Shadow Priest vs Warlock - PvP

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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Hey there all,

I am thinking of playing classic exclusively PvPing. I know both of them are considered to be really good in PvP, with Priests having the reputation for being ‘face-melters’. However, from the videos I haave seen Warlocks hit a lot harder with soul fire than spriests do with mind blast. Not to mention sometime Warlocks shadowbolt crits do more damage than the crit of a mindblast. I get that spriests have a lot higher survivability with vampiric embrace but which would be better for chasing high ranks?

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Curious myself and find myself waffling between spriest and lock.

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Soulshards ruin the experience as a warlock in battlegrounds. Healthstones, soulstones, pets, soulfires, shadowburns, spellstones, are a nightmare to keep farmed.

You obviously don’t want to drain soul on important fights but any good warlock will spam shadowburn as much as they can. I kept shards in my bank and it still felt too little.

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Well yeah man. Warlocks and shadow priests have different strengths. Warlocks can nuke you down, or they can spec into survival and win the war of attrition. Of all the classes, warlock is one that can and should reliably beat a shadow priest 1v1.

EDIT: also I’m 99% sure Mind Blast has a 1.5x crit modifier, as opposed to the 2x of every other class. That might be a priest thing all around (eg. Smite can only crit for 1.5x damage, not 2x, etc etc.)

But there truly aren’t many other hard counters to priest, and assuming equal gear, a shadow priest can happily win any skirmish.

I would go with priest for a few reasons: I enjoy having utility and being a hybrid. You may be asked to heal at some point, so if that sounds terrible, just stick with warlock. Personally I love having the option to respec into discipline or just pop out of shadowform and throw some heals around.

Power Word: Shield is particularly nice, along with Focused Casting, to prevent spell pushback. PW:S also prevents warriors from generating rage while it’s on you. Big plus!

Shadowpriests also bring to the table: Blackout stun proc, Mana Burn, Mind Control, blanket Silence, a spammable slow that looks like a friggen awesome laser beam, aoe fear/Psychic Scream of course, Dispel Magic which works both offensively and defensively, and an arsenal of healing spells to be used out of shadowform.

Warlocks are strong and great duelists if spec’d SL/SL, I’m actually mad just typing this, as a shadow priest they are the bane of my existence :slight_smile: In a team setting, if protected, they can self sustain and pump out lots of damage. Destro has a neat shield effect that I forget the details of. Neat! Warlocks in general bring spammable Fear, life and mana drain, huge debuff/dot pressure, and all of their pets bring something strong to pvp: Felhunter purge/counterspell, Succubus Seduction, Voidwalker sac for shield. And if you had any aspirations of raiding as a ranged dps, you’ll be far more likely to do that as a warlock and not a shadow priest. :stuck_out_tongue:

I don’t know a ton about warlocks so that’s my surface level knowledge for you. Hope it helps. I still recommend priest, the coolest class in the game.

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I will be going SP…, but will have a lock running asap too.

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Spriest is dummy proof.

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Do warlocks not have the same utiliy (and some more) than spriests in the fears that they can use. I mean it is on a cast time but it doesn’t have near a 26 second cooldown. Sorry if these are dumb questions but how are priests more useful than a warlock in PvP? I get that they can heal, dispel etc but is this that big of a deal when compared to something like a fear etc? Sorry again if these are dumb questions - I don’t mean the challenge I am just genuinely curious. I want to play a spriest really badly but I keep feeling that a warlock might be more useful. Please, I beg of you, prove me wrong.

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Fear has no cooldown and it has a cast time. It lasts longer than Psychic Scream and you can theoretically chain cast it on someone to CC them for a long time. Warlocks can also spec into a talent called Howl of Terror, which is an aoe fear like Psychic Scream which has a short cast time. Howl has a… 45 second? cooldown? Warlocks ALSO have Death Coil, a horror effect, so it’s not the same as Fear. It won’t DR with Fear and it can’t be broken with a trinket/Berserker Rage/WotF. Long CD. It also restores some HP! And it’s instant, lasts a couple seconds.

Psychic Scream instantly fears (5?) players around you and then goes on its relatively long cooldown.

I’ll take Dispel Magic, Mana Burn, Mind Control, and Silence over Fear any time. Also PW:S. Also all of the casted non-shadow heals. Also Blackout (you can proc this by spamming low ranks of SW:P). But that’s me.

In terms of warlock usefulness, Healthstones are amazing and you can have like 3 of them on you at once. Just remember there is no Soul Well so you need to cast a Healthstone for everyone in your group, or more than one HS per person if it’s a serious group. That’s a ton of shards.

Soulstone is awesome, I think it’s on a 30 min CD. And of course, it costs a Soul Shard too.

Uhh… What else. I dunno. I don’t play warlock. I like having them around but shadow priest easily has more utility/tools (in exchange for damage, frankly).

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Don’t forget lock succubus pet for more control and if used really well, can lock up an enemy healer at a pivotal time. Locks have good control and damage, no doubt. But if you feel like you want to play s.priest, do it, they are fun and I feel you would be happier with something you want to play and get good with, rather than something that seems like a second choice. Priests bring a lot of usefulness to the table as well, shields just in time to save someone waiting on an incoming heal, well timed silence, mana drains on healers, dispells.

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not counting the many of variables that go into pvp such as individual skill level, terrain, itemization and build paths…warlock just outright has more cc and in PvP excess utility and outlet options has the advantage

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you can’t compare Soul Fire with Mind Blast, SF has a long cast time and soul shard cost, mind blast is short cast and short cd.

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Play what you find fun, play them all…ignore most of what you read and half of what you see. Blaze your own path.

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They need to make dispersion to be baseline not a rune . Making you chose between Dispersion and Void Plague doesn’t make sense.

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