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.