[2v2] Priest/Mage

DecimusGarona · 06/24/07, 12:13 PM

What beats this combo? My rogue/druid team had a 39 minute match against this combo yesterday, we almost killed both players several times, but almost doesn't cut it. Their basic strategy was to burn me out of mana while chain sheeping, kiting, rooting, and fearing my partner.

The mage was an elemental specced, full gladiator geared gnome with 400 resilience, blazing speed, frost bite and ice block, while my partner was being chain CCed it was pretty much impossible for me to keep both of them in combat to prevent them from drinking. The mage even ended up summoning some more water about 30 minutes in because he ran out... Them being gnome/dwarf it was very easy to lose track of them for a split second and have one of them slip behind a pillar for a quick drink. Eventually after playing LoS games and trying to keep them from drinking, I got rooted and slowed out in the open and the priest emptied my mana bar while the mage nuked me down, resulting in an unpleasant death.

Now, I don't mind losing, but it is a bit frustrating wasting 39 minutes on this team only to lose to possibly the cheapest strategy I have ever seen in the arena. Are there any suggestions on how to beat this combo, preferably without hoping for one of them to disconnect or fall asleep at the keyboard 5 hours into the match? I also can't imagine that any other team combos have an easier time here, druid is the best possible healer you could hope for against this matchup to counter sheep, and I don't imagine mana based DPS would be very effective against the mana burning power of a priest.

Maligne · 06/25/07, 9:27 AM

I play with a priest in 2's for fun, and our worst match up is anything with a rogue or a druid. Both is even worse. Have you tried putting the rogue on the priest from the start, while the druid cyclones the mage? As a mage there's not much I can do to get a rogue off of my priest, especially when there's a druid harassing me.

DecimusGarona · 06/25/07, 12:49 PM

Originally Posted by Maligne

I play with a priest in 2's for fun, and our worst match up is anything with a rogue or a druid. Both is even worse. Have you tried putting the rogue on the priest from the start, while the druid cyclones the mage? As a mage there's not much I can do to get a rogue off of my priest, especially when there's a druid harassing me.

We had 39 minutes to try both strategies. Originally the plan was to kill the priest, but around 20 minutes in we switched tactics because we were failing miserably. Between sheep, aoe fear, rank 1 frostbolts (which proc frostbite... grr), pvp trinket and stoneform to remove poisons, I just don't have enough CC to keep the mage off of my rogue for long enough to kill the priest. While keeping the rogue on the priest generally prevented mana burning, we were getting nowhere near killing them while the mage was free to dps me at will between CCs. Perhaps if polymorph and rank 1 frostbolt actually cost some reasonable amount of mana we could oom the mage, but no such luck.

We did have more luck attempting to kill the mage, but every time he got low he would get a frostbite or blazing speed proc, and just keep running until I ran out of CCs to keep the priest occupied. The one or two times he was really close to death, he got an iceblock off.

Probably the biggest problem we faced was PoM... the main ability I have to keep the other team in combat to prevent drinking is rank 1 moonfire... which triggers PoM and causes it to bounce back and forth, making it extremely difficult to kill anything between all the CC that this team brought to the table.

Maligne · 06/25/07, 2:22 PM

Originally Posted by DecimusGarona

We had 39 minutes to try both strategies. Originally the plan was to kill the priest, but around 20 minutes in we switched tactics because we were failing miserably. Between sheep, aoe fear, rank 1 frostbolts (which proc frostbite... grr), pvp trinket and stoneform to remove poisons, I just don't have enough CC to keep the mage off of my rogue for long enough to kill the priest. While keeping the rogue on the priest generally prevented mana burning, we were getting nowhere near killing them while the mage was free to dps me at will between CCs. Perhaps if polymorph and rank 1 frostbolt actually cost some reasonable amount of mana we could oom the mage, but no such luck.

We did have more luck attempting to kill the mage, but every time he got low he would get a frostbite or blazing speed proc, and just keep running until I ran out of CCs to keep the priest occupied. The one or two times he was really close to death, he got an iceblock off.

Probably the biggest problem we faced was PoM... the main ability I have to keep the other team in combat to prevent drinking is rank 1 moonfire... which triggers PoM and causes it to bounce back and forth, making it extremely difficult to kill anything between all the CC that this team brought to the table.

I don't know - what spec is the rogue? Unless he's pretty undergeared he should be able to solo a priest in the duration of two cyclones and a blind on the mage. Also, elementalist mages are the worst of the 3 or 4 popular specs for mana efficiency. It seems like even if you messed up the initial jump on the priest, you guys would win the mana war easily by keeping on the him. My 12k health/250 resilience priest teammate has literally been dropped by a druid/rogue team before the 2nd cyclone ended on me.

