Unorthodox Duels

[UndeadBehlial]

What are some unique strategies you guys used in duels? I think variance is really fun, and surprising when these things work. I'll start I guess:

VW Power
No one expects a VW in duels. Often, when people whine about my succubus or felhunter, ill bust out this guy and say "ok im playing gimped now, this is my PvE pet." and then whip out a win. Mainly vs rogues and warriors. Why?

Warriors are going to go into Berseker stance, and become immune to everything anyway, so why have your succubus out? And if rogues are invisible and going to 3-shot you, theres the occasion where your succubus doesnt get Seduce off in time, or maybe its *resisted*, signing your death. Try this next time, it can be really embarassing:

vs. warrior. As soon as you start the duel, Sacrifice your VW. This will absorb the first ~4 hits from the warrior. DoT what you can, as soon as he lands his first or second hit on you, Death Coil to get back up to full life. By this time he should be fairly low, so shoot off a Shadowbolt while hes 3sec feared, and COnflag/Shadowburn FTW.

vs. rogue. Rogues are clueless in life. THey run around invisible, assuming you'll get stunlocked. My favorite thing about fighting rogues in Battlegrounds is watching them stealth run at me, and cast Howl of Terror, watching them run from their invisible state before they can gouge haha. Anyway, back on topic. AGain, sacrifice your VW right away. You cant absorb the stuns, but you can absorbs the huge crits 3-4 times, which is all you need. TUrn and DC as soon as possible. Fear. You know the rest. versus a rogue, if you can get off a Death COil, hes doneski.

Anyway, just some variation, then people dont whine about "OMG SEDUCE?" and its awesome bragging rights :)

[Steamboat]

This is my standard method in world pvp when I'm strolling along and suddenly get charge-stunned. Fel-domination, instant VW, shield, laugh like a schoolgirl while I murder someone.

If I already have my succubus out and I see them first I usually go with seduce/nuke though.

[Hrungnir]

I've found that in most 1 on 1, a voidwalker sacrifice is almost an instant win, just because now I have an extra 2000 hp and free reign to get my casts off on them. Especially if you vw sac, fear, fel dom, and bring out the appropriate pet for the fight. I don't normally use it, though, just because I burn through enough shards without sacrificing pets, and I'd rather be slightly less powerful (and still win most fights) than have to play with an imp out the next game.

Hehe, if you ever really need to beat a casting class, it's kind of disgusting what we can do. Spellstone for 2k absorbed, vw sac for another 2k, then summon a felhunter and get an extra 60 to your resists, all while having probably 2k more health to begin with than they did. Hurrah for demonic powers :)

[Baboon]

Maybe I suck, but at level 30 I couldnt win some 31 Paladin for 4 times. I seduced, feared, bolted, but it didn't do enough damage. Maybe the pwnage starts at later levels?

[Hrungnir]

There are two basic styles of play in warlock PVP, and they depend largely on your spec and your +damage gear.

The one you've been trying, the seduce + nuke tactic, works very well for an SM/Ruin or Destruction warlock, or really anyone with a good amount of +damage gear. If you've been following the advice of these forums in general, you aren't destruction, and you won't have much +damage gear. So that makes it a bit tough for you to do the kind of burst damage (especially at level 30) that you need to pull this tactic off, especially against a paladin, one of the hardest classes in the game to kill. Even now, if I time things wrong a paladin can last a *really* long time against me, although I can't recall one managing to kill me on his own.

Paladins are even tougher at earlier levels, where they already have some of their bubbles, but you don't have your major pally-killing skills (felhunter silence, deathcoil, and probably shadowburn). The trick to killing a paladin is to make sure that they can't cast their bubble or heal when they get low. That means usually taking out the last third of their heal in one burst, and keeping them out of control of their own character while you do it.

This is challenging, even at higher levels. Right now I try to get them kind of low and then shadowbolt, death coil shadowburn all in a row. But I still have times where that leaves them with 10 hp, they bubble, heal to full, and we have to start all over again.

So this brings me to the second style of warlock pvp - fear kiting. If you can't kill them quickly, kill them slowly while keeping them from killing you. If a paladin is feared, he can't bubble or heal, but you can keep doing damage to him.

DoT's are less likely to break the fear (as you probably know, a shadowbolt will almost always break it immediately) so fear then DoT (or if you know he can't kill you too quickly, DoT, then use your first fear so you'll have more of them left when he's at low health).

It's all about having one fear left when he gets low so you can kill him in one shadowbolt while he's feared. You actually might have an advantage at this level since fewer people have the various trinkets to break fear.

If he starts running at you right away with fear breaks, toss a searing pain on for some more damage before you fear again. If he starts healing, fear him as quick as you can, and hope you beat the fear.

If he heals or bubbles, bandage up and get ready to start again. He has 15 seconds where he's immune to your fear, then start the plan as usual.

Another tactic you can try with a paladin (I've never tried it, but I've heard of it) is after he's DoT'ed and feared, mana drain him. It's hard to get good armor that has a lot to both int and melee stats, so he probably has a pretty puny mana pool. If he's drained, he can't heal, and can't bubble. DPS him until he's dead.

He'll still be a tough fight, but at your level I had much more success with fear and DoT's than I ever did with my lousy burst DPS and seduce.

[Spoiler]

I'm specced SL/Nightfall at the moment and have been tossing around the idea of starting a duel with Void, fighting down to about 20% health, sac the Void, .5 cast another void, demonic sac for the health regen, and proceed with drain health and corruption, looking for nightfall to proc. I was playing around with the Demonic sac and found that I get 110health like every 2 seconds, with improved life drain I get like another 88 health per second with CoS, thats like 200+ health every 2 seconds! And with the original void sac I cant be interrupted. Now if I could only get NF to proc when I need it! Seems like it would work really good in a close fight, and surprise the crap outta someone too.

[Steamboat]

I duel the pallies in my guild a lot. Most of the time I think I'm going to lose and then at the last second when I think they're about to heal up and win, they are OOM.

Seduce / nuke x3 is a decent tactic, but without much +dmg I need to count on a crit to make it a for sure win.

Lately I've had more success using the felhunter. I just leave devour magic on auto-cast, so I'm not exactly sure what it's doing, but it may be eating their heals and possibly their bubble. I'll have to check on that.

That's the way it always goes when I use the felhunter...I'm not exactly sure what's happening but somehow I come out the winner. (except against warriors.)

[Hrungnir]

Yeah, felhunter's definitely the best pet against anything with mana, except for hunters.

As for warriors, they can be tough if they know how to fight a warlock. Luckily, many don't (or, in BG aren't prepared to be fighting a warlock). The most important thing is being able to outlast their berserker fear immunity. If you can get through that (ie, having a vw or succubus out, or being soul linked in general) you'll usually win. Just stay somewhat close to them when they're feared, or they'll intercept and stun you. You want to keep just out of melee range but too close for an intercept.

Death coil is definitely your friend here.

[Cylloch]

That actually brings up a question on my behalf.. for all you warrior main/alts out there, what is the intercept minimum range?

[Hrungnir]

My girlfriend says the range on intercept is 8-25 yards.