Viability of felguard spec in 2100+ matches

[mythrall]

Since season 1, I've been running with a 5/41/15 build, an emphasis on solid, sustained firepower coupled with moderate defense and good burst. With about 11k HP, 1080 shadow damage, 300+ resilience, and 30% crit, I can easily burn things down given a few seconds.

It seems though that every other lock is a 24/37, and fighting them in 2v2 really emphasizes my disadvantage when the guard gets banished, a significant portion of my spells are resisted, and their use of fears/draining simply defuses any burst dmg I have over the long term.

Question is, I'm hesitant to jump on the drain-tank bandwagon, especially since my partner is a priest, and can't sustain too much dmg over a period of time, which means I need to have strong and fast damage I can rely on. I also feel my build is more useful in larger battle settings where the pressure won't always be on me, allowing for cast-time spells.

Anyway, just wanted to hear some of your thoughts on the matter.

[Agnos]

Your reasoning makes sense, but I think a big weakness of the felguard is another warlock. I dislike the spec for a lot of reasons, but the only one I can realistically argue is that many games in all 3 brackets will require you (pretty much whenever you see another warlock) to switch out a felhunter in order to not be at a disadvantage. Against melee oriented teams, or teams with alot of healing, the felguard becomes more useful (as it's good consistent DPS, good for keeping targets in LoS, and is generally killer to cast times, if not always being up to challenge the mighty Spell Lock ability), but alot of warlocks play in high end arena, and having wasted points on a 41pt talent in those fights, you're already walking in with a strike against you.

That said, you CAN pull out a felhunter against those drain locks, and you're not necessarily losing: your gear is decent and if you can get casts off, or a shadowbolt crit for that matter, that's 20% more damage on your dots, which is a ton.

On a further note, 24/37 is great for outlasting, but specs like 17/33/11 and variants of the SL/Ruin spec are both fine for doing damage while keeping Soul Link in your build. You could also try stacking more resilience and hp on your gear and speccing Affliction - the damage output of shadowburn and UA is very consistent and very high, as opposed to the burst oriented SL build 17/33/11, which loses some of its constant damage in exchange for survivability - basically the midpoints of the gap between 24/37 and Destruction specs, imo.

[laydee]

I'm usually 23/38, but it's mainly for 2 v 2 (Where we did good with it for ages, until we stopped playing 2 v 2 and #1). But I stayed that build for 5 v 5, and I must say it works really nicely. You've got quite alot of damage, alot of debuff slots for fears. (33% chance of dispelling fear with corruption + fear with a paladin cleansing). For me anyway, I don't have to be a main dpser, as we have elemental shaman and a warrior doing crazy damage, I can fuck their healers / dps up with fears, cot etc depending on whats needed at the time. I would say unless you play in a 3 healer team then 23/38 or some other build completly owns felguard spec. Also I feel quite usless without spell lock :P

http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/830/finallll23442234tr0.jpg

[Soen]

Felguard spec is bad in general for 2 reasons and 2 reasons only.

- Susceptability to Banish from other lock teams (which are many). NO explanation needed, if they banish your FG, you lose. You COULD get a felhunter out but the other lock will have the advantage of fel concentration and siphon life. In most cases you will lose.

- No dot protection. Against pally or priest based teams your DPS will most likely be cut in half, or more if you cant apply your dots. Again assuming its 2v2 against a warrior pally teams, you will not be allowed to nuke due to warrior on you and your Immo and COrr will be cleansed. Doesn't really matter if your priest can mana burn, the pally will be out of LOS while the warrior destroys you. The FG won't be able to do shit vs plate, and you will lose. In addition, you also have the shaman/warrior teams which are desperately trying to abuse windfury while it lasts. They will also destroy a FG lock.

