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.