2v2 Arena Thread - Page 46

Sorrugis · 07/20/08, 2:38 PM

Originally Posted by Grigori

If your Shaman is a good friend, picking up a Disc Priest or a Rogue for 3s is probably your best option.

Disc priest eh? What would the strategy be there? Have the priest start with mana burns, then swap to smiting when heroism starts / burst call is made?

Grigori · 07/21/08, 6:02 PM

Originally Posted by Sorrugis

Disc priest eh? What would the strategy be there? Have the priest start with mana burns, then swap to smiting when heroism starts / burst call is made?

It depends on the opponents. Although drain win is possible with this comp, most of the wins will be gib wins. The Priest needs to play very aggressively. Do the usual dispels and DoTs. The opposing team will generally either hug a pillar or hug your Hunter. Offensively PS the huggers to set up open shots for BM+Elemental, then help with MB/SWD/Smite for the gib. Save the Weakened Soul CD on the Hunter for pushback resistance on Aimed Shot when an enemy gets drawn/feared into the open for the gib.

This is probably the best BM+Elemental+? 3s comp. You will often have multiple chances to set up a gib with PS if the first one does not go well enough to call burst/CD. With a Rogue you have to open well on the first try.

sl0w · 07/23/08, 10:46 AM

Me (warlock) and my friend (priest) have recently started playing again.
Season 1 we ended up as gladiators with 2300 ish rating and mid season 2 when we both stopped playing we were somewhere 2k+ as well, and I think we're both pretty good at what we do even tho warlocks was the shizzle S1/S2.

We've been struggling to reach the 1700-something rating we're at now, and our main concern is those damned restodruids.
If we meet a restodruid/whatever it just seems like we have no chance of winning if they know what theyre doing.
I deal slow dps in my SL/SL spec and just a hot from time to time completely negates my output, trying to win the managame is almost impossible since my dmg output will in most cases be lower than theirs and its really hard to get a druid into manadrain/manaburn range.
The games that we have won are against people with really bad communication, drawing their dps LOS from the druid when hes missing some hp and just trying to burst him down and get some cc on the druid when he arrives. This is highly unreliable and if we dont succeed in 1-2 tries my priest partner is oom and one of us inevitably dies.

Should we just go all out pressure someone with dmg and spam dispels, and try to burn their dps down within one spelllock/fear/something? It's the only option as far as i can see, but then our setup just seems gimped since he would be better off speccing shadow.

Sorry for lotsa text with very little information.

Halp

Karoo · 07/23/08, 11:36 AM

Originally Posted by sl0w

Me (warlock) and my friend (priest) have recently started playing again.
Season 1 we ended up as gladiators with 2300 ish rating and mid season 2 when we both stopped playing we were somewhere 2k+ as well, and I think we're both pretty good at what we do even tho warlocks was the shizzle S1/S2.

We've been struggling to reach the 1700-something rating we're at now, and our main concern is those damned restodruids.
If we meet a restodruid/whatever it just seems like we have no chance of winning if they know what theyre doing.
I deal slow dps in my SL/SL spec and just a hot from time to time completely negates my output, trying to win the managame is almost impossible since my dmg output will in most cases be lower than theirs and its really hard to get a druid into manadrain/manaburn range.
The games that we have won are against people with really bad communication, drawing their dps LOS from the druid when hes missing some hp and just trying to burst him down and get some cc on the druid when he arrives. This is highly unreliable and if we dont succeed in 1-2 tries my priest partner is oom and one of us inevitably dies.

Should we just go all out pressure someone with dmg and spam dispels, and try to burn their dps down within one spelllock/fear/something? It's the only option as far as i can see, but then our setup just seems gimped since he would be better off speccing shadow.

Sorry for lotsa text with very little information.

Halp

Well, the arena game has taken on a much different shape since s1.

Disc Priest / Warlock really is just a gimp makeup. Things like Shaman/Warrior, Resto Druid with Rogue/Lock/Warrior/Hunter, DPriest / Rogue are all gonna eat you up. Pretty much every popular comp has you outcomped from the start.

