Monday, November 26, 2007

Congratulations, RP Gladiators!

A hearty congratulations to Silver Hand's first (and only) 2v2 Gladiators, dear friends of mine, and well deserving of the title, Kadrix and Sren of Slaves Shall Serve. 2,318 is a remarkable accomplishment in BG9's 2v2 bracket, made even more astonishing by their steadfast refusal to give in to the bandwagon matrices dominating high-end arena. Paladin/Rogue is by no means an easy matrix to climb with, and hard counters confronted them around every corner.

We had the pleasure of facing Slaves Shall Serve (now known as Sren's Team) twice on the day they made that final climb into gladiator range, contributing 14 and 16 points to their cause (quite unwillingly, I might add). With my 2v2's 2,297 not holding up under the inflation of 2v2 in BG9, we were forced to make a last minute push to try for 2,310+ with mixed results. We managed to get as close as 2,305 before running into Priest/Rogue teams running full shadow resist, and other hard counters, eventually tanking the rating to the nether reaches of duelist range. After insurmountable frustrations (and 9 minute queues) took their toll on Eternia and myself, we eventually abandoned our hopes of Gladiator 2v2's, and formed up for 3v3 in a last ditch attempt at Gladiator.

Rocking a lovely 2,269 3v3 rating and Gladiator range a good 70+ points away at 2,330, our hopes for season 2 Gladiator titles were fading fast. A string of nice wins pushed us to 2,280, but we'd been as high as 2,308 before and knew that a natural cap is a tough thing to overcome.

With Gladiator status still a couple wins away, we zoned into Nagrand Arena across some familiar (and frankly, terrifying) names: Ohnoes the mage, Azazael the warlock, and a druid we could only assume was Secretive. After a brief series of colorful and inventive streams of obscenities, I set to work the only way I know how: Pop my trinket and DoT up everything in sight. Racking up a full set of Azazael DoTs, I could feel the pain train coming, but my salvation came in an unfamiliar form. With full dots ticking on me, and (I assume) Ohnoes burst on the way, I found myself Cycloned and Secretive standing in the middle of the fray. With my job of exposing their druid done for me, Eternia quickly jumped on the druid icon after the second cyclone in the chain was down, and I had just enough juice left in Icon of the Silver Crescent to get full DoTs up on Secretive as he decided it was time to get out of town.

A head's up play by our druid, Azchire, locked down the Mage from polymorphing Eternia, and saved some valuable seconds by not having to wait for a felhunter dispell. Pillar-humping couldn't save the Tich druid, as a well timed mace stun and our usual 2v2 druid combo skill-coil/spell lock happy fun times downed him between Spam Sit's pillars.

A quick /salute to Ohnoes and mop-up duty a gleeful chore, with mixed feelings I added the warlock formerly known as Azael to my list of fallen Tich Icons. A great season for beating personal heroes and icons of Arena was more than complete without a Gladiator title, but the win put us on the precipice of Gladiator range. After downing a Rogue/Mage/Priest with our now-solid strat of Priest detonation, we faced off with our titles on the line against a Warrior/Paladin/ Hpriest team we had beaten earlier that night. Double-healer is always a test of gamesmanship, with strats over-riding Random Number Generators and lucky stuns/resists.

Luckily, the team opted not to don whatever Shadow Resist gear they may have had. We ended up playing Man-to-Man, with myself keeping the priest in combat all match (and Mana Draining when opportune), I abused the high mana cost of priest Dispells to run him quite out of mana early and often. Eternia and Azchire alternated CC and DPSing the Warrior and Paladin targets: CCing one til DR was up, then DPSing him while CC ran its course on the other. We had a couple opportunities to execute the Priest, but the Paladin bubble was up every time, and BoP + Bubble managed to keep the Priest alive until the next cycle demanded pressure. Eventually, these soft burns on the Paladin finished off his mana pool, and no amount of bubbling could keep his Priest alive.

I got to enjoy the satisfation of Death Coil executing the Priest a good 7-8 minutes into the fight to give us the 3v2 advantage, but by that time, the match was long decided. With howls of victory over Vent, congratulations of Gladiator status were owed all around. The Silver Hand 3v3 known affectionately as SHOOP DA WHOOP secured their 2,346 3v3 rating, and immortality alongside the other elite of the BG9 arena scene.

Not bad for an RP server.

Monday, November 19, 2007

3v3 in 2.3: More Tich All-stars vs. APV!

There's no substitute for good old fashioned practice. With under 100 total games played as Rogue/Warlock/Druid, we've been carried largely by our matrix, putting little effort into one strat or another. While the team is perfectly suited to coordinate a CC Execute, or play an outlast style mana drain, we just DPS zerged our opponents, letting Cyclone Spam (lol wut's DR?) make each match essentially a glorified 2v2. If we fubar'd the execute, there would inevitably be enough mana pressure from execute recovery to put us in position to finish the pressure with Drains, use the pet to prevent drinking, and sleepwalk to a win that way.

But now, we're playing with the big boys, and after finally finding a natural cap of 2,200 with little experience, the Holy Trinity (Rogue/Mage/Priest) was presenting a lot of problems for us. Rollercoastering between 2,140 and 2,200 using every strat imaginable, there was much Nerd Rage, and many QQ were heard. The time of trials culminated in a chainloss to Warlock/Rogue/Priest and Warlock/Warrior/Priest, both diluted versions of the Holy Trinity.

After some mature deliberation (see: Eternia and me screaming at each other using phrases like "Prayer of EZ," "Position your blade flurry better, noob" and "WE'RE NOT GOING TO GIB A LOCK/ROGUE! WE HAVE TO GET ON THE ROGUE/LOCK!"), we finally threw the whole thing out the window and decided to eat the full arsenal of warlock CC and just play for an execute on the priest.

First team we faced after this keen suggestion, we gibbed the priest, essentially traded healers, and took back the points we had forfeited to the rogue/lock/priest team. After taking a second win from them, we got paired up with the Warrior team and played for a Priest execute again, successfully trading healers. We lost the match (black temple gear stacking warriors hurt, apparently), but were relatively confident with our ability to return to our 2v2 roots, and play for the execute against shadow resist stacking teams.

Sidebar: In 2v2, we lost to a new FotM Priest/Rogue team, requeued and immediately got them again, but this time they stacked Shadow Resist. Thats right, they beat us using s2, and then decided to pull out the SR. Well, even though I couldn't get anything to stick to the priest, I guess he forgot to get his SR gear enchanted, because he quickly ran OOM, and lost the match for his team as Eternia out-tanked their rogue, and managed to essentially 2v1 the team. Nerf rogue tanks, imo.

Back to our in-flight movie: Upon figuring out a viable strat vs. the Holy Trinity, we got paired up with exactly zero priest teams for the rest of the night. However, another big name fell at the hands of the Arena Point Vendors as we won two consecutive matches vs. BG9's former #1 2v2 team Xecks and Secretive, and Douja from Team Pandemic, running a unique Rogue/Druid/Shaman 3v3. Granted, we have arguabley the most scrub-friendly 3v3 out there, and Rogue/Druid/Shaman isn't exactly going to be winning any awards any time soon.

