3v3 Arena - Page 14

michaelr8 · 01/04/08, 3:36 PM

Hey guys, currently I am running a sl/sl lock, Rogue, disp/holy priest in 3s. We got up to 1950, but then quickly got beaten by the famous Priest Mage Rogue combo. Who should we be killing first in this situation, the priest, mage?

Me and our rogue have mixed opinions, and I am just not sure who I should be on in terms of fearing etc.

Also, is this combo a 2k+ team with right playing?

EDIT:

Just to add, another combo we had a hard time with was resto druid warrior rogue, or most teams with druids in them.

For a combo such as this, should we cc the dps and down the druid first?

Aphyrax · 01/04/08, 8:28 PM

Sorry to reply to such an ancient post, but I disagree. I peaked at 2200 last season, which is well above average but still miles from the top.

One late night when few people queued we got to play a series of 5 consecutive mirror games against Spoh/Serennia. We got schooled. Absolutely schooled. Words can hardly describe how badly we got owned. And not the "lol5luckycritsinarow" way but the "wtfcouldwehavedone" way.

What is the point of this? If the druid class was balanced around what Spoh can do then I might as well quit, because I would be useless as a druid. And that same night, we played against some 1800 mirror team three times in a row and did to them what was just done to us. What would that druid do if the game was balanced around Spoh? And 1800 is still top 10%. Further, where are the future skilled players going to come from? Everyone starts out small. If one class is completely useless at 1500 then it is unlikely that people will stick with it until they are 2300 skilled. You can often cut off the top of something, but you can rarely cut off the bottom without it collapsing.

I agree that druids scale amazingly well with player skill while pallies don't due to lack of advanced options. But the solution should not be to balance for 2500s. If that means that WoW as an e-sport is dead, so be it. But you cannot balance the game around the top 0.1% and require the rest of us to reroll the "designated easy mode" classes or quit. Because I will not level a pally if they do decide to balance the druid around Spoh.

The solution is to give pallies more ways to distinguish themselves. Dodging CS as skill-defining ability does not cut it.

EDIT: Also, druids did not get buffed due to terrible players. Druids got buffed due to a lack of 5v5 representation. If you look at the 5v5 numbers, druid representation steadily declines in 5v5 as ratings go up, because many of the druid tools that make them OP in 2v2 do not work in 5v5, and because teams get better at locking down the druid. The skill ceiling, while incredibly high in 2v2, is not actually that high in 5v5 for druids. With three people on me, travel form is not really an option. The biggest skill in 5v5 is positioning, just like for many other classes.

Whether or not this is a valid reason is up for debate, but to me it is clear that Blizzard looked at the 5v5 numbers and felt the need to fix them, 2v2 be damned. 3v3, I honestly think druids are just right. We work with more lineups than priests but priests are generally stronger in the lineups they play. Pallies and shamans need help in that bracket, everyone knows that.

Originally Posted by Praetorian

No, it's not irrelevant. That's part of the concern. Honestly, druids have bad players to thank for their buffs, and druids are by far the hardest class to balance in arenas. A mediocre druid is really, really, really bad. The kind that just sits there and keeps HoTs on like he's healing in a raid. They're awful, but a paladin playing that style works much better.

Take a mediocre paladin and a mediocre druid, around 1700ish. The paladin may stand in the open and spam FoL and some Holy Light when needed. He will BoP his target when his target gets low from melee, and he will bubble when he's under pressure and panics. He probably casts Freedom too, either on himself if he's being snared by a warrior or something, or on his partner. Not optimally, but he'll use those abilities because they're obvious. He may not use BoSac at all, probably uses HoJ poorly, etc. But the thing is that this play actually isn't that far off from the play of a 2000+ paladin.

