I've seen it mentioned a couple of times, so I have to ask, what's the selling point of an UA lock in standard 4dps team?
(Spriest, ShS rogue, ? lock, mage, resto shaman)

I mean, you are trading a lot of survivability. We started running with said comp, and lock (even as SL as he is now) has been a regular focus target, and I just can't see it being any less so, if the opposition sees him casting UA.

We have been doing very well, but basically run into trouble as soon as we face a team with a lot of CC. Cleave teams seem to be ok, so we are not really missing CoEx for kiting, I'm not sure how many UAs would the lock even get off if they focus him, so that leaves the instant howl. Is there some vital combo we are missing here?

So for my 5v5 i run Holy Pally, Resto Shaman, MS wrrior, rogue, and enhance shaman. It work great because we have huge dps. Only downside is not having a priest or druid for cc or mana burns. We have been doing well until we started facing the same triple healer team, whos setup was: Resto druid, disc priest, holy pally, ms warrior, rogue. What do you think would be a good strategy for my setup to beat a 3 healer team? We cant let the druid alone because he can destroy us with cc especially when all our damage is melee. But we cant kill him because he goes bear form.

Between two Shaman you can't shock or ground most of the Druid's CC?

I'd think just sit on the Priest to eliminate Mana Burn and shut down the Druid's CC between your Shaman. If that doesn't work just turn around and unload on the Rogue.

Last week my 5's team ("cleave" comp? - war enhance rog pal priest) had a string of games vs a euro comp. We couldn't even threaten them. All they need is one nova to setup positioning and get CC's rolling. We tried training the priest; splitting war and enhance on lock/druid/priest while rog hits mage; we tried triple splitting with rog on mage, war on lock and enhance on priest. None of these worked. If the druid isn't pressured, roots and cyclones greatly limits our offensive pressure. Same true of mage. (Btw, mage armor not being dispellable is very noticable!) Priest left alone ends with an oom priest and/or pally (priest first usually). Lock left alone bounces fears between our healers while spamming dps. And even with a triple split, one of them will be left alone.
Our last game, we wanted to train the rog (this is post cheat death nerf) - but we didn't get a chance. One nova and they CC stomped us before we could even start on the rog. I think training the rog is still probably our best option, since their healing is not strong, and since it's the easiest target to hump (aka not get kited).
Any tips?

FYI we are hovering between 1650 and 1750, in primarily s3 gear. Our rogue is the most undergeared with a mix of s1/s2/s3 and pve gear.

EDIT: also, I've been keeping up with thread off and on for a long time. I haven't seen a lot of "cleave" comp discussion. Am I blind or is there another thread I should be reading?

There's not a lot of discussion on Cleaves here. The entire premise of the combo is to exploit the power of armor penetration and PvE gear/weapons, so running a team without these is actually pretty hard. You should be able to do enough damage to easily pressure a Eurocomp team into healing, which is what they are bad at (Euro is built around the philosophy that CC > healing). A glaive rogue will be able to solo the lock and make him almost completely useless, while the other two wreck the mage. Your priest can put burn pressure on the druid any time he tries to cast/CC. If you lack the gear, you might not be able to do this effectively.

A lot of that fight is initiative. If they are already CCing you the moment you try to engage, you will be behind and probably lose. You have to put out damage fast and early and put them on the defensive before they get into their CC rotation.

Speaking of cleave teams, I am on one for the first time this season and looking for some advice from some experienced players. What is the rogue's job, generally, against some of the more common comps (2345, 2346, euro, etc.)? I've seen hints of strats that say the rogue is split from the warrior/shaman, locking down a healer or mage, or setting up a hard switch, but I can't seem to find any definite strats.

I know that there are no 100% guaranteed win strats in arena and you have to roll with the punches to be successful, but I'm just looking for some good starting points. Thanks!

Hello everyone,

I finally got some RL friends to gear up, although they (shaman ><) chose specs that aren't exactly optimal for the 5's we were looking for. I've gotten challenger before, but am looking to step up and i'd like to see 1900+ at least this season.

I'm looking for a little bit of advice for our nonstandard team. It is MS/ restosham/ShS/Dpriest We have been rotating through mages (some good some bad but none reliable), though I was considering getting in a retadin. Anyway, assuming we keep the mage, we have been trying to stick the rogue on the lowest armor healer and i switch back and forth between defending the healers and the rogue target. We went 16-4 last week, then lost 3 straight to multi range groups.

I guess my question is what the roles the rogue and I should be having. He seems to think we need to focus more, while I am thinking that letting ranged dps fire on my healers unmolested just can't happen.

I wish I could be more specific but this opens up my basest uncertainties.

Thanks in advance.

