How do you get out of the 1500 bracket? (Lock + Shaman)

[Winter]

Me and my partner are running a 2s group trying to get a bit higher in the rating, I know whilst this combo isn't the best it is possible to get somewhat of a decent rating judging from this:
Shaman/Warlock Strategy - Arena Junkies

We're currently sitting at 1557, we were there a while ago but then I tried to do 2s with a Druid but it didn't work so after a lot of work we've managed to get our rating back and now I've just got my shiny new Brutal legs.

Before it was most Warrior+Druid which was giving us trouble, I've kind of taught myself how to deal with the resto druid but it's normally completely dependent on who I'm facing and if they know how to PvP properly.

Today it was just double DPS, they just burst us both down insanely fast we couldn't keep up. Mages were giving us a bit of trouble, 1v1 they were fine but that sheep was really getting on nerves (have the Devour Magic macro), Rogues surprisingly were easy but they seemed to focus down the Shaman rather than me which helped a lot.

Also twice we've come up against a UA Lock + Resto Shaman and twice they bet us, does UA have more Synergy with Shammies or something? I can't really see losing Soul Link as worth it but it interests me.

Another thing is my gear, I always figured it was ok but should I try get some s3 peices while I wait?
The World of Warcraft Armory

If it doesn't load or is in the wrong gear:

12638 hp
1080 spell damage
431 resil
44 Spell hit

14 Spell penetration

The only thing I'm missing is 1 of the PvP rings, I kind of put it off due to the guardian ring requiring a 1650 rating. I kind of want to wait but will the extra resil be that helpful? Also any other peices I may as well upgrade from the s1 to s2 peices? The stat increases seem so minor to me I may as well just wait it out. I don't wanna be farming BG's for hours on end like I did to get it all before.

Also how important is Spell Penetration for PvP? I hear some people claiming it's a useful PvP stat... what exactly does it? How much should I be stacking? I'll look for a guide perhaps.

EDIT: Also I've been following some of the strategies but it seems to just be a burst comp most of the time. CoT healers and other caster,s using Shadowward 15 secs in etc.

Just watched a video w/Felguard and wondering if I should try that sometime. Also I dunno why but I never cast Immolate, need to do that. Also see the Shaman cast Earth Shield quite a bit so I might suggest him to use that more often.

[Denegra]

SL/SL is a survivability spec you use this spec mainly if you don't have a healer.. dual dps team so you can stay alive and CC while the other guy (major DPS) takes down the other person. With a resto shammy.. i would try a UA Build, and take out all those resil gems you have. Anything above 400 is good enough. Hell 300 is still good. More spell damage will do you good. Since you are the only DPS on your team its important to put out as much damage as possible. I've never played with a resto shammy before but I'd imagine he could keep you up for quite some time if you were getting beat on. Not to mention one person should always be feared. Once you hit DRs on the one swap to the other. Curse of Tongues is useful as well. Communicate with your partner so you don't waste 2 interrupts at the same time.

[Winter]

See thats the thing, Resto Shaman surprisingly have good burst and if done right we can focus down one person and kill them quickly depending on the class. I think Felguard would be quite good once we moved up our rating a bit to help against all the Rogues we'll have to put up with. Right now Rogues are not an issue where as Druid+Warrior is much more frustrating to us.

Also Resto Shaman are different from Druids so its more about big heals than HoTs, I'm guessing he is having more issues with mana than I am. Basically its all about surviving the large burst when it comes to Double DPS, I need to get into a habit of keeping a track of my healer. Also a mic + vent would be a huge help.

[Suspiria]

I m not the kind of person who should give advice for arena, since lately i cant get out of 1430 rating -- My gear is very good by the way, 13600 h, 1190 spell, 497 res. Felguard spec. But these warrior-druid combinations were so hard to beat. So, what i have to tell here..

I believe there is no way for any lock to get out of his miserable (or ...excellent) arena bracket (whichever) except he makes a team with one of the following classes: rogue or druid. Let me put it more emphatically: There is no way for ANYONE to get out of his miserable arena bracket (whichever) except he makes a team with one of the following classes: rogue or druid.

Two main reasons:

Arena is not ruled by damage, but by HEALING and CROWD CONTROL. We, locks, may consider ourselves as a nice class to play PVP and this is the case when we fight in battlegrounds. But in arena a team need healing and crowd control. Unfortunately, locks miss both. FEAR looks impressive, so much nerfed though, but it's nothing compared to the six crowd control assets of rogues:

• Kidney Shot
  20 second cooldown
  Lasts 2-6 seconds
  5 yard range
  Stuns the target.

