So me and my Disc Priest friend played some more 1700 2v2 games today. We fought seven druid/war teams, all of which we lost to. We then fought two pally/war and one druid/lock. This string of misfortunes coupled with our recent success in 3v3 has made me realize it's time to switch partners.
Why?
Because I see what Tyrandor was saying. 2v2 is all about beating druid/war and druid/lock teams: they are the easiest teams to play and hence will me the most common in 2v2 brackets. Sure you'll get your occasional skilled players who roll as something else that might give you a hard time, but the majority of combos you face are going to be druid/war or druid/lock. So what beats these combos? Well, here are the setups I know of, in order of preference for me.
Rogue/Lock: The rogue represents the scissor side of the balance, whereas the lock is the paper. These two together in synergy can beat war/druid very easily (in theory). The strat would work like this: you get on the warrior or lock at the start of the fight and make the druid come out. You then immediately blind him, and it will most likely be trinketed out of. After this trinket however, the lock is clear to dot the druid and warrior to hell and begin fearing the druid. With your DPS on the warrior, and the druid's chronic "running scared" feel it's all just about if your lock can survive a warrior beating. And if he's SL/SL with 300 resil, you can guess yes. Popping an AR after the warrior has dropped his intimidating shout almost perfectly seals your win. Tough combo for this team: Anything with a BM hunter might be somewhat difficult, as neither one of you can really do anything well against this guy.
Rogue/Frost Mage: Again, blow your blind early except this time blow it on the warrior. The mage can then chain poly the warrior while him and his frost elemental make short work of the druid. Since the frost elemental never quits spamming frostbolt, you'll almost always have the druid snared and ready to be kited. And, since the warrior is a sheep and since zerker rage can't get out of said sheep, the war is helpless and can't prevent you from catching the druid. Again, BM hunters will give this team a hard time, although not as much due to ice block and vanish (both of you can just wait it out).
I've got a good lock friend who wants to do 2's, so I'm excited about trying it out post Christmas.
Edit:
In other words, I was thinking about arena all wrong. Rogue/Priest is a good all-around combo who will beat a good 3/4 of the classes it's put against. But for arena, you're not looking for an all around setup. You're looking for the combo that beats the current overpowered combo, or being a member of the current overpowered combo. Hence, when it was pally/war, you should be rogue/priest just to focus on beating pally/war. When it's war/druid (like now), you should be lock/rogue just to beat that combo because since it's the current OP combo it's the one you'll run into the most.
And Rogue/Lock is better than Mage/Rogue because warriors can be undead and hence have a way of getting out of polly. Druids can't be undead and hence can't get out of fear once you've blinded them, meaning that rogue/lock has near endless CC possibility on the druid leading to two DPS classes versus one in which the warrior falls.
Edited, Dec 24th 2007 10:41pm by Shaolinz