Arena: 2v2 and 3v3 matrix help.Follow

I. Druid/Rogue VS Warrior/Pally
II. Rogue/Priest VS War/Pally
III. Rogue/Mage VS War/Pally
IV. Rogue/Druid VS Priest/Hunter
V. Rogue/Mage VS Double Stealth
VI. Rogue/Spriest VS Warlock/Shaman

I.

For War/Pally, the easiest way to deal with them (especially starting out) is cyclone lock outs. You want to open up on the Warrior and play a quick rushdown. It can go a few ways, but most are going to be favorable towards you. You need to open on the Warrior (gogo Garrote) and start hammering his *** into the ground (made even easier now with an AR/Prep build *honestly, I cannot stress how good this build is now in 2s and how much I wish my server was PVP so I could still play my rogue*).

Your Druid wants to stay stealthed as long as possible in pretty much every matchup you come against. On this setup he gets to have some fun though. Once you get to the Warrior and start things (watchout here. A smart Pally is going to Hammer you after you start evasion tanking the Warrior typically, so if they do get that trinket ready). On the first heal the Pally starts you want your Druid to start a small stunlock (open with kitty stun *name eludes me*, shift to Bear and Bash and then fall back). Warrior is going to be somewhere between 50-70% by now and the Pally is going to have to think fast.

A. The next 10-15 seconds or so are going all be reactionary moves on the part of your Druid. If the Pally bubbles, your Druid needs to shift to caster (stay out of intercept range) and get a Cyclone on the Warrior. If need be, use Nature's Swiftness offensively to get that Warrior cycloned ASAP. But thats a call thats made per situation. Chain cyclone that Warrior(he may trinket one) and the Pally's bubble is going to wear off, or be damn close.

Option B for the Pally is to survive the mini stunlock and then start to heal. If he stays, your Druid switches to caster and will chain cyclone the Pally. Remember NS if you need to beat a heal he thinks he can sneak in.

*While this is going on, if you can, drag that Warrior far far far away from them, this is going to force the Pally to follow you guys, and if you can bait a warrior out of LOS while you are fully HoT this could be game as your Druid will just Cyclone > Root the Pally in place*

That is going to be hard though, so consider yourself lucky if you can, but nevertheless try.

So if the Pally didn't bubble and thought he could get that heal off, he obviously isn't going to. It's in his interest to bubble early and go for that "sure heal", and now we revert back to A.

So now we are at the Pally's move of, bubble in stunlock, or wait. If he bubbles early, Cyclone that Warrior and/or try to drag him out of sight. If/when Pally bubbles asap, the Warrior is going to be at, or near close to 60% or so, the less the better.

Chain cyclone the Warrior and hopefully you will stall them the entire time through the bubble. Once the bubble is off, start a cyclone chain on the Pally while you are still ramming at the Warrior. Pally is going to trinket one if he still has his trinket, maybe BOP the Warrior. He isn't going to get a heal though. If you can get him cycloned once or twice and he blows a trinket, you should have it in the bag here. Don't let Cyclone hit immune.

Once cyclone is one off from DR immune, start getting within Blind range of the Pally (focus frames will help here immensely). Wait for a heal incoming. Interrupt that heal with Blind. Warrior by now is going to be getting near critical. Anywhere from 15-30% right now. If your Druid has DR's up, cyclone either the Warrior or Pally, or rotate them so you can get a HoT or two and not get punished to hard. Now for the finish. You stay on that Warrior, your Druid is going to want to go Bear right about now. Pally is scrambling and they HAVE to have a heal here to keep this Arena going. After blind, the next heal attempt by the Pally is interrupted with Feral Charge or Bash. Doesn't matter. After that, use the other on the next interrupt.


II.


In general, for the Rogue/Priest makeup against Pally/ Healer, you need to keep the warrior off your Priest. Play lockdown, abusing Gouge, KS, and making sure shiv is constantly on the warrior. Your Priest needs to be mana burning their healer, which will lead to your win.


III.


This might be the one fight I am really wary against. Your mage wants to mount up and stay away from the Warrior for as long as possible until you can get to the Pally. Open on the Pally (save your cooldowns!!!!!!). Have your mage ready on counter spells and you keep steady on kicks. Your Mage should be trying to cc the warrior as much as possible while still dps'ing the pally (don't use polymorphs. this means nova's and slowing him).

Once the Pally bubbles, you want to run away while your Mage sheeps the warrior. Once Poly hits DR get on the Warrior and play lockdown (save cd's) on him while the mage sheeps the pally over and over. You are doing this to reset the DR from poly's on the warrior.

