The Colosseum: Korgath speaks, pt IV
Thuldron is a human warlock on the 4th rated team on the Vengeance battleground. Thuldron also plays on high-rated 2v2 and 3v3 teams, making him a well-rounded competitor in the Arenas.
WoW.com: Who are your teammates right now? What's the general plan behind your composition? What challenges does your team have? How do you prefer to run your comp?
Thuldron: I do not have a current 2v2 partner so I will be focusing on 3v3 and 5v5.
The composition that I am running for 3v3 is Rogue/Warlock/Shaman. Anthany is our Rogue and Fitnessdepot is our Shaman. This comp has a very aggressive play style that, if used correctly, can be quite dangerous.
It's also a double-eged sword because if not played correctly. it can be destroyed pretty easily. What I've learned about this comp is that if we get a head start on being the offensive team then we are more likely to win. So staying aggressive throughout the match is important, but on top of playing aggressive we have to coordinate our CCs to maximize pressure on the opposing team.
The ultimate challenge of our team is that we are all susceptible targets, so we have to be very cautious and always try to force the other team to stay defensive. Like I said, the play style is very fast paced and I enjoy fast paced matches.
For 5v5, we are currently 4th on the battlegroup with a 2705 team rating. The comp consists of a Destruction Warlock, a Survival Hunter, Elemental Shaman, Holy (or even Holy/Prot) Paladin and a Resto Druid. I'm the Warlock, Omiron is the Hunter, Covaz is our paladin, Fitnessdepot is our Shaman, and Tigerlady is the Resto Druid.
The plan behind this comp is to have a quick burst swap to a target with everyone focusing the damage on one person. That means getting the chance to kill anyone that is in line of sight with us. The line of sight makes them vulnerable.
So, we take out any vulnerable target with everyone on the same target. The challenge behind this comp is any team that can dispel and can out-last our damage. Since we are all ranged DPS, our damage can be easily negated. So we have to create that opportune moment to kill a target. For example, we want to kill targets in the duration of a Hammer of Justice or Fearing a target into LOS.
We like to play using Covaz's calls because after one of us sees someone trinkets we call it out in Vent and Covaz, our paladin, would use a Stun on the target and call it out. That makes that target vulnerable and we all follow up with our damage and kill the target. So I would like to say we generally follow Covaz's calls on the DPS target. That is another important thing: calling out who has used their trinket is vital to our comp.
WoW.com: What's your opening strategy? What do you like to do as soon as the gate opens?
Thuldron: For Rogue/Lock/Shaman, our starting strategy would be based around Anthany getting a sap off. After Sap, I would engage combat on our DPS target and Anthany will follow opening on the target.
As soon as the healer trinkets, we either CC him again or CC the DPS target and switch to the healer. Since the healer has no trinket at this point, he can be stunlocked to death.
For our Sniper team (that's what i have nicknamed our 5v5) I generally start with summoning a teleport pad and start teasing the other team to come to our side.
We usually are the ones who will be staying back in the beginning and the other team will most likely engage first. Our Shaman will lay his totems down, especially Grounding to negate and Death Grips if there are any DKs on the team. Once they engage, we usually DPS the target.
WoW.com: Which mods do you use -- how have you customized your screen?
Thuldron: Crucial mods that I use would be ArcHud, Afflicted, SSarena Frames, and Natur Enemycastbar. I use the default UI so my UI looks plain and not so fancy as others have it. I generally like the plain and simple UI so I enjoy using the default UI.
WoW.com: How do you work out target designation? (Does someone call it out, or is everyone on their own to figure it out?)
Thuldron: For 3v3, I am usually the eagle eye watching for specific things on the battlefield and calling switches if I feel it would a good swap.
For 5v5, any of us can call out targets but most of the time Covaz our paladin would generally call out the DPS target since we follow his Hammer of Justice.
WoW.com: How do you schedule your playtime? Do you try and work during "good times to queue?" Is this different now than in previous seasons?
Thuldron: For 3v3, we usually play when all of us are on. For 5v5, if everyone is on and we feel that it's a good time to queue then we will queue. Good times to queue are when all the top teams are queuing, so we like queuing when everyone else is also queuing.
WoW.com: What's been the biggest change in your strategy between each bracket of ratings? (1500s, 1600s) Is there a big change for this season?
Thuldron: For 3v3, it's still a learning process for all of us and we are yet still trying to perfect our play style.
For 5v5, it comes down mainly to being able to kill the target.
So obviously, teams that are low would usually be easy to kill but higher teams would be harder to kill because they can negate our damage.
WoW.com: What signals to you that you need to radically change strategy midmatch? (And how do you accomplish that change?)
Thuldron: This is a good question. Changing strategies mid-match happens quite a bit since having a vulnerable target is so important. All of us are good mid-match quick strat follow ups.
So if a target that we hadn't expected to kill suddenly gives up that opportune moment, we can switch. We would call it out in vent and everyone would follow up that call.
WoW.com: You hear a lot about clicking versus binding. Which skills do you still click, which do you tend to bind?
Thuldron: Hahaha. This is another good question. Unfortunately, I was a clicker myself back then.
Throughout each season I gain more knowledge and get better so now I mainly keybind and not click. The skills I still click are the pet macros, Banish, trash buffs (Unending Breath and Detect Invisibility), Curse of Weakness, Lifetap, feldom pet macros, Drain Life and Demon Armor. But not Fel Armor.
WoW.com: What are you trying to improve?
Thuldron: I'm still trying to improve my reaction times and awareness in Arena. For example, being able to use spells in a quick response and staying ahead of the game. And the most important thing is to not freeze up in an arena match. (An example of freezing up would be not knowing what to do next.)
So, I'm trying to improve on always having a game plan and even a backup plan.
