Getting a new partner.Follow

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

And Rogue/Lock is better than Mage/Rogue because warriors can be undead and hence have a way of getting out of polly.

Ermmmmmm, I think you've got WotF mistaken for something else.

WOTF gets you out of fear charm and poly doesn't it? That's what it did during beta.

And even if the timing with blind is incorrect, I still believe lock to be the best choice. SP posseses bo constant CC like a lock or mage does. Plus I can't see anyone winning vs druid/war as rogue/healer.

Please, enlighten me to what I have forgotten.

Ok, WoTF used to break poly as well (made you undead instead of humanoid).

That little insight adds more power to rogue/frost mage combo, but I think rogue/lock should still work. Even if you have the lock just fear the druid twice, you then blind him and continue the pounding on the warrior. That should give the DR on fear enough time to reset to where you can do it again.

Hmm, the range thing is something I never thought of. Again, thank you quor.

Well, rogue/mage seems like a much better choice afterall then.

actually, mage/rogue is one of the combos i hated to go vs as war/pally. spell steal means that blessings are useless, and as long as the mage can keep an eye out for the big ones (BoF and BoSac) theres not much that can be done. you pretty much just dps the warrior while your mage gets ready to focus counterspell or CC the pally. if BoSac is off, then poly works just great, and if you get the war low enough then the pally has to bubble in order to keep him up. meanwhile, the war has to be defensive or else theres no way he'll survive the onslaught of 2 dps, so youve not only succeeded in putting the paladin in a bad spot, but youve destroyed the dps of the sole dps.

once the paladins bubble is down, hes free to be CC'ed or dps'ed, whichever floats your boat. the best ive managed to do as war/pal vs mage/rogue teams is to kill the rogue and then be 1v1 vs a frost mage, which even a completely horrible frost mage can win without too much trouble.

and no, cooldowns are NOT an issue in a war v frost mage 1v1 scenario. all it takes is the mage polying and novaing the warrior while waiting for his CD's to come back. its definetely one of the more "hi, im a *****!" tactics out there, but it works.

huh. every rogue/mage team ive fought goes straight for me. i cant go zerker because im taking too much damage, so i have to stay battle or often go defensive. the rogue usually pours everything he has into me right off the bat while the mage pops his water elemental and nukes me while keeping an eye out for the key blessings. if i get BoF'ed suddenly the mage has it a second later and im snared again from incoming frostbolts or sometimes crip poison. same thing for sac.

i cant really dps the rogue because the rogue is always behind me and the moment i flip around (yes, i mouse turn) to face him im KS'ed. if i get a stun resist on that KS then the rogue vanishes and restarts the stunlock again from behind. sometimes the rogue will use sprint to make sure they have that edge and mitigate the effects of my piercing howl (which, since the rogue has evasion up, is all i can rely on to snare him).

my paladin is forced to spam heal, since ive now got 5/5 wounding on me (many rogues i think opt to switch to double wound vs war/pally, to make sure the wounding gets stacked asap and since theres already a snare with frostbolt), and the spam healing makes him an easy target for the mage. i can give him some breathing room by going defensive, and our best bet is usually to just try and outlive the initial burst and LoS them and the CC, but its a sketchy thing at best. once the bubble is down either he gets CC'ed or i get CC'ed and the other one gets burnt real fast.

Yea quor, you make it sound like you're helpless.

What about the massive amount of second wind procs you're getting just by having the mage and rogue both on you? What about the fact that you have somewhere near 40% stun resist and that every time said rogue stuns you you're once again getting HP back?

I really don't see pally/war having trouble with any combo, much less rogue/mage. I mean honestly you can kill both of those classes in three good hits and neither one has a dedicated healer like you do. Add in the fact that you also have CC, self-healing through second wind and self-saved rage to where you can hamstring the rogue and intercept the mage without losing a second of DPS... Just wow.

In short, rogue/mage loses if they try to burn down the warrior because not only is the warrior getting healed by the rogue and mage DPS'n him thanks to second wind, but it only takes at most four hits on each of them to kill them. Jeez, war could probably solo rogue/mage if he had a healing pot.

He's not an Orc (I think) and Second Wind doesn't stack, although it'd be cool if it did. It's up as more or less a given versus any Frost Mage anyway, and let me tell you... it doesn't help much.

I'm surprised he has that much trouble, though. Putting a Shield on, Disarming the Rogue then going into Battle Stance to mess him up while I hit spell reflect every time its up works pretty well. I catch a disappointingly high number of Waterbolts from that stupid elemental but it still works pretty well, and you can time it to try to nail the Mage if you're watching. They don't exactly have means to heal themselves, so unless you just get bursted down you should win.