Let's talk ArenaFollow

So yesterday I did something I hadn't done in a while - I spent my friday night playing WoW. That's what a double shift and your wife being out of town does to you :P.

But hey, it allowed me to break the ever so annoying 1.9k mark on my 2v2, and I joined a Warlock friend's 3v3 (with my 2v2 partner) and we took it from 1622 to 1818.

As with everything Arena, class matrix is important as hell. A lot of the earlier problem with rogues in arena was that people used them like Warriors. But rogue/pld is infinitly weaker then warrior/pld.

Last season, I was with a hunter for 2v2 (all time high of 1910) and added a paladin for 3v3 (1860). The trinket change really screwd us over and made the class combo unworkable (S2 we had a hard time even hanging on to 1600!). :(

Luckily, my Hunter friend also had a pve priest (geared in kara/gruul stuff). It took much convincing on my part (and much kicking and screaming on his) but I eventually convinced to take his priest to the Arena.

And what a difference that made. I recommend to every Rogue to find a good priest partner for arena (especially one with Fear Ward!) - it just works and it's very strong matrix. Add a warlock (like us) or a mage for 3v3, and you're a very solid group that has a counter for just about everything.

Now that the preface is done with, here's the meat of the topic: They are a few class matrix who really, really owned us. And I'm posting here for some advice on how to handle them.

2v2 (Combat Mace Rogue + Holy Priest) vs...

Warlock/Druid

Especially deadly when combined with a drain spec lock (23/33 ish). The lock just CoX me and start draining the priest's mana. The druid spam roots/hurrican on me. Whatever damage I can get when I finally make contact with the lock is easily negated by the Druid's HoT and Warlock's Drain Life. Once my priest is out of mana, it's GG.

Warrior/Druid

Not a fun one either. Trying to get to the druid is pointless with a warrior intercepting and hamstringing you. It become a mana fight between the druid and priest, one that the priest usually lose.

Rogue/Druid

The lesser of the 3 combo and the one we usually beat, but they do give us a hard time. We usually win them because I 'out-rogue' the other guy.

So obviously, the problem are Druids.

A highly mobile class that doesn't need to stand still to heal. They can easily abuse LoS to escape Mana burn. Innervate and the fact that they are more mana-efficient then a pvp holy priest (pvp holy priest lose a lot of effiency talents for survival abilities, which is something pld/sha/druid don't need to do - a healing spec is a healing spec for both pve and pvp for them) further help them in the mana race.

Going on the druid is not usually an option. A lot of them will just go Bear, and some will Cheetah and try to run away.

Now the one that refuse to go bear can be killed if they have a rogue partner - for the most part, I can stay on a druid if his partner isn't helping him, and as we all know Rogue are pretty bad at catching up to stuff, so they usually end up doing a really crappy job of trying to stop me. Warriors will just intercept/hamstring and Warlocks will fear me off the druid.

All in all, I miss S1 where a druid in 2v2 was a rare sight... they're all over now.

So how do you beat those guys?


3v3 (Combat Mace Rogue + Afflication Warlock + Holy Priest) vs ...

Anything with a Resto Shaman

Holy crap. And those guys complain about being useless in Arena? Any team with a shaman gives us 10 time more trouble then any other team. In fact, a combination of pld/war/sha & lock/war/sha that we kept running into last night (and losing too 1-3 and 1-2 respectively) is what made us decide to call it quit at 1818 (got to 1864 before we started running into them).

The shaman's purge and earthshock stop the priest from doing anything and since even Blessed Resilience is a magic effect, it can be purged. So essentially, throw in a few purge on the priest, have the dps target him... and he dies in like 6 seconds. And from there it's just clean up.

The war/sha/pld especially is deadly. Both healers are highly resilient. Both can heal each other. The warrior is all but impossible to bring down with 2 healers on him, especially with Heroism and with a shaman (tremor totem, poison cleansing) and paladin (cleanse, bof) he's unstopable as well and with Heroism/Windfury, he just kill our purged priests too fast.

Still scratching my head on a reliable way to beat those 2 setup.






Edited, Aug 18th 2007 12:39:32pm by Tyrandor

That's actually pretty clever. I hate people who abuse the room in UC, but heck, I hate losing more, so I guess I might just join the club.



