Arena Pwnage » 3v3

Priest setups and play-style in Season 10

Alan Widmann — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 22:17:46 +0000

In this article, Hotted goes through the trendy priest setups and explains the current state of Disc and Shadow Priests.

Hey guys, Priests have a lot of comps to play in season 10 and it’s being really fun to play them. I’m going to to straight into the current setups and the play-style that I’ve seen that’s the most adequate for them:

RMP (Rogue Mage Priest):

This setup, while being constantly good over the seasons, got significant buffs that make a very aggressive play-style risk-reward exponentially better and here is why:

- Fully gemmed mastery mages reach around 14% mastery. Each point in mastery, it ads 2.5% extra damage on your crits. 14×2.5 is 35% MORE damage on shatters.

- Subtlety Rogues got 6% flat out damage increase. Even though their survivability got nerfed a bit with Cloak of Shadows sharing a cool-down with Combat Readiness

- Priests direct damage spells (Mindblast and Shadow Word Death)got buffed by 12%.

All these buffs indicate a very straight forward aggressive RMP play and with the right partners, this comp can be absolutely unstoppable.

FMP (Feral Druid, Frost mage, Disc Priest)

This setups power is the instant unavoidable CC. You have Instant Cyclones provided by the feral druid, Deep Freeze into sheeps, Blanket 4 second Counter Spells, and Fears.

Feral druids provide a lot of damage and mobility and synergize with Mages and Priests really well at the moment.

The goal on this setup is to overwhelm the healer with all your instant CC and ultimately get a kill. If you get your coordination working , you are set.

Shadowplay ( Shadow Priest / UA Lock/ Resto druid or resto shaman)

This comp is also an incredibly strong setup to play, but it hurts against melee Cleaves. If you manage to outlast the melee cool downs you should be in a good shape. This comp relies on the shadow priest to land the kills since it’s the most significant single target damage dealer.

The Shadow Priest should focus on Faking his burst (arch angel with shadow fiend) with Vampiric touch, baiting the interrupt, and then proceeding to burst with 3x mindspikes, Mind blast Shadow word Death..

You don’t need to have archangel to burst but it’s a significant damage buff. Always try to keep an off target dotted.

These are the strongest Priest Setups at the moment in my opinion , try them out and have some fun

Video Lesson: Warrior Mage Priest Vs TSG

Millis Kristensson — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 00:34:43 +0000

Here’s a video going over the general play style and strategies to beat melee cleave teams as WMP.

Video Lesson: TSG Pwnage

Arena Pwnage — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 04:55:39 +0000

A collection of TSG arenas vs various comps in cataclysm v 4.1.

Part1:

Part2:

TSG Guide – Pally P.o.V.

Larry Liebler — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 13:53:38 +0000

Lj goes over TSG strats

General strat against most comps: Most of the time as a paladin playing TSG, you will be forced to blow your cool downs very easy. Like every Comp in WoW, it has its plus sides and its down sides. The plus side of TSG, is it has amazing burst damage. The down side of TSG, is the fact that after your initial cool downs, it can be hard to force pressure and survive. So playing into the strengths that TSG has, it forces the TSG to blow offensive and defensive cool downs early to force pressure and hopefully end the game early on. Your job as the paladin, is to keep your team out of CC, and keep your team alive as long as possible.

Best specs for this team are: Arms, Frost, Holy.

Vs. RMP (Rogue Mage Priest) - This match up can be very hard, as rmp has a ton of survivability, and peels for their priest. Despite it being hard, going priest is still the best option. Blow c.d.’s early, Reck-blade storm-throw down, and strangulate.

As the pally, keep the mage to your focus, cleanse sheeps and give freedoms out ASAP. If you get the chance, and you see the mage tunneling frost bolts into one of your teammates, don’t be afraid to try to rebuke it, and interrupt him. Use sacrifice and pet early, also use aura mastery if you have to cast, as if you get counter-spelled early, you can lose the game instantly.

Use HOJ on the priest or rogue, depending on who has used their trinket. Make sure your DK uses trap early, to force trinkets.

