpieces, talents etc can reduce silence duration). 24 second cooldown.
- Felguard does a 3 second stun. 30 second cooldown.
- Felhunter gives you 1 dispel every 8 seconds
- Felguard does 20.000 to 30.000 damage on any given fight.

Role Summary
- DoT the main assist target
- Curse of Tongue + intercept or silence + fear healers
- Fear DPS classes to relieve pressue off of your team
- Do bursty damage when your team is doing an assist trai

========== :: Tips and Tricks :: ==========

This is an assortment of useful tips and tricks, you might find some useful.

- When you have a warrior/rogue focusing on you, be sure to FAKE a fear cast. Cast it, and cancel it immediately. Good ones are always ready to kick/pummel your shadow tree.

- Fears and seduce share diminishing returns with warrior/priest fears. Coordinate with your team, dont overlap your CCs or they'll go "immune" really fast.

- Fear Timing: Dont just use it randomly. Use it when you're going for the kill. Or use it to stop their burst dps: e.g. you dont need to fear BOTH their dps-ers (in a 3v3). Fear 1, let the other one free, your healer can take it. Then juggle them around. If you keep fearing everyone, when all the diminishing returns run out, you're dead meat :P

- Make Macros for self dispel, and to dispel your team mates WITHOUT having to target them, as switching targets to dispel is a major waste of time. Scroll down for the macros.

- Submitted by Morth:
1. First you summon your voidwalker.
2. If you begin your fel hunter cast at the 11 second mark or so, you will still have a voidwalker out, however it will be stunned sort of.
3. After 6 seconds it will become unstunned, at which point you can sacrifice it at the last second (before it disappears from another pet being summoned).
Note: If you have the demonology talents to reduce pet sumonning cast time, this will not work. Instead, just sacrifice the VW at the 6-8 second mark and summon a new pet.
Note: does not stack with PW:Shield.

- Curse of Tongues is an insanely good spell. Use it excessively! Make sure it is on healers 24/7. Use it on casters as well if you need to stop their burst damage.

- Curse of Weakness is NOT a waste of your time, as pointed out by Vennigs. Especially in 5v5, it reduces opponent burst damage, and gives their druid/mages an extra debuff to dispel.

- Felhunter + Engineering Epic Helm = you can see rogues before they hit you.

- Practice combo moves to kill healers. This is especially good vs anything but a pally (unless you have a massdispeller in your team). Now I wont give out my combos right here lol dont want other people to read it. But my team can make sure any non pally cant do anything for at least 10 seconds.

- Cast unending breath & detect lesser invisibility on everyone. It adds an extra layer of spells to dispel for your opponents team.

- Summon your imp, and cast fire shield. Then resummon your main pet before the gates open. (Submitted by Morth)

- Remember: When you resummon a pet, you need to recast soul link :O

- When using Arena Live Frames / Arena Master, you can only click on the names on these addons if you have acquired your targets BEFORE getting in combat. At the start of an arena match, be sure to quickly yank your mouse across the screen to make sure you acquire all your targets. I personally always find my targets by clicking these Arena addons. Furthermore, use both Arena Live frames AND Arena Master, sometimes they acquire targets faster than the other one.

- Watch where your healers are. Don't run out of line of sight / range of their heals or you'll end up with some pissed off healers.

- Submitted by Snuffer: Rebind the Left Windows Key out of your keybindings. Avoid having the button pull you out to windows. Get an addon called AutoHotKey and make a macro such as " LWin::RButton " (This maps the LWin key to the R mouse button, but you can make it anything). AutoHotKey is GPL licensed and works perfectly.

- If you're wondering what combos work in your 2s 3s or 5s, just browse around the armory and look at the top rated teams, you can get a good idea of what classes you'll wanna put together there.

- For those of you with high latency (I run at 400ms), make sure you have Quartz addon. It let's you know when you can "cancel" your casts. For example, with 400ms (0.4 second lag), you can stop casting a searing pain at the 1.1 second mark. This addon makes it easier for you.

