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2v2 composition question
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Post by
Squishalot
Ok, so I'm not a great PvP'er, sure. But my brother and I figure that we can win 5 2v2 arena matches a week to hit the low-level Conquest Point cap fairly easily, especially if we just try enough times. We're on 2/5 proper games so far, with a fresh team (i.e. starting off at a moderate matchmaking ranking), so we're not completely demoralised at our lack of coordination. The only times we've been roflstomped have been when we were hopelessly outgeared.
Currently we're running as Frost Mage / Disc Priest. What seems to happen is that they attempt to focus down the Priest, we CC one of them (typically the plate wearing non-healer) then switch to burst down the other, as much as a mage with under ilvl300 average gear can burst. In the process, we attempt to keep the other guy as CC'd as possible, be it another polymorph, a fear, or even just pet Freeze to keep him rooted far away.
The question arises whether a) we'd be better off going with different specs (e.g. shadow, maybe?) and b) whether he should play his Prot Warrior instead. My concern is that if he runs with his Warrior (in any spec), they're going to ignore him and tunnel vision me down, and with no healer, I'll drop like a sack of <insert sacked item here> with my <90k health.
Or c) do we have the best combination given our classes, and just need to work on our execution / play style and gear up?
Happy to take advice / thoughts.
Post by
StrangerWifCandy
a) If he plays as shadow better than disc, sure. I'm a firm believer that one should play a spec that they're most comfortable with though.
b) Does he play a warrior better than a priest? Anyways they'd probably tunnel the warrior tbh, unless they're very confident they can prevent the mage from kiting.
c) Definitely not the best comp atm, but it's not trash by any means. In my opinion it's more important to focus on becoming better players over fretting constantly about ratings etc.
My suggestion to you is to play offensive. The plan for any team facing you is to tunnel the priest into the ground, but your most dangerous weapon is the amount of peeling and control the two of you have together. Literally every scream CD someone can go into at least an 18 second CC chain. The most important thing in any match is to keep offensive momentum, and the best way to hold it is to be the first to get it.
Post by
Squishalot
a) I'm pretty sure he's more comfortable with Disc, so that works. I'm not 100% at home in Frost, but I'm getting there.
b) Would they really tunnel the warrior? Kiting or not, I would have thought the squishy mage (no pun intended) would be the easier target. My past experience playing with my brother's Paladin has been that they've focused me down first, but that could be because I'm comparatively less geared (i.e. less resilience, lower health pool, therefore easier to wipe out quickly).
c) Not concerned with ratings or anything - from a purely practical perspective, the more often we win, the quicker it is to hit CP cap. We're happy to experiment a little and fiddle with our composition and specs if takes us closer to that goal. If one set of specs is theoretically likely to be more effective, then that's something we can look towards and tweak to our playstyle accordingly.
Post by
StrangerWifCandy
a) I'm pretty sure he's more comfortable with Disc, so that works. I'm not 100% at home in Frost, but I'm getting there.
b) Would they really tunnel the warrior? Kiting or not, I would have thought the squishy mage (no pun intended) would be the easier target. My past experience playing with my brother's Paladin has been that they've focused me down first, but that could be because I'm comparatively less geared (i.e. less resilience, lower health pool, therefore easier to wipe out quickly).
c) Not concerned with ratings or anything - from a purely practical perspective, the more often we win, the quicker it is to hit CP cap. We're happy to experiment a little and fiddle with our composition and specs if takes us closer to that goal. If one set of specs is theoretically likely to be more effective, then that's something we can look towards and tweak to our playstyle accordingly.
Well, not sure what it's like at lower ratings but we generally target the person that's the easiest target to train (from a double dps perspective). When we're trying to frontload burst, mages are very tough targets to keep within grasp for very long, and if you want to end matches very quickly they're generally bad target choices. For most comps, when you're being targeted be confident that they're making the wrong decision and kite them to the ends of the earth.
Anyways, yeah don't worry about the rating, instead set small personal goals for your team each week like "No more than 3 losses before 5 wins this week" etc. etc. and discuss very very very thoroughly each game you play, both losses AND victories. Tell each other what the other did to make the game easy for them to win, or tell each other what the other did to make the game difficult to win. Talk about PRECISELY what happened in the game, who casted what and when, and how you won/lost. If you lost, analyze what was done and come up with a way to win. Get crazy, get creative. The strategies where you do what the enemy least suspects are the ones where you usually win.
Anyways, that's all meta-game stuff I know, and I'd offer you hard strategies but I really believe that those are something that suits different people in different ways.
Post by
Squishalot
Good to know that we're on the right track then, at least. The post-game analysis is really the thing we do the best, even if it generally does open with a "OMFG WTF" sort of statement :P
Tried two matches with the warrior, didn't get very far. He switched back to his priest (who is better geared with an average ilvl of 340 vs 320, plus in primarily PvP gear rather than PvE) and we won our 'comeback' match. So I think it's just a matter of gearing up (and improving my ilvl <300 gear...) and trying to maintain a 1/3 - 1/2 sort of win/loss ratio until our gear is competitive. If we're not in a position where we can burst down some healers (6k / 14k ice lances just don't seem to cut it) with interrupts and CC on the off-target, it doesn't feel like there's any point in trying.