Vs. RLS (Rogue Lock Shaman) – This comp can also be quite a headache. Very similar to RMP, its another game where you must win very early on, before you run out of cool downs. Basically you want to start off on the lock, to force the shammy into a position he has to heal. Than you want to make a quick swap with all your cool downs onto the shaman and try to get a kill. Sometimes this wont work, and the shammy will get away. Don’t force it, swap back to the lock and try to save the game by gibing the warlock. Sometimes at this point, we split and have either the warr or the dk stay on the shammy to interrupt, and have the other one on the lock to get the kill.

As the pally in this comp, you will often be put into very bad positions, opening you up to fears. My best advice is to try to follow your team behind pillars as much as possible, so that your dk and warrior do not have to get off their target. Use rebuke a lot in these situations, interrupting fears.

Vs. WLS (Warrior Lock Shaman) – This comp is much easier to pay against. Most of the time we just train the lock from start to finish, putting out insane pressure, and eventually gibing the warlock with interrupts on the shammy (death grip, throw down stun, hoj, strangulate). In the rare case that you cannot kill the warlock, again swap to the shammy and blow c.d.’s on him. The warrior does not have anywhere near the amount of peels that a rogue has, and thus it will make it easier to train the shammy.

Because your facing a warr and not a rogue, it will be much easier for your team to swap to any target they want. So you as the pally, can stay far range from the warlock and basically never get feared. If your team does swap to the shammy, don’t be afraid to go in close range and again, use rebuke to your advantage.

Vs. MLS (Mage, Lock, Rshammy) – This is probably the hardest comp. for TSG to face. Blowing cool downs early is an absolute must, and getting a kill on the shimmy early, is the absolute best way to win this game. TSG is very susceptible to CC, and MLS is full of CC. Therefore, I would suggest starting on the lock, and instantly swapping to the shammy as soon as possible. Blowing all cool downs on the shammy, and praying for big crits.

You as the pallly, may have nightmares after you play this team. Trying to avoid fear, sheep, and dodge silences, all the while dispelling your team and healing, can almost seem impossible at times. This is why your team blowing cool downs early is so very important. If you have to cast, and do not have any cool downs up, the game is basically over. I would suggest keeping the mage to your focus and watching for sheeps, and play extremely offensive, ride the shammy with 3 interrupts, using sacrifice, freedom to keep your team free and offensive. And relying on bubble, aura mastery, and pet to keep your team alive.

Vs. KFC (Hunter, Warrior, RShammy) – This is one of the easier comps TSG comes to face, but if not handled properly, can become a dps race. We train the shammy, and cc the hunter with hoj-dk trap-warrior fear, and saving throw down for the shammy.

As the pally, the biggest thing you need to worry about are the hunter traps. I always try to sacrifice early (protecting it with kings or might), to avoid getting trapped. If I do not have a trinket up, I always call for my team to intervene me to try to eat the trap (call this out while scattered). Also, there isn’t much punishment for going in and trying to interrupt the shammy. Its very effective for 3 interrupts to be training a shammy, making it almost impossible to fake cast all of us.

Vs. TSG(Mirror, Hpally, DK, Warrior) – Mirror matches, really comes down to who used their c.d.’s first and effectively. We almost always start on the DK, forcing c.d.’s early, once the dk is somewhat low, we grip in the paladin, and try to stun/interrupt him, and force him into bubbling. After bubble, we either keep training the dk and interrupt the pally, or just swap pally and try to blow our remaining c.d.’s to kill him.

As the pally vs. this comp, I would suggest saving freedom for yourself at the start of the game. If they try to do the same strat (gripping pally in and interrupting), you will have freedom up for yourself, to freedom-holy radiance out of range, and back into your position. Other than that, always be casting heals and topping your teammates off as much as possible, stay max range, and use your cool downs wisely. don’t be afraid to BOP early to relieve pressure (have your teammates make a /remove aura BOP macro).