Now, the mediocre druid. He'll heal with HoTs because that's what they do. He may barely use CC at all, but probably tries to cyclone the opposing healer. If he's focused, he'll run around like a chicken with his head cut off and crumple. He might go bear so he can absorb damage better. I've seen a lot of bad druids at low ranks (and some at higher ranks even), and this is how it plays out. But it's like a completely different class than a 2k+ druid.

To 95% of the players seeing these two guys, paladins seem very strong and druids seem mediocre and maybe a little fragile if anything. So paladins get nerfed and druids get buffed. Yet druids have so much more potential; when you put them in the hands of a truly skilled player who can use the CC appropriately, can kite and mix up travelform to break snares and get out of LoS, bear to feral charge offensively to help lock down enemies and defensively to get away, etc., it's maddening. They're like ghosts you can't pin down yet who keep themselves and their partner alive, yet if you ignore them they will cripple your team with roots and cyclone.

But most players aren't seeing that level of druid. But it hardly means it's irrelevant in terms of balance. If a theorycrafting player in optimized gear can put out ridiculous amounts of PvE DPS (see, e.g., MSD arcane mages), that gets them nerfed even though most players can't even approach those levels. Tuning takes multiple levels of skill and experience into account elsewhere, and it certainly should in PvP. It especially should if anyone at Blizzard still has any aspirations of promoting WoW as an eSport.

Here's the core of the problem: Paladins (and shamans to an extent) only "seem" equally good at lower levels because: 1) their "unskilled" playstyle more closely approximates what a "skilled" player should do, due to fewer choices available to the class at any given time, reducing the number of mistakes one can make; and 2) "unskilled" opponents are unable to capitalize on their weaknesses. A 1700 mage who's trying to kite and being focused hard isn't going to CS me the instant I start to cast an important heal. A 2300 mage will. A 1700 warlock probably puts Agony on me and maybe even has his felhunter on auto-lock (seriously I've seen this even at 2000, wtf?). A 2300 warlock is going to Tongues me and time a spell lock to land right before my painfully slow heal would've completed, otherwise using his pet to munch any groundings I may drop next to me.

I think balance shouldn't assume poor play. It's not fair to say that we have no answer to someone trying to CS/spell lock us because most players aren't good enough to time that ability properly or to remember to use it. So many games that I've won, I knew were gifts, and that frustrates me. I knew damn well the mage had CS up because I was following it since his last one. But I said "fuck it, I need to heal or my partner's dead" and just spammed LHW for 10 seconds straight. No CS came. If one had, we'd have lost with certainty. But we won, because the opposing team was too uncoordinated (or maybe just the opposing mage) to exploit my glaring weaknesses.

But I think the arena game in fact has to be balanced around the 2300+ level, because then at 1700 you have a bar by which to gauge your progress. (Note: I am not at the 2300+ level myself. I've peaked at 2250ish so far, but it's something towards which I continue to strive, and I love getting to play 2300-2400 players -- except when they're on goddamned 2000 rated point-selling/feeding teams that kill our rating -- just because the style of play is so markedly different and I always learn something.)

But in balance terms, it's a lot more satisfying to be able to say, "Damn, yeah, we lost because I missed that CS, my bad, I need to work on paying attention to my focus target more" than it is to say "Fuck, we couldn't have done a fucking thing there." Balance the classes so that it's "fair" when people play well. You can't balance around the assumption that the average player is going to make all kinds of mistakes, because that's actually not balance at all.

TheCutlery · 01/04/08, 8:59 PM

In my scrub quest for 1850, losing 50 points this week, we've determined that aside from gladiator teams that rerolled PMR because they're bored and stomped 35 points from us (thanks Soliduz!), the druid is the single reason why it's pretty damned hard to get above 1600. If that druid has any clue at all, we lose. We either go full force, everything we've got unload on the druid and kill him, or we die. Die fast, or die slow, but we die. It is absolutely impossible for a good chunk of teams to counter stuff like the cyclone straight out of stealth, the cyclone while I'm behind the druid, the run to the other side of the arena and full heal/drink, and the endless swiftmends that are completely unstoppable. I can't pummel them, I can't stop them with stun, I can't do anything about it. If we're lucky, and notice the rejuv is up in the one GCD that we have to purge it, we might be able to do that, but that's pretty slim. I'd imagine that a druid's life is pretty horrible when he gets feared all over the arena, but unfortunately, I think that's a bad answer to the problem.