That's usually the problem. Even if I can reach the druid (And quite a few warrior just get off the priest, intercept/hamstring me, and go back on the priest - making reaching the druid all but impossible), burning down a bear druid has a rogue takes more time then burning down a priest for a warrior.

I usually end up trying to stun and lock down the warrior... who in turn tries to kill me because he can't reach the priest with me on him... which force the druid to heal him, which give a chance for my priest to mana burn. But he needs to heal me/mana burn while the druid is spamming much more efficient heals and has innervate to combat mana burn.



While all my instinct tell me going for the kill on the bear druid first is a bad idea, it might be the only way. A druid who's being melee'd won't spam cyclone/roots/heals. The problem then, become the warlock's fear spamming abilities - this is one of the rare occassion I wish my partner was shadow, silence and faster fear would help counter this.

But yeah, focusing on the warlock and letting the druid run around hasn't been working, so mixing it up can't be worse.



It's not that easy... if the priest is 'kiting' the unkitable warrior away, he's taken himself out of dispel range. So the Shaman can then put Earth Shield on the paly (or the paly can BoF the shaman.

You ever tried to dps down a plate class with 10k hk, 14k armor, 300+ resi and Earth Shield who's getting healed by a shaman? :P It's just so much defensive abilities eat through. The shaman's totem makes wound poison stack extremely slow too.

And in the end, we're trying to burn that down while our squishy priest is being manhandled by a warrior... who do you think will die first? :(

Now if we can make him bubble before our Priest die, a .5 second mass dispel will take care of that bubble and we can finish the job... but I don't know that this is realisticaly feasible.

We've had me try to lock the Warrior down, which isn't that easy with all the anti-snare this team has, and the Warlock alone can't do enough damage to kill something. Curse of Tongue slow their casting down, but Heroism puts it right back up and the priest die before it runs out. Fights aren't long enough for mana burn to really come into play.

The one time we beat them was because they did a HUGE mistake, and even then it ended up being a 1v1 thing (me vs the pld, I won :P).

druids gave onion and i the most problem in 2v2 last night. i had a long conversation with a druid from mal'ganis (brahz) who we played a few matches against (he ran druid/lock), and learned a lot from it.

for druid/war i would just suggest to stay on the warrior. you burn the warrior as much as you can and keep him off your priest as best as you can. yes, the druid will cyclone, but that will open for the mana burn which will help. the crux of all this is dispel. a dispelled druid cant rely on innervate if your priest is quick, and if your priest is dispel happy then the only reliable heals are going to be HT and lifebloom. its not a sure-fire way to win, especially with the druid cycling cyclones like he should, but its probably your best bet. do your best to get the warrior down and when he starts to get vulnerable and the druid shifts out, fear the druid then MC him after the trinket while you blow your wad on the warrior.

incidentally, talking with that druid i learned the #1 spot for 2v2 in our BG group is a hunter/priest combo. the druid specifically mentioned that the priest was great at knowing "when to mana burn and MC".

for druid/lock i cant really say. more dispel of course, with you focusing on the warlock as much as possible while chiel mana burns the lock. yes, he can life tap, but again, dispel plays the key here. he can life tap and get mana back, then get his HoT's dispelled (forcing the druid to rely on HT or lifebloom spam....and if the druid makes himself vulnerable obviously try for the burn), or just not tap at all. self-dispel helps a lot too, but every lock ive come up against is UA-specced, so if you cant keep UA off via interrupts or stuns then life is going to be harder. i would do the same essential thing as the druid/war combo and try to get the lock in a bad spot then spring a fear/MC combo on the druid, maybe with a blind tossed in as well (after a dispel to ensure abolish poison isnt on tho).

ultimately with druids thats the best i can come up with. lull the druid into a situation where they think they can cyclone/heal freely, then change things up on em. overwhelm the player more than the class really, give the guy behind the toon so much to do that his chances of ******** up are greater.

druids are a *****. i always knew that druids would be the most powerful arena class when done right, and it seems more druids are up to the task for this season, especially in 2v2.

The problem is that the Warlock can also drain mana. So Sife ends up Mana Burning himself in a way. It's worth a try for sure, but I don't think it'll do that much.



Can't say i know about those forums?