I should state first and foremost that I run Mage/Druid/Warlock in 3v3, and focus on this bracket in my gear and specs much more than I do in the other brackets. However, I respec about once a day, so armorying me is worthless, and I should also say that I have multiple gear sets and a very odd idea about how to gear myself anyway - if you’re not familiar with exactly why I do this, please don’t take these to heart as HOW YOU SHOULD GEAR YOURSELF if you’re new to the arena, or whatever.

That said, I currently hold 2100, 2221, and 2159 rated arena teams in the respective brackets (impressive(?) given how little we care about rating =/), and have been gladiator both seasons (not that that means anything); but at least I can say it ~ (Ziss: I would think Agnos is more known for his achievements at WSVG…)

Below are my two not-run-of-the-mill specs to try out and discuss, specifically designed with a caster heavy makeup in mind, in 3v3.

17/33/11 - Nightfall, Soullink, Shadowburn. Aka the Agnos spec (by at least one or two fairly well known warlocks).

Disadvantages: While this is a jack of all trades spec, or something like that, this spec specializes in nothing. It grants a decent amount of survivability with Soul Link, but loses CoEx and Siphon from the popular SL/SL build. It has a good amount of burst between shadowburn and nightfall, although lacks the punch of SL/Ruin, and loses a point in Demonic Knowledge in order to get 2/2 nightfall for the uncontrolled but efficient burst power that the talent grants. While you have amp curse, it’s pretty much only going to be used on an agony - so i’d recommend stacking hit on your gear (i recommend this regardless of your spec) and putting points in CoA, rather than suppression or fel conc - you should be chaining shadowbolts with this, not drain life’ing.

Advantages: This spec is the ultimate shadowbolt spec. You have a good amount of instant (dot) damage for kiting and draining teams, but 17/33/11 focuses on putting out a lot of quick shadow burst with little to no warning or setup. Eventually, during a cast you’re going to get a nightfall, and that’s 4k damage to drop on someone (plus crits): excellent time to drop a kidney shot or shatter, depending on your team makeup.

Personal Experience: Speaking of crits, shatters, and kidney shots, my personal experience is that 17/33/11 works in 3v3, where its utility outshines sl/sl, as opposed to 2v2, when playing with a mage. A 5v5 team is usually less fluid, so it may be better to pick a more specialized soullink (or non SL for the VERY specialized teams) build. But in 3v3, a lot of things can go back or forth, especially when running druids (specifically, and from what I’ve tested, this works with mage/warlock/druid and rogue/warlock/druid). Crits are something most warlocks won’t ever expect to see, and the word being present in a strategy must make me seem like a retard. However, I’ve worn upwards of 21% crit on gear (plus talents) all of season 3, and have held high ratings doing so (even going from 2250 to 2300 in 3s as a full conflag spec, but that’s another story). When you play with a mage, the concept of BURST is important, and you never know when a well-timed 3k shadowbolt crit can tip the scales … or catch someone off guard and kill between cooldowns. (I’ve had marginal success in 2v2 as this playing with a rogue, but with a mage, sl/sl is still loads better).

On the topic of crits, I lead you into my next spec:

0/34/27 - The Soulfire Spec: Soullink+Demonic Knowledge, 5/5 Aftermath (lol), Ruin, 3/3 Improved Searing Pain, 1/5 Improved Immolate, 2/2 Intensity, 2/2 Destructive Reach, 2/5 Emberstorm - a specialized variant on Soul Link/Ruin.

The first words whispered back to me from the (famous?) Gumbot after recommending this, were “haha, … wait, what?”

An understandable statement, but I can say from experience that it works. Two days ago, a total of seven soulfire casts, played with a frost mage partner in 2v2, left me with 5 crit soulfires on CoE targets for upwards of 6100 (3 warriors, 1 mage, 1 warlock with a dead felhunter), over the course of 25 games in the 1900 range. A day before that, three focus-soulfires on mage/paladin/warlock for 5500+ in 3v3, also with a frost mage. Four days before that, 2 focus soulfire crits on warriors for 6280 in 3v3 with 5/5 scorch debuffs, trinkets and CoE, playing with a moonkin/fire mage in the 2280+ range, over the course of 10 games for that week.

Needless to say, these aren’t rare occurrences, and we won every game mentioned: a testament to how gamebreaking this spec can be when put to use (especially if players aren’t expecting a full, hard-casting aggressive playstyle from your non-melee team). 45% crit on Searing pain (1300ish 1.5s casts)isn’t something to balk at either, especially given the rather large mana nerfs coming to our class in the near future.

So I’ve run on, but the point being: this spec gives you an interesting playstyle opportunity against teams that you may otherwise be hardpressed to score a kill, especially given how rare it is that a caster heavy team can stand up against the melee classes in the current WoW endgame.

Disadvantages: This spec has very large problems with kiting. Not having a single magical, instant dot is very annoying, and when you’re being focused, you’re going to have huge problems getting anything besides 1.5sec casts off - although you do have very substantial (and cheap) searing pain spam available, which keeps your shadow tree from being locked. However, the saving grace is being able to virtually 3shot people with soulfire/shadowburn/incinerate combos (in tandem with proper setup, coe, scorch, CS, cyclones, etc - remember, warlocks are still about playing the cc game), means that you’re going to be a force to be reckoned with if left alone.

