Warlocks: From Worst to First

I remember a while back I did an interview in early season three for SK Gaming and one of the questions was "Warlocks... any Opinion?" to which I answered by starting with "Overpowered as hell." Oh how that statement bleeds of irony today.

While this held true for a time, this statement as often used as a point of ridicule as warlocks had become a seemingly weak class in every bracket and the number of them that you saw sharply declined in favor of the new trend of melee-centric comps. Many warlocks felt that they had become worthless in both 3v3 and 5v5 due to the rise in cleave comps and notably, the rise in armor penetration on melee gear. Warlocks went from being one of the most popular and powerful classes in season two, to one of the least represented in season three, and seems to have come full circle in season four with the most recent North American Blizzard tournament being absolutely dominated by WLD (Warrior/lock/druid). Having said that, I'm going to bring up a few points of discussion of this 3v3 comp in particular and the class in general with regards to arena today.

Fel Armor, Fel Armor, Fel Armor
We all know about the change, but is it really the entire reason of the sudden surge in warlock comps making a comeback? Let's take, for example, warrior/lock/druid vs. warrior/rogue/druid. Granted, I haven't played this cleave variation in a while, but when I did, almost anyone would agree that anything with a warlock on it was a free win. Now, however, it is almost quite the opposite with the matchup favoring the warlock team. Considering the cleave team could never dispel Fel Armor to begin with, what else is at fault here? Well, there's basically a couple main things that people tend to forget:

-Armor Penetration. ArP has not increased much since it's implementation. When initially implemented during season three, it was a very powerful stat, especially when stacked. A melee player could easily get most casters down to zero armor with an executioner proc, let alone when sunder or expose armor is active. Blizzard saw this and left all ArP values where they were when season four began. Armor Penetration remained the same, but everyone's armor and other stats had increased. Although I disagree with people that tend to put a large amount of emphasis on Armor Penetration, as I feel the value of the stat is often highly overrated, it can't be denied that melee have taken a noticeable slip in this fourth season of arena for seemingly this very reason.

-Warglaives became less retarded. During season three and (god forbid you played against them back then) even in season two, Warglaives of Azzinoth were ridiculous leaps and bounds ahead of the competition in terms of offensive power for a rogue. Completing a Warglaive set for any rogue easily meant skyrocketing out of the clutches of the 1600 bracket into being a 2000+ superstar instantly. I wonder why. Now that season four is here and the weapons are almost comparable to Warglaives, but the armor is now the same item level as well, casters have a good deal more survivability against not only warglaives but melee in general. Fortunately, this means that teams will actually start playing with rogues because of their skill moreso than their weapons. I mean honestly, of all you warglaive rogues out there, how many of you actually thought people wanted to play with you because you were good at this game? Let's be serious.

What Counters Warrior/Lock/Druid (WLD)?
Considering this very comp has began spreading like wildfire in popularity in the 3v3 bracket, many people often ask me what true WLD counters are out there. While the answer to this question differs whether it is being asked with regards to the current season of arena or TR (season two gear), there are some comps that have the advantage no matter what.

-The "Nihilum comp" (hunter/priest/druid): Fortunately for the WLD teams out there, no one could play this comp anywhere close to the level that the old Nihilum team of Cherez, Beasteh, and Hydra did. When I spoke to Hoodrych after his GotGame East team had lost 0-3 to Nihilum's team at MLG San Diego, he basically said, "That fight is so retarded. There's absolutely nothing I can do." While on paper, a "drain" team such as Nihilum's is seemingly countered by WLD in that they shouldn't have a viable target to "drain," Nihilum used the unorthodox strategy of mana burning and viper stinging the warlock to force pressure that way instead of relying on doing it to the other team's druid. I think the real question is will we ever see this team playing on LAN again together?

-The "SK comp" (rogue/enhancement shaman/druid): I'm not exaggerating when I say that our team, when we ran it, had over a 90% win ratio against every WLD team out there, including but not limited to Hafu's, Spoh's, Greenranger's, Thorrior's, etc etc. Why no one else could mimic our success was very obvious: it was all in strategy. When our strategy entirely revolved around sapping the warlock, double opening on the pet with a pre-med cheap shot expose armor, and immediately blinding the warrior, that immediately forces not only a Fel Domination that has a good chance of being locked out and subsequently purged, but it also forces a trinket from the warrior, basically eliminating the possibility of him ever switching to and killing the druid, because a warrior should never really be able to pressure a druid without a PvP trinket. Even if the warlock can manage to Fel Dom a voidwalker, this also forces the WLD into not having a magic dispel any longer and the warrior should be easily CC'd for 90% of the game by the druid, sitting in full duration CC effects the entire remainder of the game. Pandemic for whatever reason did not understand this when they ran the comp at Orlando trying to counter WLD, just like many others still don't. Despite the change in Fel Armor, I still feel that this comp, when played properly, should be able to absolutely destroy WLD. Feel free to prove me wrong.

-Mutilate RLD (rogue/lock/druid): Although I feel this is less of a "hard counter" than the others, it should still be mentioned. I think that this comp allows a poison mutilate rogue team to either go on the warrior or the warlock effectively and apply equal if not more pressure than the warrior variant. Mutilate hero Boozt from Stormscale EU server currently runs this comp with great success and had this to say about the comp in general:

"Ive played RLD this season at rank 1 as mutilate on Cyclone EU. The better teams can abuse your bad mobility and you are very vulnerable to switches (vs us a warrior team can go on whatever target he wants, which makes switches hard for even a druid to handle). Although, if you let the rogue call the shots and build the play style around him its a sick spec to use and imo more powerful than shadowstep in specific setups."

Other than these three mentioned, what else do people think is a heavy counter to WLD? I know many people think certain hunter variants counter it (such as druid/mage/hunter) but has anyone else had experience with another comp (especially in S2 gear on the TR) that has had great success against the WLD juggernaut? I've heard that Hamchook's old ret paladin/hunter/druid team did originally but dodged many teams, and when finally forced to play 200 games for the requirement to qualify, they tanked hard. So what else is out there to counter it?

 

EU vs. US: Who's Behind the Times?
While we all know that the dominant comps of today are mostly WLD and WPD in the US in season four gear, the question begs to be asked: what makes EU different? Just by looking here at the Cyclone EU 3v3 bracket ladder, I think there are less WLD's than I can count on one hand. Granted, the top ranked team runs WLD but there are several different flavors of comps at the top, when in contrast, if you look at Bloodlust US 3v3 bracket ladder here, you can easily see the definitive trend of WLD teams dominating. So, who exactly is behind the times? Has EU discovered something that US players haven't in how to counter WLD, or has no one in EU besides Nihilum Plasma learned how to play the comp to its fullest potential? I'll be the first to admit that I'm not always up to speed on what's happening over there on Cyclone, so if you play there, please give your input on this.

On a final note, congratulations to Glick, Hafu, and Rhaegyn of team Fnatic for their victory in Boston. Well deserved.

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