The first match was just an abuse of their lack of defensive dispell, as I dotted up the whole team, all match, and hinged on a Xecks mistake as he switched targets to me at full health to vanish -> Cs -> 5 point KS me when I already had full dots up on everyone. With health pressure on everyone, Secretive basically had to choose who was going to die, with Azchire even throwing in a clutch NS Wrath for icing on the cake, committing the world's first druid-on-druid hate crime with his uncouth kill steal execute on Secretive. With the match in Lordaeron, the advantage was definately ours, and we didn't let it slip away against a team that would capitalize on any mistake we made.

The second match took place in Blade's Edge, the worst place for us to face them. Again, Xecks made a questionable call, getting on the felhunter (presumabley to bait Az out of stealth), allowing Eternia to get perfect positioning for some solid DPS. A cluster-and-a-half later, mana pressure abounded, and with some great kiting on both team's parts, we finally managed to get Xecks under control. Eternia Cloak of Skilled at 40% to negate a NS Chain Lightning -> Earthshock with Xecks on him (and Azchire CC'd) to earn the Clutch Cooldown of the Match award. After some sweet kiting, and situational awareness, cool heads prevailed, and we rode our matrix to another mana pressure/CC execute combination win.

We had time for one more match for the night, so we queued again, and got them in Blade's Edge once more. This match played out much differently, with Xecks and Douja going balls out for an execute on our druid, and it paid off. After catching Azchire, the shredder and shocker went to town on our furry friend, downing him in the first 20 seconds of the match. We played for the healer trade, but Secretive out-kited us, and won the match for his team in stylish fashion.

The series vs. these Tichondrius titans of arena was an absolute riot for us, reminding me of the other great games we've played vs. great players this season. Given the opportunity to play a series like this was way more gratifying than our solitary victory over Neilyo/Pronne/Realzz then getting GGnoRE'd, or the victories over Gumbot's various teams during peak hours where we were unable to get paired up with them again.

It's a bittersweet thing, facing off against the people you hear about being the greatest in the world. While victories certainly boost your confidence, it must shine a harsh light on the game when skilled players can be defeated by RP server scrubs when a single variable isn't in their favor. It's not pairity; its just game imbalance, and RNG reliance. We have no right beating people who get celebrity worship of this status, regardless of what team they may be running, if my estimation of the skill differential between us and these arena icons is anywhere in the ballpark.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

5v5 Series: 2345, 4dps, and the New Wave of Drain

So after a week waiting for a decent push (and coming dangerously close to forcing one), our 2v2 point train arrived in a very unlikely source. Eternia and I faced off with a Rogue/Druid team that was in all ways unremarkable aside from the fact that their rogue had Double Warglaives (ow), but was a troll (lol). Needless to say, executing the druid was a fairly simple matter, and we managed to ride that team up to 2,297 rating, currently well above Gladiator range.

Only after this push did I learn that the druid we were violating repeatedly was actually the icon of the feral druid community, Deep. This has been a great season for us in both 2v2 and 3v3, notching several quality wins over icons of the BG9 Arena community. All this success further reinforces my desire to form a quality 5v5 next season, to eliminate the last of the rock-paper-scissors mentality prevalent among myself and my teams.

A couple of different lineups have been proposed, and after doing some research, I've failed to whittle down our options, instead adding a couple class comps to the mix. Below are a couple ideal 5v5's I plan on running (Silver Hand arena population willing...), in order from most scrub-friendly to least (and hence, most likely our trial order).

2345: You know it, you love it. A warlock variant tried and true at the top of the battlegroup and in our hearts. Warrior/Paladin/Shaman/Warlock/Priest. Fun times with execute options, hasted mana burns, and an emphasis on zerging the crap out of the other team.

5v5 is a completely different dynamic than we've experienced so far in small arena. There is a huge emphasis placed on the warrior, which puts us in a weird position. While our warrior will be an alt, it will be played by Eternia, the most skilled and knowledgable arena mind on the server. How well he knows the warrior class will become apparent very readily, and I can't wait to yell at him for LoSing a heal, fubaring a spell reflect, or calling a target switch at a terrible time. Should be some fun nerd rage inc.

In a traditional 2345 (Mage in lieu of a Warlock), the Mage's actions control the flow of the match more than even the Warrior and Paladin, but with a Lock plugged into the mix, the onuss of match control falls to the Shaman, after the Warrior. While Valk (our shaman) is an unparalleled PvPer, and impeccibly experienced, his arena experience has a bit to go. On the best teams in the world, often the Shaman is the weak link, and how Valk responds to our first Nerd Rage episode will speak volumes on how far our team can go.

4dps: A couple ideas for 4dps have been batted around. A caster version will likely be our first attempt, running Warlock/Warlock/Spriest/Rogue/Druid. I hate everything about this matrix, from the reliance on a small arena healer, to DoT stacking aiding the execute, but there's no reason not to try it, since we have the players for this at our disposal.

A more conservative, control-based 4dps we plan on running is Warlock/Spriest/Rogue/Mage/Paladin. Much less synergy, but a good mix of burst, CC, and healer shutdowns. The strengths of this matrix are the Counterspell -> Spell lock for hard healer counters, and fears, polys and a Blind for soft control. Splitting DR's is a phenomenal strength of pairing a Mage with a Lock, but with the abundance of dispells in 5v5, its still going to come down to how well you can pull of the execute.

The crux of 4dps is the coordinated execute to start the match, usually in the form of a warrior gib. Their penchant for stacking offense over survivability has made the warrior gib the favored 5v5 strat for BG9, and has given even the shoddiest of 4dps teams a punchers chance against Top 10's. Widely regarded as the scum of 5v5 arena, 4dps teams are murder to climb with, but always have that chance of taking control of the match, putting other class comps on defense early and often. However, with the constant buffs to durability relative to damage, 4dps is on its way out, and we might not push the point too hard.

Eternia will get to play on his rogue for the 4dps teams, and it will be fun to try out UA on the shadow damage 4dps, but the rounded caster 4dps will help our arena careers more than anything. Being forced to coordinate CC while attempting your execute will pay dividends for all involved in smaller arena play. Of course, with the shadow heavy 4dps, any shadow resist gear will bone us over, but we don't expect much of the Serennia strat in the sub 2k's. Plus, it'll feel good to just insta-gib warriors for games on end.

Pure Drain: A team I just stumbled across tonight, this team has a very straightforward dynamic that I may or may not put together at some point next season. Warlock/Hunter/Priest/Paladin/Druid offers the most survivability you'll find in a post-2.3 5v5. An incredible amount of mana efficient healing, the entire premise of the team is mana drains. With two pets to keep your opponents from drinking, this is one of those teams that is good simply by being a counter to everything. Combat burst with bubble, BoP, and Pain Suppression. No one is going to outlast druid and paladin main healers, with a priest backup healing between mana burns. Now that Hunters get an MS option, their Viper Sting, the warlock Mana Drains, and the odd priest Mana Burn are usually enough to put mana pressure on the other team with minimal damage output.