You're strategy is sound, try to burn something down and CC/LoS healers. But that's much easier to do with a SPriest than a DPriest for you as a warlock. The priest will have Silence, do a lot more damage, and also boost your shadow damage. There's really no reason to have your priest stay Disc for this 2's makeup.

whysoez · 07/23/08, 1:21 PM

Originally Posted by Karoo

Well, the arena game has taken on a much different shape since s1.

Disc Priest / Warlock really is just a gimp makeup. Things like Shaman/Warrior, Resto Druid with Rogue/Lock/Warrior/Hunter, DPriest / Rogue are all gonna eat you up. Pretty much every popular comp has you outcomped from the start.

You're strategy is sound, try to burn something down and CC/LoS healers. But that's much easier to do with a SPriest than a DPriest for you as a warlock. The priest will have Silence, do a lot more damage, and also boost your shadow damage. There's really no reason to have your priest stay Disc for this 2's makeup.

Um really? I don't think so, this is a comp that I fear as a warrior with many different healer comps (Shaman, Pally, Druid). The OP had it right, the priest will need to play very offensively and stick close to his lock buddy vs. Druid teams, rarely healing and letting PoM do most of the healing. Versus druid teams you will basically just need to stick the druid and try to get a quick kill. The longer the fight goes out, the more of an advantage that team has.

This may give you the impression that running with an Spriest would be the more desirable partner, but it's really not the case. Yes you have stronger burst, but Disc priests can put out a startling amount of damage and still have suppression/heals. And versus melee/druid comps (especially Warrior/druid) the priest can just tank the damage, busting out shields/suppression and keeping focus on the druid to burn him down.

Karoo · 07/23/08, 5:36 PM

Originally Posted by whysoez

Um really? I don't think so, this is a comp that I fear as a warrior with many different healer comps (Shaman, Pally, Druid). The OP had it right, the priest will need to play very offensively and stick close to his lock buddy vs. Druid teams, rarely healing and letting PoM do most of the healing. Versus druid teams you will basically just need to stick the druid and try to get a quick kill. The longer the fight goes out, the more of an advantage that team has.

This may give you the impression that running with an Spriest would be the more desirable partner, but it's really not the case. Yes you have stronger burst, but Disc priests can put out a startling amount of damage and still have suppression/heals. And versus melee/druid comps (especially Warrior/druid) the priest can just tank the damage, busting out shields/suppression and keeping focus on the druid to burn him down.

I disagree completely. You do massively more damage with a shadow priest than with a disc priest and a shadow priest can tank longer without needing to heal than a disc priest.

You're sacrificing a lot of damage from yourself and from the disc priest for what? A few mendings and pain suppression?

VS any team with a healer silence is more beneficial than suppression especially if the healer is a druid.

Let's put it this way. A disc priest + sl/sl lock is not going to be putting out enough damage to force a druid to heal and make a warrior stay defensive. It leaves the druid's options open and allows him CC.

There is no way running with a disc priest is more beneficial. If you burn and fail with a disc priest your priest is going to go OOM very quickly and you will die. If the strategy is burn or lose why would you use a sub-class that can't put out as much damage on it's own and doesn't offer you the +shadow damage synergies to boost your damage as well? Just because it can heal a bit and pain suppress? That just drags the fight on, it doesn't swing it in your favor.

No, I'd say SPriest is a much better choice for a warlock.

If you're going to run with a healer find a druid.

whysoez · 07/23/08, 6:04 PM

A druid would likely be a better choice for a healer, sure. As for Spriest, you're not thinking holistically - what else does Spriest/Lock excel against, other than Druid/Warrior (or essentially any healer/warrior)? The point is that a disc priest is much more flexible than a spreist. With spriest/lock you really have a fast burst to rely on and if you can't kill, it's over. If the spriest has to heal, it's pretty much game over. On the other hand, a disc priest playing aggressively can still do his main job - heal. If a disc priest mana burns and goes oom - he can drink. If a spriest stops to drink, his lock is dying and his heals are pretty much useless, so he can't come back and heal. With spriest/lock the longer you drag the fight out, the higher your chance is to lose.