Vs. LSD (Boomkin, Lock, RShammy) – LSD comp relies on over-time damage adding up and killing basically everyone on the map. And for this reason, you again, must blow c.d.’s very early to force pressure and hopefully get a kill. Against this comp, we have gotten kills on everything. We mostly try to kill the lock, unless it’s a map where he can jump down and port up, and if that’s the case, we usually go shammy.

As the pally, you want to try to save your cool downs as long as possible. Your pet mostly. You want to save your cool downs for when the damage first starts to get un-healable. Basically when the lock has dots on more than one target.

Video Lesson: WLP 2 – Warrior Lock Pally

Larry Liebler — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 06:37:38 +0000

Second part of WLP against several other popular comps.

Video Lesson: WLP – Warrior Lock Pally

Larry Liebler — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 00:51:31 +0000

Some tips and tricks for WLP against several comps.

Video Lesson: Warrior Kill Setup

Millis Kristensson — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 04:33:09 +0000

Here’s a guide to help you with setting up kills as a warrior.

The Art of Avoiding/Dealing with CC.

Larry Liebler — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 17:02:00 +0000

LJ goes over how to avoid CC as a hpally…

We are at a point where positioning is more important than ever. One landed CC can lead to a chain of CC effects. The fact that pallys must stand still and cast the majority of our heals, makes pallys the most susceptible to cc out of any class

…

Yes there is.

Focus:

Always take advantage of your focus target. /focus is a ability that should be bounded to a easy to move key bind. Throughout the game, you want to be swapping your focus target, depending on the cc you want to watch.

For example, your facing a warlock/mage team. You start the game training the lock. So you have your mage to set to focus to watch for poly. Then your team makes a swap over to the mage, you then want to set your focus to the lock to watch for fear.

Positioning:

This is probably the greatest determining factor in avoiding cc as a hpally. Positioning is so important right now. First well start off with symbols. Symbols on yourself and your partners can be used to keep track of the position of your teammates very easily. Simply make your group a raid, and throw up symbols on your mates (I’d suggest the star, since it implies you’re the boss). Symbols are seen through pillars, and across the map.

The next thing were going to talk about, requires a lot of patience and focus. Awareness. It may sound easy, but it’s a skill that many people over look and don’t use. Awareness should be defined as, knowing where you are, your teammates are, and where your opponents are. Having this type of awareness, will give you the best opportunity to win games, and will separate you from a mediocre player, too a great player. The best way to practice this, is to literally tell yourself to pay attention to the positioning going on around you. Once you have done this for a while (sometimes a while, is an entire season, sometimes it’s a week, sometimes its an entire expansion) it will become second nature to you and you wont even notice your doing it.

Abilities to avoid cc:

We have several abilities that allow us to line of site, interrupt cc, and avoid cc. First well start with interrupting cc. Most people have a very hard time finding a good time to use rebuke. I recently made a post on when/not to use it, but I wanted to give you guys a situation where it is perfect to use it. A lot of the time, when your pillaring, teams will come over to you to try to cc you or get you away from the pillar. If you see this happening, you can prepare yourself to interrupt a fear/sheep. Sometimes, if you end up getting feared away from the pillar, it’s not a bad idea to tie holy radiance/rebuke together for a sprinted kick at the next Cc’ing opponent.

Aura mastery, is a great tool but I often see a lot of players use this with a chance of them not being interrupted. I use afflicted to track all interrupts (pummel, CS, rebuke, etc.). I will never use aura mastery if these abilities are on c.d., as it would be a complete waste. The best time to use aura mastery, is when it is absolutely necessary to cast heals and are worrying about getting interrupted.

PVP trinket is one of your best outs against CC. However, there are many wrong ways to use it. You basically have two major cd’s that you don’t want to use at the same time. Which are bubble, and trinket. For example, lets say a rogue/mage/priest team open on you, lets say you trinket a kidney shot, but get put into a blanket counter-spell and are forced to bubble. At this rate, you would have been better off bubbling the kidney shot, and immuning the counter-spell, thus saving your pvp trinket for another time. Basically, you don’t want to trinket a fear, and get put right back into a poly. If you can avoid using bubble/trinket at the same time, do it.