My only qualms with the premise of a drain team revolve around personal playstyle. I run 2dps in 2v2 and 2dps in 3v3 because I feel that a CC-induced execute reveals much more skill than applying mana pressure, and making them afk out of a match once they realize they can't win. But mana pressure is an undeniable force in all arena brackets, and this might be the safest (albeit boring) team to climb 5's next season.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Season 3 delayed

While the season 3 delay pissed off pretty much everyone, the silver lining is that it gives teams pushing gladiator the time to get REALLY insane ratings. With the 2v2 cutoff projected to be well into the 2300's by season end, getting gladiator in bg9 might actually mean something this season.

The break also gives alts/transfers a chance to really shore up the geargap for next season, and Valk's shaman and Eternia's warrior should both be riding the gear curve well on schedule next season. Good thing too: After watching a bit of Azael's 5v5, I'm in love with his matrix (for Theris: MATRIX MATRIX MATRIX MATRIX) of Warrior/Paladin/Shaman/Warlock/Priest. Bloodlusted mana burns/drains, PI'd shaman burst, DoT's and warriors spreading damage out, double offensive and defensive dispells, Mass Dispell, etc. The options for this 5v5 are deep, but as all arenas are, gear intensive. Playing with three alts isn't usually the recipe for success, but we're going to be using the #1 rated arena paladin, warlock, and rogue (playing the warrior) on the server, so we should be able to make this thing work.

2.3 revelations for the week. Priests are tanks now, so control on them is at a premium. Haven't gotten burned by chastise yet, but the fear ward nerf (yes, its a nerf. Fear ward limited to one teammate is a lot better than having to burn through 3 fear wards to get any CC through) has me looking forward to whatever matches we may play vs. priests this week. Did some 3v3 practice for fun with Chans tonight, and that PI makes the holy trinity (Mage/Rogue/Priest) a definite threat to our Druid/Warlock/Rogue scrub express.

I haven't noticed any warlock nerfs that may have gone through with the patch. The closest thing to a lock nerf that affects me in arena would be the MSD (focus proc meta) nerf, but with the increased proc rate giving a near-instant fear every time the hidden cooldown is up, you won't hear me complaining. The drain life nerf (MS/Wound poison affecting health recouped from Siphon and Drain Life) really doesn't affect small arena, and should only affect Warlock/Healer vs. Warrior/Healer. Since I don't run 1dps teams (z Z z 20 minute matches) I'm still waiting for the nerfbat to smack me around.

Rogues. Are. Incredible. I'll probably devote more posts to this topic, but check out Sren's blog for more first person details on the second coming of the rogue class. Hell, even my own little half-s2-half-greens rogue is tearing ass as AR/Prep. It's like warlock-level ownage, but requiring more skill.

We hit 2,252 in 2v2 arena earlier this week, but with the false start pushing the gladiator cutoff up 50 points, and another expected 50 point bump this week, nothing short of 2,300 will be 'comfortable' gladiator range for 2v2. With the new shredder-mode hemo Eternia, we're tearing ass out of everything but Paladin/Rogue. Paladin/Warlock, our previous bane, recieved a hefty nerf, coupled with a buff to 2dps (who saw that coming?), here's hoping we see some eager warlocks with false hope zoning into arena opposite us.

Friday, November 9, 2007

The Good Day

Still not talking about 2.3 guys, but that post is coming. Many a great warrior has tripped over his own two feet because he was looking too far down the road (LOL RP), so I'm keeping my focus severely concentrated on finishing season 2 strong.

I've been saying for a couple weeks that we're one good day away from gladiator range, and it looks like that day was today. With a 13-5 push this week, we passed current gladiator range (2165) into 2,225, a new record for Silver Hand. Expecting a BG-wide push for glad range in the last week before season's end, we're giving ourselves a buffer, and will be playing one more day for good measure to push to 2,300 before calling it quits for the season. Double DPS will be fighting uphill once 2.3 goes live, so to all you plucky 2dps teams out there: GET YOUR GAMES IN BEFORE TUESDAY!

On the other side of the coin, our 3v3 will be getting a huge buff in both DPS (grats AR/prep) and survivability (Natural Perfection scales very well to the bigger arenas). We expect to play the majority of our 3v3 push next week, and camping at 2,183 right now. With current glad range of 3v3 being 2,280, it would take a significant stroke of good fortune to push Double Gladiator, but 3v3 is a lot more fun right now than 2v2, so 3's will be a great time to relax heading into season 3.

The only noteworthy match this week was another victory over my old idol Gumbot, this time in 3v3. He's obviously exploring new class combos, as his 3dps team, with two physical DPSers (our theorycrafted bane), came at our druid like a house of fire. Trading their rogue for our druid proved to be the right move, as Hunter/Warlock just can't compete in Lordaeron vs. Rogue/Warlock. Still it was a very fun match, and after reading Gum's dissertation on why Double Warlock is the best 2dps 2v2 matrix, I'm awaiting with rapt attention his thoughts on Rogue/Hunter/Warlock once this experiment concludes.

We sold points on our 5v5. Again. Yay. 2345 inc. Valk's shaman is working on 67 and almost capped for honor (65k wonder how he did that...), so Silver Hand might have a pro arena shaman to call their own by December.

I know this one was pretty self indulgent, but if you want to hear people rant about 2.3, there are much better places than this for theorycrafting. I'll pump out a 2.3 Plans and Predictions post early next week.

*Shameless Plug* If you're interested in raiding Zul'Aman with the APV, please post your availability in the appropriate thread on the Unos General forums. www.unos-guild.com

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

This post isn't about 2.3

With the new season mere weeks out, its time to get serious about 2's and 3's. We're one good day from gladiator range on 2's, while there's still some work to do with 3v3. Recently, my good pals hordeside sewed up a 2,125 3v3 rating, an accomplishment for any RPer in BG9, made even greater by the difficulties facing Silver Hand horde.

I'm now spec-jumping between 2's and 3's, picking up Demonic Resilience to save the felpup when we run with a druid, dropping it for more affliction talents when running double dps 2v2. (Grrr... Must... not... talk about... 2.3...)

Valk's getting his grind on, and his shaman is now 65, so while 70 by season 3 might be a bit of a pipe dream, he shouldn't lose out on too much time once he's ready to be handed massive amounts of free points via our debuting 2345 5v5.

Zul'Aman is looming, and I might stir up the waters and recruit some raiders to bolster our numbers. I've got all the confidence in the world in my current raiders, but availability is the crux upon which all aborted raids turn, so over-slotting might not be a terrible idea once the 'OMFG ITS NEW' sheen is stripped from ZA. That being said, once our new-instance enthrallment with ZA has faded, who knows if the rewards will even be worth grinding through the gear-checks that may (and my sources tell me do) dominate the ZA experience.

