Hello everyone!
Well as my mage progression is going nice and steady my co-workers and I started thinking of different combinations we can play in Arenas. But due to lack of arena experiance we can not come up with snything solid. Could you tell me any examples for 2v2 3v3 and 5v5 setups with following classes:
Magex2, Hunterx2, Warlock, Warrior, Shaman and a Druid?
Also could you express your thoughts on:
Mage/Warrior
Mage/Warrior/Lock
Mage/Warrior/Shaman/Lock/Hunter
Mage/Mage (both Ice)
Mage/Lock
Thank you for your assistance!
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Mage 2v2 3v3 and 5v5 in arena?Follow
Playing PvP is very sophisticated.
Playing group PvP is even more sophisticated.
Trying to plan a group PvP encounter and optimise all group member abilities is a job for NSA's supercomputers.
Anyway, at least provide a level at which you are and what spec as it does matter a lot. It is also important what specs are the Shammy and Druid. Feral and Resto druids are toons nearly as far away as warrior and priest are.
Playing group PvP is even more sophisticated.
Trying to plan a group PvP encounter and optimise all group member abilities is a job for NSA's supercomputers.
Anyway, at least provide a level at which you are and what spec as it does matter a lot. It is also important what specs are the Shammy and Druid. Feral and Resto druids are toons nearly as far away as warrior and priest are.
XanNerull wrote:
Anyway, at least provide a level at which you are
I believe the mention of arena kind of limits the question to a known environment...
Mages in general are ill-suited for 2v2 and 3v3, at least based upon their presence in the top 100 teams in these brackets. The overwhelming majority are frost builds, for that matter.
In 2v2, there isn't any optimal combination simply because mages are just too frail. I play as a pallie with a lock, no matter the combination, when we have a mage in the opposing team, we know it's free points for us, and I doubt the outcome would be any different if I were paired up with any other class, safe, perhaps, a warrior.
I have no practical experience of 3v3 myself but chances are that the under-representation of mages stem roughly from the same reasons.
In 5v5 however, mages play a tremendous role especially when paired with another CC class, in particuliar a warlock, as alternating CC between enemy healers can pretty much shutdown most healing done by the opposing team (switch targets around between both CCs to exchange diminishing returns). Shamans are prominently present in top 5v5 teams as second healer. Warriors are the key in-your-face smackdown component, add in a pallie as the other healer and you have a solid team mixing two healers, two CCs, two DPS functions (the lock and the warrior, not really the mage).
That's it in a nutshell. Take it all with a grain of salt or three, since my personal arena experience is far from the pro side of things, sitting at the 1600s rating (but slowly climbing every week), which means I'm talking out of reports I've read and statistics I have collected. The real pro arena players will have a lot better things to say, I venture.
Thank you for your detailed post!
However it is kind of discouraging to hear that mages do not perform well in 2v2 and 3v3 (which I was looking forward to). Any idea if this is a subject to change in the future?
However it is kind of discouraging to hear that mages do not perform well in 2v2 and 3v3 (which I was looking forward to). Any idea if this is a subject to change in the future?
alastaironsiren, my post wasn't really about getting info from the author. It was more of a hidden 'bump' ;]
You got provoked to answer, everyone is happy.
pwnd.
;D
You got provoked to answer, everyone is happy.
pwnd.
;D
XanNerull wrote:
You got provoked to answer, everyone is happy.
pwnd.
;D
*cough* Happiness is bound to come to an end fast when a 1800+ rating mage spots my post and starts tearing it apart...
XodoK wrote:
Thank you for your detailed post!
However it is kind of discouraging to hear that mages do not perform well in 2v2 and 3v3 (which I was looking forward to). Any idea if this is a subject to change in the future?
However it is kind of discouraging to hear that mages do not perform well in 2v2 and 3v3 (which I was looking forward to). Any idea if this is a subject to change in the future?
Quite frankly, I somehow doubt it. The issue stems from, in my opinion, two core design elements which are deeply interwoven with what the WoW mage is, the first one being the notion of "glass cannon", capable of producing a world of hurt in a series of quick bursts (but this part needs a lot of work currently) at the cost of survivability, the second one the sheer amount of pvp CC and snares a mage, in particuliar frost specs, bring to arena.
So in 2v2 specifically, when you only have two targets, it's a matter of chosing which one to down first. In general, that would be the healer, but if instead of that you face a class which has the potential to completely wreck a game and suppress your own healing yet only wears one or two wet sheets of paper in terms of armor, the mage invariably goes down first. The paper armour is usually enough to ensure you can bring him down faster than whatever healer the mage has can recover.
