Frieza

Yesterday i met my first BS warrior in 2vs2 ... it was just awful, i got 3 shotted (sl with 10k) and my mage buddy 2 shotted .. i think we lost a good 100 points to this war/pala combo ... we just won one because the pala got pyroed for 6k and fireblasted for 2,5 and didn't shield ... anyway the war was still able to rip my mage in matter of seconds (divine punition for not being ice!) and i finished with 1000hp left ...

The only somewhat valid tactic we found was me going in the center of the arena and waiting for the sap (or double ambush) while my mage pops invisibility ... if they are smart they'll simply wait for inv to wear off and proceed with the slaughter ... if not when they hit me my mate unloads everything on one rogue while i try to deathcoil/fel intercept the other ... sometimes we pull it , sometimes we lost ... but imho two smart rogues are close to unbeatable for my current setup (fire mage+sl lock)

 

• Snowy

Bolding emphasis by me -- does this strike anyone else as just a wee bit of hyperbole?

 

Frieza

I dont have a screenshot to backup my claim but i assure you i was dead in 5 seconds ... maybe they were not 3 hits , i was thinking more of 3 Global Cooldowns.

 

Dashivax

For the most part yes, those group compositions are some of the simplest for War/Pally to beat. On paper a War/Druid team should be able to outlast War/Pally but it is incredibly easy for the Paladin to kite the other teams Warrior around by using BoF on himself and JoJ on the Warrior (to nullify Minor Speed Increase) while on the other hand a good Warrior will easily be able to re-snare a Druid that continuously shapeshifts into Travel Form. In the end the Warrior on the Druid will be getting more hits in and for more damage each hit besides.

Your Paladin should almost never take a 10 second silence and should be abusing LoS as much as possible depending on the map you are on. We rarely if ever ride straight out in Nagrand for example.

Spell Reflect is usable in Battle Stance so you can really use it offensively after a Charge and catch them off guard. Against the 2 AP/PoM Pyro mages though, as I said before there have been some situations where I have been killed in the 4 seconds of Imp CS or even during my Paladins bubble because that team can unload 12k dmg in mere seconds with crits. Against teams like that playing more defensively with Spell Reflect is going to be safer, start out with a shield out and hope they blow their CS before noticing they probably don't want to blow their PoM Pyro's just yet. Next patch when Spell Reflect is off the GCD we may be able to use it offensively in more situations, being able to activate it as soon as you see the mages AP themselves will really ruin their day.

The only other dual caster team that poses a real threat to War/Pal is UA Lock/Shadow Priest (disregarding dual Ice Mage as they should honestly never lose to War/Pal if they know what they are doing) I usually don't find a good time to use Spell Reflect against Lock/Priest especially considering I am taking the risk of getting feared outside of Berserker Stance. The best thing to do is just focus on the lock since he will be casting more spells you can interrupt and his fear poses a bigger threat to your Paladin. Also your Paladin has to make sure the Priest blows his silence before he bubbles or he risks being Mass Dispelled and then silenced.

 

Morsexy

I really enjoy 2v2 with a Shaman, If my pummel isnt resisted ( or just plain misses which sucks ) we have a great chance to get the paladin to bubble early or at least BoF himself so that we can kite the warrior a bit.

My partner is a rerolled\new shaman obviously, but the correct use of earthshock, he was previously a mage, can be the end of a lot of teams. I think one thing that makes or breaks things for us is just the coordination of interupts.

Just having Intimidating Shout up as another spell break wins the match for us a lot. Of course it also doesnt hurt to have 4k-5k damage in one 'round' with WF and MS if two of 3 crit, heroism and deathwish.


While I know shaman are not nearly as durable, I think Earthshield, Nature's Guardian and the chance with the right gear to really contribute some serious DPS into an unbelievably quick cooldown interupt can more than make up for it. Granted that our objective is to have the paladin bubble\half way dead\dead by the time those 37(?) seconds of Heroism are up.


The blacksmith mace seems to need a bit of a retune. We find it often doesnt amount to much, or it completely dominates a match. Since most every team I see with it is a paladin team, I wonder if combined with WF, you could really make good use of it.

 

Cel

With /focus on the healer of the opposing team and a /tar focus /cast earth shock macro, it takes a global cooldown to interrupt a spell assuming proper facing... you get to see the cast bar on the target with appropriate mods to show a focus window, so having a shaman able to stay full on healing mode without having to retarget for interrupts makes for a powerful combination. In addition, the survivability that earthshield affords the shaman is insanely useful. A fresh earthshield, some form of silence resist (go go Talents + Heroic Blood Furnace neck) and nature's guardian and a resto shaman is basically a tank on the arena field.

"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell

Alpha is recruiting... go go.