Okay, moment of weakness: All I'm gonna say about 2.3 in this post is that I'm falling in love with my rogue all over again. This class is going to be freaking scary in season 3. I'm the worst rogue I know, and I've been tearing ass on PTR. If a scrub like me can tool up s2-geared arena-goers, I shudder to think how hard actually 'skilled' rogues are going to be once these buffs go live.

Monday, October 29, 2007

POAST

Been a while since the last post for a good reason. Not much is changing in my personal arena spheres, and I'm not going to regale you with tales of leveling Grimtock as its relevance to anything other than APV expanding it's empire to hordeside SH is quite low.

Azchire is working out surprisingly well, and really showing us what a druid can do. While I'd prefer him to play much more conservatively, his aggressive 'CC first, ask questions laster' style helped us climb past a couple of tough double Physical DPS teams (our theorycrafted bane) to a near spotless first week of arena play (32-1 2,000+, but who's counting). Nerf druid CC-lock.

Instead of playing Outlast with a heavy mana focus, nearly all of our wins came by way of early and mid-match execute opportunities, as Azchire's pounce -> maim -> charge -> bash -> cyclone x3 effectively turned all our matches into 2v2's, and let Eternia and myself put our experience in that realm to good use. While I don't know if Gladiator 3's is realistic with such a fresh team, 3v3 is once again the most fun arena for us, no doubt a function of an overpowered class combination. (See? I don't have to say 'matrix.' I have a thesaurus too...)

For some reason, we didn't get the urge to play much 2's this week, and although we have ceased selling 2v2 and 3v3 teams for this season, we played 1 win on tuesday, and called it a week. We're floating 2080 right now, and a single good day could push us into Gladiator range. With my ISP flaking lately, I'm a little hesitant to put such a vulnerable team on the line for extended periods of time, but we'll definately play a couple games this week at the least, in hopes of cracking 2,200 once again.

After embarassing ourselves in 5v5 (we really don't know what the hell we're doing out there), it looks like Eternia's going to finish gearing up his warrior via a couple point-selling 5v5's we have going, and run a modified 2345 next season. (We're currently running a non-matrix of Rogue/Hpriest/Mage/Warlock/Paladin, and floating 1850 is usually a good week.) Our previous idea of running 4dps requires a great shadow priest, clutch shaman, and a moderate amount of coordination. While Chans has been diligently gearing up a shadow set, we will likey be without a sturdy shaman for the first couple weeks as we gear up Valk. Add to these elements that none of us have either the experience or inclination to make a pro 5v5, and all the signs point to just going with the scrub express 2345 variant. Our endless pursuit of the perfect 3v3 and finesse 2v2 makes the idea of a brute force, unthinking 5v5 a nice refreshment to the pressure of the other brackets.

We'll probably end up running Warrior/Paladin/Shaman/Hpriest/ Warlock. I know, I know, we should be using a mage, but we're already using two alts, and I feel like a s3 lock is a close enough substitute in 2345 to avoid leveling up a mage. If we were running something really CS intensive, by all means, I'd use the mage, but outside of Sren's mage alt, there's just no ideal frost mages on the server that would be able to compete at the level we require of our teammates, gear aside.

It's a sad, sad world where the APV is more concerned with Zul'Aman than anything PvP related, but after pugging the first couple bosses on PTR, I'm genuinely excited to be getting back into raiding. I've been poaching several of Unos' best raiders to create a mini pve faction (NOT A RAIDING GROUP) for heroics and such, and it looks like I've got enough people to legitimately hack away at ZA for a couple hours every week in pursuit of whatever PvP loot may lie within. I'm refraining from referring to it as a 'casual raid' since I will still be expecting perfection from everyone. Just because we're only spending 10 hours a week in a raid instance doesn't mean you have a license to fail.

Badges won't be the driving force behind ZA raids as we once anticipated. Our heroic runs have been quite fruitful lately, and all of us are sitting on upward of 40 badges already. Coupled with the news that AV marks will also be considered as legal tender toward one of the awards, our need for badges has diminished greatly. Honesly, I'm just looking for any excuse to raid to spec 40 destro. 6.2k shadow bolts on PTR make me feel like half a man on Live.

Monday, October 22, 2007

A Wash?

Undeniable rogue PvP buffs, with a fortunate emphasis in small arena play, may yet salvage our 2dps team's hope for season 3. Hemo is back and badder than ever, and it feels good to be trending back toward our execute roots. While I'd love to bring back our true execute team, our mage/rogue/priest variant just seems too vulnerable to resist gear to really climb. However, the rogue changes (if you don't know them, go read up) represent a bit of a wash for our rogue/lock 2v2.

While Eternia plays the most skill-intensive class (read: underpowered) in the game, and myself one of the least skill-intensive (read: face-mashing), the only way I can interpret rogue buffs coupled with lock nerfs is a net gain. While Eternia's character was being capped by his class abilities, I feel that warlocks are currently capped by gear. Nowhere is this more evident than our win over Gumbot running Lock/Alt Priest. While Gumbot outskills me three times over (some might argue more), we essentially cancelled each other out due to the ease of arena warlock playstyle strategems.

Fuzzy math inc: With more emphasis placed on an individual warlock's skill level, and an expansion of the rogue class's arena proficiency, the benefit our team gains from Eternia's ability ceiling being raised should outweigh the penalty imposed on un-skilled warlocks. I've played a warlock since release, and no modern-day nerfs could possibly make PvP harder than it was in the dark days before Death Coil, when agility abounded on the high-end Dreadmist warlock armor.

These rogue buffs might be a red herring, however. Both Eternia and myself are still quite worried about the +healing -> %spell damage conversion coming in 2.3. This has been advertised as the end of 2dps teams (for both 2v2 and 3v3), and I expect Wrath spammers and (shudder) resto/ele shamans to be our bane for quite some time. These classes should maintain their mana longevity, but once a 2dps team is identified, dumping mana pools-worth of damage might be enough to tip the already tenuous scales in 2dps vs. Dps/Healsauce 2v2. Only one way to find out, and I suspect we'll find out one way or another within the first month of season 3.

Our 'serious' 2v2 got to 2,071 as Lock/Priest alt (Eternia played Chansobal), and we're going to begin the possibly brief push into Gladiator range on tuesday. Pending teams queueing up against us, the window we have left ourselves to climb to 2,500 or so should be wide open. No excuses to not get Gladiator now, and we do not plan on Queue Dodging or queueing up against alt 2,100 teams of our own creation to achieve our rank.

In 3v3 news, as many of you know, Vlak has left WoW, though not our hearts. We have recruited one of his close friends to push 3v3 Gladiator range, the druid Azchire, in his honor. Initial games have proven VERY promising, as we have weathered the likes of Serennia's 3v3 (the #1 team in the world) with interestingly encouraging results. Azchire is top-notch with CC, very alert on vent, and heals as good as expected. We have invited him to climb into Gladiator range with us via a serious 3v3, and expect to get that team underway early next week.