Sacrifice is the last tools we will go over. Sac can really only save you from sheep, warr fear, and blind/sleeps. The main reason to use sac, is to stop polys though, so we will use that as an example. With so many dispels in the game right now, its very important we use our sacrifice at the right time. When you see the mage casting sheep, that’s when you need to be using sacrifice. This way, even if he spell steals your sacrifice after his sheep, you already broke out of one, and are now on DR. If you use it before he casts sheep, he will spell steal it, and then sheep you after, giving you a full set of sheeps.

Communication:

Talking with your teammates is very important. I always am talking (mostly screaming) when I cannot avoid a CC.

Depending on your teammates ability and using teamwork to avoid CC, is very important in every game. You must rely on your team to interrupt cc that you cannot avoid.

Video Lesson: Warrior Mage Paladin

Larry Liebler — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 20:26:56 +0000

LJ goes over strats and tips for warrior mage paladin against several comps.

Video Lesson: RLS vs RMP

Twoniu — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 21:51:24 +0000

Twoniu shows you how to beat Rouge Mage Priest as Rogue Lock shaman

Video Lesson: RMP vs TSG

Entarion — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 16:44:20 +0000

Entarion goes over strategies to win as Rogue Mage Priest against Warrior Paladin Deathknight teams.

Strategy: RLS vs Shadowcleave

Twoniu — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 08:30:16 +0000

Twoniu shows you how to beat shadowcleave as rogue lock shaman

Dealing with Rebuke!

Larry Liebler — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 23:17:24 +0000

Lj goes over using Rebuke, the new pally interupt ability.

Something has changed the game drastically…

Paladins are once again seen as the kings of 2s…

Its because of one ability…

Rebuke.

This completely changes strats against certain teams, and can get you wins and shorter games than ever before.

But as Spiderman’s uncle Ben once said, “With great power comes great responsibility”, you MUST make sure that you don’t overuse Rebuke.

How can I overuse Rebuke?

Basically you don’t want to put yourself in a bad position on the map. This means that if your next to a pillar perfectly able to los a sheep, don’t run out and interrupt the sheep. Simply Los it like normal. This also applies to not running out and putting yourself in a position to be cc’ed.

So when should I use Rebuke?

You will find that using this talent, really depends on the comp and bracket that your playing. In 3s you will not find many chances to use it, and even less in 5s.

But lets say in 3s your running TSG, you will have many opportunities to join in with your melee as a third interrupt which could be deadly for the opposing team.

In 2s, you will be able to use it a lot of the time. Almost all of the time your going to be using this interrupt on the healer. This is because most healers will be close to a pillar or max range from the battle, and interrupting the healer will cause less harm to your position. Obviously if your facing against melee teams, it will be easier for you to lose your position. Against caster healer teams, it will be very hard to rely on interrupting the dps.

When you play comps like warrior pally, dk pally, or anything with a melee, it becomes extremely efficient to train healers, swapping on interrupts. Such as, “I’ll interrupt this one, you got next.”

Another great time to use it, is to just run on top of their healer by yourself, and just force him to have to fake cast heals and you can apply pressure that way. That situation applies to if your dps is fighting against the other teams dps.

Ive noticed that a lot of the times I find a chance to use rebuke, is when I’m LOSing and either a lock or mage runs on top of me too cc me (frost nova sheep, or teleport) than proceeds to cast sheep/fear.

Should I get glyph of Rebuke?

For 2s absolutely. Drop cleanse glyph. For 3s and 5s, don’t.

Popular Comps for Rogues

Entarion — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 04:52:56 +0000

Entarion evaluates some popular comps for Rogues in Cataclysm.

Hey there, after seeing how Moozart and LJ released their comp lists, I’ve also decided to drop the rogue one on you! While the list as itself hasn’t really changed, the playstyles of the comps have.

First off, all-time favorite and my current comp RMP(Rogue/Mage/Priest). This comp’s been known since Season 1 and has always been somewhat viable. Right now, duo to the weak state of priests it’s a mediocre comp but with 4.0.6 coming live this week, it’s going to be a t1 comp again.