In 5v5, though, CC will tend to focus on suppressing enemy healing first, and DPS will focus-fire on the biggest threat in terms of damage potential. Arena mages being CC before they are DPS, they are usually lower on the kill order, can benefit from more teammates to cover their ***** and thus are left with more freedom of action.
So to fix the small bracket weaknesses and increase survivability, in the name of Balance, you'd have to remove CC power and damage potential from the class, which in turn would ruin mage PvE.
There are of course several notable exceptions to this rule, case in point retribution buffs for the pallies and removal of the dead zone for hunters. While I cannot fathom the reasoning behind the pallie PvP buffs (when our Retri peers asked for PvE utility), the hunter change is prolly an emergency measure fixing a class which is a lot more broken for arena than any others, as they are completely undesirable in all three brackets at the moment (whereas you'll find each other class strong at least either in the small formats or 5v5).
I believe mages are best in 5v5, due to the massive amount of CC they can keep up.
Mages are mainly for CC with the occasional shatter combo. Mind your sheeps and counterspells, and you'll be fine.
In 3v3, as long as there is another proper dps class, it's not that bad. I play with a MM hunter and holy priest, which allows me to basically CC any melee on the priest, which wins the match for us in most situations. We only switched to this setup yesterday though, but it seems a lot better then having a paladin or shaman instead of the priest due to the mana burns. I'd probably prefer having a rogue instead of the hunter though, less range issues. Mortal strike isn't really needed, because there are hardly any teams around that have more then one healer, a well timed CS can make for an easy kill.
In 2v2 I play with a resto druid, this isn't that great though. We get owned by any warlock team. And by warlocks, I mean SL/SL specced warlocks. We win some matches from them every now and then, but we've also been owned 2v1 a few times by full s2 locks. It turns out we're a pretty good counter to paladin/warrior teams though, but since most 2v2 are basically all warlock + random other character teams, there's no way. I'd suggest pairing with another dps class in 2v2, preferably a melee class, if only to overcome the utter inability to win from warlocks teams.
Anyway, this is how I experience things as a mage in my teams (I have 277 res, they have less then 80), feel free to ignore the warlock QQing, but we really haven't got a chance.
And to answer your lineup question:
Go with the lock in 2v2, in 3v3 with the lock/warrior and resto druid/sham.
And in 5v5 you'll probably want two healers, or at least have the sham be elemental if he doesn't feel like speccing for healing, but he'd still be healing a lot. You'll want a mortal strike warrior and a frost mage. Last spot can be taken by either a hunter or a UA lock, SL/SL loses its shine due to the need for damage. You'll be a bit gimped though, without a priest for dispells, then again, we roll without a shaman for bloodlust, so it'll probably even out eventually.
Also, don't let fire/arc mages, fury/prot warriors, destro locks, enhancement shamans or feral druids in your team, trust me.
Sorry for the wall of text, I just felt like typing loads, I'm bored.
Hope it still makes some sense though.
Mages are mainly for CC with the occasional shatter combo. Mind your sheeps and counterspells, and you'll be fine.
In 3v3, as long as there is another proper dps class, it's not that bad. I play with a MM hunter and holy priest, which allows me to basically CC any melee on the priest, which wins the match for us in most situations. We only switched to this setup yesterday though, but it seems a lot better then having a paladin or shaman instead of the priest due to the mana burns. I'd probably prefer having a rogue instead of the hunter though, less range issues. Mortal strike isn't really needed, because there are hardly any teams around that have more then one healer, a well timed CS can make for an easy kill.
In 2v2 I play with a resto druid, this isn't that great though. We get owned by any warlock team. And by warlocks, I mean SL/SL specced warlocks. We win some matches from them every now and then, but we've also been owned 2v1 a few times by full s2 locks. It turns out we're a pretty good counter to paladin/warrior teams though, but since most 2v2 are basically all warlock + random other character teams, there's no way. I'd suggest pairing with another dps class in 2v2, preferably a melee class, if only to overcome the utter inability to win from warlocks teams.
Anyway, this is how I experience things as a mage in my teams (I have 277 res, they have less then 80), feel free to ignore the warlock QQing, but we really haven't got a chance.
And to answer your lineup question:
Go with the lock in 2v2, in 3v3 with the lock/warrior and resto druid/sham.
And in 5v5 you'll probably want two healers, or at least have the sham be elemental if he doesn't feel like speccing for healing, but he'd still be healing a lot. You'll want a mortal strike warrior and a frost mage. Last spot can be taken by either a hunter or a UA lock, SL/SL loses its shine due to the need for damage. You'll be a bit gimped though, without a priest for dispells, then again, we roll without a shaman for bloodlust, so it'll probably even out eventually.
