Priest Survival Series – Warlocks
Posted On Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 By Jay
I’m sitting here listening to DJ TeeBee & K – The Deeper Side of Drum & Bass. The remaining posts are very difficult to write. Warlocks, Warriors, Shaman, Hunters, each and every one will feel like the rock to your scissors.
Defeating a Warlock as a disc priest is alot like defeating a shadow priest. The main difference is the shear amount of running and line of sight you’ll have to do. I think defeating a warlock 1 on 1 is a trial and error training. At worst you’ll learn to not freak out at the shear amount of fears that will hit you. At best, you’ll pull out on top every once in awhile.
I had the privilege of having an affliction lock friend to practice with. He later went SLSL for spell eating puppy(SEP) goodness and the duel dynamic changed. All my old tricks for survival are nearly useless against a SEP. Here are some pointers to help keep you, and your team alive against warlocks.
- Shield and Renew only before engaging. Any buff will be useless against the SEP target. He’ll just eat it, you’ll waste the mana and more than likely, that target will be burned down.
- Good warlocks tend to fear one target, and insta-dot other folks. Affliction warlocks don’t really have a place in the arena, but can be deadly if not handled properly. Affliction locks bring Unstable Affliction(Shiny Red/Orange debuff) and insta PBAOE horror.
- You’ll want to be heavy on dispel. Against locks, when you’re target is above 75%, dispelling a DoT is better than a greater heal IMO. Know when to switch to a flash heal.
- Get used to using binding heal. Everyone on your team will be dotted, binding heal is a good way to keep you and your target’s health in tip top shape.
- If you have silence, save it to counter the locks fear. You’ll thank me later. When you choose to time that silence, will be dependent on your make up and skill level. In my RMP, I play with an undead M and undead R. The first couple fears are usually ignored. We save my silence to prevent 3v1 bust down interruption.
- As above, only shield and renew the SEP target at the beginning of the fight. While the mana for healing and damage prevention is wasted, SEP eats it, you’ll protect the valuable SW: F and Shadow Protection for at least another 10 seconds. 10 Seconds in arena is huge!
- Never ever, ever, ever, ever, leave you’re healer to fight a warlock by him/herself. Its a death wish for your healer and a uphill battle for your team. For that matter, you really don’t want your healer disc tanking very many targets. When your healer is tanking, they aren’t dispelling, healing or fearing.
- Be careful with ProM. I’ve found in 2v2, its a life saver against locks. In an odd way, ProM is less useful in my 3v3. I’ll usually get one or two bounces out of it. I can’t explain why, its my anecdotal evidence.
Overall, in the early parts of our 3v3 and 2v2, I was using the standard healer tricks against locks. Shields, renews and ProM supported by the occasional flash heal. Using that old tactic, we were having a tough time defeating lock teams.
Lightning struck my brain, (maybe reading Out of Mana helped) and I realised I had been playing poorly against locks. I switched to mainly flash heals and binding heals. I would use mana burn and mind blast when the SEP was on me, so it would counter my shadow spells and leave my holy alone. I also started to really manage how often I would dispel.
The result? Immediate change. We started wining consistently against lock teams. 2v2, 3v3, whichever. Lock as first target or third, it didn’t really matter. What did matter was that the result was more consistent. And that’s a medal you can pin to my robe.
A couple notes: I play a BE Priest, no matter what happens, I have a 2 second silence and a free small mana burn. What racial talents help you in your fights? What other tactics do you use against locks?
