Is there consensus on the Shaman/Priest/Pally Arena core? - Page 11

Vontre · 03/01/07, 2:18 PM

Originally Posted by Pyros

Troll priests have an instant cast 20% ms, but well it's only 20%.

Anyway, the reasons paladins are the most used healers are in this or the other thread about arenas. They're just better because they're the toughest yet the most efficient healers, and on top of that have some of the best buffs you can get (sacrifice/freedom/protection/wisdom/might/kings). I believe there's not a single reason to take another healer instead of a paladin. For your 2nd and 3rd healer if you have 3, you have more freedom in your choice, but there's really not a single reason imo to go without a paladin.

It's the same for MS wars, there's not a single reason to go without one. People who usually don't have one or the other is because they're forced due to guild roster and such.

I can think of a few. No offensive dispel, limited methods of healing with instant casts. Very susceptible to counterspells.

Elerion · 03/01/07, 2:37 PM

Originally Posted by Davidson

I don't think it's possible to be a very effective 5v5 healing priest without blessed resilience for example.

For the most part, this is true. However, the #3 team in our BG uses a Disc priest for Pain Suppression, but they are extremely burst focused. Their team is MS War, Rogue, Enh Shaman, Pala, Disc Priest. The setup is somewhat untraditional, but they rely completely on the early burst. At the beginning of the match, they'll mount up and hit the opposing team at the gates, making saps hard to pull off before they're in combat. With Heroism, Windfury, Grounding, MS and cooldowns, it's practically impossible to keep them from instagibbing any class without an immunity effect. They've gone 44-4, which is by far the best win/loss ratio in the BG (top team is 130-30 or thereabouts).

Us, being without a paladin, have lost all our matches against them without even putting up a fight. Without BoP, that burst is absolutely impossible to stop. Our Warlock just rolls over and dies.

Their double dagger enhancement sham may be easy to kill, but with BoP, it doesn't really matter. It's a 5v4 before BoP expires, and at that point it's pretty much just over.

Vosk · 03/01/07, 2:45 PM

Originally Posted by Davidson

Cyclone is pretty amazing in arena, I'm amazed it isn't being abused more.

This comment, plus this video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvpcskbLU-A got me to thinking about how cyclone could be REALLY abused.

Get your five druids, all sneaky style in cat form. Assign targets on the enemy team, leaving one class with no invulnerable/heal mechanics designated as the target. Pop out of stealth, cyclone 4 people. You've got about 4 1/2 seconds to kill your target, who has been rooted by your one free doomkin. I'd imagine it's quite possible.

Then you have the 5 of one class vs 4 balanced classes. I think with proper abuse of root, treants, and a second wave of cyclone you could pull off some decent tricks.

There's a lot of things that CAN go wrong, particularily once a team realizes what your team is and how they work. The harder part would be finding 4 other people as crazy as myself, and willing to gear out in balance stuff. Sure, it may suck in pve, but I think it'd be brutally effective in arena.

Malan · 03/01/07, 2:56 PM

.... but you can only take 2 of each class in the Arenas.

Igni · 03/01/07, 3:01 PM

Originally Posted by Malan

.... but you can only take 2 of each class in the Arenas.

Do you know that for sure?

I know one of my guild's teams faced three Blood Elf Paladins in the 3v3 bracket yesterday.

Also, if anyone thinks this thread needs a title change, feel free to recommend a new one.

Kalince · 03/01/07, 3:10 PM

Yeah I haven't seen anywhere it is stated that you can only have 2 of one class on the blizzard pages at all. I think this is just some rumor cooked up because I know I have personally faced 3 rogues in a 3v3.

Linnet · 03/01/07, 3:26 PM

Originally Posted by thebuddha

No, not at all. In fact, I'm saying the opposite--I don't think that anything should be nerfed off of data like class frequency. If it's independently determined that MS is so powerful that not having a warrior on your team proves to be a huge disadvantage, then yes I do think it should be looked at.

I think it just means that healing is too powerful in PvP and MS is the best skill to counter it.

Necrotoid · 03/01/07, 3:50 PM

Originally Posted by Linnet

I think it just means that healing is too powerful in PvP and MS is the best skill to counter it.

I would say there's two main parts of 5v5: focused DPS and focused healing, and any skill which interferes 50% + to one of the two parts is massively important.

DPS interference:
Divine Shield / BoP / Iceblock / Vanish CloS : 100% DPS train interference with one instant skil.

HPS interference:
Wound poison / MS : 50% train intereference with one instant skill.

Due to the scarcity of these effects, any class that can produce it is nearly mandatory.