In short, FG spec is terrible for 2v2 and even 3v3. In 5v5 i would still say that UA > FG BUT the FG can act as a psychological barrier. In 5s most people will avoid the lock if they see a FG in there, and will most likely go after the mana burning priest or that ele shammy

[Harmann]

In 5s most people will avoid the lock if they see a FG in there, and will most likely go after the mana burning priest or that ele shammy

That's almost a bad thing for everyone but the Warlock. I'd much rather have an Elemental Shaman or a Priest free to do what they do than a Warlock. Especially since the Lock is easiest one to keep alive.

[Soen]

In 5s most people will avoid the lock if they see a FG in there, and will most likely go after the mana burning priest or that ele shammy

That's almost a bad thing for everyone but the Warlock. I'd much rather have an Elemental Shaman or a Priest free to do what they do than a Warlock. Especially since the Lock is easiest one to keep alive.

Pretty much yeah, even under fire, you can still cast 2 dots, as well as COTs, which is the reason why you are in that 5v5 in the first place. And you are still retaining 50% interruption when casting fear, which might be pummeled...but people save that pummel for UA. In addition, as you said, the lock is taking 20-25% more healing from all sources, so that MS aint that bad.

Pressure on that shaman on the other hand = bad, since the shaman is completely shut down.

[laydee]

People purge. Locks are no way the best target to be nuked as if the enemy is clever they will kill your pet aswell as you, and purge fel domination off and it's over.

[Amenti]

If they can purge Fel Dom off of you, than you aren't very good at using it. You should have a macro that does it for you and should only be up for the amount of time it takes for you to double click the macro (once for fel dom, second for your pet). And if they are trying to kill the pet, then that's awesome. That's one less player that's taking damage.

[laydee]

lol really. Curse of tongues + purge + fel hunter both dispelling warlock, gl on casting it, specialy if your warrior is ok at pummeling. And it's not just 1 person not taking damage, it's one person drinking to full mana.

[Hazzer]

Question is, I'm hesitant to jump on the drain-tank bandwagon, especially since my partner is a priest, and can't sustain too much dmg over a period of time, which means I need to have strong and fast damage I can rely on. I also feel my build is more useful in larger battle settings where the pressure won't always be on me, allowing for cast-time spells.

I'm not sure why you think that you need to have strong fast damage with a priest partner. Especially yours. Ways is much more geared than my holy/disc partner and we're at 2250 2v2 rating. I'm 43/7/11 and with priest partner most of our battles go more for outlasting than burst dps. We've even beat Minivan/Toxxic (#1 2v2) multiple times with this combo and he's spec's that flavor of the month drain-tank spec.

[mythrall]

Question is, I'm hesitant to jump on the drain-tank bandwagon, especially since my partner is a priest, and can't sustain too much dmg over a period of time, which means I need to have strong and fast damage I can rely on. I also feel my build is more useful in larger battle settings where the pressure won't always be on me, allowing for cast-time spells.

I'm not sure why you think that you need to have strong fast damage with a priest partner. Especially yours. Ways is much more geared than my holy/disc partner and we're at 2250 2v2 rating. I'm 43/7/11 and with priest partner most of our battles go more for outlasting than burst dps. We've even beat Minivan/Toxxic (#1 2v2) multiple times with this combo and he's spec's that flavor of the month drain-tank spec.

Well, try facing Mini when he has his shaman partner. Nigh impossible to crowd control thanks to totems and high resist. I'm happy you are finding success with your setup, we were at 2250 until Mini and several warrior/pally combos brought us down a few notches. These current drain-tank specs are such a nuisance.

[Soen]

Question is, I'm hesitant to jump on the drain-tank bandwagon, especially since my partner is a priest, and can't sustain too much dmg over a period of time, which means I need to have strong and fast damage I can rely on. I also feel my build is more useful in larger battle settings where the pressure won't always be on me, allowing for cast-time spells.

I'm not sure why you think that you need to have strong fast damage with a priest partner. Especially yours. Ways is much more geared than my holy/disc partner and we're at 2250 2v2 rating. I'm 43/7/11 and with priest partner most of our battles go more for outlasting than burst dps. We've even beat Minivan/Toxxic (#1 2v2) multiple times with this combo and he's spec's that flavor of the month drain-tank spec.