Apparently, there's a Wal-Mart special on 2healer 3v3 teams, a trend I can only imagine Serennia started. We've basically sleepwalked through, among others, Druid/Priest/Warrior teams, a testament to the overall arena sense of our team. Playing mana pressure isn't a surefire win vs. these teams, but we were at no time in danger during these matches, in part due to good pet management, constant control of the warrior, and WELL TIMED MACE STUNS, BRO. Normally, priests represent a rough time for SL/SL warlocks (bouncing Prayer of Mending charges > face rolling), but so far, priest teams have been our easiest matchups in 3v3. Promising, to say the least...

Still no 5v5 news, save Valkring hitting 63 on his shaman. Go, Valk, go!

PvE segment: APV has been vigilantly running Heroic Mech in an effort to accumulate badges for the 2.3 trinkets/capes. With badges from 10-mans looming, we're starting to lean on locals to start thinking about forming up a regular Kara/ZA badge-farming group, and with the exception of tanks, we've found an abundance of takers. Once a geared tank stumbles into our midst, we should be ready to unlock the dual badge-holes of Kara and ZA. 40 destro is pro, right?

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

A Time for Change

I never thought I'd see the day when Eternia picked up a pair of maces and succumbed to the dreaded 42/19 mace spec. Day One results were quite underwhelming, as our 3v3 lost to a mirror team that managed to execute Vlak without any kind of mana pressure all match, and a too-close win over a scrub Warlock/Paladin/Hunter team. The frustrations that mount with careless play and demoralizing losses will hopefully be attributed to freak matrix combos and the inevitable grace period associated with Eternia's new spec.

Or we could just be terrible. You know, whatever.

In 2's, we destroyed a couple druid/warrior teams much easier than we had in the past with the new combat mace spec, but suffered an unnecesary loss to Paladin/Warlock. Maybe every team has 'those days', but its hard to get too worked up over these losses, and we still have a couple excuses for sucking. Our teams start in ernest Saturday night after we sell a 5v5, so any kinks in our armor should be exposed by maintainence next week. Here's hoping we can take advantage of a great matrix and do it justice.

Monday, October 15, 2007

The Calm Before the Storm

Putting the point-buying community of Silver Hand 'On Notice' means there's no turning back. Now is the time to put up or... fail at putting up. I speak, of course, of our epic RP arena squads, striving for Gladiator status.

Currently, we're planning on pursuing Gladiator status on two fronts:

A streaky Rogue/Warlock 2v2 that has spiked as high as 2,222 rating this season, but suffers from the usual 2dps team weaknesses. Resists and Racial abilities make certain matchups 50-50 vs. us, and those are losing odds when you're getting 5 points off them for wins, and losing 20 for a loss. The hope is to float 2,100, and catch fire one of these nights to cheese out Gladiator range, and /camp there for the remainder of the season.

Also pushing Gladiator, a super-fresh Druid/Warlock/Rogue team with Vlak that has yet to see its natural rating cap. We've pushed to 2,100 (on our clients' teams) with very little effort, and feel great about this class combo. Lack of experience and physical logged-in time are the big barriers facing this team. If we play to our natural skill levels, I predict 2,200 in our future, but whether that will be enough to earn Gladiator status in the inflation-mild 3v3 bracket remains to be seen.

Our client base is a bit overwhelming at this point, and when we resume point selling in season 3, we might take on a smaller portfolio. This would allow us to give more attention to each client, dabble in some pve, and (to be perfectly honest) we're flooded with gold. Until there's some unit of payment (possibly the services of a good Prot Tank...) aside from gold, we're simply too gold-rich to be busting our asses for Sunday- and Monday-night slackers crying about their 1,800 2v2 every week.

Nothing jacks up the price of your 3-7 renewal like 10 minute queues on a Monday night because you put off playing your 3 games for 6 days. Also, nothing gets you booted to the back of the line when said renewals come to call like not having your crap together. Our rules are simple, and they're there to benefit everyone.

1.) Have your 3 games played. If you can't find a partner, and are helplessly anti-social, find someone who wants free points. Trade channel listens.

2.) Send me an in-game mail saying you're ready, and what times you'll likely be on. There's a hierarchy for renewals: Pre-Paid Requests > Mailed Requests > Tell Requests > Scrubs Who Send Me Tells While I'm Already In An Arena Match.

3.) If we can't immediately play your games, pass me lead = pay me by monday. We've had a couple instances where someone tosses me Captain, and then doesn't log back on until maintainence. This wastes an Arena Team slot for one of my alts, and makes me not like you.

4.) If I'm not on, talk to Eternia. If no members are online, log on a horde alt and see if you can find Grimtock, my undead warlock. If none of these options work, SEND ME MAIL. I don't care if I haven't logged on for a month and a half: If there's no mail from you in my mail-box, you don't exsist.

/Angry off.

I know this seems like common sense to most of you, but apparently this stuff needed to be spelled out. I realize you're busy, which is probably why you're buying points. We're on-line more than any human beings should be, but if the first time you log on for the week is Monday, do not expect our services to be available to you. If you wish to make a transaction earlier in the week, and can't find anyone, play your 3 games and send a mail. It's that easy, folks.

Friday, October 12, 2007

And the Hits Keep Coming!

Another day, another win over a titan of Tichondrius. Up against a dual warlock set, Eternia and I picked up a win over Gumbot's 2v2 to add another powerhouse name to the list of the fallen.

Running an odd Warlock/Warlock set, my initial surprise was quickly replaced with the giddiness of hope as our Priest/Warlock team managed to dispell most of their dps, and a couple lucky Spell Lock/Curse of Tongues/Fear resists later, took 19 points from what many believe is the best warlock in BG9. Thankfully, Eternia was playing on Chansobal's priest for this match. If we had rolled in there as Warlock/Rogue, we would have gotten beaten into the ground, I'm sure.

As it was, we had no right winning the match. Eternia's still not exactly pro at playing a priest, but the resist ball bounced in our favor more than once, and any victory over a player the caliber of Gumbot is something to savor.

Coupled with our victory over Neilyo's 3v3 last week, I can only conclude that the pairity in the upper brackets must be quite fierce. No wonder all the top teams fall into predictable, mana-based matrices: Any bad luck with an execute/Double DPS team, and that's a 20 points loss to a team you just beat for 5. I was thinking about trying out Double Warlock hordeside (Grimtock is almost maxed for honor anticipating s3), but my little High Warlord might be pidgeon-holed into pairing up with a druid, and saving the All-Lock antics for 3v3 and higher.

So, with my innapropriate man-crush on Gumbot succinctly quashed, I am a bit more at ease in our decision to play 2.3 chicken (re: late season point selling) with the season deadline approaching. I'm looking forward to PTR, but apparently they broke my focus Meta (yet another nerf to 2dps execute teams in s3).

