The Colosseum: Butteslol of Gorefiend

The Colosseum takes us inside the world of the Gladiator (Brutal, Vengeful, Merciless, and otherwise), to interview some of the top Arena fighters in the battlegroups. Our goal is to bring a better understanding of the strategy, makeup, and work that goes into dueling it out for fame, fortune, and Netherdrakes.

A new season is on us, and new breeds of compositions are rising to the top. The first Colosseum interview of Season 6 is with Butteslol, the Discipline Priest in the team "idk im just so furious." Along with Retribution Paladin Carboncopy, Butteslol has blazed a trail to high ratings very early in the season.

Retribution/Discipline has been a technical player's favorite for a little while, thanks to the vast toolbox the composition can bring to bear in several situations. Affected by the recent Replenishment nerf, however, it's going to be interesting to see what happens for Butteslol in the future.

Check out what he had to say behind the cut.

WoW Insider: The first natural question is: What do you play? What made you decide to play that? And, who's your teammates? How did you find them? Did you know one another already, or did you come together by LFG?

Butteslol: I play Butteslol on Gorefiend-US. I came back to WoW around the middle of Season 2 and rolled a Priest because I just wanted to mix it up I guess. I played a Rogue from release to just after the BC release, and I was pretty sick of it at that point.

Currently, I am only playing 2s with Carboncopy, a Retribution Paladin. The group of guys that I play with is more or less the majority of my old Alliance guild from vanilla. We rerolled as Horde here, so I have played with them quite a bit. Carboncopy and I played a little towards the end of season 4 together, all of season 5, and of course Season 6.

WoW Insider: The news about the replenishment nerf the other day was a shock to quite a few folks. How do you think that's going to affect your team? Will it be a big deal?

Butteslol We were actually playing the night they hotfixed it in (or out, whatever), and the change was definitely noticable. We beat quite a few Priest/Rogues teams by just outlasting them.

That is not going to be quite as easy anymore or even viable. Mostly though, I think we will manage. The majority of our games aren't mana wars. They end because of cc chains on one opponent and bursting the hell out of the other. Replenishment just gave us a longer window to do that in, really. I have definitely been playing more offensively since the fix , but I don't think it is going to destroy our comp or anything.

Both occasions we played post-fix, we still came out ahead in almost every game, so I dont think ret/healer teams are disappearing due to the nerf.

WoW Insider: That does bring up something I know some folks are curious about -- the CC chain available from a Ret Pally and Priest composition. The powers are somewhat obvious (Fear, Repentence, Hammer of Justice), but how do you actually time it out? Is one CC sufficient, or are you frontloading them somehow? And, since I know someone who's asked this distinctly -- do you consider Mind Control part of that?

Butteslol: Generally, we go pretty offensive on the other healer until he blows a trinket or some other defensive cooldown. As soon as that happens, we then swap to the DPS opponent.

Without a trinket, we can generally kill someone while their healer eats a repentance and fear chain. Balanced, I know. As far as Mind Control goes, it is really really great in some situations (mostly warrior teams, hunter teams after we kill a pet) but I haven't used it all that much because a huge majority of our games are against Priest/Rogue or double DPS.

WoW Insider: What's your strategy for staying alive? While I know the highly ranked priests often seem like unkillable juggernauts, other priests often complain of being one or two shotted. What do you think the difference is, for a priest learning to tank again DPS?

Butteslol: Same as it always has been really. Keep Renew up, Shield and ProM on cooldown. I guess Penance after a shield for the haste, if your health starts to drop.

Playing Priest/Ret, it's extremely rare I get burst down just because I can get Freedomed out of stuns, or Hand of Sac'd, or Divine Sac'd when we see the other team blow cooldowns. I haven't played 3s at all this season, so I can't say how out of control nerds with Betrayers and full PvE gear are in that bracket. But in 2s, priests are pretty unkillable right now.

WoW Insider: So, if that's been relatively constant, what HAS changed recently? With the rarity of Ret/Disc, as you say, what do you think the key to your tactics and success has been? What's helped your astoundinglysuccessful team?

Butteslol: I always thought Ret/Disc has been pretty solid since WotLK launch, but the composition was pretty overshadowed by the shitton of Hpal/DK teams last season.

Shadowfrost DKs were really my least favorite thing to fight last season, we probably had like a 30% win against even the keyboard turning bad ones. Now that Shadowfrost is extinct and I can tank melee better with self-Penance, it doesn't feel like we have many counters.

Stupid things kind of popped up this week as well, with everyone losing 0 points up to 2300 or whatever. Basically, teams we counter have no reason to stop queueing against us, so they dont.

We farmed multiple teams that stood no chance for 80+ points who under 'regular' circumstances would probably stop queueing after 2 or 3 losses. Those situations account for a big chunk of our rating. It feels cheesy just farming those situations, but whatever, we do it anyway.

The Colosseum is an interview series by WoW Insider, meant to reveal strategies, compositions, and tactics from the Arena fighters who use them. For more PvP information, be sure to hit up Blood Sport and the Art of War(craft).