Surviving mages in 2vs2 as a resto shaman - Page 2

Coriolis · 05/01/07, 11:43 AM

I find it funny that it's all pallies making these claims of being able to avoid poly when infact you never really have to. Did you read what I said? here's what a mage does:

1)Invis, walk over to where his partner says I am
2)pop out, get rid of grounding with ice lance (if his partner can't do it for him), again if I redrop grounding.
3) nova
4) CS
5) Poly

How exactly, can I stop that from happening? Novaed and CSed I can neither run, nor shock, nor drop a grounding totem. I WILL get polied if the mage is serious about it - there is no way around that. I can understand if you haven't seen this before, most mages don't go through this trouble. Infact we fought one team and the first time we beat them since I stopped myself from being polied while we ran the mage and his healer OOM. The second and every other time the mage simply did the above combination and we died.

Now perhaps the hunter can survive better on his own but at least against a double DPS team they'd have to be really incompetent.

Tutanka · 05/01/07, 12:06 PM

1)Invis, walk over to where his partner says I am
2)pop out, get rid of grounding with ice lance (if his partner can't do it for him), again if I redrop grounding.
3) nova
4) CS
5) Poly

People in the thread have already given you the awnser you just dont want to hear it.

There are things you can do to avoid Poly, but if the mage is hell bent on turning you into a sheep (to the point of using cooldowns like POM and Imp silence) then he will probably be sucesfull.

You are very much incorect however, in your asumption that one player getting sheeped = an automatic loss.

A good hunter with the proper gear has the tools to survive for 20 to 30 secods aganst almost any combo that includes a mage.

Cel · 05/01/07, 12:18 PM

Beyond LoS, as a rogue one of the ways I stay alive while my teammate shaman is sheeped if LoS isn't immediately available is to stick by the sheep. This either allows your shaman to be broken by a Whirlwind, Cleave, Bladeflurry, Multishot, etc, or it keeps your enemy from using them which reduces the overall damage you take while waiting for your healer to break. Getting away from your opponents is best if you can manage it but it's not your only option.

Okyl · 05/01/07, 12:32 PM

It is easy for a hunter to survive 20-30seconds against mage healer, but mage dps is pretty tough. hunter is tricky in 2v2 but u can be successful. if u are really having that many issues your hunter buddy needs practice. my teams been fluttering around 2000 when i am playing.

Coriolis · 05/01/07, 12:38 PM

Well actually the only answer I can come up with and that some people have said is a high arcane resist set and from what I understand that should be doable although no one has apparently tried it which was what I wanted to know. I guess I'll just have to try it myself.

As for a hunter surviving that long, you are free to speculate and perhaps my hunter friend sucks. But the math is fairly clear, and 333 dps with trinkets/cooldowns used is really low for any dps class, and stopping him from LOSing can be done fairly easily by any class with a good slow/stun. And most classes that have no such slows/stuns (i.e. priest/warlock) can prolong the CC on me through fear.

Xunwael · 05/01/07, 12:39 PM

It is just as hard, if not harder, for a mage to avoid getting freeze trapped by a MM hunter as it is for a shaman to avoid getting polymorphed by a arcane mage. Scattershot, freeze trap and silencing shots alone will keep the mage completely useless for a good ~12 seconds - all of which are instant and impossible to prevent for the mage, unlike polymorph.

Failing that, just have the hunter attack the mage, or put his pet on him. A hunter pet (adds 1 to 1.5 seconds of cast time to poly easily) should delay the spell long enough for earth shock to be able to interrupt it. Then the mage doesn't have counterspell anymore, leaving you free to heal with all your heart's desire.

Any AoE effect will break invisibility (including earthbind), and the mage won't be able to see you any more than you will be able to see him, unless he's sitting right next to somebody else also in the game, watching through their screen.

Mana shield barely absorbs 700 damage (less than one shock or an auto-attack from anything that isn't a pet or a rogue) and costs simply ludicrous amounts of mana, even when talented. A mana draining sting + mana shield is often enough to dry out most mages into uselessness.

Cel · 05/01/07, 12:47 PM

Originally Posted by Xunwael

Mana shield barely absorbs 700 damage (less than one shock or an auto-attack from anything that isn't a pet or a rogue) and costs simply ludicrous amounts of mana, even when talented. A mana draining sting + mana shield is often enough to dry out most mages into uselessness.

Mana Shield is for physical damage only? or no?

Targrend · 05/01/07, 1:03 PM

Originally Posted by Coriolis

Well, I can see how an extra 2K hp would be sufficient for him to survive a mage/healer combo - probably. But it would still be far from sufficient against a mage/dps combo.