I can stop other healers from healing. I can force them to stop doing what they're doing (mana burn) and heal someone else. I can't force a druid to do anything. He does what he wants, and usually, he wants to avoid all DPS, keep someone CC'd, and keep their group healed. We've taken to the strategy that every druid must die the minute he comes out of stealth, and if we can't execute that for some reason, it's almost always a loss. That's extremely frustrating.

◊ Greenexile · 01/05/08, 12:29 AM

Cutlery, I too am on the scrub quest for 1850, so take my comments with a grain of salt. But as a druid, I can tell you we're not the super overpowered gods you might think we are. I cant quite tell what comp you're running or what the main problem is, but here's some things to consider. If one of my team mates is getting pounded on then often I cannot afford the time to cyclone a target. If I am up against a shammy, purges will mean I cant stack hots on a team mate, which means the healing I'm doing will struggle to keep up with the damage coming in, which means I'm going to struggle to CC. Swiftmend is not something I can spam, because it has a cooldown and also because its not mana efficient. In terms of actual healing output, in my opinion the drui is probably weaker than all the other healers. This is especially obvious when teams employ the 'omg zerg their warlock' strat - I really do struggle to keep up with the dps.

If your single strat is to kill the druid, well if it were me I probably wouldnt have too much trouble there. Especially against warriors, I can often survive well enough with some support from my team mates. Then while I'm dancing about I will have a chance to lay off heals and the odd cyclone and we'll get outselves into a pretty good position. The problem I have is when there is pressure on me, and some pressure on a team mate. I cant kite, CC and heal at the same time. As the warrior, you should probably be on another target. See if another of your team mates can put pressure on their druid while you do as much damage to your target. Make the druid heal while trying to protect himself. I dont know what else to say without knowing more about your team, but I play in the same range as you as the druid and I can tell you there are teams out there that can easily beat us if they play well.

Yes, good druids are going to hurt you and if you're struggling to reach 1850 (like I am) you're going to get beat. But really, its the same with many different classes as long as their played by good players.

Duncan · 01/05/08, 5:24 PM

As a druid try to keep in mind some "basics" for 3on3 (at least if you run 2 DPS, Healer).

1. If there is a warrior CC him.
2. If you cyclone/CC, then cyclone/CC a DPS most of the time OVER a healer (except if a target is damn low and CC'ing the healer means it dies, ofc).
3. Stack HoTs premature, before a target takes damage.

Triper · 01/05/08, 7:38 PM

Hi, me and a few of my friends are starting to get more serious about our 3s team. We run a frost mage, ms warrior and disc priest team. Now, from what I've read in this thread, is that this make-up is not exactly the optimal group to get to the 1850+ ratings.

In general we CC the warrior first to keep it off the priest and then pick the squishiest target to focus while I (the mage) watch to CS a heal from the other team. We're sitting at around 1550-1590 with this strat.

Any suggestions on how we can improve our chances?

Jabez · 01/05/08, 10:08 PM

Originally Posted by Triper

Hi, me and a few of my friends are starting to get more serious about our 3s team. We run a frost mage, ms warrior and disc priest team. Now, from what I've read in this thread, is that this make-up is not exactly the optimal group to get to the 1850+ ratings.

In general we CC the warrior first to keep it off the priest and then pick the squishiest target to focus while I (the mage) watch to CS a heal from the other team. We're sitting at around 1550-1590 with this strat.

Any suggestions on how we can improve our chances?