The benefit of that, of course, means that if you’re being targeted, your friendly firemage or SS rogue (or MS warrior, … Hunter, … elemental shaman, etc …) is going to have free reign, and is ALSO capable of putting out huge amounts of damage. Biasly, I’m going to comment how much a druid healer means that you can live long enough to pump out damage for a kill - but just as important is the possibility of huge damage combos coming from you, followed immediately by cc trains, just like any soul-link/siphon warlock could do.

Another disadvantage worth mentioning is gear. Most warlocks have (or do) spent thousands of arena points - and gold - on damage gems, dreadweave gear, soulfrost enchants, etc. If you’re going to run this spec effectively, you’re going to want at least 3pc felweave (gloves/legs/shoulders are the best crit+stam/resi combo, switching legs if you’re interested in more stam/dmg and less crit), with a helm switch for your 4pc Fear bonus (still amazing). Another idea is the Battle Staff. You lose alot of damage, but gaining that extra hit (and a TON of crit) frees up gear slots for MORE crit. (I shouldn’t have to say you should wear a spellstone). Vindicator’s Silk gear is the single best investment for crit, and should be your first step for this radical idea, before wasting arena slots. Finally, gems (BT gems with crit and spell penetration are great for those yellow slots - who needs resilience?) are something to consider, and 12dmg gems still go far - but i’d suggest fleshing out your stamina with blue/reds if possible.

Obviously, it goes without saying this spec would be WAY less effective if you weren’t wearing a Focus Cast Mystical Skyfire Meta Gem, and any other choice is subpar for every spec, anyway.

Again, if you don’t like reading:

17/33/11 is great for utility, and is very shadowbolt-oriented. Use sparingly in 2s and 5s, max potential in 3v3.

0/34/27 with 2 points in emberstorm and 5 in aftermath, 3 searing pain and 1 imp immolate gets you great soulfire combos on people, and allows for cheap, high dps castspams. Crit Gear required.

-Fnatic.Agnos, <Insurrection>

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Tags: Warlock · Articles

13 Responses to “Specialized(Not your run-of-the-mill) Warlock Specs”

1. zazo Says:
   March 4th, 2008 at 7:15 pm

   nice read

2. Hexd Says:
   March 4th, 2008 at 7:52 pm

   Should of listened to Gumbot.

3. Abdoom Says:
   March 4th, 2008 at 8:37 pm

   Thats… really interesting.

   What would you suggest for lock mage 2v2?

4. Agnos Says:
   March 5th, 2008 at 12:13 am

   sl/sl for mage/warlock 2v2, by far.

5. Agnos Says:
   March 5th, 2008 at 1:46 am

   Hm. I suppose that it’s obvious I meant “Cataclysm,” not Aftermath. Pretty much equally as worthless, though.

6. Abdoom Says:
   March 5th, 2008 at 4:20 am

   Interesting.

   What do you suggest for mage lock 2v2? sl sl, fg or some dest offspring?

7. Uz Says:
   March 5th, 2008 at 8:15 am

   Don’t you find any non SL/SL build gets immediately focused in 3s? Of course, both posted builds have Soul Link, so this may be a bit harder to detect…

   Also, do any of your experimental builds use Nether Protection?

8. pipboy Says:
   March 5th, 2008 at 8:36 am

   really, why cata instead of aftermath ? cant see the benefit of a really tiny bit of mana opposed to very sucky form of CC.

9. Agnos Says:
   March 5th, 2008 at 4:05 pm

   I’ve experimented with a 0/31/30 spec with nether protection, but I’ve decided there’s no reason to do it unless you’re up against a double firemage or double shadowpriest lineup. Too much lost.

   Cataclysm over Aftermath, because it’s impossible to get Aftermath without putting points into either Cataclysm or Improved Shadowbolt. 0/5 Improved Shadowbolt, 5/5 Cataclysm, 5/5 Bane, 0/5 Aftermath - hope that clears it up.

   As I said earlier, SL/SL is the best spec in 2v2 when playing with a mage, in all circumstances.

   PS: With this spec, and especially if you’re playing with CoE and a scorch-spec firemage, Incinerate combos + searing pain are worth using over shadowbolt: remember there’s no reason to risk getting locked on your shadow tree when doing damage, so Cataclysm is marginally helpful, whereas shadow bolt is worthless. That said, Bane is still the best spell in the tree, and it would be ludicrious to lose it, especially for something as bad as Aftermath. I acknowledge that Aftermath would be better, but it’s literally impossible to take it over Cataclysm.

10. Berender Says:
    March 10th, 2008 at 1:57 am

    0/34/27 spec is great, but among other things (like kiting) is also very sensitive to Curse of Tongues debuff

11. Moontap Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 5:50 pm

    Great read. It would seem you hold Shadowburn in high regard if laying out essentially 10 points of marginal talent to get it.

    I personally run 22\39 in 3v3. Granted, I see myself as more of a support role with a ton of CC (CofEx, CoE, CoT, SpellLock, Fear)as opposed to high burst dps. Siphon Life, Soul Link, Dem Resilience, Healthstone do alot for survivability.
    Our priest is continually amazed at the lack of healing I need in combat.
    BTW, good of you to point out Spellstone use as alot of pvp Locks overlook it.

12. Wolfgank Says:
    April 3rd, 2008 at 5:06 am

    What do you think a warlocks spec should be with a rogue?

13. Mason Says:
    May 21st, 2009 at 4:49 pm

    Great articles & Nice a site

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