3v3 Discussion
 

It had to be done.

I'm particularly interested in this one because 3v3 has the potential to be the "go to" bracket for a lot of people (myself included). By this I mean we rely on our 3v3 as opposed to 5v5 for our largest source of points. There are a few reasons for that, I think:

- Less chance of getting your "anti-team". It still happens, but no where near as much in 2v2.

- Middle-of-the-road ratings still produce respectable points.

- A 3 person team is much easier to form/maintain than a 5+ person team.

Anyway, throw the discussion here. I'm on a shadow priest / mutilate rogue rogue team, and we do relatively well. We run into trouble against pally/warrior/x teams, like everyone else.

3v3 is my favorite bracket, since it allows more viable groups than 2v2, yet doesn't have the scheduling of 4 other people.

Also there are only 3 targets to focus on killing or healing, so it is a bit easier to manage for me.

3v3 is also my favourite bracket. I do not like 2v2 very much since it's too much of a rock/paper/scissors, while 5v5 tends to get messy and is harder to organize.

I run in a top 10 team in my battlegroup as a arc/fire mage and usually with a warlock and a rogue. Lately we've added a paladin as well. We've found that 3 dps'ers work very well as the amount of dps we can put out exceeds the amount of healing that the opposite teams healer(s) can put out. I've not seen any high ranked 3v3 teams other than us going without a healing class though. Not that I've been looking at other battlegroups. :)

That's very interesting. The easiest teams we face are the one that don't bring some kind of healer. I'm counting a warlock on the team as a healer, by the way, because healthstones and healthstones + fel armor is stupid. =p

But generally, we see a team with no healers and just focus on surviving any sort of initial burst then just slow and steady them down, happily knowing that any damage we do is permanent.

Teams without a healer are easy to beat, and while a 2496 healthstone is useful, I would not count it as a healer, although it is much better than nothing ;).

What is really stupid is improved Fel armor with stone + healing PvP trinket + deathcoil, you get (2496 + 960 + 1000) * 1.26 = 5600 instant healing, not to mention you could 0.5 sec summon a VW to get a 2900 shield afterwards.


I run with a AP/Fire Mage, and with his 1.5sec 6k damage it is nice to really blow up someone (CC healers before blowing his load), the Pally is the other slot for their obvious utility.

What generally happens to my team when we have it off against all-or-nothing dps teams is we lose the first round or two (my warrior is definitely a bit trigger happy when it comes to charging out of los and into the fray) but then play more conservatively, which ends up putting these teams in very bad positions, as they dont have the survivability to last given this playstyle.

However, I've yet to face a team comp such as yours, and I can definitely see how having curse of tongues, wound poison, and spell steal (for the last resort bop) could be quite a potent combo against healers. I suppose if each of your members could hold up against ff without a healer for the 12 seconds I'm bubbled, you could very well have a chance at beating us (and any war/pal/xxx team).

There is a team in our battlegroup that is rolling around with 2 SP and 1 afflict lock, at first I didn't think much but after seeing them in action, man it's a rough combo. Full props to them they are co-ordinated as hell. Basically starts like this:

1. Charge out right into the opposite team, all 3 mounted so you don't get much time to assess who your against.
2. Pick out the target so long as it's not a paladin and drop all the instant dots and UA. Doesn't even have to be a healer first, anyone who can't clear dots instantly.
3. At this point the first person they are on has 10-12 dots and a UA to top it off, and the MB/SW:D are coming. Can't dispell them and they lock the healer with a silence.
4. 1-2 ticks and it's over, with 1 player down your 3 on 2 and they repeat the process.

Horribly effective combination, throw in at least 1 of them has a tidal charm gives them 3 AE fears, 1 single target fear, 1 deathcoil, 2 silences, 1 tidal charm stun, tongues, mass dispell and 3 instant cast 1-2k nukes.

VE and healthstones allow them to counter the first few instant dmg spells you throw at them, and it's usually over fairly fast.

I play 3v3 most since my 5v5 team rarely has everyone on and available (our paladin is rarely on aside from raids), and I enjoy it thoroughly. Mage/Rogue/Priest is a fun combination, it'd be nice to try more things though.