I play this setup at around 1900 rating, and its definitely doable to get even higher from my experience. The thing that loses us matches now is having to play defensively(something this setup isn't very good at, due to the squishy nature of the priest. I however switched from swords to maces recently, and it made it somewhat easier to defend) or the fact that we are running around with a bit low resilience(i'm at 270, the mage at 390 and the priest at 440). The key to winning with this team is using it for what its made for, playing offensively. This means charging in, getting some CC going while nuking your target(mages and paladins are good starters with this setup), while manaburning/dispelling, making sure you are always the one pushing it, not the opposing team. We have met and beat almost every setup there is now, and the only setups i would call "undoable" at this lvl are rogue/warrior/priest teams(stunlocking our priest while burning him, or the same to our mage with a fast mass dispel when the iceblock hits) and shaman/dps paladin/warrior, due to insane burst dmg.I have to say im looking forward to seeing how our setup plays on as we get better gear and more experience at higher brackets, maybe making us better at defending vs double melee teams.

Jipakazoid · 01/06/08, 1:53 AM

An interesting enough situation happens in our battlegroup - we had a never-seen-anywhere-before combo of disc priest / resto dru / sl lock team composition take the top spot just 2 weeks ago, quickly followed by 2 more teams of such combination getting to top5. From the win percentage of those teams (which is around 95%) it seems like an incredibly strong combo, which makes the fact I have never seen it before on other battlegroups even stranger.

Maybe it is something specific to our battlegroup? What do you think could counter such a team? My guess is 2 physical dps and a pet (war+hunt/rog+hunt) could be hell for them to handle, but those aren't too common of combinations..

P.S. To mods - kindly add Molten Core (eu) server (Nightfall battlegroup) to the list of possible realms to have your character from, thanks!

Kuai · 01/06/08, 3:17 AM

I played against a setup like that mid season 2 in which they killed me on my warrior so my paladin and priest put on BT SR Gear and ran around the map for 40 minutes until they left.

Aphyrax · 01/06/08, 5:04 PM

Originally Posted by Jipakazoid

An interesting enough situation happens in our battlegroup - we had a never-seen-anywhere-before combo of disc priest / resto dru / sl lock team composition take the top spot just 2 weeks ago, quickly followed by 2 more teams of such combination getting to top5. From the win percentage of those teams (which is around 95%) it seems like an incredibly strong combo, which makes the fact I have never seen it before on other battlegroups even stranger.

Maybe it is something specific to our battlegroup? What do you think could counter such a team? My guess is 2 physical dps and a pet (war+hunt/rog+hunt) could be hell for them to handle, but those aren't too common of combinations..

P.S. To mods - kindly add Molten Core (eu) server (Nightfall battlegroup) to the list of possible realms to have your character from, thanks!

I would imagine that team doing terribly against warrior/rogue/druid, which has been quite popular in my BG lately. Just zerg the warlock and watch their DPS drop to nothing. In general, warlock without supporting warrior tends to be weak against rogues.

icq14346413 · 01/07/08, 12:05 AM

Hi guys, I have some questions about playing a 3v3 arena warrior. (our 3v3 is warrior+priest+restro druid)

Besides DPSing and hamstring the melee, pummel the healer, what others the warrior can do(or do better)?

doogless · 01/07/08, 1:49 AM

Is there anything a team with a Warlock can do against a double melee team? My 493 resilience and Soul Link didn't seem to do a damn thing against the Warrior/Rogue/healer teams my Warlock/Rogue/Druid team saw today, they just sit on me until I die. I'm pretty sure it's just a pure counter-comp to us, but I'd like to know if there's something we're missing. We stick our Rogue on their healer, since putting him on the Rogue or Warrior really won't do much anyway in terms of keeping me alive, and the Druid and I try to rotate CCs on the two melee as best we can, but I still drop dead.

