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Blood Sport: Become a 5v5 master (2-DPS or drain teams)
Blood Sport: The column where we grind our enemies into a fine pulp, add sugar, water and love. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Where did that saying even come from? I'd love it if life just randomly gave me lemons. And in that vein, who wouldn't make lemonade with lemons? What other uses do lemons even have? Anyway, let's talk about owning people in 5v5 and stuff. Listening Music: The xx with "Basic Space." The real talent is the guy playing the buttons. Drain teams were exceptionally successful in The Burning Crusade, so much so that developers went out of their way to make burst damage, and only burst damage, a successful strategy in Wrath of the Lich King. The problem, of course, was that it went completely overboard, and we were stuck looking at extreme dominance from classes that did best under high-burst-damage conditions. In season eight, we're seeing a return to some strategies that try to get an enemy's mana to 0 percent before they make a serious attempt to kill anything. I have a special place in my heart for drain comps. My first No. 1 title came from playing a drain team with fellow gladiators; it was our first time hitting No. 1 together and it was an amazing time. I probably sounded like a little girl when I screamed ridiculously loud as I saw that coveted title attached to my character's name.
The future of healing in the Arena
If you've been in the Arena during Season 5, you probably have noticed a particular change to the way gladiators fight. It can be summarized in a single word: "Damage." In the bygone days of Season 4, drain teams and Mortal Strike debuffs were all but an entry requirement to high ranked play. Without a strategy to reduce or nullify your enemy's healing, you were unlikely to produce sufficient burst DPS to actually kill anyone. A few double-DPS teams managed to thrive, but for the most part, a gladiator's number one priority was shutting down the healer. That dynamic is all but dead in Season 5. Players output such a high level of damage compared to other players' health that healing is almost a non-factor in most matches. My friends, Ghostcrawler is aware of this dynamic, and is looking into it. (It turns out, Ghostcrawler mostly plays a healer in the Arena.) As stated by the crab himself, the Arena should not simply be about burst damage. (Nor, however, should it be solely about healing or solely about crowd control.) Of course, Ghostcrawler does admit he has difficulty saying what the long terms plans are going to be. The design team hasn't had enough whiteboard time to say anything with complete honesty. But he also hopes that as more Resilience gear enters the PvP system, the damage might scale down to be more reasonable. (To quote, "It's mostly just math.") Still, there's hope that future teams will include more than just seeing which team can burst down the other first.
Scattered Shots: The dev team takes on PvP
Welcome once again to Scattered Shots, WoW Insider's spot for all things Hunter, except for the stuff Big Red Kitty covers. Daniel Whitcomb will be your host today (a day late, for which he apologizes) as David Bowers tries to shake off some extra aggro. The state of Hunters in PvP is perhaps one of the most debated subjects in WoW PvP. Some call Hunters overpowered for their dispelling Arcane Shot (which is going away in Wrath, to be sent to the non-damaging Tranquilizing Shot), while others point to their low Arena representation and the ease of using line of sight to negate most of their DPS and Abolish Poison to get rid of their main PvP utility as proof that they need buffs. Regardless, even the devs acknowledge that Hunters probably need some help in PvP, and class designer Koraa recently spoke on the subject on the Beta forums. In his post, he covered the problems he sees Hunters having, and how Blizzard will be helping with those moving forward into Wrath. Unfortunately, his solutions seem confused in and of themselves. They involve giving Hunters more melee attack power (instead of more way to break from melee so they can use their ranged weapon) and a variety of talents scattered around many trees in such a way that it will be difficult for a solid PvP build to get them all. And, as I mentioned in a post yesterday, they still aren't giving pets resilience. Other Hunters such as Megatf have done an excellent job responding to some of Koraa's points in the thread itself, but I'd like to address and respond to the post myself in this week's column, and see how they stack up to the problems Hunters face in small scale Arena PvP.
Blood Sport: All aboard the drain train
PvP in its purest form is a beautiful thing. Amanda Dean, always obsessed with the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat brings you news you can use in the Arena. When I first started the arena, I thought "Hey, me and my friends can just get together and play." And we can, but there are limits to success based on composition. Some of the most successful teams are based on archetypal compositions such as Rogue, Mage, and Priest (RMP). These typical compositions are based on synergy among classes. Focused mana draining is another fairly successful team structure. The key to successful arena play is usually to control the playing field. Drain teams deny their opponents the ability to attack or heal. Drain teams focus on characters that have mana depleting abilities, plus have a few other tricks up their sleeve to pull out when necessary. Your main contenders are Hunter, Priest, and Warlock.
Blood Sport: Do and don't, pro-style
PvP in its purest form is a beautiful thing. Amanda Dean, always obsessed with the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat brings you news you can use in the Arena. Hailing from Korea, Council of Mages was victorious in this year's World Wide Invitational 3v3 tournament. Second place went to Improved Clicks of Spain. The winners took home a check worth $36,000 for their victory and made an excellent showing throughout the tournament. Improved Clicks cashed in at $18,000, and third place finishers SK-US was awarded $9,000. The final standings for were: 1. Council of Mages 2. Improved Clicks3. SK Gaming 4. Millenium Dream 5-6. Kill EA 5-6. Made in Taiwan 7-8. SK Gaming 7-8. Pandemic Blue 9-12. aAa nawaK 9-12. Elite 9-12. MoB Gaming 9-12. Pandemic Black 13-16. Sapped Cows cant say moo 13-16. Team EG 13-16. fnatic 13-16. Nihilum.Mousesports
Frag Dominant wins MLG San Diego tourney
MLG's PC Circuit Arena competition has come to an end, after an exciting weekend of coverage by GotFrag. The final round came down to a best of eleven showdown between Frag Dominant and Nihilum, first to six wins. Frag Dominant's Rogue/Warrior/Druid managed to get the best of Nihilum's Priest/Druid/Hunter after a grueling contest that never had a clear winner until the very end. After the first eight matches, they were tied at an even 4-4. The Nihilum team's aggresive nature seemed to get the better of them when Frag Dominant caught onto their playstyle. More than once it appeared to me that their Hunter was left open to FD's double melee burst when the Nihilum Priest and Druid shifted their attention to take out Frag Dominant's healer. Nihilum's healers being focused on downing Frag's own forced them into reactive healing rather than proactive, and the deaths of their Hunter throughout the contests ultimately lead to their downfall. Very well played by Frag Dominant.The tournament was definitely a good watch, and the highlight of my day was my roommate shouting obscenities about drain teams. WoW arena tournaments don't quite have the strangely entertaining glitz and glamour of Starcraft tournaments yet, but it's only a matter of time. I'm fairly confident that I'll tune in for the Circuit's tournament in Orlando on July 11th, and many others after that.Edited to fix the date of the Orlando tourney.