Avair · 03/01/07, 4:00 PM

Originally Posted by Necrotoid

HPS interference:
Wound poison / MS : 50% train interference with one instant skill.

Earth Shock on a 5 second cooldown isn't quite as powerful as MS, but it certainly has the same effect. Plus it stacks with the above effects. I figure you focused on it, you could cut the heals by one player by 1/2-1/3 overall.

Gallipoli · 03/01/07, 4:02 PM

Originally Posted by Eej

I sincerely doubt that you'll ever see devastate being effective in Arena.

True, but there should be more ways to help your team besides DPS as a warrior if you go Protection. Bodyguard, some kind of grapple (irresistable root on both the caster and target - already in the game on a mob in Silverpine whose name escapes me), or a group Last Stand or other buffs.

• frmorrison · 03/01/07, 4:06 PM

Originally Posted by Igni

Do you know that for sure?

I know one of my guild's teams faced three Blood Elf Paladins in the 3v3 bracket yesterday.

The 3v3 and 2v2 don't have the 2 class rule, while the 5v5 should have it. Perhaps that rule is not active, or the 4 Mage team is too weak to be high rated.

Pyros · 03/01/07, 4:26 PM

There's no limit in arena teams, there's 2 teams with 4frost mages on our bgroup, one with a shaman and other with a paladin. They suck tho, but if they practiced more it could be ugly. For example if they used spellsteal all together to remove freedom.

Originally Posted by Vontre

I can think of a few. No offensive dispel, limited methods of healing with instant casts. Very susceptible to counterspells.

Offensive dispel for your main healer? Our priest barely have time to offensive dispel anyway, unless you're running 3healers, offensive dispels aren't much of a factor imo because you just can't afford the GCD unless you know for sure you're going to dispel the right stuff. The CS part is the paladins true weakness, but I don't see someone saying: Ok, let's not take paladins because they can be counterspelled. Everyone can be countered, and while paladins because of their chain casting nature are more suspect to be good targets, you can gear yourself accordingly(Talisman of the Breaker, imp conc aura and that stupid engineering hat once blizzard finds out they changed shadowweave into shadowcloth during beta).
Obviously paladins have some weaknesses, but the advantages far outweight them, which is why every single team has one, or very close to, even if it means bringing a BE in terrible gear(was truer first week tho, now most paladins in good pvp teams have pretty decent stats because paladin pve itemization fits perfectly for pvp too).

Necrotoid · 03/01/07, 5:02 PM

Originally Posted by Avair

Earth Shock on a 5 second cooldown isn't quite as powerful as MS, but it certainly has the same effect. Plus it stacks with the above effects. I figure you focused on it, you could cut the heals by one player by 1/2-1/3 overall.

Doesn't count, because it doesn't interrupt half of the strategy (DPS and HPS trains) with one skill. You take out on heal on one healer out of 2-3. Same reason I didn't list any other form of CC.

The reason these skills (MS / Wounding, and BoP/DS/Iceblock/ClosVanish) are so strong is they work against an unlimited number of players with a single instant (well, vanish /clos is two).

Swiftkill · 03/01/07, 5:02 PM

Originally Posted by Gallipoli

True, but there should be more ways to help your team besides DPS as a warrior if you go Protection. Bodyguard, some kind of grapple (irresistable root on both the caster and target - already in the game on a mob in Silverpine whose name escapes me), or a group Last Stand or other buffs.

Apologies if I missed you mentioning this earlier, but it sounds like you played DAOC - did you? I do agree though. Abilities similar to intervene would definitely boost prot warrior viability. Bodyguard is something I would definitely like to see in this game, but only implemented with player targets. Intercepting all incoming melee damage would allow prot warriors to contribute to a group, as well as grant limited bursts of rage (a fast way to throw out a concussion blow to someone on the train).

This is not a warrior-specific thread though, so I'll leave more ideas out and simply jump to the class mechanics forum.

Igni · 03/07/07, 10:46 AM

In trying to figure out the answer to this 2.5 healers thing, I did one more analysis which you can find here. <- this is a link

The data on the individuals is used at your own peril. It has proven to be far too much of a moving target for me to keep track of with the time I'd be willing to spend on it.

However, I do have somewhat higher levels of confidence in the deployment of teams. Reasons for bad conclusions here are due to factors such as a) large changes in recent weeks to your regular line-up and b) recent additions to your Arena team and the removal of once heavy players. It's not perfect by any measure, but it's what I have to work with.

I'll offer some of my own analysis up later. But I thought I'd put this out there so people can keep me honest. I'm sure I've touched upon some of the Arena teams that people who read this board are on. If they're willing to correct me where correction is needed, I can improve my ability to analyze the statistics.