You can't really say one's 'better' than the other, it comes down to play style. If you want quick games that rely on burst and coordination, choose an Spriest. If you want to be able to do some good burst and still play a long game, choose a disc Priest. The strategy isn't ALWAYS "burn or lose" like you say, but that's the strat against a Druid/Warrior for example. With Spriest/Lock, there will never be a team you'll face where playing defensively will net you wins reliably.

edit - just check other posts on this forum to see that this comp is indeed effective (aside from me telling you that it is, as a fellow Duelist) - http://elitistjerks.com/817323-post1294.html The fun part about Disc priest/lock is if you leave the Lock alone and focus the priest, you're eating fears/shadow bolts/mana drains. Focus the lock and you're eating burns and decent damage. I've faced lock/priest teams where the disc priest was able to put out 14k damage in a 3 minute match. That's nothing to scoff at.

Rhod · 07/23/08, 6:12 PM

Healer/DPS comps are just half of the picture when playing as dpriest/lock. The comp really shines against double dps comps (not so much rogue/rogue, but against just about anything else; 80%+ win ratio against mage/rogue). Resto druid/hunter is a fairly easy win with the right strat (after a little trial and error, my partner and I won almost 100% vs. druid/hunter). And anything with a non-druid healer is slightly doable due to coordinated fears along with CoT and spell lock (against shaman/warrior, it's pretty much burst the warrior down and land the spell lock at the right time, or die 10s later).

The bottom line is that only rogue/priest, druid/rogue, and druid/warrior (in order of most to least difficult) are hard counters to dpriest/warlock. I'm not saying you can't win agaisnt those teams, and if you play your cards right you can pull off an upset, but by and large it's a loss and just about everything they can do trumps what you bring to the table (especially priest/rogue). By going shadow/affliction, you increase your odds against warrior based teams, but open yourself up to a ton of losses to douple dps comps and really lose even more often to anything with a rogue in it.

Canoness · 07/24/08, 2:25 PM

yea hi i have a 2v2 rogue priest team and im trying to find the best strats for warrior druid teams cause they just seem to rip us apart unless we get luck are teams seems to get to 1750-1800 then we come across warrior druid teams and they take us back to 1600

whysoez · 07/24/08, 2:54 PM

Originally Posted by Canoness

yea hi i have a 2v2 rogue priest team and im trying to find the best strats for warrior druid teams cause they just seem to rip us apart unless we get luck are teams seems to get to 1750-1800 then we come across warrior druid teams and they take us back to 1600

The rogue will need to keep crip on the warrior so he doesn't catch the priest. If the warrior is dwarf you're in for a bumpy ride. As a dwarf warrior I basically sunder up the priest, wait till he burns all his cd's (suppression, trinket), then I use all my cd's to catch him (trink, stoneform, fear) and rip him a new one.

The priest will need to basically LOS the warrior as best as possible, try to avoid getting caught with an intercept and force the warrior to switch to the rogue. That's when the priest will chase down the druid looking to fear/mana burn. Basically the rogue will be sticking the warrior the entire time, try to time KS for when the warrior intercepts, and only have the rogue swap to the druid at *very* opportune times.

◊ Yes · 07/24/08, 3:50 PM

Disc priest lock is a great setup that functions at all ratings, Kharoo. A disc priest warlock can put out about 1100~ sustained DPS on a warrior and finish it off with fears and spelllocks. It takes great coordination and LOS for the druid warrior team to win against a really good lock/disc priest.

Karoo · 07/24/08, 6:40 PM

Originally Posted by Yes

Disc priest lock is a great setup that functions at all ratings, Kharoo. A disc priest warlock can put out about 1100~ sustained DPS on a warrior and finish it off with fears and spelllocks. It takes great coordination and LOS for the druid warrior team to win against a really good lock/disc priest.

I'm still failing to see how DPriest is a better partner for a lock than an SPriest. All the arguments you guys are making seem situational.

DPriest/Lock better vs. Double DPS? What do you see more of in 2's? Double DPS or Druids, Warriors and Rogues? Well I guess that's not really a fair question because if you're struggling through the 1600 bracket you'll see plenty of double dps teams.

Nice URL link by the way. Advising him to go SPriest is not bad advice. It's a strong comp and in my very stubborn opinion, is the better choice. Maybe I just say that because I am a druid and would laugh at DPriest/Warlock.