I've been toying with the idea of a Paladin/two marksman Hunters. Are there any clear scissor teams to our paper?

I've been looking at 5v5 as the "serious mode" bracket because, well, blizzard told me to. But thinking about it I think the 3v3, which I've all but ignored up until now, might be extremely fun. Just to reiterate - less class restrictions, but also less management/scheduling issues.

Best combinations in my opinion,

-2 Rogues and a resto druid

-MS/DW Warrior w/ shaman + pally healbots

-UA Warlock + Shadowpriest and a healer (paladin, druid, or elemental shaman work best)

-Frost mage + rogue (or SL warlock), and paladin (or disc/holy priest)

These are pretty much the only makeups our group faces anymore. Hunters are really underrepresented imo. Not saying other specs/classes aren't viable (ie. like fire mage or feral druids), but these are the most common group setups it seems.

Faced that exact same makeup awhile back. They had an interesting strategy where, in Nagrand, both hunters would position themselves on opposite ends of the field, and in Blade's Edge, hop onto opposite pillars. They were about a 1900 team, but in the end, it's just too easy to LOS dance against hunters. Furthermore, a paladin on the opposing team can toss a BoP on whoever you're focus-firing, and your team lacks a purge (might want to have a priest instead of a paladin).

In addition to what the above said, your team would be pretty vulnerable to my team (war/pala/sham). The shaman would purge your BoF and you'd pretty much be left with one hunter doing damage and the other taking it, whereas my team would have two people doing damage. IMO teams with two hunters need a more threatening target than the hunters themselves, like a shadowpriest or a warlock; so they can double up on anyone trying to assist train that person. The problem there is that you lack a healer, and if you cant take something critical like a warrior down in the first couple of seconds of the battle, you're likely defeated.

I'm currently in the process of assembling my team (took me a while to reroll from my 70 lock to a frost mage) and am looking at MS War / Me / Heal-o-pally. I was wondering a) how viable this setup will be, b) what basic strategies we should employ or be on the look-out for, and c) any random snippets of advice in this endeavor.

Currently our basic strategy is rather crude: DPS the target most affected by it (Eg a Rogue with all my roots / slows or a lock, or else healer) until I can force a counterspell on the healer and then ensure the warrior is BOFd and I'm BOPd so I can DPS uninterrupted by melee for the duration of the counterspell.

Advice on basic strategy would be greatly appreciated.

I just started my 3v3 team last night with the exact same setup you are thinking off and are using near identical tactics, after having gained a lot of arena gear from our 5v5 team that hovered around 2000 rating, until we had a few bad weeks and plummted to around 1800.

In our first night we played until we got to 1815 points and decided to stop there and carry on the next evening. To decide our first target we weighed up who would be the easier to kill and who would be the biggest threat left alone, as well as who the opposing team would miss the most when killed. If they only had one healer we would often go for that first unless their dps would be detrimental left alone. This often meant nuking a shaman and priest quickly down. Against a team two healers we would usually sheep the magic dispeller and nuke down the other.

The one team we did have a problem with was a team with a very similar setup to ours. Their mage was elemental instead of full frost meaning he had greater burst dmg from a greater variety of instant casts. I think we were 2-4 against them by the end of the evening. I couldn't really decide what it would have been best to DPS first. We tried beating on the mage, making the paladin heal and then CS him, like you suggested above. Too often though our paladin was in deep trouble by then himself as they were operating a similar strategy.

I run with a pretty standard team: full frost mage (me), holy paladin, and an MS warrior. 90% of teams go for me first and as long as I can hang out as long as I can our warrior usually is able to get someone down. It is also my job to put pressure on the healer. I know paladins never cause me trouble. 1 counter spell when they are below half health and a frost nova + icelance + fireblast is usually enough to knock them out.

So far the hardest class for us to beat is a hunter. They generally can burn me down the quickest, but it is also because we usually leave them or a warrior for last. Any team with a warlock we just put pressure on the lock right away with everything and they usually fall.

3v3 is really my favorite bracket, it has enough people that skill becomes a large part rather than class makeup like in 2v2, but it much easier to manage, and thus more fun for me.