• Cheap Shot
  Lasts 4 seconds
  5 yard range
  Stuns target. Must be used from stealth.

• Blind
  3 min cooldown
  10 yard range
  Lasts 10 seconds
  Disorients the target. Broken with damage.

• Gouge
  10 second cooldown
  Lasts 4-5.5 seconds
  Stuns target. Broken with damage.

• Sap
  Lasts 10 seconds
  5 yard range
  Incapacitates the target. Must be used from stealth. Broken with damage.

• Kick
  10 second cooldown
  5 yard range
  Interrupts spell casting and prevent any spells fromt hat school from being cast for 5 seconds (can also silence all magic for 2 seconds, with Combat talents).

DOTS are not but a little fresh air annoyance to druids:

• Cyclone
  Lasts 6 seconds
  Banishes you. You take no damage, but can take no action. Has diminishing returns.
  Requires humanoid or Moonkin form.

• Pounce
  Lasts 3-4 seconds.
  Stuns you and deals damage over time.
  Requires Cat form.

• Maim
  Lasts 2-6 seconds.
  Finishing move that does damage and stuns you. Breaks on damage.
  Requires Cat form.

• Bash
  1 minute cooldown
  Lasts 4 seconds
  Stuns you, preventing you from taking any action. Also used as an interrupt for spell casting.
  Requires Bear form.

• Feral Charge
  15 second cooldown
  Lasts 4 seconds
  Requires 8-15 yard range
  Interrupts your spell casting for the duration.
  Requires Bear form.
  Requires Feral talents.

• Force of Nature
  3 minute cooldown
  Lasts 30 seconds
  Summons 3 treants to attack the druid’s enemies.
  Requires humanoid or Moonkin form.
  Requires Balance talents.

I think Blizzard favoured both classes because she just realized it was time for those playing a rogue or a druid to have really fan.
You are doomed with your shammy partner and i m sorry to say that. Half or one year ago i d rather say yr hopes to level in arena would be considerably high. But now, not.

NOW, EVERYBODY does good damage and locks are just stacked in the arena brackets they just belong...

[El Tanakh]

Your spell damage is somewhat low, but you should be able to get higher in the ladder.

Spell penetration is very important, having 70 is IMO the least that a warlock should look for, enchanting your cape with spell penetration is a fast cheap way to bump it by a little.

I never have played lock/shamman, but mage/rogue has never been a consistent problem for us.

Mage/Rogue

You should focus in killing one, which one depends on the battle, as a rule of thumb, if rogue is on you kill the rogue, if rogue is on healer kill the mage, this is what i do because my healer is a paladin, so he can manage rogues but not mages, anyway i think this would work well for shamman too. As for what to do with the battle itself:

- Mage Keeping CoT and 2 dots on him should be enough to bother, also keep felpup on him to push back his cast and silence his ICE school. With sheeps? the first one should be devoured so fast the sheep graphic should never bee seen in your scree, just spam the devour button when he is nearly done with his spell, if he is near you can fear him starting the cast as soon as you devour sheep, if he is away you can LoS him so no second sheep anyway, if he is near but with lots of spell haste you can DC him to save trinket for bilnd or some other messy situations.

-Rogue CoEx DoT him and remember to refresh after CloS. If he is near a killing just fear him.

Now both opponents have ways of sealing your shadow school, if they seem competent dont forget to fakecast as needed, but also both of em are naturally succeptible to fear (unless UD). Anyway, you should always try to keep at least 1 feared, if not the two of em (Howl of terror FTW).

As for duid CC, maim and pounce aren't really that good in arena (at most will be used once, and even then its questionable if that's a good idea), i hope you are not serious about Force of Nature, and Feral Charge will be remaped to be a 21 point feral talent (that really hurt), but druids do have the ultimate CC aka Cyclone. Still Druids are the king healers in 2v2.

[anantak2k]

What are you doing PVPing in arenas with a warlock? :p
Don't you know arena is for rogues druids, warrior and priests ONLY. Other classes aren't allowed :p

After all the hard work me and my mage buddy did of getting near the 1800. It all went down this week. Throughout the ween we played around 100 matches at different times trying to que dodge. But I think 80% of the teams we fought was rogue/priest or rogue/druid. It was basically rogue rogue rogue rogue rogue druid druid druid. After this week of crappy arena I am starting to think that other classes don't do arena in my battlegroup at all. Ratings crashed all the way back down to the 1500s.

Time for me to try to get a higher rating on my 3s team now. I have a much better chance there since I am teamed with the 2 most Op classes atm, aka rogue and druid. Hopefully 1800 in 3s this week.

