Basically I have an arena partner that can go either Resto Druid or Resto Shaman.
Which healer would be better in 2’s with Survival? And then how about Affliction Lock?
We’ve run Affliction/RDruid, Affliction/RShaman, and Survival/RDruid.
Affliction/RDruid feels like a good comp, but we were having problems with survivability and it felt like any time he needed to kite away from melee, I was chasing him around pillars (it was hard to peel for him). His heals felt good at times, but at other times it felt like the throughput wasn’t there to keep my Lock alive vs heavy damage. Obviously we could get better but that’s the issues we were having.
Affliction/RSham felt “better”, it was easier to peel because he didn’t have to kite so much. But he was more prone to getting killed in the opener than on his Druid. Once matches went beyond the opener, it felt like we had a much easier time landing kills due to his damage, Wind Shear, Grounding, etc. But any time melee jumped on him, things got hectic (especially double melee) and it felt like I couldn’t keep them off. Is this a better comp than Affliction/Rdruid?
Survival/RDruid felt decent all around, it’s kind of hard to evaluate since my Hunter’s damage is nerfed (I have no tier pieces right now). But I was wondering which healer works better with Survival too.
Thanks. As an aside, do you have any tips vs Fury Warriors as Affliction? I just can’t seem to get a distance or get him off me, unless it’s the right map. I try to save Dark Pact for Kyrian but it seems his damage always catches up with us.
Should my Druid focus on peeling the Warrior, instead of using it on the healer?
Imo yes, if the war is on you for more than 5 seconds your healer will struggle to heal you because of slaughterhouse. I’d say you should always prioritize peeling the war and focus on winning the long game by keeping distance and making the healer oom.
If the war gets tired of chasing you, spam cc the healer and burn/peel the war as hard as you can.
I always try to think about it like this: how can my team take the least amount of damage possible? If you can take less damage, you win the mana game.
I’m no pro though and I’m sure better locks than me will give you better advice.
Rdruid is the better healer in both comps, but with aff warlock he probably needs to be a little bit more active and play feral aff which can be a hard adjustment for some rdruids
Technically feral aff is also really good as SV too but you can get away with playing guardian aff far more. SV rdruid is arguably the best 2v2 comp though
Rsham aff probably easier to play with though if he’s not that good at rdruid
druid is 100% better for both comps because of how much control feral affinity druid brings to the table
it’s important for the healer to position in the open when off stun DR if he knows people are gonna go him, as to allow the lock to trade fear DRs with stun DRs- imagine a DH stuns your druid, you don’t want him LOS because you wanna fear the eyebeam that follows. it should also be high in priority to have the warlock positioned between both enemies to create a situation where the healer is blocked from the DPS and he can take control of both
affliction has to juggle defensive positioning to protect the healer and simultaneously be untouchable against melee. early in dampening you can tank and do the drain life bullsht im sure youve seen locks do, but in the endgame you’re gonna have to be good at actually preventing damage with any CC available coupled with proper positioning or you’re going to fall over instantly
not that all of your dots aren’t important, but primarily focus on exhausting / UA (if you’re able to cast) before you apply agony or corruption. make an effort to keep things UA’d so all deep roots and fears stick and you’ll notice you take a lot less damage
no matter how OP the arena forums try to say affliction is, it has very clear counterplay and a good majority of comps autowin against it. so long as you’re beating every warrior, hunter, and non rsham team you’re doing fine
Is god tier in the right hands. What makes it good though is really on the druid and good communication. Using clones to block heals outside of CC windows is huge. Mostly in that it’s helping to mitigate damage between goes, but it’s also blocking heals. If your druid is forced to heal, they are gonna oom.
Example would be fighting a DH. As SV, you can just go heals while keeping the DH cc’ed almost the entire match. root > clone > diamond ice > dh cries and hates life.
This is great stuff guys, thanks! Gonna talk with him about some of this and reevaluate how we’ve been playing. I think judging from this we need to line up our CC much better, especially on my Warlock, because I have a tendency to focus too much on DoT uptime rather than control
Survival felt a lot more flexible in 2s, although my Warlock is a lot of fun too. I think once I can get the tier bonuses, I’ll main Survival and we’ll run SV/Druid. I feel more comfortable with the playstyle most of the time, and I feel like I have a good chance versus most classes (as opposed to WL which has some hard stops, as someone mentioned)
You can use warlock gateway to get out of spear. You should try to stay near it if you know the warrior is Kyrian and ready to burst. It’s the only mobility spell that warlock has that can break spear, as port or nightfae will still pull you back in.
Dark pact is good. Another good play is casting circle after the warrior has already used his stun, and then sending your 50 stack drain life for huge health regeneration. He won’t be able to kick it and it does an insane amount of damage with full dots + soul rot on both targets.
Those are some awesome tips, I didn’t know Gateway ignores the spear!! Thank you man. I have been using Casting Circle and it feels super underrated in general as well
I’m not sure if they fixed it but if you soulshape blink as the spear is pulling you back in, can break it if you get the timing just right.
I’ve also had port break it if you put the port on the inside wall in black rook hold but this one is kinda hit or miss with the pull back. I’ve had this one fail way more than succeed