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?

1 comment:

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