[doogless]

Your Shaman should consider at least picking up Instant Ghostwolf and the 2 seconds off Grounding Totem in Enhancement, and possible going all the way to Toughness.

UA/Shaman isn't really very good. It worked when melee scaling hadn't reached absurd levels, but now speccing anything without SL (unless you're on a team with a Shadow Priest) is just asking for death. The damage output on a UA spec is marginally higher than SL will put out in mirrors, but you're also taking more damage so it's really a wash.

[El Tanakh]

So, i was manually counting the amount of DPSers of each class that are in the top positions in 2v2 Rankings - Arena Junkies and guess what

26 warlocks

29 rogues

43 warriors

Biased and unrepresentative, maybe, but atm i don't have a better more reliable way to gather data, and since its a personal policy NOT to write programs if i am not getting payed there's no much more i can do.

It really surprised me as Vhairi's last graph showed warlocks much lower.

Didn't want to do that with healers...

*** Information added 2 Minutes and 10 Seconds later... ***

Originally Posted by doogless

The damage output on a UA spec is marginally higher than SL will put out in mirrors, but you're also taking more damage so it's really a wash.

Not the UA's i have fought

Anyway, for a mirror with an UA killing the pet is my first approach, especially ez if its running towards a holy source of damage

*** Information added 13 Minutes and 0 Seconds later... ***

Wow, nearly 70% win rate to 2000 Morrigan?

/bow Morrigan

/poke Morrigan

[doogless]

Originally Posted by El Tanakh

Wow, nearly 70% win rate to 2000 Morrigan?

/bow Morrigan

/poke Morrigan

I play Warlock/Druid, it's not that good :P

And yeah, UA has an advantage in both sustained DPS and burst, but not enough that it's really a better spec for Warlock/Healer, even in mirrors. A UA cast is just another opportunity to lock their shadow school. Their pet is a joke to kill (no Demonic Resilence, no Master Demonologist, no Fel Stamina), and once it's down they have no way to remove CC or interrupt you (and with a 10 second summon, they're not getting a new one out). If you let them stand there casting into you, it'll hurt, so uh... don't do that.

(My armory probably shows a UA spec right now because I got dragged into ZA, I don't PvP as that)

[Winter]

Warlock PvP is kind of fun in arena but its really a matter of who we come up against and currently its mostly Warr+Druid combos which I really hate as it drags on way to much. We can win however though if I can keep the Druid occupied long enough while the Warrior is focusing on my Shaman, essentially if the Druid slips up and my DC cooldown is up I can quickly DC > Fear > Drain when hes at low health and use Searing pain to finish him off. Also its possible to burst down the Warrior if I have an opening.

I chucked some spell penetration onto my Cloak, have yet to test it but when arena ticks I'll go at it again to see if it's made a difference, not a big deal if it hasn't but it'll still be worth having for the ones with passive resistance.

As for stats in general I've been looking at some armouries and trying to see what adjustments I should make, firstly if we can hit 1575 then I'll replace my bracers and put 12 stam instead for 12 int. Also I think I need to change my head enchant, I didn't notice it before but there's an 18 stam, 20 resil one I should put on my new helm when I get it but right now it'd probably hurt my spell damage, same with the meta gem (switching the spell damage + speed for the 18 stam + stun resist). It seems with the right gear I can get close to 15k HP but dunno whether I should focus more on HP or Spell Damage.

Another issue is I dunno what to do with my Rings, I can't get the same ring twice, the s2 ring is garbage compared to the one I've got (Badge one, the Stam and Int are the same) but the new Guardian one requires are 1650 rating. I could get the spell haste one but the amount it gives doesn't feel like it makes up for the lack of spell damage on it. Right now I'm probably just going to leave it, I don't know how much that extra 22 resil currently will help.

As for CC, the only one that gives me a lot of trouble is Poly as Mages love to spam it on me, I seriously don't get why people say Mages are real easy for Warlocks... I guess I'm weird but I have an easy time with Rogues so long as I catch them off guard. Druids don't seem to spam Cyclone that much, basically mostly have time to trinket it out, Pounce, Feral Charge and Bash are a joke compared to what a Rogue can dish out, trust me I'm level a Druid alt they're more of way to give some breathing room than major CC like fear.

Also I am sure we can hit 1800, thing is at this point everybody is playing the "OP combo" regardless of whether they'll win or not. It's not until higher up that those combos true potential becomes apparent. We do quite well against certain group, its just getting through the thick of it all so I can break into the better ranks and get my s4 peices... right now my goal is 1650 for Ring, Robe, Cuffs and it'll take a while to get the points to grab all that.