Just started playing Destro in PvP this week and love it. Sometimes when a War/Rog/Ret collide with me I just seem to pop like a balloon.
Whats the best order to use defensives in and how do I get more cast off? Juking kicks seems abit useless when they have seemingly endless micro ccs to stop cast.
THANKS!
They stick on you until you die.
Unless Z-axis.
Wait what? LOL! I was fully expecting someone to just tell me i sucked. I did not expect someone to tell me it is just hopeless and i always die LOL.
Unfortunately, the reality is that if you catch the attention of a melee there’s not much you can do to shake them off. Unless you have a port hidden somewhere that would be bothersome for them to reach. Usually Z axis territory.
There’s a reason Warlocks hold one of the highest death counts in PvP. Despite our tanky nature in all PvE areas of the game, the translation doesn’t occur when it comes to PvP. We’re the melee punching bag class. I’m not super high skilled or anything but I average 2.2-2.3k for Blitz and the only thing that gets better with rating is getting more assistance from teammates the higher you climb.
It gets even more frustrating when a Ret can out damage you from range when you do finally open the gap and gain space 
I did not expect to be blown up by rets so hard! Their damage is defiantly OP.
What exactly do i counter? Hunters seem to not have to hard a time with me either. Am i suppose to be good into other casters maybe?
I’m not a great pvper but I’ve been getting better at this. Don’t get frustrated I almost gave up lock and went back dh. Always drop your port when you are moving so you can teleport back. Never leave range of your port. use fear and slows. The race ability for void elf helps. Gotta figure out when to kite and when to just tank damage and trade. I actually switched from destro to demo. It’s a lot easier to take on melee. It’s hard starting out but once you get a rythem going it’s fun.
That’s 1v1.
PvP is a team game. Someone has to peel / CC / keep you healed when melee on you. You also have to constantly reposition your portal and always hold a shard for those moments.
This depends on context. Are we talking 1v1/duels, arenas or bgs?
In arenas the immediate reponse is to mitigate the offensive cds. To do that you need to properly use defensives + mobility, if you run all the time you’ll lose, if you stand still all the time you’ll lose.
Newer lock players don’t understand which windows they can cast in and which they cannot, often leading to death.
First you must identify if the enemy is using a big cd (2/1.5mins) or a short one(sub 1min). This will tell u how to react and what to trade.
Do not use port and gate randomly, contrary to popular belief, these are defensives.
How to survive 101:
Initial response for any cd at or greater than 45s is to pop dark pact at high hp. This should be the first thing you do if you know the opponent has enough mobility to stick to you. If you delay pact, ur hp will drop and the shield’s value will be lower. Abuse the high hp shield.
Dark pact alone won’t save you, that’s where the rest of your kit comes in.
Try not to immediate press unending resolve, this should be used separately depending on several factor:
healer is cc’ed and has no trinket + more than 1 enemy has their big cds active. Usually you can survive 1 enemy without resolve by kiting+ pact (only in arenas).
if not in arenas then this can be used situationally. Just make sure not to use it when u r too low.
if the enemy has nothing left and u can kill if u can cast (trickier so not advised).
How to kite 101:
Ask yourself this: how many gap closer does that single enemy have?
For warrior, 2 charges +leap + spear +stormbolt(optional). Usually its not all 4 because the stun might be used on healers.
How to kite the warrior:
Step 1) track spell reflect, don’t coil on impulse. You either save it for havoc windows or to peel so u dont die.
Step2) force at least one gap opener before porting. If you port right away you’ll run out of tools. Force the warrior to charge once to connect. This usually works easily in lower ratings by simply using exhaustion before the warrior gets to u at the start and moving away from them.
After the initial charge, dont port right away, u have to see them pop cds. If you waste ur cds before they pop theirs ull die. The point is to only move when cds are used. Outside of cds most melee can’t kill u.
Warrior has 1 charge down, pops cds. Is spear on u? No? → soulburn port. You need the freedom. Don’t run behind pillar and los ur healer unless they’re in hard cc.
If the warrior is in range they’ll charge, but u have freedom from sb port so they won’t stick and they are slowed by exhaustion so you will outpace the warrior. Now the warrior has to make a choice, their cds are active and u’ve shaved a few seconds of uptime. They either stormbolt u, spear or leap.
If stormbolt then that’s fine, you could trinket to keep kiting but this depends on matchup or other factors. I wouldnt trinket here in arenas and save it for when healer is cc’d and i need to port.
If warrior spears , you gate. Make sure you don’t gate before that unless they use leap. Then they won’t have much tools to catch up anyway before cds are down. If you get low here you could sb/HS but that also depends.
So far you’ve only used pact, port, gate and HS. U still have wall and you haven’t dealt much damage outside of conflags, withers, sburns and some incinerates. Your infernal was probably used to stun the mele while u kite.