Big Prediction for 2.3: Look out for the resto shaman. They might finally have a place in 2v2, and while they're a complete necessity for any successful 5v5, I'm looking forward to seeing some weird (but workable) shaman 3v3's in the near future. They'll be a powerhouse in the Mana Games with that new Water Shield buff, and with the +healing -> discounted spell damage, I can't wait to see some wacky hybrid DPS/Healing gear/spec shamans make their way in small arena.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Small World

Fine. I get it. Warlock/druid, Warrior/druid or gtfo. 2v2's was my cup of tea for a while, and though I'm willingly switching focus to the admittedly more strat-intensive 3v3 bracket, 2v2 will always have a special place in my heart. But if the +heal -> 30% spell damage buff goes through in 2.3, consensus among my people says that 2dps might very well be dead, and it couldn't hurt to start hedging my bets toward s3 now.

What better place to start than Warlock/Druid. Vlak and I are still pretty new at this matrix, but it's been a blast so far. We suffered a couple losses today, ironically against (what else) Warlock/Rogue teams, but we figured out our Suck Factor, and every loss brings us closer to a winning strat vs. any matrix. Soon enough, we'll be losing because of positioning, or failure to coordinate CC's, and I'm looking forward to those days. But for now, we're doing a million things wrong per match, and still floating 2,000+, so I can't help but be excited for whatever future Vlak and I might have next season.

Vlak has a similar personality toward arena and competetive pvp in general as I do, and that's as valuable as any amount of skill. I've paired with plenty people who bum out on losses, or people who will keep queueing without making adjustments (dating back to my High Warlord days), and I've found that Vlak revels in losses just as much as I do, but has the same winner's mentality I expect of myself.

The best part about being in an overpowered matrix, and underperforming, is that any time we lose a match, it's our fault. In the 2,200's with Eternia (RIP warlock/rogue), if we lost to certain matrices, it was just how the ball bounced for that particular Mace Stun proc, Spell lock resist, etc. But when you're part of the Yankees, you have no excuses to lose, and that's a really liberating umbrella to be fighting under. The feeling of helplessness dissolves into personal responsibility, and I can feel myself growing with each match.

I'm looking forward to bouncing around a couple of 3v3's this week, most notably Jon and Keire's Warrior/Druid/Warlock combo. We faced Jon's Warrior/Druid team while 2v2ing today, and these guys have tons of potential. Once Jon picks up a weapon upgrade, that 3v3 will really take off.

No 5v5 news, so I'll skip to a very irregular segment: PvE. With Valkring spamming my MSN while raiding, I can't help but catch the "LAWL BIG NUMBERS" bug. I miss damage meters and captive vent audiences, but unless there's pvp gear in Zul'Aman, I can't see myself hoofing it all the way out to the Belf Lands every week just to raid for the sake of raiding.

Since there are apparently no tanks left on Silver Hand, stockpiling Heroic badges has been slow going to say the least. The APV is basically giving out free badges to anyone willing to tank for us for an hour, but there have been surprisingly few takers. Maybe we need to start offering credits on 2,000 rated 2v2s or something. I'm sure we could just eat it for the first month of the season, and farm Karazhan to get badges, but if I ever step foot in that place again, I better be drunk or it will be too soon.

Monday, October 8, 2007

Busy Day

Busy day is busy. Just a quick post to update some recent developments. We're getting frustrated with the 0% room for error 2dps 2v2 team, putting additional pressure on us to get our gladiator team out of the way as early as possible. Coupled with the impending sense of doom toward 2dps's viability in s3, I'm afraid we might be retiring rogue/lock as a gladiator team when s3 hits, and only use it for selling teams.

Putting our eggs in the 3v3 basket is no less risky, but the druid/lock/rogue matrix still has some work to do. We suffered our first losses today, two games against the same Paladin/Warlock/ Rogue team. Failure to control their rogue cost us both games, but this setback paled in comparison to a mammoth accomplishment we have achieved today.

Our scrappy little APV team of Vlak, Eternia and myself took down the mighty Team Z juggernaut of Neilyo, Pronne, and Realzz not but an hour ago, securing a 25 point victory in the process. Once deemed the greatest players in BG9, a victory against them with our fresh 3v3 gives us all the confidence we need going into the s2 homestretch. If we can down a near-mirror matchup (Druid/ Spriest/Rogue) played by the best players in the arena scene today, our team might just have what it takes to crack out Double Gladiator status this season.

When we came barreling out of the gate, the only player we could ID was Realzz. Eternia immediately called Team Z, but I figured it was just Real scrubbing up points for some friends. It didn't take long until I saw the undead rogue bearing down on me, and once I saw that nameplate bearing Neilyo's all-too-familiar moniker, the momentary panic was quickly replaced with a bloodlust I've not felt in a long, long time. Eternia quickly found Pronne, and we dispatched him with disconscerning ease. We'd beaten Pronne before, twice actually, but he made a couple bad decisions, and a 5-point kidney shot set up our usual 2v2 druid-killing stunlock rotation beautifully, downing Pronne in the first 30 seconds on the match.

Cleaning up the bad boys of Ticho was a systematic dismantling after that, as Realzz dropped out to heal, and we concentrated on kiting Neil and harassing his healer's mana pool to victory. It was the most high-profile victory of our season 2 careers thus far, although maybe not as epic as how we closed out our season 1 3v3 team (a 27 point win over the #7 ranked 3v3 in the battlegroup). Now that we're on their radar, the inevitable rematch will undoubtedly see them swapping in their warlock for Realzz, providing a true mirror faceoff between the Ticho juggernaut and the scrappy RP server point sellers.

The Matrix Crutch

Never have we felt the effects of having good synergy within a matrix like we did this week. The now-nerfed Rogue/Priest/Lock variation bombed out for us this week, going .500 in the mid-1900's, a pathetic record for us. It looks like the resilience-vs-DoT's buff destroyed that combo, forcing priest/rogue to bring a mage for the burst over the lock for sustained damage. Makes sense. Having a priest as your only healer, (and consequently, opponents' main target) forces you to play an Execute strat, trading healers and utilizing Improved death to win 2dps vs. 2dps. No one will argue that a warlock will help an execute better than a mage, so we're retiring our priest/rogue/warlock combo for now in favor of our new druid matrix.

The honeymoon period with Druid/Rogue/Warlock is still proving quite exciting. So far, we've only encountered one hard counter to this matrix, and we don't expect to be facing much 3dps where we're going. Pushing through 2,100 was a fairly simple task, and once news comes down that s3 is on its way, we'll get serious and push into 3v3 gladiator range, a feat we weren't expecting to get a shot at this season.

Mid-bracket BG9 continues to surprise, as our traditional priest/rogue/lock 3v3 struggled to float 1900, but when Eternia and I played a handful of games with one of our Warlock clients, we went undefeated (ending at 1970) using an unconventional Warlock/Warlock/Rogue 3v3 in the exact same bracket range not an hour later. Maybe it was just the element of surprise, but it might be worth exploring. Traditionally, 3dps 3v3's are horrible to climb above 2,000, as wins garner 10 points, and losses 20, too many things can go wrong over the course of a match.