It does not take great coordination from a druid/warrior team to win against a lock/disc priest team. It takes not being retarded. A DPriest can't actually effectively keep burning mana DPSing a warrior after the initial "burn while the druid is still stealthed" phase. Warriors put out a lot of damage on fully sundered warlocks especially when the warlock doesn't have help peeling. LOSing fears is easy since any half decent warrior is going to pummel most of them, and then it's just a matter of staying away from mana burns. It's kill the warrior before his sunders are up or lose. A disc priest / warlock can put out ~1100 dps if left standing alone un-cc'd. Druids are pretty good at CC.

Both Rogues and Warriors are a nightmare for that team and they are far and away the most prevalent dps classes in 2's. It's almost always going to be "burn one down or we lose" and that is much easier with an SPriest.

It was a poor choice of words calling Dpriest/Lock a "gimp makeup" but I feel it's an uphill battle for that team vs most of the popular comps in 2's and teaming with an Spriest would alleviate it somewhat.

So to revise my advice. If you're into the druid heavy 1850+ brackets I'd advice sticking with an SPriest, it'll make life easier against more of your opponents, statistically.

Malakitoo · 07/24/08, 7:26 PM

As spriest lock, you will probably lose to any team that doesn't have a warrior, certainly any team with a rogue. This is the majority of teams, and that is why sp/lock is more rare.

His point was that disc/lock is a good combo, and it is. As an above poster said, the only real hard counter is rogue/priest, with druid/rogue and druid/warrior being soft counters. SP/lock is hard countered by every team with a rogue.

World of Warcraft Arena Ranking | SK Gaming

I only checked the top 13 teams or so, but there's 11 disc priests to 2 shadow at the top, and disc priests are on all of the 2200+ teams.

UnholY_Prince · 07/24/08, 8:58 PM

As above mentioned, Spriest/Lock gets destroyed against any team with a Rogue. There's far more Rogue teams out there than Warrior teams atm. As a player who's played as both Spriest/Lock and Disc/Lock, the latter is much more versatile to play, and has much better chances of success.

◊ Yes · 07/24/08, 10:09 PM

Karoo you do realize you should attempt to armory people and research things a little bit before posting. Let me introduce myself. I am Gladiator Sey/Yes. This is one of my previous 2v2 teams. I am not going to boast but I think I speak from much bigger experience then you do, Karoo. Let me illustrate the way an sl/sl + discipline priest is going to play the match, first assuming that the warrior is going to sit on a warlock. The warlock is going to keep a full set of dots on the warrior. The priest is going to keep SW:P on the warrior. The warlock will attempt to drag the warrior out of LoS of the druid. The priest is going to attempt to psychic scream the druid. Due to warlock's high mitigation and priest's healing methods the priest is going to have a lot of global cooldowns while chasing the druid to either dispel the warrior or spam damage on the warrior. Once the warlock is in a position such as this the druid can only heal the warrior from one of these (green) positions. On other maps the druid's positioning is even worse and the strategy the druid warrior team needs to use is to run away. Now, once the warlock is in position he is in fact spamming searing pain and attempting to squeeze a fear on the warrior between his immunes. He is able to output DPS on the warrior between dots and life drain / searing pain spam.

If you were not aware, priests are capable of quite impressive burst damage. I suggest you look into watching some movies by Hydra to understand how Disc priest damage works in arena, but just to make sure the basic idea is that while the warrior's intercept is down and while the fel hunter's silence is up the priest can land a Holy fire > Mind Blast > SW

combo for 3000~ damage.

Now, the reason why a druid can not successfully stop this is because the priest is in fact pressuring him with fear, the druid is spending a lot of globals to refresh dispelled lifeblooms (At 3 stack, so the tic does not go off), and when the druid does get a position to attempt to cast a cyclone the fel hunter gives the priest those extra 3 seconds to either get a fear or run away.

Now, the complexity of the metagame comes in. The warrior should attempt to intercept the priest every time he gets in a position where he can pressure the druid. During that time the warlock will either cast a shadowbolt or gain better positioning, dragging the warrior further. The priest is going to drag the warrior out of LOS of the druid if the warrior is sticking to a priest, so that the druid will have to run straight through a warlock with deathcoil, silence, curse of exhaustion and fear to actually heal the warrior. As such, the warrior will be forced to switch to the warlock, giving the priest time to either drink or get positional advantage on the druid once again.

