Hi guys, I'm taking a break from WoW so I thought I'd take a leaf out of Kinkaide's book and write a quick guide on most of the classes in the bracket and little tips and tricks I've learned from playing them. I think there will be things in here that even veteran players might not know, but if not, sorry! I'll go class by class and then finish with random thoughts/tips/tricks.
This might be a while in completion so please hold off on comments for a bit.
Warlock
In Battlegrounds, if the other team has rogues, you should almost always be running with succubus out. The reason is because with the voidwalker pet you will force a trinket with the disarm, but you have no guaranteed follow-up to it since a good rogue will kick your fear. A succubus allows you to control the defensive CC by seducing, re-seducing the trinket into a summon voidwalker for a disarm. If the rogue does not trinket the first seduce, cast the summon voidwalker and stop the cast if you see a trinket (avoid kick); if not, then you're casting a fear into the seduce and only disarming if the rogue is a) on you or b) trinkets. Remember how I said the disarm WILL get a trinket? Remember that. In an arena match or if you have a teammate with you on Skype, forcing a trinket might be all you need to do.
Don't just spam combustion whenever it is up. I see so many warlocks do this. Either a) wait til you have two up and use it to burst someone down or b) use it for the slow and peel your teammates or yourself. You're not doing much more damage with a random combustion thrown into incinerate spam.
If you're a goblin warlock spec'd into Demonology, practice using your goblin jump in conjunction with your Demonic Leap to get higher and further. Your goal is to abuse z-axis (diagonal, so up and over) where your opponent can't get to you. For example, if you are at the bottom of the Blade's Edge Arena map you can demonic leap from the bottom floor, and goblin jump to either ramp (depending on how you position it). For those of you that don't do arenas, that's the equivalent bottom of Horde tunnel to the bottom tier of "top of tunnel." Both are examples of "z-axis" play that immediately moves you out of danger and gives you superior positioning (use it to get to healers pillaring out of LoS for example).
Get used to faking with instants. That means that your /stopcasting macro needs to be something like this;
/stopcasting
/cast Corruption
The reason for this is because you don't want to waste your globals. If you spend 5 seconds just faking incinerates or fears you're doing absolutely nothing for five minutes while your opponent is ... well... killing you.
A great way to fake shadow or fire is to immediately cast a spell of the opposite type after a fake. For example, start casting a fear, fake the cast, and immediately start casting incinerate. Most players who didn't eat the fake will try to pre-kick the next fear or react immediately to the next spell because they assume it is another fear (since most players fake with the same cast). The disadvantage here is that a bad rogue that misses the kick (in other words you did juke him) will land his kick on your opposite school which is still a lockout (so you can't immolate, incinerate or combustion the landed fear OR you can't fear the immolate, combustion etc.). In my mind, if you're really good at juking, don't bother, if you're not, this can help you get the timing.
Speaking of fake casting, ALTERNATE your juke. Do not always juke right at the start or wait til the end. Good players will remember where you juke if you're also very good (which is the goal right?). You'll notice when watching a long-time arena player like Wizkidone, if he plays against his teammates (meaning one of his usual teammates is healing his opponents or DPS or whatever) he knows what they are going to do and usually tries to counter their playstyle.
Do you wonder why some warlocks top hunters in damage, and others with the same gear... don't? There's one of two reasons; a) one warlock is playing defensively but in constant pressure positions or b) one lock is multi-dotting and the other is not. Damage doesn't matter in some cases, true, but that's how it works if you want to top those meters. B) is pretty self-explanatory, A) simply means, stay near your healers. Warlocks that are good sometimes get big egos and try to 1v3 in mid and get wrecked. Sure they do some damage before they die, but they spend their time kiting, not doing damage.
This might be a while in completion so please hold off on comments for a bit.
Warlock
In Battlegrounds, if the other team has rogues, you should almost always be running with succubus out. The reason is because with the voidwalker pet you will force a trinket with the disarm, but you have no guaranteed follow-up to it since a good rogue will kick your fear. A succubus allows you to control the defensive CC by seducing, re-seducing the trinket into a summon voidwalker for a disarm. If the rogue does not trinket the first seduce, cast the summon voidwalker and stop the cast if you see a trinket (avoid kick); if not, then you're casting a fear into the seduce and only disarming if the rogue is a) on you or b) trinkets. Remember how I said the disarm WILL get a trinket? Remember that. In an arena match or if you have a teammate with you on Skype, forcing a trinket might be all you need to do.
Don't just spam combustion whenever it is up. I see so many warlocks do this. Either a) wait til you have two up and use it to burst someone down or b) use it for the slow and peel your teammates or yourself. You're not doing much more damage with a random combustion thrown into incinerate spam.
If you're a goblin warlock spec'd into Demonology, practice using your goblin jump in conjunction with your Demonic Leap to get higher and further. Your goal is to abuse z-axis (diagonal, so up and over) where your opponent can't get to you. For example, if you are at the bottom of the Blade's Edge Arena map you can demonic leap from the bottom floor, and goblin jump to either ramp (depending on how you position it). For those of you that don't do arenas, that's the equivalent bottom of Horde tunnel to the bottom tier of "top of tunnel." Both are examples of "z-axis" play that immediately moves you out of danger and gives you superior positioning (use it to get to healers pillaring out of LoS for example).
Get used to faking with instants. That means that your /stopcasting macro needs to be something like this;
/stopcasting
/cast Corruption
The reason for this is because you don't want to waste your globals. If you spend 5 seconds just faking incinerates or fears you're doing absolutely nothing for five minutes while your opponent is ... well... killing you.
A great way to fake shadow or fire is to immediately cast a spell of the opposite type after a fake. For example, start casting a fear, fake the cast, and immediately start casting incinerate. Most players who didn't eat the fake will try to pre-kick the next fear or react immediately to the next spell because they assume it is another fear (since most players fake with the same cast). The disadvantage here is that a bad rogue that misses the kick (in other words you did juke him) will land his kick on your opposite school which is still a lockout (so you can't immolate, incinerate or combustion the landed fear OR you can't fear the immolate, combustion etc.). In my mind, if you're really good at juking, don't bother, if you're not, this can help you get the timing.
Speaking of fake casting, ALTERNATE your juke. Do not always juke right at the start or wait til the end. Good players will remember where you juke if you're also very good (which is the goal right?). You'll notice when watching a long-time arena player like Wizkidone, if he plays against his teammates (meaning one of his usual teammates is healing his opponents or DPS or whatever) he knows what they are going to do and usually tries to counter their playstyle.
Do you wonder why some warlocks top hunters in damage, and others with the same gear... don't? There's one of two reasons; a) one warlock is playing defensively but in constant pressure positions or b) one lock is multi-dotting and the other is not. Damage doesn't matter in some cases, true, but that's how it works if you want to top those meters. B) is pretty self-explanatory, A) simply means, stay near your healers. Warlocks that are good sometimes get big egos and try to 1v3 in mid and get wrecked. Sure they do some damage before they die, but they spend their time kiting, not doing damage.
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a lot of it is outdated but still relevant