========== :: Macros :: ==========

#showtooltip fear
/cast [target=focus,modifier:shift] fear; fear

--> If you hold shift+your fear button, it will fear your focus target instead.

#showtooltip Curse of Tongues
/cast [target=focus,modifier:shift] Curse of Tongues; Curse of Tongues

--> If you hold shift+your COT button, it will COT your focust arget instead.

/cast [pet:Succubus,target=focus] Seduction; [pet:Succubus] Seduction
/cast [pet:Felhunter,target=focus] Spell Lock; [pet: felhunter] Spell Lock
/cast [pet:Felguard,target=focus] Intercept; [pet: felguard] Intercept

--> Seduce/Spellocks/Intercepts your focus target.

/stopcasting

--> Stops your casted spell. Good for people who lag (see tips and tricks), and for faking cast to bait kick/pummel/cs.

/cast Fel Domination
/cast Summon Voidwalker
/cast [pet:Voidwalker] Sacrifice

--> Mash this macro to quickly get a VW shield. You need to press it 2 times I think.

/cast [target=mouseover] seduction

--> Seduces the target you are hovering your mouse over.

#showtooltip Drain Life
/cast [nochanneling:Drain Life] Drain Life

--> Mashable drain life button. It will not re-cast drain life unless your current drain life is over/interrupted. You can make a drain mana version of this too.

#showtooltip Heavy Netherweave Bandage
/cast [target=player] Heavy Netherweave Bandage

--> Bandages yourself in one click.

#showtooltip Devour Magic
/cast [pet:Felhunter,target=jayna] Devour Magic

--> Dispels yourself, without having to target yourself. Make different versions for your team mates as well and keybind them if you can. I personally use F1-F5.

#showtooltip Devour Magic
/cast [pet:Felhunter,target=party1] Devour Magic

--> Dispels your first party member (your own char is not included. so its you, party1, party2, party3, party4). Raid1 Raid2 etc also works. Alternatively, you can switch "party1" with the name of your team mate. Kudos to Hardz for telling me how to target party memers -> "party1"

:: Responder Submitted Macros ::

/cast [nomodifier,pet:felhunter] Spell Lock; [pet:Voidwalker] Sacrifice; [pet:succubus] Seduction; [pet:felguard] Intercept
/cast [modifier:shift,pet:felhunter,target=focus,harm,exists]Spell Lock; [modifier:shift,pet:felguard,target=focus,harm]Intercept

--> if you press the hotkey without a modifier it will sacrifice a vw, or spell lock/ seduce/ intercept your current target (depending on the pet you are using), if you press it with a modifier (I use shift) it will spell lock or intercept your focus. (Submitted by Kisaa)

/petattack
/petattack [target=windfury totem]
/petattack [target=mana tide totem]
/petattack [target=tremor totem]
/petattack [target=grounding totem]

--> A totem stomping macro that actually works decently. Priority order is from to top, your pet will attack the grounding totem first. When there is none of the above totems, it will attack your target. Note: The pet will mistake mana spring totem as a mana tide.

========== :: My Keybindings :: ==========

As requested by Valder and Ochem. These are MY keybindings. Some people were wondering how I set my buttons, everyones keybindings are different, but here is mines for those who are wondering.

There are some stuff that could have been changed, but just because my mind is memorized with some settings they just have to stay that way.

Also, there is an option to make one of your modifier buttons (shift/alt/ctrl) make buttons always assigned to focus target. But I prefer the old way of doing it manually in a macro, it offers more flexibility, and you don't want everything to be on ur focus anyway.