Once you can resheep the Warrior, do so and then get on that Pally. Bumrush him (remember those cd's? use them now). Keep the mage ready on a clutch counterspell and have him keep the warrior at bay as long as possible.

If you don't get the pally down by now, you lost.



IV.


Ok, when the match starts you both want to be stealthed. You need to open up on the Hunter. This is for a reason. If you attack him immediately, he is going to be defensive and want to get away(thus being offensive) so he will pop BIGRED.

Your Druid needs to stay stealthed during this.

When you get the Hunter to pop BM, CoS any magic you might have on you, and find a safe spot to Vanish (this entire strategy is based off you getting this Vanish).

Wait out the BM. Watch out for Flares.

When it wears off, open up on the Priest. Get a 5pt EA on him and interrupt heals. Your Druid needs to pop out now and if you are lower on health, use a quick NS>HT on you then needs to Cyclone harrass/root(los) the hunter's dps off you. Once you get a 5pt EA, and run out of ways to keep the Priest from healing, the Druid needs to Cyclone the Priest. This is to keep him from healing. Then, have your druid Cyclone, Feral Charge, Bash, etc and lock down all the Priest's heals and re Cyclone. Meanwhile you should go over to the Hunter and start locking him down. Get him back for all the trouble he has been giving you. Work him down in a stunlock. If you can, LOS him from the Priest.

When your Druid is out of time/interrupts (this could be anywhere from 15-35ish seconds) he needs to Cyclone/root the Hunter.

**At this point the Hunter should be anywhere from 55-65% and cycloned. Priest at about the same. You will be around 80% and your Druid maybe 85% with some HoTs on.**

Ok, get to the Priest. The Druid is going to be stalling the Hunter (his BIGRED might be almost ready). So do what you can with Cyclone's and roots. You need to be on the Priest. Remember that 5pt EA? It is almost up. Mutilate, mutilate, KS, pop that CB, Mutilate. The Priest has to be close to dead by now. I would suggest a Blind here. If the Hunter is roaring back and your Druid is out of options, you have two choices. If the Hunter is attacking the Druid (this may be to offensive and rare) then stay by the Priest. If the Hunter decides to attack your Druid, have your Druid HoT up and go Bear and tough it out while you wait for a restealth and sap the Priest.

If that happens, regain energy, put the Priest in a stunlock, and finish him.

Now I don't think that will happen. I think the Hunter would attack you, but that is what you do should you guys get lucky. If he attacks you, stay by the Priest, working on his last bit, and have your Druid heal through the Hunter's attacks on you. Keep energy for interrupts on the Priest, and try to finish him here. If your Druid can, Cyclone if you really can't finish him, so you can build up energy. The Hunter's BIGRED might be gone by now, if it is, you have the option to Cyclone him and the Priest should be dead. Your Druid tops you both off, and get on the Hunter for the finish.

Now, in thinking on this, I would want to try this everytime. This would be my strategy. But this is going to be extremely best case. So many things can go wrong in this setup, and I think Hunter/Priest may just be a very tough matrix.


V.


For your setup, your mage doesn't need Invis. You want your mage to run out and you stay right behind him. When you think the two stealthers are near, your mage needs to Rank 1 Arcane Explosion and get them unstealthed. You are right by him spamming CS. You want your partner to bring them out, so you can stop them from getting on him.

Once you put them into CS, your mage will want to blink away and kite one, or turn around and dps if they stay on you.

You need to be locking down the target you open on and apply as much dps as possible. Now if the partner is a druid, your mage will turn around, dps the Rogue a bit and wait for the Druid to come out. Be ready, the Druid might come out swinging with a Cyclone on one of you. If it is on you, your mage needs to be fast with his Counter-Spell, which will ***** the Druid. Use this silence time to sheep the Druid. Your mage needs to play interrupt on the Druid. The Rogue is going to be around 65% or so right now, so your Mage needs to help dps as much as possible. Use your Blind to interrupt the Druid. Let the mage unload and try to burst down the rogue here.

Now if it was Rogue/Rogue. Once you open on one your mage will blink away. If the second rogue opens on you, your mage needs to turn and play sheep harrass to make them blow CoS or trinkets. Make sure you Rupture the first guy after CS, then while the mage is going back and forth, throw a combo point on the other and get a rupture. Now you have two ruptured rogues who might have blown Cos or at least trinkets. So get back on the first guy, both of you focus him and burst. If the other rogue stays on you, both of you do all you can to keep him off with sheeps and your blind. Maybe even gouge, it's good for a couple of white hits in dps.