My infatuation with druids in 3v3 doesn't end with our Warlock/Rogue/Druid, however. I joined a prominant Warrior/Druid team late this week to pal around with some games in that matrix for fun. Warrior/Druid/Warlock didn't command the same synergy that we got with a Rogue, but it was fun nonetheless. Once Jonthan gets a bit more gear, I'm planning on teaming up with him and Keire's druid more often, not for points, but to further research the differences between Rogue/Druid/Warlock and its Warrior variation. So far, the big benefit to the Warrior team is the complete negation of enemy rogues, freeing up myself for CC options, and saving the druid a ton of mana.

Quick 5v5 update: After I crack out a gladiator 2v2 with Chans tomorrow, we're going to ask him to go shadow full time. Valk's finishing leveling up his shaman, and we're hopefully going to have a couple weeks left of s2 to bank him a couple thousand arena points. Should be a fun time to open up s3. We really want to get more serious about 5v5, and a shaman gives us no excuse not to.

In 2v2 news, we're sleepwalking through teams at this point. Even if we get tagged with a loss, it hardly phases us these days. 200+ arena games per day sort of numbs you to bad-luck losses, and when you're running an execute 2v2, the law of averages says you're bound to lose a couple matches vs. healer/dps once in a while. Apparently there was a firesale on Warlock/Paladin at Wal-Mart, because we went about 12 straight matches yesterday facing 4 different Warlock/Paladin teams. All of them failed horribly, but if played correctly, any paladin team should have a decent shot at beating us, especially with BoP + Bubble available to caster/pally teams. In a mirror match yesterday, I got to spell lock a full cast bar Soul Fire. That was better than any win we got all day. Knowing in that instant that you just blue-balled a s2 warlock... it just don't get no better than that.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Spicing things up

Today's theme is 'keeping WoW fresh'. Been doing a lot to distract myself lately, since the arena grind is at a standstill until we're done selling teams, and both my warlock and rogue are just turtling points til next season.

I'm leveling Grimtock (granted slowly) with the pipe dream that I may be able to extend APV's empire into the grimy scene of Silver Hand horde arena. Catching up to the gear curve doesn't conscern me nearly as much as it does my colleagues, but I expect to top out at 1600 with eternia's hordelock and valkring's mage (already 70 and 67, respectively). I'm not much of a quester, so I'm just doing my usual 61-67 leveling strat of grinding Wolves and harpies in AV, accumulating massive amounts of bonus honor on the way up. Might be 70 before season 3 hits, but only time will tell.

Another distraction I'm going to start indulging is firing the old Heroic Farm Crew back up. Apparently, the 2.3 PvP trinkets available for purchase via heroic badges are gamebreaking, so there's no reason not to stockpile badges now. Already have 10 leftover from my glory days, so 3-6 badges a day, I should be at 50 by the time 2.3 rolls around. If push comes to shove, I hear Karazhan bosses will be dropping badges as well, so even if I'm short of 50, I'm confident I'll be able to sew up the trinket within the first week.

Those trinkets look nice, but I just can't see this 'return to burst' thing other arena junkies are talking about. I understand that we're at the resilience cap, and crit numbers are still growing, but Blizzard has done a good job with itemization to prevent a return to crit-based pvp. Adding in an emphasis on Armor-piercing, for example, or my personal prediction: spell haste, are great ways to bring damage increases to pvp without relying on crit.

I've managed to convince one of my closest WoW friends to rejoin the red-headed step child of BG9, and pending leveling, Valkring's shaman should be an integral part of my mythical 4dps 5v5. Valk's return to Silver Hand really opens the door for a LOT of matrices I never thought I'd get to play, and I'm looking forward to trying out Shaman/Warlock, Rogue/Warlock, Rogue/Rogue, and (hordeside) Warlock/Mage with him. Finding dedicated players is the best thing you can do for yourself in today's arena scene, and even if these matrices don't work out, Valkring is a close friend of mine, and I'm sure we'll have a ball. Heck, we might even get to try out some 3v3's with Eternia's alts. I'd love to try out warrior/shaman/rogue. Terrible matrix is terrible, but if Dahis and Minti can get Warrior/Rogue to 2,200 (granted, they climbed on BDF, not BG9), there's no reason we shouldn't be able to float 1850 once we get our alts geared up.

Keep it fresh, kids. Battleground Daily quests are going to be a riot. Heroic instance is heroic. Alt pvp is a good dose of humility. And apparently, Ocktoberfest has come to WoW. You stay classy, San Diego.

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

The more things change...

... the more they stay the same. Another week of semi-pro arena combat, and somehow, we've found the answer for Priest/rogue. Don't ask me how, but apparently we ball-stomp this combo now. Call it Warrior/Paladin syndrome, where you face a certain matrix for a week straight, getting your ass handed to you, then never lose against them again. Maybe it was just priests stacking Shadow Resist gear all along...

The 2.3 SL/SL nerf is /yawn-worthy. The part that freaks me right the hell out is the insane resto/holy spell damage buff. If these healbots are getting 600 free spell damage, paladins are going to be a nightmare, bringing back the days of 2-shotting the felhunter, making 2v2 much more difficult against paladin matrices. And don't even get me started on resto shamans and their new Water Shield of Imba.

Of course, all these changes will really only affect high-level arena (2,200+) so we should be safe in our little 2,000-2,200 bubble where 2dps teams tend to top out anyway. Still, if Eternia or I want to push into the 2,300 2v2 range and this buff goes live, we're going to have to split up, him partnering up with Chans (our priest), myself pushing with Vlak (druid).

For all the thunder and lightning about arena rebalancing and class imbalance, I find that each team has a natural cap imposed on them by their players' levels of skill. As much as it's heralded that 2dps is nigh impossible to climb with in the deep BG9 high-brackets, Nielyo and Gumbot's terrific teams are always in the back of my mind.

Even if they nerf our classes into oblivion, we're not capping out because our classes are limited. Everyone on Silver Hand (including everyone in the APV) has their ratings capped because of their skill level. The only class balancing that grabs my attention is when I see 2,300-rated teams raise questions about incoming changes. Clearly, those players are being capped more by their class abilities than their skill, as can be noted by the stilted class representation in those brackets.

So, TL:DR version says "It's fine. Learn to play," but there is a certain comfort knowing that we in the lower brackets (1,800-2,200) of arena play have a kind of immunity to class re-balancing. The urge to climb above 2,300 may stike us eventually, but until then, it's great to know that our scrappy little double dps team is just as fun as ever, and, possibly as important for my business, just as easy to climb.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

2.2 Goes Live

We're taking it easy this week, a by-product of both the new patch and the incoming news about 2.3 (going live God knows when). Doing everyone's renewals has kept us busy enough, I couldn't imagine trying to sell pre-mades this week.

