I've recently started 2v2s with a rogue, and we're slowly grinding up the ladder (1803 as of this post). While we generally find a way to beat most combinations, we're having difficulty against hunter+healer teams in general, but more specifically hunter+holy/disc priests. I realize this is a potent combination, especially considering the changes in 2.3.0, and wonder if there are any tactics that others are finding effective.
I'm currently 28/33/0 and the rogue is 0/31/30.
When facing hunter+priest teams, I generally try to stay out of LoS while the rogue tries in vain to drop the hunter. I limit my exposure to a minimum and thus only peek out to shield, renew, PoM the rogue, and in rare circumstance cast flash heals when the rogue starts getting close to death. This strategy has been unavailing as the hunter quickly puts his pet on me (if he has not done so already), viper stings me, and if time permits fires an arcane shot. Simultaneously the opposing priest will dispel or mana burn if he thinks he can get it off before I slip back out of LoS. In the end I lose the mana race between the viper stings, pet dps, and mana burns.
Between the hunter's frost trap and wing-clip, the rogue’s mobility is limited thereby preventing him from getting into my LoS for more heals. To worsen the situation, the opposing priest is quick to dispel my renews, shields, and PoM thereby leaving my partner with little healing. The priest is also free to heal the hunter and dps the rogue (aside from the occasional blind, stun, or opening sap). Long story short, we lose...
We’ve tried having me engage as well, but that typically allows either the hunter to unload on me or the priest to mana burn.
So, does anyone have a good strategy for this combination?
Also, would adopting a disc heavy build be worthwhile against this team without sacrificing success against other teams?
Last edited by Phace : 11/18/07 at 6:03 PM.
Reason: Spelling
I run the exact combo you are describing: MM hunter + deep disc priest (both dorf ^^). around 2100 rating now.
What we do is indeed CC ( trap / fear rotation ) your rogue and mana burn / drain the priest.
your rogue should be on the priest, not on the hunter. and you should focus on countering the enemy cc. Try to dispel the fears, use wound poison as a a mana burn yourself. Its all about who is pressuring who into using more mana. and if you are focusing the hunter while being cced heavily, the enemy priest can easily find time to drink while you are being chased by a scorpid, disallowing you to drink yourself.
Allthough a hard matchup for you, id recommend going for the priest, and focus in general on keeping you rogue going.
Did some calculations with Improved Power Word Shield and found some pretty interesting results I haven't read anywhere before.
The base absorb of PW:S r12 untalented is 1265 damage. 3/3 Imp. PW:S increases this base absorb by 15%(189.75dmg) to 1454.75 damage absorbed (ingame tooltip says 1454, I don't know what blizzard does exactly with the .75).
It's common knowledge that PW:S scales with 30% of your bonus healing, so with 3/3 Imp. PW:S and 1337 bonus healing in my pvp gear I was expecting 1454.75 + (1337 * 0.3) = 1885.85dmg absorbed. After testing it however (pulled a Gronn in BEM and sat down) I discovered I had 1916dmg absorbed.
After some number crunching I discovered that Imp. PW:S not only increases the base absorb of your PW:S but also increases the 30% that PW:S scales with healing by 15%. So the final calculation looked like this:
There is 1 point left over that can either go in holy nova, 1/3 blessed recovery (purge fodder), or 2/3 improved pw:shield.
Now the main choice that still remains (at least in my mind) is what to choose between 5/5 reflective shield and 5/5 enlightenment. I'm guessing it's a matter of personal preference and the arena bracket of choice (is reflective shield any good in 5v5?) and I think the only way to decide will be to try out both for a while.
Unfortunately I've been away for the last couple of weeks and I won't be back to playing for a few more days so I'm limited to theorycrafting. How are the impressions on reflective shield so far? How much hp/mp/spi is 5/5 enlightenment worth with arena gear? and with fort and arcane int? How about in pve gear? I don't want to respec my priest to do heroics/10mans so that has some weight in my decision as well. (I already have to respec my warrior 4+ times a week)
Mmm, 3 points in Improved healing as cookie cutter? I'm guessing I'm doing something horribly wrong then by spamming either flash or greater to save my rogue and myself from immenent death?
Now the main choice that still remains (at least in my mind) is what to choose between 5/5 reflective shield and 5/5 enlightenment. I'm guessing it's a matter of personal preference and the arena bracket of choice (is reflective shield any good in 5v5?) and I think the only way to decide will be to try out both for a while.
If you play with a mage, reflective shield is a good way to break polymorph. If deep wounds tics on a player with a reflective shield up, it will damage the warrior and break the sheep.