Winfurae · 01/07/08, 4:02 AM

I play 3v3 as enhancement shaman with a BM hunter and disc priest. We've reached 2037 rating with a win percentage of 75, however our battlegroup is rather poor (Ruin EU). We didn't reach our "dead point" yet, the only reason we've stopped playing is because our priest can't really be bothered playing arena, since its his raiding main and he rather pvp's on his rogue.

This is a typical "blow cooldowns and win the game in 30 seconds" setup, however, we've played lots of games where we outlasted our opponents as well. We pretty much always focus on a dps class rather than a healer, mainly because it locks their healer into healing instead of manaburning or cc'ing or whatever, and the guy getting focussed won't be doing the best dps he possibly can. We even nuke warriors (that can be proper annoying when they switch to a shield or intervene a healer) and sl locks. I usually wait till the focussed target has aimed shot on, then we blow heroism and beastial wrath and pump out tons of dps. We've beaten 1 warrior 2 healers using this tactic, as the healers just couldn't outheal our burst dmg while our priest is manaburning the healers.

We are really surprised we got this far, even beat a merciless gladiator team consisting of markmanship hunter, rogue and resto druid. A hunter or rogue is definately the hardest target for us to nuke, since a rogue mostly has double evasion and a hunter can easily kite me. However we seem to do pretty well and wonder how much higher we can get untill our burst damage becomes laughable.

woo-haa · 01/07/08, 7:04 AM

Originally Posted by doogless

Is there anything a team with a Warlock can do against a double melee team? My 493 resilience and Soul Link didn't seem to do a damn thing against the Warrior/Rogue/healer teams my Warlock/Rogue/Druid team saw today, they just sit on me until I die. I'm pretty sure it's just a pure counter-comp to us, but I'd like to know if there's something we're missing. We stick our Rogue on their healer, since putting him on the Rogue or Warrior really won't do much anyway in terms of keeping me alive, and the Druid and I try to rotate CCs on the two melee as best we can, but I still drop dead.

The rogue/warrior/druid is a near perfect counter to any warlock teams. However, we have lost to a well-coordinated rogue/lock/druid team. Their strategy was to put their rogue on ours and keep cyclone/root on me. This should let the warlock get some fears off on the druid. They killed our rogue both the games we lost before we could put on enough pressure to force their druid to heal.

◊ Vectivus · 01/07/08, 2:52 PM

Since I'm getting personal rating in 2v2 and easy points from 5v5, I've been using 3v3 as a throwaway bracket to play with friends.

This week, however, I joined a 1650 rated team that ended up consisting of myself (35/23/3 Warrior), a Discipline Priest, and a Ret Paladin. We dominated (and I mean dominated) most everything we faced, including very strong Priest/Rogue/Warlock teams we faced. We ended off near 1800 in only a dozen or so games played.

Is this a viable line-up to push forward? I have serious concerns about the likelihood of us defeating a good Druid/Warlock/Warrior team, but I think that good use of split DPS allows us to create enough offensive pressure to shut down most PMR/PMW teams.

Or am I just crazy?

Tower · 01/07/08, 3:07 PM

Paladins have horrible mana efficiency, just like Shadow Priests. Drain teams are going to gimp you, same goes with the outlast Druid/War/Warlock. Warrior/Priest/Holy Paladin is stronger for sure.

• Amera · 01/07/08, 4:11 PM

The changes to Ret tmake you slightly less mana dependent. Even totally drained, you can probably still muster rank 1 SoC for 30 sec at a time, so you will still do some damage at least. That's still better than mages, spriest, etc are going to be able to put out under similar circumstances. Have you taken on any PMR teams?

insi9nia · 01/08/08, 2:42 AM

i still cant figure how to beat a Resto Sham/MS Warr/Disc Priest combo with PMR zz
not to mention that particular team from Nerzhul has a Cat's Edge welding Warrior =((

◊ Vectivus · 01/08/08, 9:59 AM

Originally Posted by Amera

The changes to Ret tmake you slightly less mana dependent. Even totally drained, you can probably still muster rank 1 SoC for 30 sec at a time, so you will still do some damage at least. That's still better than mages, spriest, etc are going to be able to put out under similar circumstances. Have you taken on any PMR teams?