Now the warrior’s cds are down and they have no mobility left. It’s time to plant and turret. You don’t need to move anymore, start setting up your go.
How to setup:
Which tools do they have to stop u besides interrupts? Any shamans or warriors on their team? Grounding and reflect must be juked like you juke any other spell.
Some will try to ground or reflect when they see havoc so be careful.
Usually you want to make sure you have two backdrafts up, immolate/wither on all targets and enough shards to double cb. Once u have these havoc the off dps and coil the main, then immediately chaosbolt. So long as the healer can’t interrupt/ground this will force cds frm the enemy.
If they trinket you have already gotten closer to your win condition.
What is your win condition? To chain at least 2 bolts back to back on an enemy without defensives active while having ritual proc somewhere within these two bolts. If you do that you’ll win in 99% of situation. This sounds easier than it is. You have so much to go through to get to this point in arenas so it is often a multistaged fight where you must trade back and forth and survive to win.
Outside of arenas u could use a succubus to force extra cast windows or to peel for urself. You generally want to avoid face-juking to cast, only as a last resort. You are deadliest when chaosbolting into a target that is cc’d, so dont waste ur coil/seduce/ infernal stun unless you really need to survive. Try to use them for nuke windows and u’ll win a lot more.
As for ret and dks, they are trickier than warrior in certain cases but easier in others.
Against these, having nether ward is huge. Against ret u can reflect the hoj, completely reversing the tempo. When do u reflect to catch hoj? Usually the opener. The ret will always hoj u when they get near since they want to unload. The second they almost reach u, prepop reflect and enjoy. This doesn’t work a lot at higher ratings but in low to mid rating ranges u can expect rets to have no concept of reflect in their head so u’ll catch them more often.
Against dk it is best used after port. Port+ reflect either wastes their grip or gives u time to reposition. Usually the best way to avoid dk cds is just port+reflect and los. They can’t touch u then for a few seconds.
Their AMS is annoying but not a big deal really. Your burst windows already try to squeeze bolts between cc, so they cant do that while coiled.
So to conclude:
Know when to move and when not to move. If all u do is run ull die. If u dont mitigate enemy cds, ull die. Don’t rely on bolts to 1 shot uncced enemies, it’s much easier to cc and force more cds.
Macros make a difference.
Don’t depend on the built-in mouse overs for Havoc or Coil or Fear. So you can keep target focused and still double CC/dps others.
Or a macro for Fel Dom to default quick summon Fel Hunter or a mod to slow cast pet when LoS, saving the Fel Dom for when you need it. Macros to soul burn cookies or gateway, while saving a shard when you don’t need max healing or instant gate.
Keep all Summon portal, use portal, gateway in one button. Coil/Fear or Shadowfury in one button.
I pray blessing for you, your kids, and your kid’s kids. Thank you sir.
you run away when you see one!
/cast [@cursor] spellname
Use this for Shadowfury and Infernal to remove targeting circle.
Infernal does not stun in PvP so Rain of Chaos became even more useless. So Crashing Chaos has to be timed when you bank shards and have a window to chain 3x CBs to pressure kill target.
Unending Resolve gives you silence immunity to free cast. Gotta choose if you wanna use it offensively or to survive the melee train. Or to choose it first to put it on CD, and use the warlock LoH macro to soul burn cookie into Dark Pact for a bigger shield (if you didn’t dark pact before health dropped)
Suggesting another warlock macro their healthshard into soulgem into dark pact is really bad advice. Never pair these together as you want them separate. If you end up in a situation where you are full health and ready to shield a hit, you are gimping yourself because you just put your health restore on cooldown.
The beauty of a macro is using Dark Pact when you need it alone (at full health) or Healthstone alone. Or Soul Burn Healthstone alone
or if you get taken down the macro will Soul Burn a cookie… which temp increases your health (last stand) and the cookie heals a % of your health and then dark pact for a shield on that big health pool. For those oh s### moments.
Tell me why you wouldn’t want those options ?
Soulburn Hearthstone: Increases healing of Hearthstone by 30% and increases maximum health by 20% for 12 seconds.
Sweet Souls: heals for additional 10% of your maximum health
Dark Pact: Sacrifices 20% (or 5%) of your current health to shield you for 200% (or 800%) of sacrificed health plus 322k for 20 seconds.
You want to always use Dark Pact when health is high or it’s a waste. So if you use it first, you can fall back to healthstones. Later on if you suddenly get zapped near death before pressing Dark Pact, you will want to Lay on Hands Soul Burn hearthstone before using Dark Pact for that fat shield. Don’t count on healer at that point.
Also if memory serves me right. Doesn’t healthstone/dark pact/passive shield heal have pvp modifiers on them correct. I’m certain healthstones are capped at a 38% max once in instance pvp and that’s with soul burn.
Yep you get in reality like little over 1/2 health.