Yes, I'm bitching about soul link again. YES, cripes, yes... I just don't understand how Blizzard feels that doing as much damage as every other spec, but having 20% natural damage reduction at no cost is fair in any bracket of PvP. I know that destro is the spec for PvE, I get that. It makes sense, the crit specs are for PvE... fine.

Giving a spec 20% damage reduction clearly makes it viable for PvP, fine, but allowing that spec to also gain 2/3 of the damage viability as the Affliction spec makes me want to scream. "Yeah, you got the 20% damage reduction, here have the other 2 instant dots that Affliction specs get, Love Blizzard."

FUCK.

Okay, fine, I get it that currently we're not likely to beat sl/sl+healer on our lock+spriest team, fine. However, our warrior+druid team should be able to take that team on on a fairly regular basis. Warrior trumps warlock for damage, the only difference is that the lock can spread all his dps across both targets, whereas the warrior has to focus on the druid. Sometimes, if the other team plays well and makes the druid run from the warrior near the lock, they can time their ccs well and force me to burn lots of mana healing AND get hit by mana drain.

I just need to work on our placement against that team. I need to spread far enough that I can get a vantage on my warrior, and keep max range from the lock. Heals at full range, and cyclone's range beats fear's range, just need to keep from getting feared all the time. Additionally, I'll need more spell penetration against that team. The lock will have 70 arcane/nature resist, so roots and cyclone get resisted a lot... annoying.

Sigh, as soon as my rogue hits 70, he should have some good weapons and the rep for 3 of the blue PvP pieces, so he'll have some resilience if nothing else, and my brother's spriest will still have ~500 resilience and >800 spell damage... so that team should be able to take off. Against healer+sl/sl, the healer usually gets beat down by rogue. Rogue adds a degree of control to the fight that warlock simply cannot bring. Stuns > fears.

Also, crippling poison is amazing... people just don't realize that...

I can't decide whether I like vile poisons or improved poisons better... resistance to dispel affects is good, but being able to apply them better is also amazing...

BAH. I'll probably come back with this post later... when I'm less angry.

EDIT:

Okay, I'm back. I went and read up on the current best strats against sl+sl / healer. Against druid or pally, we're supposed to kill the felhunter first. This should be simpler now that my warrior has a better weapon, with Thunder it was completely out of the question... and we tried... a bunch of times. Sadly, a warrior just can't drop a felhunter with full s2 gear and Thunder... it's just not gunna happen against a healer who doesn't suck or a warlock who realizes that his pet is dying.

OKAY, so we kill the pet, then the lock isnta-summons him back (or the voidwalker if he's smart). If he summons the voidwalker, I can finally use rejuv on myself, which is better and easier than lifebloomX3 when you're trying to keep a warrior up. If it's the felhunter, we just do it again. NOW, when the pet is dead twice, we can focus on the lock without soul link or master demonologist or demonic knowledge. These abilities are key for locks with healers, otherwise they just die... quickly... even with heals.

If the lock pops out the voidwalker, we just switch to the healer because void walkers will take 30 minutes to take down and are easily healed, we can't focus the lock because he'll have 30% damage reduction AND armor... such garbage. However, as I said, voidwalkers don't do much damage, don't dispel, and don't spell lock. So, I'm free to use regrowth if needed, don't have to worry about cyclone getting spell locked, can use regrowth on myself, etc. Very good stuff for us... even though the loc still does stupid amount of damage and take none. Essentially, I'll just be rooting and cycloning the lock at this point, and insect swarm'ing the void walker to try and down him in the mean time.

Also, voidwalker won't have the stupidily high resists that the felhunter will have... okay, I wrote a whole strat out and then went back and deleted it, then wrote out a whole new plan, then deleted that... sigh, we'll cyclone the voidwalker and beatdown the lock to 50% or so prolly (before cyclone DR is immune), then I'll switch to cycloning the lock, and have my warrior switch to the healer until the lock is immune, then switch back (because it's been > 20 seconds) to the pet and kill the lock.

Can't do this against felhunter... just gotta kill it again.

Once all the pets are dead, need to stay on the lock and save pummel for trying to raise the pet. Against a druid+lock this will be hard, because the lock can summon while my warrior is cycloned/rooted. So, I have to save my cyclones for when my warrior is cycloned. The lock starts summoning his pet again, I have to cyclone him until my warrior can get back in range.