None worth writing home about yet. I'm hoping to see a few this week.

What possible strategies could we employ effectively against Warlock/Warrior/Druid? Have the Paladin babysit the Warrior while I try to burst the Warlock down (the Priest might get some burns off on the Druid)? Have the Paladin chase the Druid (Justice up) while I engage the Warrior to protect my Priest?

gatzu. · 01/08/08, 10:18 AM

I think your best bet is trying to zerg down the warlock while your priest dispels hots as much as possible. Also try to cc chain the druid with hammer, repentance, intimidation and psychic scream.

Serp · 01/08/08, 11:13 AM

Alternatively your group can zerg the druid with fear ward on the paladin, freedom for the warrior if/when yours get hammied, and spam dispel on him. With sunders and JoJ, if you can survive the SLSL lock and MS war on your priest (pending gear of all involved) the druid's pretty helpless with 2 dispels in game for fear, trinket/fear ward/bubble on the paladin, and with war fear "immunity" well documented at this point.

Best plan is to have more than one plan. Don't pick one target and sit on it especially through a set of games, be ready to change it up.

Riptide · 01/08/08, 11:19 AM

Originally Posted by insi9nia

i still cant figure how to beat a Resto Sham/MS Warr/Disc Priest combo with PMR zz
not to mention that particular team from Nerzhul has a Cat's Edge welding Warrior =((

I would recommend the typical mage locking down the warrior and bouncing sheeps between the shaman and the warrior. Rogue pressuring the priest(with the help of the mages first water elemental) but saving cooldowns until the priest is hurting for mana.Your priest needs to get off mana burns on both the priest (early on) and then the shaman as well keeping the priest stripped.If he can get off a mind control on the shaman all the better.Mage + priest have to constantly be killing grounding totems and poison cleansing the entire time.

Your mage has to be vocal so your priest can go and drink. When he can lock down the warrior AND shaman.Positioning is key in this fight if the shaman is forced oor of the priest he is as good as dead(if the priest from pmr has mana to tank the warrior). The mage and priest have to stay out of intercept range and shock range.

Basically PMR is all about controlling the fight until your mage has free time to burst the target down.Of course this is just my opinion as my team is still learning that communication is a big factor.

edit:Just wanted to add once the priest is oom and lust/PS/PI is gone the shaman is a good target also.

insi9nia · 01/08/08, 2:00 PM

if i recall right, the fight went like this.

Mage (400+ resi) immediately got charged by the warrior, he novaed and tried to kite the warrior while the rogue
sapped their priest. priest trinketted out of sap and dispelled slow+nova on warr, who immediately intercepted the mage
who was trying to kill grounding totem before sheeping the priest.
warrior kept getting on the mage while i tried to keep heals up on the mage + mana burn the priest since sheep wasnt
successful. FOCUS was on the shaman so basically CS was the only cc on priest. the priest however was just kiting around
the pillar since the shaman was able to keep himself up + HoTs / shield / pom from priest.
meanwhile the warrior was hitting our mage so hard he had to IB to clear MS debuff (30% hp). warrior then turns to me
instead and with our mage out of the picture their priest was allowed to heal his shaman + mana burn me. i couldnt
kite the mana burn/warr due to me having to bring the mage back up (and myself of course). basically i got drained fast
of mana and once IB wore off, the warrior and shaman switched back onto our mage and just hammered him down.

everything just went downhill from there.
we were 15-1 up till we met them and lost 3 in a row after that.

they were obviously higher rated than us (we lost 14/10/9) points in 3 consecutive rounds but we werent scrub geared
either. maybe if i was Pain Suppression that might have helped though. hmm.