If the other rogue instead chases the mage, have your mage dps your target as much as possible, and do anything he can to slow the rogue coming to him. Have your mage burst all you got here on thier rogue while he tries to get away and stay alive from the rogue. This is where Frost comes in :( With that, you just got to stall the one long enough for you to finish one guy. Him being arcane really limits the chances.


VI.


With this team, you need to play very reserved. You need to be on the Shaman as much as possible, while your Priest is playing support role in this one.

Open on the Shaman and get ready for all the incoming cc's. Your Priest is playing a defensive role this time, while assisting dps. This means, your Priest needs to be focusing on offensive dispelling, and also dispelling any magic on you. Basically meaning you guys are taking limited damage.

Keep on the Shaman, if you ever get cc'd and can't get in range for a kick, this is the moment your Priest will throw a silence on the Shaman for a heal interrupt.

Your Priest is going to keep dispelling both you and the Shaman while you work down the Shaman. If he can, fit in mana burns on the Shaman. If you ever get low, your Priest should heal you. Keep in mind, the Lock is probably going to try and mana drain your Priest. So have your Priest LOS and drink as much as possible. You aren't going to die fast, you are fighting an outlast team, so your Priest shouldn't have trouble finding 5-10 seconds to drink occasionally.

See also:







Edited, Dec 17th 2007 3:12pm by MYteddy

*saved 3*

First, good accomplishment going 10-1. Rogue/Druid has been my favorite 2s combo so far.

The thing about the combo though, is it requires exceptional teamwork and a Druid that knows how to kite VERY well. I would also suggest to be competitive your Druid needs Feral charge, as it plays an integral role (11 in feral).

For War/Pally, the easiest way to deal with them (especially starting out) is cyclone lock outs. You want to open up on the Warrior and play a quick rushdown. It can go a few ways, but most are going to be favorable towards you. You need to open on the Warrior (gogo Garrote) and start hammering his *** into the ground (made even easier now with an AR/Prep build *honestly, I cannot stress how good this build is now in 2s and how much I wish my server was PVP so I could still play my rogue*).

Your Druid wants to stay stealthed as long as possible in pretty much every matchup you come against. On this setup he gets to have some fun though. Once you get to the Warrior and start things (watchout here. A smart Pally is going to Hammer you after you start evasion tanking the Warrior typically, so if they do get that trinket ready). On the first heal the Pally starts you want your Druid to start a small stunlock (open with kitty stun *name eludes me*, shift to Bear and Bash and then fall back). Warrior is going to be somewhere between 50-70% by now and the Pally is going to have to think fast.

A. The next 10-15 seconds or so are going all be reactionary moves on the part of your Druid. If the Pally bubbles, your Druid needs to shift to caster (stay out of intercept range) and get a Cyclone on the Warrior. If need be, use Nature's Swiftness offensively to get that Warrior cycloned ASAP. But thats a call thats made per situation. Chain cyclone that Warrior(he may trinket one) and the Pally's bubble is going to wear off, or be damn close.

Option B for the Pally is to survive the mini stunlock and then start to heal. If he stays, your Druid switches to caster and will chain cyclone the Pally. Remember NS if you need to beat a heal he thinks he can sneak in.

*While this is going on, if you can, drag that Warrior far far far away from them, this is going to force the Pally to follow you guys, and if you can bait a warrior out of LOS while you are fully HoT this could be game as your Druid will just Cyclone > Root the Pally in place*

That is going to be hard though, so consider yourself lucky if you can, but nevertheless try.

So if the Pally didn't bubble and thought he could get that heal off, he obviously isn't going to. It's in his interest to bubble early and go for that "sure heal", and now we revert back to A.

So now we are at the Pally's move of, bubble in stunlock, or wait. If he bubbles early, Cyclone that Warrior and/or try to drag him out of sight. If/when Pally bubbles asap, the Warrior is going to be at, or near close to 60% or so, the less the better.

Chain cyclone the Warrior and hopefully you will stall them the entire time through the bubble. Once the bubble is off, start a cyclone chain on the Pally while you are still ramming at the Warrior. Pally is going to trinket one if he still has his trinket, maybe BOP the Warrior. He isn't going to get a heal though. If you can get him cycloned once or twice and he blows a trinket, you should have it in the bag here. Don't let Cyclone hit immune.

Once cyclone is one off from DR immune, start getting within Blind range of the Pally (focus frames will help here immensely). Wait for a heal incoming. Interrupt that heal with Blind. Warrior by now is going to be getting near critical. Anywhere from 15-30% right now. If your Druid has DR's up, cyclone either the Warrior or Pally, or rotate them so you can get a HoT or two and not get punished to hard. Now for the finish. You stay on that Warrior, your Druid is going to want to go Bear right about now. Pally is scrambling and they HAVE to have a heal here to keep this Arena going. After blind, the next heal attempt by the Pally is interrupted with Feral Charge or Bash. Doesn't matter. After that, use the other on the next interrupt.