I actually prefer silent resolve. I know I get really annoyed trying to dispel other priests with it, trying to get fear ward off. Plus, it makes it much more difficult to dispel pain supression, and in general makes people spend more time purging rather than doing other things like mana burning or spamming lightning bolts.
Now the main choice that still remains (at least in my mind) is what to choose between 5/5 reflective shield and 5/5 enlightenment. I'm guessing it's a matter of personal preference and the arena bracket of choice (is reflective shield any good in 5v5?) and I think the only way to decide will be to try out both for a while.
As the person above me pointed out Reflective Shield sucks, unless you are running solely with players without CC (witch i cant really see being succesfull!) the real choice is between enlightenment and silent resolve. Pve-wise it is quite obvious witch is the best. PvP wise you are looking at 378 hp (assumung 756 stamina) or 25 % chance to not get your Focused Will dispelled while getting focused. You can argue about 2on2, but there is no doubt that Silent Resolve improves as your bracket size increases.
5% extra int = 222 mana (assuming 444 int)
5% extra spi = ~5 mp5 outside 5sr (assuming 151 spi)
The formula and results I posted are correct and tested on the date I made my previous post. The reason I made the formula longer then necessary is so everyone can understand all the separate steps involved. I figured it would be easier to understand for people that aren't very fond of math.
@heel: A lot of things seems to different on the PTR. Power Infusion still affects Manaburn on Live, even tho you said it does not on test.
The formula and results I posted are correct and tested on the date I made my previous post. The reason I made the formula longer then necessary is so everyone can understand all the separate steps involved. I figured it would be easier to understand for people that aren't very fond of math.
@heel: A lot of things seems to different on the PTR. Power Infusion still affects Manaburn on Live, even tho you said it does not on test.
Yeah, I have no idea what's up with that. In testing, mana burn was absolutely burning for the tooltip amount, even with Power Infusion up, and Reflective Shield was reflecting close to 1100 damage with only 1500 +healing. I don't know if I'm nuts or if they randomly decided to move some coefficients around during the last few weeks of testing.
On a somewhat related note, there's another stealth-change to discipline that I may or may not be imagining: I am pretty sure I cast Pain Suppression while silenced a few days ago, which suggestst that it has been changed to have the same casting rules as an immunity effect. That's pretty strong. I have not seen anyone else mention this.
On a somewhat related note, there's another stealth-change to discipline that I may or may not be imagining: I am pretty sure I cast Pain Suppression while silenced a few days ago, which suggestst that it has been changed to have the same casting rules as an immunity effect. That's pretty strong. I have not seen anyone else mention this.
There was some discussion a little bit back in this thread about taking reflective shield. Here's a link that will probably put most people into the "NO (unless your teams have no break-on-damage CC)" category: Why not reflective shield - Page 5 - Arena Junkies Forums
I dropped some casual teams I was on and am trying to get/play a bit more competitively. I was given a 1900 team by a guildmate that has left the game. Due to having a few "good" PvP guildmates I took their advice and got a skilled but average geared Rogue as my partner. My problem is, my resilience is around 240. The good news is we've went 2-2 so far.
Then I started a new 3v3 with a veteran Hunter (PvPs MM) and a Druid (Feral). We started off hot at 1500, pushed to 1650....then lost a string of games and went back to 1540~. I've got the whole Renew/PoM/PW:S thing down, but I still feel like I'm not playing well. Especially because I know my teammates are smart and have decent gear (The Hunter more so then the druid) gear. Obviously I can't expect to get high ratings with such little Resilience. Is a Hunter/Priest/Druid viable at all.
A few more things: I don't know all the LoS tricks, started doing arenas about a month ago and basically had just played 10 games a week. My 5v5 team is for fun with friends and sometimes we don't even get in games. Is: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft good for 2v2/3v3 or is this better: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
While I'm quite dominant in PvE healing, PvP to me is something I enjoy but it seems like I'm stuck in a rut, sure I can heal for days in BGs, but in Arena's I can't do anything. Will saving up points/honor for S3 hurt me now but benefit me later and should I just suck it up for now and get in games and experience?
I think it´s quite normal to feel nooby the first weeks, especially if you´re not playing more than 10 games a week. The same was true for my priest, when I started playing arena with it. I couldn´t figure out how to survive against anybody. I didn´t know wheter it was better to dispell or to cast a heal. I didn´t know at which point to switch from mana-burning to healing and vice-versa etcetc...
Arena is all about experience. The player that has to think, will always have a serious disadvantage against the player that can do a lot of things intuitively - and do them the right way, of course. It´s just about the experience to know e.g. against which classes you can use casted heals and against which you should avoid casting heals at all (e.g. getting a CS on a casted heal will in most cases lead to a loss in 2v2, so you have to figure how to get the mage to using it on your manaburn or MC or you simply just use instants). You´ll learn that you will hardly be able to beat a team with a pally without proper dispelling/manaburning (especially when running with a rogue) but you will probably have to focus on raw heal-output vs. dmg-strong teams in contrast.