Movement Keys

W - Forward
A - Strafe Left
D - Strafe Right
S - Back
Space - Jump
Middle Mouse Button - Auto Run
H - Follow

Keybindings

` - Re-Feldominate Felguard/Felhunter (spec dependant) OR Unstable Affliction (if specced)
1 - Immolate
2 - Shadowburn or Siphon Life
3 - Corruption
4 - Curse of Agony
5 - Drain Life Macro
6 - Drain Mana Macro
7 - Pet Health Funnel
8 - Ritual of Souls
- - Soul Link
= - Fel Armor

Q - Shadowbolt
E - Spellock/Seduce/Charge/Sacrifice
R - Searing Pain
T - Death Coil
Y - Curse of Tongues (I also have it on Z now, closer)
F - Life Tap
G - Fear Macro (Shift+G - fear focus)
Z - Curse of Tongue Macro (Shift+Z - CoT focus)
X - Curse of Exhaustion if specced
C - Spellock/Seduce/Charge focus target
V - Howl of Terror
B - Assist Target

Shift+1 - WoTF
Shift+2 - Trinket
Shift+3 - Soul Link (for when I resummon mid combat)
Shift+5 - Health Stone
Shift+6 - /castsequence macro for Unending Breath and Detect Invis

Shift+Q - SoulShatter (PvE)
Shift+E - Devour Magic
Shift+T - Deathcoil Focus Target (I rarely use this)
Shift+Y - Curse of Weakness
Shift+F - Dark Pact (if specced)
Shift+G - Fears Focus Target
Shift+Z - CoT Focus Target
Shift+X - Drain Soul Macro
Shift+C - Amplify Curse
Shift+V - Spelldmg Trinket

Alt+G - Devour Magic
Alt+T - Self Bandage

F1 - Self Devour Magic
F2 to F5 - Devour Magic Party1 to party4 Macro

Shift+F1 - Fel Domination
Shift+F2 - Summon Felguard (or imp when im not FG spec)
Shift+F3 - Summon Felhunter
Shift+F4 - Summon Succubus
Shift+F5 - Summon Infernal! LoL Naw Just JK, who summons infernals anyway

=========

That's it for now.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Criticism?

I'm having troubles deciding on a spec, whether 23/38 or 43/7/11 would be better for my 2v2 and 5v5.

I 2v2 with a holy priest and sometimes a shadowpriest. I also 3v3 sometimes with a wide variety of classes for the third, from hunter, warrior, to a second priest. However, I do not really care about my 3v3 rating.

For 5v5 we run: warrior, priest, paladin, me +1. I'd like to be able to do good in this spec as well, but 2v2 is the most important to me. With the 23/38 spec we had some problems with paladin/rogue groups, as we would somehow run out of mana before the paladin even though i was draining mana. I think my gear just isnt good enough at this point. I always have more fun in bg and world pvp with an affliction spec, would that work well with a holy priest?

If so what strategy do i take? dot them both up and keep healer from healing? or dot one drain mana? Thnx I <3 the guide- glad u reposted it.

2nd in epic tutorial

Exactly the thread I had looked for forever. Maybe this one will get stickied.

3rd

Oh yeah, could someone please post the felpuppy totemkiller macro again? My WoW comp has been down so I wasn't able to do it when I first saw it.

What is felguard lacking in 2v2? You say you dont recomend it for 2v2...
Personally im addicted to the Soul-link/Siphonlife build..
Im considering speccing felguard for 3v3, cause i need Shadowburn for burst dps since my team consists of a shadow priest and a pom pyro mage, we usually burst down the first person before a healer can even do anything.. i would like to add what i can do this intial burst and 23/38 just doesnt offer anything there,
So i know the benifits of felguard in 3v3, but what would i be loosing in 2v2?
Anything other than my ability to survive by drain tanking?

EDIT: Really what im asking is.. Does Fel Guard Suck in 2v2 compared to 23/38?

If you notice, she doesn't recommend the felguard spec with shadowburn for 2v2, but said just above it that she got around 2100 specced 20/41/0 in 2v2. So yes, it is viable.

Love Love Love Love.....LOVE!


Awesome bro!

what do people think of 2/2 Improved CoW for a 42/5/11 build in 5v5? and using it as your default curse for non tongues targets?