DecimusGarona · 06/25/07, 3:32 PM

The rogue is combat swords, probably the highest possible DPS spec you can get for PvP - daggers are way too flaky and easily countered by good players. He is also wielding the merciless gladiator mainhand sword, and he is probably the best DPS rogue in our guild and possibly even horde side for our server. We usually don't have problems killing other teams in a reasonable amount of time, except of course for the ever popular MS warrior/paladin teams, but these 2 were giving us a lot of trouble.

As for blind, it simply does not work when they are both spread out by at least 20 yards, even if he does get blind off the mage can iceblock or use his PvP trinket. All it takes is for the gnome to get off one sheep and my partner is out of action for 12 seconds, long enough for the dwarf to break free of crippling poison and just run away while my rogue is then just snared, rooted, and kited unless he blows cooldowns. Blowing cooldowns just to get to the priest means he will be feared when he gets there, and he has to start all over again 5 minutes later. They also made excellent usage of ice lance, wands, and the shadow sight powerup to keep my rogue from restealthing and getting another opener.

Both players on the other team had over 10k health (probably closer to 11k-12k), with 400+ resilience. The resilience really kills the ability of a rogue to burst them down, and I'm sure that they had pure PvP specs as well. I wish I could find them on armory, but I don't remember their names and our ladder hasn't updated since last Wednesday.

tristantio · 06/25/07, 3:41 PM

Originally Posted by DecimusGarona

I got rooted and slowed out in the open and the priest emptied my mana bar while the mage nuked me down, resulting in an unpleasant death.

As a druid how did you become rooted?

Bbr · 06/25/07, 3:47 PM

Use your element of surprise with burst dmg.

I was playing with a feral druid partner and met with the same setup. I used to go invis and nuke the healer/CC the other guy. The rest was easy. Sapping/Cycloning in your case might be a good idea.

If you have enough resi, the burst damage you are going to get will be far less considering your Clos.

Prayer of Mending is a pain sometimes but the main point of our tactic was sticking to one person all the time, especially when we faced a priest but then again I play PoM+skillblast in 2v2 which, when the priest does not have PS, makes the things way easier.

• Shifft · 06/25/07, 4:12 PM

the main ability I have to keep the other team in combat to prevent drinking is rank 1 moonfire...

Faerie fire to avoid PoM bounces?

Leto · 06/25/07, 4:12 PM

Originally Posted by Bbr

Use your element of surprise with burst dmg.

I was playing with a feral druid partner and met with the same setup. I used to go invis and nuke the healer/CC the other guy. The rest was easy. Sapping/Cycloning in your case might be a good idea.

If you have enough resi, the burst damage you are going to get will be far less considering your Clos.

Prayer of Mending is a pain sometimes but the main point of our tactic was sticking to one person all the time, especially when we faced a priest but then again I play PoM+skillblast in 2v2 which, when the priest does not have PS, makes the things way easier.

This isn't going to work.

They are playing resto druid/rogue... so the druid won't be able to do much burst, and the priest will just fear both of them if they both get on him at the start.

The mage can trinket out of the sap then sheep the rogue.

DecimusGarona · 06/25/07, 4:22 PM

Originally Posted by Shifft

Faerie fire to avoid PoM bounces?

Faerie fire does not stop them from drinking if they have already sat down, unfortunately.

DecimusGarona · 06/25/07, 4:32 PM

Originally Posted by tristantio

As a druid how did you become rooted?

Well I suppose I wasn't explicitly clear on what happened, but I had travel formed around a pillar to get to the priest who had just sat down for another drink (ugh), he feared me and got off a couple of mana burns, leaving me oom and in the clear, and the mage rooted me there while they killed me. I had no mana left to shapeshift to break out and play LoS games on the pillar, and my trinket was on cooldown. I suppose I could've done something different to avoid it, but it still doesn't solve the problem of how to actually kill them in the first place. I was also running very low on arena water at that point, I had already gone through more than a full stack and as soon as that runs out I only have innervates every 6 minutes to regen with, and innervate is unfortunately both dispellable and spell stealable.