Also, don't let fire/arc mages, fury/prot warriors, destro locks, enhancement shamans or feral druids in your team, trust me.
Sorry for the wall of text, I just felt like typing loads, I'm bored.
Hope it still makes some sense though.
Is the shaman a healer type? Say he is and you can probably work a decent setup arrangements.
2v2:
Mage/Lock can do VERY well. You will need to be deep frost and the lock SL/SL. I have seen it hit 2k easily (both players were very talented) and you also need a good amount of gear (lock HAS to have 12-12k hp and 350+ resil to be effective).
3v3:
Mage/Lock/Druid (assuming the druid is resto) would play nicely. you should be Frost again, and lock can be SLSL or UA. You have a TREMENDOUS amount of cc in this setup.
5v5:
Druid/Mage/War/Lock/Mage, Lock will probably need to be SLSL, but if you find the warrior being targeted mainly he could go SLSL. Once again, huge amount of CC here. 4dps is tricky to heal for your druid, but with the healthstones it will help him out.
2v2:
Mage/Lock can do VERY well. You will need to be deep frost and the lock SL/SL. I have seen it hit 2k easily (both players were very talented) and you also need a good amount of gear (lock HAS to have 12-12k hp and 350+ resil to be effective).
3v3:
Mage/Lock/Druid (assuming the druid is resto) would play nicely. you should be Frost again, and lock can be SLSL or UA. You have a TREMENDOUS amount of cc in this setup.
5v5:
Druid/Mage/War/Lock/Mage, Lock will probably need to be SLSL, but if you find the warrior being targeted mainly he could go SLSL. Once again, huge amount of CC here. 4dps is tricky to heal for your druid, but with the healthstones it will help him out.
I am sorry for a noob question, but what is SL/SL?
Siphon Life/Soul Link?
Edited, Oct 16th 2007 1:32pm by XodoK
Siphon Life/Soul Link?
Edited, Oct 16th 2007 1:32pm by XodoK
Yes. It is a pretty standard (read: THE) Warlock build.
Scholar
20 posts
In 2v2 frost mages can do very well.
Im deep frost, and my arena partner is too. We win most our matches (yes even two warlocks, or warlock-pally or any other class combo)
We have basicly 4 water elementals, 4 ice blocks and 8 frost nova's which we can shatter on. We play offensive, not defensive. So run in, frost nova and then spam to crit, frostbolt (if u have the time to cast) followed by ice-lance and fireblast or CoC. Also when u have the water elemental out, start casting your frostbolt, and just before it launches frost nova your target with the WE. Ice lance imediately after. That way the target doesnt have the time to exit the nova, because the frostbolt/ice lance will hit at the same time as the nova.
Big shatter bonus.
Use rank 1 frostbolt for a quick slow, rank 1 arcane explosion and blizzard to pull rogues out of stealth.
Im deep frost, and my arena partner is too. We win most our matches (yes even two warlocks, or warlock-pally or any other class combo)
We have basicly 4 water elementals, 4 ice blocks and 8 frost nova's which we can shatter on. We play offensive, not defensive. So run in, frost nova and then spam to crit, frostbolt (if u have the time to cast) followed by ice-lance and fireblast or CoC. Also when u have the water elemental out, start casting your frostbolt, and just before it launches frost nova your target with the WE. Ice lance imediately after. That way the target doesnt have the time to exit the nova, because the frostbolt/ice lance will hit at the same time as the nova.
Big shatter bonus.
Use rank 1 frostbolt for a quick slow, rank 1 arcane explosion and blizzard to pull rogues out of stealth.
Most fun in arena is 2 arcane mages and a shadow priest for 3v3
You'll probably hit a ceiling of about 1900 in arena if you are arcane, that you'll never be able to break, but the fun you'll have is worth those smug comments from frost mages with 2100.
You have to pair with another arc mage though so your burst damage is doubled, or it's just not effective.
I do 5s with a rogue, warr, resto druid and spriest.. currently mid 1800s as arcane.
Can also try 2 arcane with a disc priest for quick mass dispel.
Only try arcane if you and partner have +900dam or more
You'll probably hit a ceiling of about 1900 in arena if you are arcane, that you'll never be able to break, but the fun you'll have is worth those smug comments from frost mages with 2100.
You have to pair with another arc mage though so your burst damage is doubled, or it's just not effective.
I do 5s with a rogue, warr, resto druid and spriest.. currently mid 1800s as arcane.
Can also try 2 arcane with a disc priest for quick mass dispel.
Only try arcane if you and partner have +900dam or more
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