I've been playing an alt paladin, but have the option of a druid or priest (would need to entirely gear them up)

I'm playing healer for a 4 shaman dps zerg team, and we are consistently losing from my getting excessively CC out the box, and loosing moment by an early death. I feel strongly at our rating currently (1500-1600 -.-) its mostly do to my skill as a player as the set up can easily go much higher. (You simply can't call a burst on demand like a NS/CL)

I am feeling frustrated by getting early CC and can't catch up on healing, I know that I should be doing more as far as placement, but from what I've read the weakness of a Paladin is because of their heals they are really susceptible to interrupt lock outs (rogue/warrior especially) - I feel like I almost turn into dead weight. Is there some trick I'm missing or should I look at gearing up another healer?

If I do go for another healer in this team comp would a Discipline priest or Resto druid provide more survivability? I know the priest gives me better offensive and defensive dispelling/pain suppression and offensive mana burning, but after you blow PS your out of tricks, where a resto druid has swift mend, NS/HT and can halt a burn with well placed cyclones. (In addition to being better able to lock out opposing team healers...)

Thoughts?

To Nexx, my comp is Holy Paladin, Resto Druid, Frost Mage, Ele Shaman and warrior or ShS rogue. Almost certainly with that comp you need a paladin for bop with the huge prevalence of cleave teams, a warrior/ret paladin combo can sit on the shaman with another person on the mage and almost completely shut down all damage except what the rogue or warrior is putting out. What this team is capable of doing is cycloning a target that has two enemies on them, getting a quick sheep off and calling for bop on the second person (generally shaman) and destroying somebody.

The team really isn't even close to euro because the warlock is effectively the backbone of that comp, but in exchange you gain incredible burst from moving to the elemental shaman.

So this season I have Xfered to a new server, which PvP talent is lacking, but it is nice to play with some close friends. Currently I am running a 4DPS team, with ele/frost/SP/Rogue/Holy Pally (we tried with a druid but failed this week.) For some reason I don't know what the team is lacking. We are now getting near the 100 game mark and I think some of our players experience is killing us. With the following opponents here are our strats:

2 Healer, 3 DPS: Zerg down 1 DPS, CC 1 healer. 2nd target is usually the Pally healer (he usually has to Bubble to keep his teammates alive)

3 Healer, 2 DPS: We fail horribly. Any input is appreciated.

Other 4 DPS teams. A 2x frost mage, SP, resto shammy and a rogue. The shatter x 2 would kill us along w/ the sap and heroism... they just destroyed us no matter what we tried. Both SP's were down. Then the Counterspells hit the pally and the rest of our team died.

Cleave teams we just plow through since we call out our BoP and nuke the player that is out in the open >.>

I am open to a differnt team makeup. I prefer to stay awat from a typical 2345 or 2346 since I enjoy trying to make something unique work. I am thinking I might give one of the following makeups a try: (ele/BM hunter/Frost mage/Disc/ R.Druid) or (ele/frost mage/BM/holy pally/disc) or a variation of a drain team with an ele shammy... (Hear me out on this one :-P) Ele Shammy/MM Hunter/Disc/R Druid/H Pally... With myself just kiting things around and taking the PS/BoP and doing enough dmg to run the opposing healers OOM.

EDIT: Current team is hovering around 1750 with us playing often in the 1800's Bracket.

I'm currently running this on US-Mug'thol (bg vengeance) and I feel it is very strong. We're been top 10 all season with much less games played than anyone above us. It actually plays very similiar to 2345.

A few thoughts:
No freedom- this means vs 2345 teams you really cant get on the mage. Them having freedom + your warrior effectively takes him out of the game. What we do is sit on the shaman while grounding/earthshock go to the mage.

Our target is almost always the one deemed most "bursty" if left to free cast. So that means vs 2346, again, we're training the shaman. With tremor + dispel +off shocks the warlock isnt much of a threat left alone.

Versus priest/druid teams, its really strong if you can kill the felhunter to eliminate all dispels, and just spam sheep the priest. When he has to focus on SW: Death and LOS he rarely is able to burn. Also all other cc(roots/fear/etc) become so much stronger while their priest is sheeped. (Tip: [Eye of Moam] to kill felhunters)

We really play a hyper aggresive style constantly switching (sometimes before ms/intercept even) to any target out of position. A normaly 2345 will tend to hoj an out of position target, or deathwished warrior while switching to him, which is a really strong play that you lose with a druid. You do gain some great moves though. For example casting on a target quickly to 40%, then cycloning him. This gives you 6 seconds to set up CC on their healers,(also causes shield/PRoM cooldowns to not be up) And then bursting again.

This is our first season running this but I really like it as we learn syrnergy with our new mage.



Oh yeah, druid/priest can wear very much pve gear if they have it.


edit: spelling, sorry just woke up