They used to be considered the top pvp classes in vanilla from what I recall.
But their representation on pvp servers is low, and their performance in battlegrounds, from what I’m seeing, is surprisingly poor. I see them get charged, and by the time the stun wears off they are taking a dirt nap.
Shadow priests and warlocks were not top anything in retail vanilla. If they are left alone and can free cast they can do some damage but their burst output just isn’t there.
It got better in TBC with warlocks in particular.
I feel this is a good time to recommend World of Roguecraft 2 (as cringe as it is now):
You answered your own question.
Warriors are just completely busted with gear and buffs. There’s also a lot more of them in classic.
Warlocks and shadow priests are the most OP 1v1 classes for pvp in classic, not group pvp classes
A warrior with backup will shred them
They are extremely stretched thin on stats necessary to be considered a player in PvP. If you are under 4500 hp unbuffed, you are a free honor kill.
Both of them are extremely mana inefficient on fast fights(only dots are mana efficient, but they take time to tick) this is remedied by a lot of spellpower gear, which often lacks stamina.
Priests have some of the most expensive spells in the game, if not the most expensive. Which means they need a lot of mana. Which is a problem when you are already constrained by stamina and spellpower.
If a warlock dies, they are easy to camp unless they have invis pot since they are very handicapped without a pet. Warlocks are the easiest class to camp.
If a priest dies, they won’t have enough mana on rez to kill anyone because of how mana inefficient they are.
Both of them are godly classes for fair duels assuming you’re the biggest loot goblin in the universe and have trifecta gear+proper gadgets/consumes. That said, the game isn’t balanced around fair pvp, people won’t wait for you to drink/eat full or for your cds in wpvp/bgs. If you’re not ready, you’re having a bad time.
cuz Zug Zug.
Struggling? The heck are you taking about?
Unless you are SL, our survivability is pretty abyssal since we’re a cloth class with no escape abilities beside a 2 mins coil. At least spriests have -15% physical reduction in shadowform and can drop form to self heal. It’s just that they’re extremely Mana inefficient.
That is not to say warlocks are weak in group PvP. Curse of Tounge spam is one of the the main reasons we are being brought to premades, and coil is the only way to stop a skull + fap + Mithril insig FC druid. Our survivability depends on understanding positioning, having high stam gears (you’ll want at least 4.5k hp), and good peeling from teammates. A free casting warlock has much higher damage (burst and sustained) than an ele shaman without EM.
LOLWUT???
Locks are the kings of 1v1 duels. Spriests melt faces.
They’re low representation in PVP because they’re low overall representation.
Sl lock wins every duel tourney 1v1 but ye … lock bad.
Spriest is strong 1v1. If you cant win with these classes, you are either not playing it to the fullest potential or wrong spec.
LOL.
That video was from early 2005, BEFORE Locks were buffed to the moon and became PVP gods. Note how Skillcoil doesn’t even have a CC effect.
I’m able to reliably kill both locks and priests. It just seems like they never have the tools to deal with me, all they have is damage which is easily disrupted.
They used to be PVP gods because people weren’t as good back then and just let them freecast.
Edit: I’m taking any talk about shadow priests out of this so I can stop getting attacked for it since spriests are apparently PVP gods, even against hunters probably according to these other posters.
Warriors counter locks pretty well. Like anything it’s gear and spec dependent as well. They wear cloth with limited mobility. Their main defense, fear, against warriors is mostly useless too.
I just ranked an alliance lock. Warriors, in addition to undead (usually the horde race for mages, priests and rogues) with their WotF (most of horde seems to be warriors or undead) were kind of annoying. On my last day of ranking I went to org solo and killed an arms warrior who attacked first with guards on me and even another player, and without a voidwalker even, so it’s possible, but again it depends on gear and spec. I was able to defend AB nodes vs 1 and 1v1 in general pretty well almost always too.
Warlocks are good in 1v1 duels (where everything can be prepared) in general… but other classes are more known for being OP honestly. You are also talking as a counter class.
Well, after the “World of Roguecraft” pvp videos, Warlocks started getting more attention to the point they became “overpowered” due to the Deathcoil changes if I recall correctly.
They seemed like the top because most people were not into PvP, but a lot of FOTM players rerolled Warlocks to abuse the new changes.
I remember there being tons of warlock rerolls after the change.
Fact is, only thing Warlocks and shadow priest have are the fears that don’t seem to break even with a mass number of dots on you.
Once you nullify that, resist or get out of it sooner than later, chances are that Warlock and Shadow priest won’t be able to survive most classes.
Warlocks are more “cheese” than anything. Equivalent to paladins LoH.
Warlocks are actually more OP than before because the fear rarely seems to break unlike:
This fight in my video in 2006. In 04-06, I never had fear last as long as it does now.
No they do not? Lmao. Your blue geared lock is gonna die to the aq 40 war, but in general any lock will own up the warrior unless he pops reck (which is a 30 min cd).
I love how you mention spriests that dont shield, so i know you literally fight the garbage of garbage in terms of players… What warrior counters spriest? Wtf.
No, most warriors on horde side are orcs cause of the BS stun resist racial. Barely anyone is UD, because UD is like the nelf equivalent on ally side. You roll UD for style, but not because its giving great advantages in pvp. It only helps vs locks and spriests which you should lose to by default (1v1).
I have never seen you play, but from just 1 post i can already tell you are garbage in pvp and you should srsly learn how to play or fight good guys to see what the meta is. My god
It’s great seeing all these warriors in AV this weekend. I can’t help but laugh at the scoreboard reading 4 - 48, like at some point you have to get bored of just charging in and getting deleted over and over again.
No they don’t. Most of them are free kills even if they pop reck (maybe I’m fighting bots or something)
A Warlock’s best defense is a good offense. Fear is usually a waste of time. I barely use it.
Who are you exactly? Because I’ve never seen you post here before. Probably just some troll account. I’m only going to reply to you once because your post is full of personal attacks and has no substance or real counter arguments. (I don’t play a spriest or any priest btw, that was just from what I saw so attacking my spriest play is pretty funny).
I am very aware of why people roll orc warriors and YES almost every mage, priest and rogues is undead. Was that a real comment even about how many people roll undead? I can pull up % stats.
There are almost no pvpers playing Classic. The population is largely pve parsers.
Virtually every Warlock you see is pve specced.
Yes agreed when you attack first you’re usually going to win. I can usually kill warriors too on my lock but IMO they do counter locks pretty well esp locks with PVE gear/spec.