Should be game.


*Note* Hopefully I didn't miss anything crucial. Obviously this is also a perfect game as well. This is what should happen and what you want to strive for, although sometimes it may not work out, due to random things (intercept> mace stun on your druid), anything really. But this is how it goes when you guys are just on the ball.

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Rogue/Mage

Your druid can't be sheeped in animal form. Remember that. Your Druid will need to heal, and might get caught, but if you are safe and dont need healing, your Druid needs to be in a form to hassle the Mage.

I was spoiled. I was human and had Perception. So this fight was trivial for us. You want to take the Rogue down first (Ice Block is to much of a ****** stall) and the Rogue on your Druid will hurt nowadays. If you are Human, this is an easy win. Get on the Rogue and start pounding, having your Druid Cyclone the mage, Feral Charge, Bash. This should be so easy, that your Druid will probably take out the Mage pets. Once DR is hit on Mage, Root the Rogue and get away. Rogue will do a multitude of things. If he Sprints(you should in this situation) Cyclone. Rogue should either trinket, or Pre-emptive COS. If COS, buy your Druid 3 seconds with a Gouge or KS. Once up, Cyclone and go pick on the Mage for a bit while DR resets. After Cyclone, get back to Rogue. Your Druid will want to distance himself, if possible, but try to keep the Mage busy with interrupts, etc. This is basically an attrition fight and you guys just slowly have to burn them down.

This can still work for you though, if you aren't human. Open on the mage and keep your Druid stealthed. Their Rogue is going to have to open on you. Once he shows up, Cyclone and root chain. You want to make him burn as many cooldowns as possible. Use Blind if need be to force a trinket. Once the Rogue gets out, as long as you don't have any dot's from something on you, Vanish and start a lock on the Rogue. Your Druid is cycloning the Mage now, making him burn cooldowns. After that, it trends towards how I outlined it above. That's how you will want to flush out their stealther though.

Edited, Nov 21st 2007 5:29pm by MYteddy

Edited, Nov 21st 2007 5:42pm by MYteddy

big change, blind is physical now... shares DR with cyclone

just a fyi, prob changes some of your stuff

I was aware of this, but there is lots of stuff I hadn't thought of you suggest MYTeddy so thanks for that. Will read it all again in the morning when my brain isn't so addled from like 13hrs straight of wow (can't help it, 3 months absence and a day with no lectures... can you blame me?!)

We hadn't understood about the whole cyclone cycles yet but Ill get this through and report back if I have any problems.

One thing though, my druid says that his cyclones go immune after one cyclone... I was skeptical to this because I've heard about cyclone spamming but maybe its a talent thing? His talents are 1/8/52 and I know for a fact he wont spec any different being his guilds main (or at least one of them) healer for Kara.

Other than that thanks for feedback. I'm going to sort out all my Focus macros when I do a UI overhaul, (currently waiting for Theos 2.3 UI update). I didn't realize how great it felt to have someone spam heal you whilst you steamroll over everyone. Is it really that necessary for the druid to be so active in animal forms though? I never even thought they had to move around so much. Coming from a Feral background he should be able to manage since he hates healing most of the time & I had to keep telling him off for trying to get KBs.

Edit: Forgot to say I'm also rolling a Human. So perception helps a lot, especially with heightened senses. I tried to sap the rogue but kept getting caught out by arcane explosions. Would it be easier just to charge in & try to stunlock the rogue Cheapshot>Kidney>Rupture for stealth prevention. And then let my druid stun the mage the ways you said?

Edited, Nov 21st 2007 10:04pm by Flubgaurd

Great initiative MYteddy, thanks.

And it comes at the right time as well cause I started to despair in our arena attempt with my priest friend: we seem to do reasonably ok, EXCEPT against a warrior + heal combo. In fact I seem to think that priests aren't too bad but druids or pallies are annoying cause they can heal and take longer to kill. Here are the details of the situation we're facing:

Here is the link to our team so that you can check our profiles (me: AR/Prep Hemo), the priest (disc/holy).

EDIT: note on our gear: right now, we're both half bg epics, half pve blues. Next Monday, we'll have full epic gear with each on S3 item, six S1 items and the rest is bg stuff.

The problem is:
1) the warrior really kills my priest fast in a 1on1 situation
2) I usually take more time to take down their heal (especially druids who can run fast, tank, etc... so it takes time).

Sure we can't rule out the possibility that I am the one sucking as a rogue and I'm trying to work on that the best I can.