The extra 2k hitpoints is a huge difference. You can expect the initial burst from two blue geared dpsers to be doing about 7k damage - the pom pyro, with fireblast, the cold blood eviscerate, etc. But after that there's a several second 'reloading time' when they won't be doing much damage at all. The rogue has to wait on energy, the hunter doesn't have multishot up, the mage can't fireblast, and so on.

This is where that 2k health comes in. If you have 10k health you survive three times as long after the initial burst than if you have 8k health.

Cel · 05/01/07, 1:13 PM

Originally Posted by Targrend

The extra 2k hitpoints is a huge difference. You can expect the initial burst from two blue geared dpsers to be doing about 7k damage - the pom pyro, with fireblast, the cold blood eviscerate, etc. But after that there's a several second 'reloading time' when they won't be doing much damage at all. The rogue has to wait on energy, the hunter doesn't have multishot up, the mage can't fireblast, and so on.

This is where that 2k health comes in. If you have 10k health you survive three times as long after the initial burst than if you have 8k health.

Even if you get up into the higher echelons of arena ratings you'll not see much more burst damage than that. You'll see rogues in 2400+ teams with 300+ resilience 10k HP and 1300 AP. That's less AP than a blue geared rogue will have. This is assuming they don't swap gear for a burn... ItemRack is very good in arenas. :]

Tutanka · 05/01/07, 1:58 PM

Originally Posted by Coriolis

But the math is fairly clear, and 333 dps with trinkets/cooldowns used is really low for any dps class, and stopping him from LOSing can be done fairly easily by any class with a good slow/stun. And most classes that have no such slows/stuns (i.e. priest/warlock) can prolong the CC on me through fear.

Thoerycraft translates a lot better to PvE then PvP.

Your 333 DPS number really doesn’t mean much. Outside of Pyro, it's entirely possible for a good hunter to take "zreo" damage from a mage for 15 to 20 seconds, although that certainly isn’t a reasonable expectation.

Anyway I'm not going to kick a dead horse, you came here looking for advice, several people have given it to you, you rejected it, that’s fair enough.

Mages are a tough match up for a resto shaman there is no doubt, (our trinket not breaking sheep it pretty silly) but you are making it out to be much harder then it really is. If I were on a shaman/hunter team and we were playing a team with a mage, I would plan to try to stop polly first, but if that fails I would pan to kite. That it the correct strat, it wont work every time, it may not even work most of the time, but that’s what you should do.

Shaman in general are really not a great 2v2 class and thus you probably are going to hover around the 1900 range. The players you run into at that range generally do not play perfectly so it's better to assume that they wont then that they will.

Yes a Mage/rogue, Mage/lock combo, who play perfectly, beat a Shaman / Hunter combo every time, but even the best teams don’t play perfectly.

As you said in your Original Post, you started the team for fun, (2v2 is really fun IMO) so just do your best and hope to outplay class combos that are better then yours.

Coriolis · 05/01/07, 3:33 PM

Originally Posted by Targrend

The extra 2k hitpoints is a huge difference. You can expect the initial burst from two blue geared dpsers to be doing about 7k damage - the pom pyro, with fireblast, the cold blood eviscerate, etc. But after that there's a several second 'reloading time' when they won't be doing much damage at all. The rogue has to wait on energy, the hunter doesn't have multishot up, the mage can't fireblast, and so on.

This is where that 2k health comes in. If you have 10k health you survive three times as long after the initial burst than if you have 8k health.

Well yes, when we fight teams with 2 dps classes or 5vs5 arena having enough hp to survive that initial burst is all that really matters and sometimes that 8K hp is too little. But really the amount of times we die to me not being fast enough on the healing vs spike dps are very few compared to the time I get cced in some fashion at the wrong time. NS fights off enemy burst very well. But all that is out the window if I can't NS. Still he's getting more hp.

I guess that is the final verdict tutonka and resto shamans are just weak with a hunter in 2 vs 2 vs. mage teams although I will try the arcane resist gear. We're hovering at a bit above 1800 rating and we don't respec or anything so I guess we can't expect much but I was hoping for some way to counter CC that I hadn't thought of.

Okyl · 05/01/07, 3:56 PM

i play with a priest in 2v2, we do pretty good but are not able to get much past 2k rating. hunter and shaman are both classes that dont exactly shine in 2v2. all i can say is stack to survive (resilience, stam) i have almost 12k unbufed hp in full pvp gear. i think your best bet is to out last teams.

your hunter needs to practice interupting at the correct time, and yu both need to practice LoS as a team. my priest likes to hide from mages so i need to alter my playstyle in order to stay competetive.

if your hunter wants to get ideas for gear and spec he can check my armory.