Thanks for the advice though =)
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Post by
Squishalot
If you win, don't just gloat amongst yourselves, talk about the mistakes the other team made. Identify what they did wrong so you can avoid similar mistakes. Did they miss a CC? Was it stupid for them to rush in after you on a pillar map? Did someone trinket too early?
Indeed, the post-game discussion is probably the one thing we're doing fairly OK in.
Haha I think I played you guys....
I'm sure there's more than one set of undergeared FrostMage/DiscPriest 2v2ers out there... :)
Even then, what server do you play on?
I would say Your buddy going Shadow would be better then Disc atm, the few Discs we have ran into have dropped pretty damn quick, there really squishy atm.
He doesn't particularly like Shadow, and his Disc is strong enough to keep himself alive as long as we're both alert to CC'ing. So we're inclined to keep him as Disc until we get to a stage where it's not viable anymore. We're a long way off from there though.
Post by
StrangerWifCandy
Literally right now as disc, if someone doesn't die in the initial polymorph/rof into fear, with lust smite spam, and lust+IV frostbolt spam, you're probably going to lose; but I'm sure you've already noticed this pattern.
Post by
Squishalot
We have a positive win-loss ratio this week! (Not that 2-1 means anything, but...)
Question on talents. At the moment, I'm thinking of re-spec'ing to this:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#oMhbbZoZffbMshsdbo:mMozbq0zm
The other somewhat more left-field thought was to use this:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#oMZdbzbZffbMshsdbo:mMozbq0zm
Reason for (1) is that it's a more conventional PvP spec - picks up Imp Blink and Invocation for extra Counterspell burst.
Reason for (2) is that it provides an additional interrupt / short snare (which is essentially what a stun is), albeit, on proc. Extra point in Blazing Speed is just to get away from those pesky rogues every now and then.
Has anyone tried an Impact-based Frost build?
Post by
StrangerWifCandy
Your second build is very close to what the best mages are using atm, but there's some key talents missing that confuse me, like Permafrost, FFOrb, and glyphing for Molten Armor, and not grabbing Evocate/Polymorph glyphs.
Actually, I can let Polymorph go since your priest probably rarely DoTs, and maybe get away without Evocate (but I'm 100% sure it's still handy with your comp because the way I imagine games going, often you'll have to 1v1 or 2v1 to win many matches).
Anyways, here's what most of us go:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#oMZcbzbZrfbhshsdMo:MmRMqko0m
Frostfire glyph is usually up in the air between Mage Armor, but I haven't seen any high-rated mages not using those Majors. No one really cares about minors, but Slow Fall is a must and I go with Arcane Brilliance because sometimes rebuffing yourself for less mana cost can save your life against a spellstealing mage.
Blazing Speed is nice, but Imp Blink, imo is way better (because of reliability); however Impact is amazing because it's on the random stun DR (separate from DF) and it's not dispellable.
Post by
765673
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Post by
Squishalot
Yes, I forgot about the Evocation glyph... /slaps head
I wasn't sure about Permafrost and FFB orb. The slow effect on the orb doesn't really add much over existing slows, and the value of an extra 20% slow on FFB is great in PvE solo'ing, but didn't seem to add much in PvP whenever Brain Freeze procs, which was rarely. And if you're glyphing FFB then it's even more useless, isn't it? Just my rationale, happy to be explained wrong.
Mage Armor > Molten Armor? Makes sense, but I might ignore for now, if only because my undergeared arse only has 13% crit unbuffed. Do you know if resilience and 'reduce crit%' effects work before or after Shatter is calculated?
I'll try the impact build and see how I go. Cheers :)
Post by
StrangerWifCandy
Yes, I forgot about the Evocation glyph... /slaps head
I wasn't sure about Permafrost and FFB orb. The slow effect on the orb doesn't really add much over existing slows, and the value of an extra 20% slow on FFB is great in PvE solo'ing, but didn't seem to add much in PvP whenever Brain Freeze procs, which was rarely. And if you're glyphing FFB then it's even more useless, isn't it? Just my rationale, happy to be explained wrong. A lot of FoF procs when you use the orb, and if you put it down on one side of a pillar it makes it much more difficult to run from you. You can skip over FFOrb, but I've taken a liking to it personally. (Half the time the thing just flies past targets anyways)
Mage Armor > Molten Armor? Makes sense, but I might ignore for now, if only because my undergeared arse only has 13% crit unbuffed. Do you know if resilience and 'reduce crit%' effects work before or after Shatter is calculated?Resilience hasn't reduced crit% since 4.0
Post by
Squishalot
Fair enough. I must've completely missed the boat on the resilience change.
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