Still, I would also like to know if we are doing sth wrong as a team. How should such a fight take place? Our first strategy was for me to take down the heal and then focus on the warrior. The problem with this strategy was that I would most of the time end up alone against the two and die. We've recently tried to have me on the warrior and it worked well a couple of times but I must say that there was no healer in their team. To be frank, I must say that if there had been a healer, I doubt that I could have taken down the warrior before my priest died...

So:
1) any tips on how to improve survivability of the priest? he usually bubbles up and then fear (or the other way around I don't remember) but the warrior often resists the fear and then he says that he has very limited means of defense and dies fast
2) is it true that a priest has no chance solo vs a warrior and that I have no choice but to focus the warrior so as to not lose my priest fast? I told him to try to get away from the warrior (but not too far away so as to avoid Charge), but this seems close to impossible to do... confirmed?
3) any other useful info/tips on this situation?
4) also and now leaving the scenario where we face a warrior + heal combo, it seems that the priest's defense options are few: mostly, he tries to avoid LOS against all type of range damage dealers or casters so as to avoid taking hits and getting interrupted. Is there more to it?

Thanks for your help!

nostra

Edited, Nov 22nd 2007 9:56am by nostraaa

you druids needs to spec 8/11/40+2 in order to maximize his arena strengths. getting max natures grasp and control of nature in balance helps immsensely, then 11 points in feral for thick hide and feral charge and brutal impact, and then 40 in resto for the good stuff (nothing HT-based). the last two points are discretion points; some druids like feral swiftness, others like more points in resto, others like a bit more crit on moonfire (why? dont know...but whatever floats your boat).

the 8/11/40+2 build is the ideal druid support arena build. if you want to heal as a druid in arena, thats the best build to go. you can get by with less in balance, but you at least need feral charge, and a good number of points in resto.

1. A Priest needs to be able to kite. Staying at max range is key, and abusing line of sight. Unfortunately, Priest are extremely squishy until they get in some arena gear. It sound like you guys willl see much improvement once you get your new gear in a week.

2. A warrior can be very very hard on a Priest. I don't know to indepth about what a priest can do unfortunately.

In general, for the Rogue/Priest makeup against Pally/ Healer, you need to keep the warrior off your Priest. Play lockdown, abusing Gouge, KS, and making sure shiv is constantly on the warrior. Your Priest needs to be mana burning their healer, which will lead to your win.

I havent played a 2 DPS team in arena, so this may seem silly, but would the better objective be burning down the healer while CC/keeping the dps busy. This is what i would imagine would be the case, but lacking the actual experience i figured i may as well ask.

Ok, thanks (rate up btw, thanks for the great post). It's true that this sounds like the smart move and we'll try it!

nostra

How about Disc priest + BM hunter in the 2's?

I'm paired with an 8/11/42 (the last point in resto might be somewhere else, i'm not 100% sure) druid, and we get crushed when we're faced up against a team like this, even if they have mediocre gear. The hunter will manadrain the druid, and I can't do squat against him with TBW popped, and the druid is hard-pressed to keep me healed with this giant red hunter and pet tearing my face apart and the Disc priest adding their low, but mana efficient, dps along the way. So, obviously I go on the priest, who is content with Psychic Scream spam. Along with hunter traps (I burn CloS on the first trap or in anticipation of a psychic scream when the Priest is about to die, but then he uses desperate prayer or the hunter pops intimidation) and from then on we're pretty much screwed. While I can usually take down the priest if they have bad gear, the hunter will have focused on the druid by then as he knows the priest is dying no matter what, and with the MS aimed shot and the druid's purely PvE gear (and some of it cloth, to make matters even worse) the druid will go down fast and I will have to deal with a hunter, with the spirit of redemption probably still up on Priest for a few more sec.

I'm confused on all these people who have trouble with BM hunters. There are so many counters to cooldown physical DPS, especially vs ranged. Blind, Gouge, Evasion, LoS, (not as effective vs Bm ones, but still). Maybe all the ones I've played against have been terrible though.

Make sure your mage is specced far enough into Arcane to get Imp Counterspell. Interupt pally as much as possible while dishing dps on the hunter. After interupts are down, spam sheep pally while DPS hunter.

Hunter pops BM, Vanish and LoS b/c there's a flare coming(I'd recommend NOT using sprint unless you're AR/Prep...if you're ShS, step to the pally), he'll probably turn to the mage, who should pop Ice Block. Make your way back to the pally, when sheep breaks, pop a sap, wait for BW to go away and have your way w/ the hunter.

When sap wears off, resheep, when immune to sheep, toss a blind. Hunter should be dead or near death, finish him off and have your way with his friend.