These are just some basic things that rushed into my mind, all I want to say is that with experience comes the ability to think less on the "normal" things and focus on the special situations of each setup you face and to adapt youre style of playing and performing, but it´s all about experience
Your 3vs3 team has some serious mana-burning capability, but your main problem is that your hunter lacks a BoF, so once he gets caught in melee (by a warrior or a rogue, at least) he will have serious problems doing anything else than the occasional sting on a mana user.
Regarding your survivability, just ask a good mage or warlock and a warrior or rogue to go into the BEM arena outdoors and try to LOS/kite them (its easy there, so its a good start). Another thing would be your talents. When the first gladiator season started, i went with a PS-specc (and later on changed to 28/33, now i am 42/19 again). PS is a really great specc if you want to survive any burst-team and gives your teammates some time to help you with CC/snares.
For S3 equipment, just try to get the visible parts (head, S2 shoulders and probably the healing mace) so you look like full gladi, the rest would be okay with S2.
Seeing as I started so late and hope for so much more (ha). I'll be respeccing each week (I hadn't done that in the past...which was one of my drawbacks trying to hybrid spec PvE/PvP) I will be going to 41/20/0 in S3, I'll pick up the Gloves/Belt 1st then go from there. Thanks for all the tips, this thread has definitely helped overall. I've also been looking into going to the BEM arena and working on LOS. I feel like I'm playing FPS games again and learning choke points and maps
As a priest vs the warrior, the warrior has a huge advantage in a flat open area, while you hold a huge advantage if there are bridges / cliffs / ledges. So the fight itself is pretty balanced. The problem is that there is only 1 arena that isn't a flat open area. It would be more balanced if there were two maps with terrain features and two maps that are flat and open. But its not that way. As a priest you want that bridge map every time, though.
Hello, this is my first post here but I've read the whole thread followed it with great interest.
As you might see I have a rogue too but im playing as much on my priest, although I started playing on her seriously just a few months ago.
With that said I do have a few questions now with s3 comming up the next day (in EU). I've been thinking about which meta gem i should use for my head and can't decide between Powerful Earthstorm Diamond or Mystical Skyfire Diamond. I'm leaning towards PED atm because of the 45 sec CD on MSD, but im not sure.
I'm also wondering how usefull spellhit is? I've heard both that it's an amazing stat and that it's not worth it and atm I'm thinking of enchanting my gloves with spellhit.
If you could help me I'd greatly appretiate if and if it helps you answer my question I'm currenty focusing on 2vs2 with a felguard lock (tried SL/SL too, but we prefer felguard atm) and here is a link to my priest's armory if that is to any help.
@Kokolums: Why is BEM better for fighting warriors? It might me that's I'm a noob but I can't see any real advantages.
@NateDawg1021: I'm using proximo and alot of ppl I know are too and I find it great for arena. It basicly shows the enemies HP and mana in a small box and u can also click on them there to target them
@Kokolums: Why is BEM better for fighting warriors? It might me that's a noob but I can't see any real advantages.
He's thinking of mind control. If you spam heals and the warrior pummels one of them, you can cast a mind control on the warrior, and jump him off the bridge. On the flip side, if he pummels the mind control, then you're free to cast holy spells for a bit.
I've been thinking about which meta gem i should use for my head and can't decide between Powerful Earthstorm Diamond or Mystical Skyfire Diamond. I'm leaning towards PED atm because of the 45 sec CD on MSD, but im not sure.
I'm also wondering how usefull spellhit is? I've heard both that it's an amazing stat and that it's not worth it and atm I'm thinking of enchanting my gloves with spellhit.
My experience is predominately with 5s (Holy Pally / Disc Priest / MM Hunter / Fr Mage / War), but I sport both the Glyph of Power and Spell Strike enchant along with a MSD. I swapped over to the MSD a bit before its nerf and while it was a noticeable difference, it is still a major lifesaver. (For disclosure's sake, I have Spellsurge on my S2 Mace, so I may have a predilection for procs.) It seems that the extra couple heals/burns that you'll be able to get off as a result of MSD procs will have a larger effect than the extra Stun resist, especially in 2s where it may not even come into play some games.
On Spell Hit, a missed Dispel or bad string of Mana Burn resists can lose games, and losing a bit of throughput (~50 healing and 7 mp5) seems quite worth it to minimize that risk.
Originally Posted by Snowy
Lightwell owns even more because there's more charges for you if other people don't use it as much!
11/18/07, 2:52 AM
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