 

Siddown

Simply get 80 Hit Rating (or so) and you will never "miss" a pummel ever again, Parry, Dodge or Resist maybe, but never Miss.

In my incredibly limited 2v2, I've only faced one Pally/MS Warrior team which I am pretty sure was quite brutal. With my Rogue I garroted (2 second silence) then unloaded on the Paladin while my Frost Mage partner got a shot or two in. Even though I am severely undergeared, the Drakefist Hammer hits like a truck and we forced an incredibly early Bubble. From there it was all over, the Paladin was so busy healing he left the Warrior Sheeped.

If you can't force the early bubble, I really don't know how to win that matchup. But then again, 2v2 is just for fun anyways (so I tell myself )

 

Davidson

You can't dodge or parry while casting, so every pummel will land with enough +hit.

 

Cel

This is something exclusive to player characters, correct?

I had a parried kick on Julianne's heal once that wiped us as she was supposed to die within the next 10 seconds and got the heal off as a result.

"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell

Alpha is recruiting... go go.

 

Davidson

I believe you must have missed your kick due to lag on the tail end, or some other explanation. I have *never* had a pummel parried/dodged on aran, julianne, or any other NPC for that matter... UNLESS I was late, or someone else interrupted first. I also never see dodge/parry on aran since he's casting basically the entire fight, it ups melee dps immensely.

 

Cel

Well here's the thing, though... She's only turned around while she's casting. Parry is a front side melee roll result... so if I'm always behind her when she's not healing, there'd not be a parry if I miss timed the kick. I suppose lag could have registered that she was still turned around when I kicked, but not actually resolved the kick roll until she'd completed her cast?

"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell

Alpha is recruiting... go go.

 

Davidson

That is very odd. I wonder if the facing is determined by your client (allowing her to parry), but the kick didn't go through because on the server side the spell was already finished? I've personally never seen this happen, so your guess is as good as mine. Anyone else have an explanation for the behavior?

We're kind of way off topic for 2v2 arena now though.... sorry about that.

I do know for a fact that in pvp, I don't ever see miss, dodge, or parry on pummel. I think if I did I would scream =(.

 

Cel

I also had a parried backstab last night on an add before Gruul come to think of it... so positioning may very well be client based.

Beyond that, yeah...we're mad off topic. (I have a habit of doing that...)

--

Is there any way for a melee-based dps team to gain an advantage in Blade's Edge Arena? My druid/rogue(me) combo was utterly destroyed by a mage/hunter combo who rode their mounts to the pillars. The hunter was able to keep a permanent flare up on the two sides of the bridge (30sec duration, 15sec cooldown..... yay for next patch's nerf!) and the mage just r1 blizzarded randomly around the room.

There's no way for us to get over to the pillar as the flares keep us off the bridge... and only having melee damage, if we don't get to the pillar we'll lose for sure. We eventually got bored of watching the flares being constantly refreshed and tried to blitz a flare after it expired but he landed it before we got to the other side.

Felt completely out of our control on what we could do, other than see who got bored first.

"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell

Alpha is recruiting... go go.

 

• Avair

A couple of points of rebuttal.

1. Earthshield isn't really that great. Its better in 2v2 than 5v5 for sure, but its still a wasted talent point vs. any team with a mage/priest or shaman. Just on pure odds, you are only going see a 2v2 team without one of those 44% of the time (Math check please: 6 non-dispellers/9 classes ^ 2). It also has greatly reduced effectiveness vs warrior/rogue due to healing reduction effects.
2. Tanking only works if they attack you. Here's the pattern I have noticed lately, once the opponents figure out I'm not easy to kill, they just CC me and kill my partner. And we are very vulnerable to CC, lacking all the support tools a pally would have.
3. Resto shamans are not threats. I have no way of punishing a team that ignores me in any great way. Sure a clutch ES can hurt, but a 2 second lock out isn't nearly has painful as a 10, or even a 6 second stun.
4. Mana pool issues - Our LHW is great, but you run out of mana fast. And there is nothing more useless or less threating than an OOM resto shaman. Current rogue strats is to just run you out of mana, then win.

My general feeling is really only NG is solidly good from a deep Resto spec, and elemental shamans can also get the silence talent.

 

Cel

Many talent points are useful in less than 44% of fights you see, and yet they are talents worth getting. Is there 1pt worth of a talent elsewhere that would be worth taking over Earthshield?

The rest of your points I'd agree with (save the fact that my strategy against a resto shaman is to switch my poisons to wound/mindnumbing and burn him down, rather than outlast his healing by dpsing his friend.) Shamans aren't everything, cause if they were they'd be set up for a nerf. :]

"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell

Alpha is recruiting... go go.