Tejs · 06/25/07, 4:39 PM

Decimus,

I was thinking about this somewhat - perhaps you can use Cyclone as a heal preventative? Watch the priest casting a heal and then cyclone the mage to make them immune to the priest heal. Continue doing this so that the priest cant heal, and when the mage goes immune, cyclone the priest. After that, have Voljun Gladiator-equipped Deadly Throw the priest, plus Ent Roots the priest so he cant run in and fear. Could potentially get the mage down low from that, and if he R1 Frostbolts, you can CloS. Blind would be effective on the mage to prevent a running away session. If he R1 Frostbolts you and tries to drink, blind him and wait for the frostbolt to wear off, instead of using it as a healer CC method.

Mind Numbing poison on the priest would be useful as well. How were they avoiding the crippling poison? The mage isnt a dwarf so he cant dispel it.

After that, I have nothing.

tristantio · 06/25/07, 4:51 PM

Originally Posted by Tejs

Decimus,

I was thinking about this somewhat - perhaps you can use Cyclone as a heal preventative? Watch the priest casting a heal and then cyclone the mage to make them immune to the priest heal. Continue doing this so that the priest cant heal, and when the mage goes immune, cyclone the priest. After that, have Voljun Gladiator-equipped Deadly Throw the priest, plus Ent Roots the priest so he cant run in and fear. Could potentially get the mage down low from that, and if he R1 Frostbolts, you can CloS. Blind would be effective on the mage to prevent a running away session. If he R1 Frostbolts you and tries to drink, blind him and wait for the frostbolt to wear off, instead of using it as a healer CC method.

Mind Numbing poison on the priest would be useful as well. How were they avoiding the crippling poison? The mage isnt a dwarf so he cant dispel it.

After that, I have nothing.

Gnome mages can remove movement impairing effects, ie. crippling poison with escape artist. Also blink would remove it.

Voljun · 06/25/07, 4:55 PM

Found the team

Here is the mage. We went up against the priest Vinzent or something like that. You can check out the team via armory. In case you can't see, the mage has 400 resi and the priest has 250 along with the Breaker necklace. http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#c...idan&n=Quarion

Is 39 minutes a record or something? I think the closest we got was a 20 minute game and that was vs a similar match up.

As a druid how did you become rooted?

Via Frostbite or Frostbolt. He can shift into travel form to run out of los, but then he'll be spending mana that he needs to keep us up. Keep and mind that the priest is able to manaburn as we are concentrating on the mage.

How were they avoiding the crippling poison?

Either by Blazing Speed (Happened alot) or by Iceblock if necessary. Decimus (Bearscantank) was also using Cyclone to prevent healing. The mage can get away from me too easily to dps him down in any amount of time.

This setup was extremely hard to beat. We actually fought agianst them 3x. This was the third match. The first match was where I killed the mage in under 20 seconds. The 2nd was slightly longer ending up with us winning. I don't recall how. The 3rd was this 39 minute match.

Basically the mage has Blazing Speed, Frostbite, Frostbolt slow, Frost nova, escape artist, iceblock, and his PvP trinket. It is HARD to stay on him for any amount of time. Gladiator Gloves interrupt certainly helped alot on the chance that he did get short duration cc on me and he was unable to poly right away. Imp Sprint definatly helped when trying to burst him down, but usually a frostbite or Blazing Speed would proc. The problem is when he can sheep for a steady 20 seconds, you can go for him again at which point he can easily get away before you can kill him via any of the above mentioned ways. There is also the priest fear when necessary which takes care of me for 8 seconds allowing a full 20 sec chain sheep cycle to start again.

The priest is hard to kill as well. I really don't run into problems killing priests if it is just me and him. It may take me awhile depending on his hp/resilliance, but I'll get him down. The problem again is the other person's CC. In this case, frostbolting me, nova, frostbite, sheep.

Mana is not an issue for anyone on this team other than our druid. Because I am under CC so often the priest is able to go around a pillar out of los and drink for about 5 seconds. Even when I was dpsing the mage he was able to either nova both of us, the priest would fear, or just sheep me. He can then run out of los to drink/evocate. We also ran this team out of water, the mage just ran around a pillar and conjured more. This was about 35 minutes into the fight.

Next time we run into them I am going full PvE gear to maximize dps. I only run with about 3 gladiator items. My other gear is PvE but is sufficient for PvP (Gemmed and enchanted for PvP). You can check out my armory, but I am in PvE gear atm.

I hope this doesn't come across as a rant just because it is long. It was quite an interesting fight and I would have normally enjoyed it if it hadn't lasted 39 minutes. I had to go to the bathroom halfway through...

Voljun · 06/25/07, 4:55 PM

Originally Posted by tristantio

Gnome mages can remove movement impairing effects, ie. crippling poison with escape artist. Also blink would remove it.

Forgot to add that, Thank you. If he really needed to, he could use his PvP trinket as well.