Now, to address the issue of why a shadowpriest is often an inferior partner: The team lacks the utility of healing. As such, the opponent team knows they are going to win the mana war so they concentrate on staying alive. The discipline priest team has the majority of crowd control and DPS options and the availability of winning based on longer term pressure/outlasting, whereas the double dps team lacks that. Furthermore, the double DPS team lacks the availability of 'root and stun' abilities outside of deathcoil, blackout procs and occasional fears in the middle of the map. The healer team has the advantage of being able to turn any fear into either pressure or drinking time.

doogless · 07/24/08, 10:14 PM

SPriest/Warlock has a really hard time against Warlock/Healer, Rogue/Healer, and Rogue/DPS, and does really well against Warrior/Healer.

Disc Priest/Warlock has a really hard time against Rogue/Healer, does really well against any double DPS, and can beat Warrior/Healer and other Warlock/Healer with proper play.

Warlock/Shadow Priest became so popular in S1 because Warrior/Paladin was EVERYWHERE, and Warlock/Shadow Priest completely wrecks that team, and also because resilience didn't reduce DoT damage. It's honestly not that great a team anymore, especially with how many Rogue teams (both Rogue/DPS and Rogue/Healer) exist.

Karoo · 07/25/08, 11:17 AM

Originally Posted by Yes

Karoo you do realize you should attempt to armory people and research things a little bit before posting. Let me introduce myself. I am Gladiator Sey/Yes. This is one of my previous 2v2 teams. I am not going to boast but I think I speak from much bigger experience then you do, Karoo. Let me illustrate the way an sl/sl + discipline priest is going to play the match, first assuming that the warrior is going to sit on a warlock. The warlock is going to keep a full set of dots on the warrior. The priest is going to keep SW:P on the warrior. The warlock will attempt to drag the warrior out of LoS of the druid. The priest is going to attempt to psychic scream the druid. Due to warlock's high mitigation and priest's healing methods the priest is going to have a lot of global cooldowns while chasing the druid to either dispel the warrior or spam damage on the warrior. Once the warlock is in a position such as this the druid can only heal the warrior from one of these (green) positions. On other maps the druid's positioning is even worse and the strategy the druid warrior team needs to use is to run away. Now, once the warlock is in position he is in fact spamming searing pain and attempting to squeeze a fear on the warrior between his immunes. He is able to output DPS on the warrior between dots and life drain / searing pain spam.

If you were not aware, priests are capable of quite impressive burst damage. I suggest you look into watching some movies by Hydra to understand how Disc priest damage works in arena, but just to make sure the basic idea is that while the warrior's intercept is down and while the fel hunter's silence is up the priest can land a Holy fire > Mind Blast > SW

combo for 3000~ damage.

Now, the reason why a druid can not successfully stop this is because the priest is in fact pressuring him with fear, the druid is spending a lot of globals to refresh dispelled lifeblooms (At 3 stack, so the tic does not go off), and when the druid does get a position to attempt to cast a cyclone the fel hunter gives the priest those extra 3 seconds to either get a fear or run away.

Now, the complexity of the metagame comes in. The warrior should attempt to intercept the priest every time he gets in a position where he can pressure the druid. During that time the warlock will either cast a shadowbolt or gain better positioning, dragging the warrior further. The priest is going to drag the warrior out of LOS of the druid if the warrior is sticking to a priest, so that the druid will have to run straight through a warlock with deathcoil, silence, curse of exhaustion and fear to actually heal the warrior. As such, the warrior will be forced to switch to the warlock, giving the priest time to either drink or get positional advantage on the druid once again.

I am entitled to disagree with your opinion of DPriest/Lock being able to easily win against Dru/Warr regardless of your experience. What you are describing here takes a lot of coordination and bad play on the druid's part. I never said it can't be done but a warrior/druid team has a distinct advantage in this fight in that it takes far less coordination and you can screw up and still win. How is a hamstrung/howled priest pressuring a druid so much, and how are two snared teamates so mobile? I appreciate your skill but what you are explaining isn't something that is easily accomplished and you're telling me to go watch videos of a top .01% skilled DPriest who is playing with equally skilled partners. I've seen Hydra play, I know who he is.