The SL/SL nerf is in, and no one's surprised. So far, the resilience buff (DoT nerf) hasn't affected our win-loss ratio at all, but just the same, I might be closing up shop for a couple weeks to concentrate on high-bracket 2v2 and 3v3 play.

Apparently, the rating requirements for weapons and shoulders are going to be 1850 and 2000, which bodes well for the APV, not so much for the non-point buying arena community of Silver Hand though. No more turtling your points til you can afford that uber weapon, guys.

I really want to start getting serious with our 2v2 this week, and start climbing with Vlak in our 3v3, but Eternia and I have been playing pretty lazily the last couple days, and its pretty dangerous to treat the teams you find at 2100 with the same confidence and room for error we've been facing in the 1800's.

With any luck, this is just the calm before the storm, and Eternia will go all Ming-Naruto in the next couple weeks and give us that push we need to crack back into the 2200's.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Silver Hand Arena: Horde Edition

After who knows how many months of arena play, I finally got to face some of Silver Hand Horde's finest in competetive arena late last week while raising up a client's 2v2 team. Both teams were utilizing the easiest and most powerful matrices to climb the 2v2 bracket, Warrior/Druid and Warlock/Druid (season 2's Warrior/Paladin).

It was nice to gauge where the horde of our server was skill-wise, and I came away from those fights rejuventated. Our strat vs. druid teams revolves around finding the druid while stealthed (felhunter + double perception > Prowl), while I tank the dps. If we catch the druid stealthed, we have about an 80-85% win rate, but if we can't find him, and he pops out to heal, that drops our chances to about 50-50.

Tito knew our strat well, and was screaming for Crusty (his druid) to stay in the starting area, but I managed to bumrush their side of the BEM ramp, and catch the kitty in the opening salvo. Wasn't much of a match after some failed kiting attempts, and the team that's built to kill druids did just that. Eternia went into shredder mode, and we went on our way.

The very next queue, we got Nawakuna and Mobius, for the delicious Warrior/Druid combo, and while I managed to tank Mobius longer than necessary, we just couldn't find that darn cat! Nawa eventually popped out, and we got on him, but aside from dropping the gear-bomb on that team, I'd give them a decent shot if we ever rematch. Nawa moves like a great arena druid. The match was in Lordaeron, so that alter is a druid wet dream, but I was nonetheless very impressed with this druid of the horde.

I'm expecting great things from Nawa once he gears up, hopefully finding a more reliable 3v3 matrix (ran into him with Konfucious this week as well. Not a pretty team, but maybe they know something I don't), and elevating his rating to at least 2100, where all those druid teams reside.

Tito has a fantastic grasp on the warlock class, and after talking with him for a bit, I hopefully steered him toward a more reliable climbing strat. They had been playing a graded CC execute team, and while I acknowledge I've only been playing warlock/druid for a couple weeks with Vlak, we're floating a 2,000 rating with very little coordination, and Vlak in season 1 gear. Playing the mana game seems to be foolproof for us, and as long as the pet lives, our win rating is something insane (I think it's at 90-10 right now when the pet lives). Execute teams are a lot of fun, and are much quicker matches, but for climbing 1900-2200, you just can't beat a mana drain team for win percentage and reliability.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Patch Day

Here's hoping that the gear-swapping nerf is going through tomorrow...

I had the great pleasure of being unable to meet a client's needs for the first time tonight, falling short of a 2,000 rated 2v2 by several games before hitting the game cap.

While I could blame it on Monday queue times, or rotten luck, I'm going to suck it up, and blame it on teams running 400+ Shadow resist gear from Black Temple.

Shadow resist gear has cost me 100+ rating in a day before, but this is the first time it screwed over a client, and I gotta tell you, it feels way worse.

Here's hoping gear-swapping will out-nerf the resilience buff vs. DoTs. Warlocks are finally getting the nerf-bat, and aside from the mace spec nerf destroying all the skilled warriors out there, this patch shouldn't affect the business, my 2v2, or any of my serious teams too negatively.

2v2 news: Busy week (sold 26 teams, most being 2v2's) with a stretch of a couple days (roughly 350 matches) undeafeated. Now if we can just figure out how to improve our average against dwarf rogue/dwarf priest. When we get our strat down, it's a 90% win rate (see: warrior/druid, warlock/druid), but the priest/dwarf rogue strat has been slow coming. Hopefully, Eternia will figure something out. Shadow resist ate us alive monday night, so cross your fingers that the patch is our answer to finally cracking 2300. Tired of floating between 2100 and 2200 gaining 4 points from victories, and losing 20 points from losses just because they happen to own high end BT epics with 70+ shadow resist per piece.

3v3 news: Tons of 3v3's sold this week, and I know my teammates had as much of a blast as I did. Kicked it old school with some Rogue/Lock/Priest, and got to try out a promising new matrix too. The Druid/Rogue/Lock matrix seems to be coming together nicely, and once Vlak and I get on the same page for a decent CC rotation, we should be able to play that matrix a couple different ways. With Chans, it was Execute or Fail, trading our priest for their healer, and utilizing Improved Death to cinch up our natural rogue/lock 2v2 advantage. Swapping in a druid for the priest gives us the option to play a more graded execute with healer CC (in liu of pure damage), outlast, play a mana fight, and most importantly, being able to fluidly transition between the two strats seamlessly. Oh, and a fond farewell to all those Warrior/Paladin/Shaman teams out there. Your nerfs were a long time coming, but, grats. Well deserved.

5v5 still looks bleak. Short of a server transfer, it looks like we're going to have to farm raise a Shadow priest to run our 4dps FoTM team, and although I'd love to try some 2345, or otherwise, our class balance just doesn't allow for it. That and Silver Hand doesn't have any Elemental Shaman geared enough at the skill level we require to make those teams work. In our scrub 5v5, we're still floating mid 1800's, which is awesome for Silver Hand, but the matrix is terrible, nigh unsensical. Ideally, we'd field Rogue/Lock/Spriest/Mage/ Paladin, but with the respec's it would take to seriously buckle down, and the lackluster 5v5 landscape currently in mid-bracket (sub 2000) 5v5, the risk-reward just doesn't seem too compelling. It's also a little disturbing that our ragtag Rogue/Lock/Holy Priest/Mage/ Paladin team has climbed so far in the brackets playing only 7 games a week. Using 4dps class balance while in reality running 2 healers is a disaster anywhere but BG9 Mid-bracket, apparently.

Anyway, the business has banked over 30k gold over the last 2 weeks, so I think we're going to take it easy for a while. We got a bunch of repeat buyers, and time slots are just running out, so we might just sell off some inventoried teams, and stop offering pre-mades altogether. Might give it another week though, so if you're thinking about getting a pre-made 2v2 for points, I'd recommend hooking up with me sooner rather than later.

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This blog is being maintained for personal reasons to help characterize my thoughts on Arena warfare from the perspective of the red-headed step-server of fearsome BG9; Silver Hand.