 

Coriolis

From playing some more as a resto shaman with a marks hunter friend I have to say that indeed a focus macro and proper interrupt on a pally is the only chance we really have against a warrior/pally combo. The hunter can do a pretty sick amount of damage, and can use silence shot and scatter so we can usually make the pally bubble if I can interrupt correctly. It's still very touchy and nearly impossible against a good team though. A well geared warrior can sometimes put out so much damage that with MS I cannot afford to use a GCD to interrupt, or sometimes the pally stuns me (if they kill the grounding totem), or bubble then get into melee range of hunter etc. It is however extremely satisfying when we pull it off .

Overall I'm rather happy playing as resto shaman in pvp even in 2vs2 - we're not that great but we do have our strong points. The biggest difference in how well you do at least to me has been using focus macros effectively or not. Many caster teams can really destroy us if I don't use ES well. The biggest problem we find as well is me getting cced. Still with proper use of LOS/shock/grounding totem (and of course tremor and poison cleansing against those ccs, hopefully the other team doesn't kill them) you can keep yourself out of ccs for a decent amount of time - hopefully enough for your partner to kill one of them.

Of course if they had changed our trinket to remove CCs, that would have helped alot.

 

Dashivax

Just because you can't get the jump on them through stealth does not me you cannot gain the advantage? You can still get onto the pillar, even while snared by using Sprint. You can fake out the hunter on your jump across so he doesn't get a Scatter off in mid-air. You can toss a quick Blind on either the hunter or mage before you jump across. The only real obstacle you have once you get onto the pillar is the inevitable freezing trap under them but just have the druid jump first and once you are across you are inside the hunters deadzone and able to pop CoS to nullify the mage while your druid is trapped. Ontop of all this the druid could sneak in a Cyclone right before your rush to the pillar. I'm sure you could think of several other ways to successfully engage 2 ranged DPS on a pillar as a Rogue/Druid team.

Blade's Edge does indeed give an advantage to ranged dps teams that can get on a pillar at the start of the fight, but all that means is you just have to change your strategy to assault them. As a War/Pally team I usually have little trouble with the pillars thanks to BoF but I remember one fight in particular against a Holy Priest/Hunter where I spent a solid 4 or 5 minutes trying to get onto their pillar. I either got Scatter Shotted mid-air and fell, or I faked out the hunter on his Scatter then made it onto the pillar milliseconds too late to Pummel the Priests MC on me, who promptly ran me off the pillar so I could try again.

 

drole

Using Fol will help you significantly when in danger of being silenced and are way easier to time inbetween enemy cast's

 

Cel

My paladin friend who's also on my 2v2 team dusted off his BWL trinket and has found good use for it in arenas. The spell haste makes for difficult to interrupt heals and affords him an entire extra heal while bubbled. Think stacking spell haste gear may be effective in 2v2 arenas? I know any measure of latency over 100 and kicks are difficult for me to land on a hasted caster.

"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell

Alpha is recruiting... go go.

 

• Andeh

I've been doing some very casual 2v2 with a Feral Druid partner. I will readily admit we aren't that great, due to my unreliable connection (long range wireless 4tw), being unable to use Vent (again, due to my connection), and neither of us having a ton of PvP experience or being willing to spec into a totally PvP focused build. Still, we're having a lot of fun.

The worst combos we've faced were a double Warlock team (Demon/Affliction I think) and a Warrior/Dwarf Pally team.

The Warlocks were rough because they were both Human, and my partner got Perceptioned out of stealth before we got an opener off. They also were smart enough to have different talented Healthstones, so they each got 2 heals. However, I think that matchup would be doable for us if we'd held back and formulated a plan. I'm thinking: I sap Demo, druid opens on Affliction, then either Blind the Reaver, or save it for when Demo comes out of sap. The trick is keeping one lock CC'd so that the other can be killed without interruption by Deathcoil & Fear.

The Warrior/Pally combo really has me stumped. I understand that we need to pressure them to force the pally to blow his bubble early, but the warrior is smart enough to focus on me. 12 seconds of sap is nowhere near enough to force the pally to bubble... and even then we would have to wait off the bubble, and burn him down again. I don't know... this is really a rough matchup for our group. Even though either of us could take either of them 1v1, they just pair much better together.

 

MatsT

I suppose a decent strategy would be trying to fake heal, and if you draw out an improved counterspell or spell lock you immidiatly divine shield and start healing. The counterspell will still be on cooldown when the shield wears off.

Versus, the double caster teams, our killing order are usually priest->warlock->mage. Too few mages are fire and you can't risk getting mass dispelled from the priest. Nuking him also prevents him from using shadow word death to some degree.

 

Dashivax