I can link videos of Hafu and Sonny all day and explain in painstaking detail exactly how to beat certain comps but the fact remains that most Druids cannot hope to play that well and don't have partners like Glickz to fall back on if they make mistakes.

As for the points being raised about the DPriest/Lock makeup I agree, SPriest probably isn't the wiser choice the more I think about it. However, the rate at which rogues have scaled and the fact that ArP has outpaced +armor on the pvp sets leaves warlocks in a tough situation with a teamate who can't peel very well. I guess I just really don't like the comp regardless of what kind of priest you throw in there. I'm stubborn.

Ticia · 07/25/08, 1:07 PM

I need some advice on how to play Rogue/Restokin. I played with a friend of mine, who admittedly doesn't have much arena experience (pretty much all of it was us playing rogue/full resto last season and barely cracking 1850 for our weapons), but we struggled quite a bit as early as the high 1500's. I'm wearing 4 piece T6 with S4 Gloves/S3 Head, plus all the offset PvP pieces, at ~314 Resil, 2050 AP, 35.5% Crit, and 1100 Armor Pen with Serrated Blades. My druid is in mostly S2 gear, with Sunwell gloves and a combination of S3/S4 offset pieces (His Armory).

We seemed to run into quite a few problems where the druid would just be unable to keep up with the healing he needed to do, and he was lamenting me asking him to try restokin instead of full resto, because he felt like his healing was gimp. One or two losses were caused by Perception giving us the worst possible starting position, but we also lost a few times to rogue/dpriest, which seems like it should be very slanted in our direction. I tried to explain to him that he really really really can't get feared, because then he would inevitably either trinket and get blind->sapped or eat it and get chain mana burned.

It seems like most of our problems were against rogue teams, with a couple losses to warrior/shaman as well. Specifically against rogue teams I'm really not sure how to open the fight, since a lot of the time I want to be focusing the rogue, but if I open first then I eat CS->KS and the druid is forced to heal quite a bit from the start of the fight. My thoughts are to open on the rogue's partner, and as soon as the rogue shows himself my druid pops out and cyclones him, followed by hotting and then cycloning the partner while I turn and face off with the opposing rogue. We didn't get a chance to try that out last night, as the queue's were really long for some reason.

Also, I feel like we just had two different mindsets about how to play the team, I have been bouncing around teams this season, playing a lot of double dps (rogue/rogue and rogue/ret), while he is so used to being resto and just healing, that I think I was more in a 2 dps mode, while he was in a dps/healer frame of mind, so we weren't syncing up very well. I wanted to try starting the fights with more of a double dps style burst, and have him only switch to healing when it becomes really necessary, but he would inevitably end up trying to heal more than dps.

Overall I guess I was just frustrated because it seems like a really good team without any seriously awful matchups, but we just struggled really hard against a lot of different teams, many of whom were playing really badly but still pulling out wins.

Bula · 07/25/08, 1:37 PM

Sounds like your druid partner never helps you when you need it. When a rogue kidney's you the druid has two choices of what to do. First is cyclone the rogue who KS'd you in the first place to prevent damage. Second is to cyclone the person you are trying to kill so they can't get away. If you're fully hotted/abolished the second choice is really attractive as it wont let them heal and you will be regenerating energy during the stun so you'll be doing good burst damage after it ends.

I think your druid needs more practice using skills like FF, Root, Cyclone, and staying ahead of your positioning rather then trying to trail you. When I play my druid I am constantly anticipating the movement of the players and staying ahead of you, not trying to trail them where it becomes much easier to LOS me by staying on the target. If you stay ahead of the players, the only way they can LOS is by moving away from their DPS target, this accomplishes two goals. It stops incoming dps and it also acts like a mini-CC at the same time without any DR. This has secondary effects too of possibly causing the person your rogue is chasing to change directions. If this occurs, he will be coming right back toward the person he was trying to get away from, increasing your DPS.

Basically it sounds like a positional problem, and maybe some experience at keeping you topped off and CCing at the same time (it is challenging at first to new players trust me). Side note, and this will probably get me banned, but I'm glad someone finally called out Kharoo, you've been giving misinformation on these boards now for months and it's annoying.