Well, try facing Mini when he has his shaman partner. Nigh impossible to crowd control thanks to totems and high resist. I'm happy you are finding success with your setup, we were at 2250 until Mini and several warrior/pally combos brought us down a few notches. These current drain-tank specs are such a nuisance.

Hint: Don't kill the Drain tank warlock first. Kill his little rogue or shaman partner

[kyoshi]

i have played mini and toxxic. we have beaten them like 1 time. i have also played ajnutsplay with mini. i ignore mini, put a few dots up, and just drain AJ's mana to nothing. LOS is funny when your against a shaman.
23/38 is not a flavor of the month spec. its effective, and very well thought out. you think its a drain-tank spec. but its not. i mean yea, you can drain, but its about survivability. and if i see a felgaurd, the first thing i do is put 4 dots on it, and its dead by the end of the 4th dot last tick. fel dom it? ok, ill do it again. 4k HP is funny when 1 of your dots does 2400 damage in 18 seconds. my team is at 2295 right now, i got to 2100 as UA spec(45/5/11). the spec i am is just better for arena. more spellpower, more damage mitigation.

o and i would rather see aj then toxxic lol...aj i can handle. they win alot because they destroy my healer in seconds, and i can't do crap about it.

[Soen]

Makes you wonder why every decent player left whats now known as retaliation after season one.

I hate repeating myself, a rogue = trash in 2s. i don't care how much of a hot shit he is (which toxxic isn't). He goes down just as fast, if not faster than most other classes.

The fact that the rogue gets an opener on you in 2s means that you are doing anything wrong.

You have something called curse of Ex for a reason, use it on the rogue while your healer is kiting. If the rogues gets on him use your Death coil. You have a spammable CC, use it on that silly gnome or the rogue when needed.

PS: The next time you talk to them tell them that Shizuka and Jordon say hi

[Hazzer]

Well, try facing Mini when he has his shaman partner. Nigh impossible to crowd control thanks to totems and high resist. I'm happy you are finding success with your setup, we were at 2250 until Mini and several warrior/pally combos brought us down a few notches. These current drain-tank specs are such a nuisance.

We've faced Mini and Tox/Ajnu or whatever, multiple times, for the most part we split games with them. They are very good players but they are beatable if you know how to, send me a tell in game and I'll tell you how to beat both combo's. Also you shouldn't ever be losing to warrior/pally combo's they should give you no issues.


P.S.

Ky - I'm actually the opposite I would rather see Toxxic, we don't lose many games with Toxxic in there, it's when Aj comes in that it gets difficult...well until we found a little trick to beating him.

[Forensic]

Plain and simple. A deep Felguard spec and not getting CoEX is not as good as the SL / SL spec. Felhunter > Felguard in almost all cases anyways.

[buena]

I didn't like felguard at all and won't be trying it again. It's added damage just isn't enough to make up for it's drawbacks, including:

- More vulnerable to cc
- Harder to keep alive
- Less useful spells

Also I'm glad someone else spoke up for dotting the felguard. Banish wtf? 12 seconds later it's back and at full health and has diminishing returns. Throw some dots on it and it dies.

[ahjus]

[quote=mythrall]


Ky - I'm actually the opposite I would rather see Toxxic, we don't lose many games with Toxxic in there, it's when Aj comes in that it gets difficult...well until we found a little trick to beating him.

We did too,

/target grounding totem
/cast moonfire (rank 1)

but we never see them :(

[Nitestrike]

Anybody know why the Europeans seem to like running the felguard/shadowburn spec so much?

I mean US and Eu both have Affliction locks, then US has 24/37/0 or 27/34/0 varients, while Eu has a ton of felguard/shadowburn.

I realize why the guys with solarian's trinket would run it (think how pissed the enemy would be when your felguard is resisting banish), but i'm not sure why so many others run it over the afflic/demo specs.

[Cantis]

Tried it...just dropped over 100 points in 2v2.