Warlock PvP Spec: Drain Tank

Drain tanking is not that popular now. I mean it really should be for arena, because I believe that as more and more players are getting better resil, we have bigger problems when it comes to getting the crits needed for a viable destro spec.

Here is a look at my current PvP spec, Drain Tank.

This features solid glyphs:

Glyphs

Glyph of Shadowflame (Major Glyph)
Your Shadowflame also applies a 70% movement speed slow on its victims.

Glyph of Siphon Life (Major Glyph)
Increases the healing you receive from your Siphon Life talent by 25%.

Glyph of Fear (Major Glyph)
Increases the damage your Fear target can take before the Fear effect is removed by 20%.

Glyph of Kilrogg (Minor Glyph)
Increases the movement speed of your Eye of Kilrogg by 50% and allows it to fly in areas where flying mounts are enabled.

Glyph of Curse of Exhaustion (Minor Glyph)
Increases the range of your Curse of Exhaustion spell by 5 yards.

Glyph of Unending Breath (Minor Glyph)
Increases the swim speed of targets affected by your Unending Breath spell by 20%.

Level 80 Warlock (27/36/8)

Affliction (27 points)

Improved Curse of Agony - Rank 2/2
Increases the damage done by your Curse of Agony by 10%.

There are times when you gotta push dps harder than normal, so you will want to dot up players with corruption and agony, while you kite them.

Suppression - Rank 1/3
Increases your chance to hit with spells by 1%, and reduces the mana cost of your Affliction spells by 2%.

Improved Corruption - Rank 5/5
Increases the damage done by your Corruption by 10%, and increases the critical strike chance of your Seed of Corruption by 5%.

Improved Life Tap - Rank 2/2
Increases the amount of Mana awarded by your Life Tap spell by 20%.

Soul Siphon - Rank 2/2
Increases the amount drained by your Drain Life and Drain Soul spells by an additional 6% for each of your Affliction effects on the target, up to a maximum of 18% additional effect.

Improved Fear - Rank 2/2
Causes your Fear spell to inflict a Nightmare on the target when the fear effect ends. The Nightmare effect reduces the target's movement speed by 30% for 5 sec.

Fel Concentration - Rank 3/3
Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Drain Life, Drain Mana, Drain Soul, Unstable Affliction, and Haunt spells by 70%.

Grim Reach - Rank 2/2
Increases the range of your Affliction spells by 20%.

Nightfall - Rank 2/2
Gives your Corruption and Drain Life spells a 4% chance to cause you to enter a Shadow Trance state after damaging the opponent. The Shadow Trance state reduces the casting time of your next Shadow Bolt spell by 100%.

Empowered Corruption - Rank 3/3
Increases the damage of your Corruption spell by an amount equal to 36% of your spell power.

Siphon Life - Rank 1/1
When you deal damage with your Corruption spell, you are instantly healed for 40% of the damage done. In addition, the damage done by your Corruption, Seed of Corruption and Unstable Affliction damage over time effects is increased by 5%.

Shadow Mastery - Rank 2/5
Increases the damage dealt or life drained by your Shadow spells by 6%.

Demonology (36 points)

Improved Healthstone - Rank 2/2
Increases the amount of Health restored by your Healthstone by 20%.

Demonic Embrace - Rank 3/3
Increases your total Stamina by 10%.

Fel Synergy - Rank 2/2
You have a 100% chance to heal your pet for 15% of the amount of spell damage done by you.

Fel Vitality - Rank 3/3
Increases the Stamina and Intellect of your Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus, Felhunter and Felguard by 15% and increases your maximum health and mana by 3%.

Soul Link - Rank 1/1
When active, 20% of all damage taken by the caster is taken by your Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus, Felhunter, Felguard, or enslaved demon instead. That damage cannot be prevented. Lasts as long as the demon is active and controlled.

Fel Domination - Rank 1/1
Your next Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus, Felhunter or Felguard Summon spell has its casting time reduced by 5.5 sec and its Mana cost reduced by 50%.

Demonic Aegis - Rank 3/3
Increases the effectiveness of your Demon Armor and Fel Armor spells by 30%.

Unholy Power - Rank 5/5
Increases the damage done by your Voidwalker, Succubus, Felhunter and Felguard's melee attacks and your Imp's Firebolt by 20%.

Master Summoner - Rank 2/2
Reduces the casting time of your Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus, Felhunter and Fel Guard Summoning spells by 4 sec and the Mana cost by 40%.

Mana Feed - Rank 1/1
When you gain mana from Drain Mana or Life Tap spells, your summoned demon gains 100% of the mana you gain.

Master Conjuror - Rank 2/2
Increases the combat ratings gained from your conjured Firestone and Spellstone by 300%.

Master Demonologist - Rank 5/5
Grants both the Warlock and the summoned demon an effect as long as that demon is active.

Imp - Increases your Fire damage by 5%, and increases the critical effect chance of your Fire spells by 5%.

Voidwalker - Reduces Physical damage taken by 10%.

Succubus - Increases your Shadow damage by 5%, and increases the critical effect chance of your Shadow spells by 5%.

Felhunter - Reduces all spell damage taken by 10%.

Felguard - Increases all damage done by 5%, and reduces all damage taken by 5%.

Demonic Resilience - Rank 3/3
Reduces the chance you'll be critically hit by melee and spells by 3% and reduces all damage your summoned demon takes by 15%.

Demonic Knowledge - Rank 3/3
Increases your spell damage by an amount equal to 12% of the total of your active demon's Stamina plus Intellect.

Destruction (8 points)

Improved Shadow Bolt - Rank 5/5
Increases the damage done by your Shadow Bolt spell by 5%, and your Shadow Bolt causes your target to be vulnerable to spell damage, increasing spell critical strike chance against that target by 5%. Effect lasts 30 sec.

Molten Skin - Rank 3/3
Reduces all damage taken by 6%.

Thoughts:

Damage Reduction:
The key talents here are the damage reduction ones. Molten Skin is a no-brainer. Look at a crit buff as anti-resil. 5% lower resil is good in pvp. Not necessary though because the only shadowbolts you'll cast are instant ones.

Demonic Resil is key. Siphon Life with the glyph can keep you up.

Master Demonologist: Felhunter: Reduces all spell damage taken by 10%.

Kiting:
Kiting is survival in arena and BGs. Basically we have so many options now we are essentially mages in pvp. We have shadowflame which crushes the enemy for 70% movement loss. Also, with Exhaustion applied, this stacks to 100%.

If you're up against a pally who knows where his Blessing of Freedom key is, you are not really able to kite. So make use of your teleporter. Drop the teleporter, get line of site, hold line of site until you just lose it then teleport away to increase distance from attackers.

Fear here applies a kind of curse of exhaustion. I don't have info on the stacking capability of Curse of Exhaustion and Nightmare, but my guess is they probably stack.

Curse of Exhaustion glyph allows you to put even more distance between you and your BoF free enemies. :)

All in all this is a really fun spec, that will keep any warlock over 700 resil in good standing in arena and BGs.

There are some really funny moments when you shadowflame, fear and teleport away drain, fear, deathcoil, dot dot dot dot dot, kite... etc.

This one time, in AB, I was able to kite about 12 attackers and save the Lumber Mill from the evil clutches of the Alliance! LOL /rp