RMP in my experience has always been about avoiding CC voids on healers. Whenever you can’t CC a healer, you should for example swap to him or reset the fight. There’s absolutely no point to stand there and put damage out if your mage cant CS/Poly/DF the healer, your priest cant fear him or you cant blind him.

Swapping to a healer as RMP is sometimes dangerous, you should make sure your whole team can connect on the target. This means that as soon as you switch, there should be a form of CC if not on both then at least on one of the healers dpsers. This is doable with a ROF around them or even a fear on the dps while you are locking down (garrote silence / kidney / df / imp cs) the healer so he can’t dispel them.

While this may be really important, you should never overextend forcing yourself in a bad position and when you see that you can’t do enough damage to the healer in order to get his CD’s, instantly swap off to a dps.

I wouldn’t recommend this comp for anything but more advanced players since it takes alot of coordination, experience and practice and it’s sometimes frustrating to play, however the wins are really rewarding.

Another comp I’ve managed to play this season was RLS(Rogue/Lock/Shaman). This comp has ALOT of control(wind shear/hex/grounding totem/fears/blind/stuns/deathcoil/spell lock) and burst. I’d recommend playing this as shadowdance, because of how powerful your switches are/can be. Double smokebomb is also very nasty used properly and you can put behind every healer with an ease.
If you however plan on tunneling more or are a less experienced arena player, I’d suggest you to play mutilate and stick to one target and train it down with purges and timed CC on the healer and a smokebomb when you see a good opportunity to.

RLD(Rogue/Lock/Druid) is a TBC dominant comp that is now going to shine once again. With 4.0.6 coming up this week, I think that a druid will generally be better to have in that comp than a shaman for all the CC that they offer(Cyclone/Roots/Bash/Skull Bash).
I’ve managed to play on it live this season, while the CC chains that you can put out are insane(Fear>Fear>Cyclone>Vanish Sap>Cyclone>Fear>Fear etc) on a healer are insane, your damage and healing is currently completely countered by resto shamans. The reason for that is Purge taking hots off faster than a druid can apply them once they have the upper hand and the way Cleansing Waters works right now. Both of these issues are being addressed in 4.0.6 and with the shaman nerfs overall, I feel like this comp will have close to no counters.
I recommend playing Shadow Dance for the mobility that it offers. This comp really has to be played with fast swaps on whatever is out of position and the druid and locks synergy is probably the key to make this work.

RPS(Rogue/SPriest/Rshaman) is all about zerging down a target. This comp is very beginner friendly, with limited CC, double offensive and defensive dispel and huge pressure during BL. What seemed to be the most important to make it work, was just to get a kill during BL! A general strat for this comp is to blind something right off the bat, force its trinket and swap to it with BL and full dots, smokebomb and a full kidney while making sure that they cant get away from the smokebomb(Full Kidney into Spriests Disarm really helps there). This strategy also applies to Mutilate RLS teams, just that you have less burst as RLS. I’ll strongly recommend you to play mutilate for starters.

I generally wouldn’t play any comp without casters right now, though melee cleaves also work.

Comps to keep in mind if you cant play any of the listed above.
– Ret Rogue Priest(post 4.0.6)
– Boomkin Rogue Priest/Rshaman
– Rogue Warrior/DK Druid/Priest (post 4.0.6)
– Rogue Feral Priest/Rshaman

Popular Comps for Warriors

Millis Kristensson — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 21:19:15 +0000

Got inspired by Lawrencejames posts and thought I’d post something about some popular warrior combos in 3v3 at the moment!

Lets start with the most “common” one that basically everyone know of!

TSG – Warrior/DK/Pally, now this comps strength is that you can keep constant pressure up ‘cause of paladins powerful healing and Hand of Freedom. You also have a lot of antihealer abilities in this setup seing as you have Mind Freeze, Pummel and Strangulate. Now also you can stack up Necrotic Strike to absorb healing wich makes this comp even mora viable in my opinion because you can force one dps into defensive mode while still having silence on the healer and absorb healing effect on the dps.

Basically what I am saying is that TSG have a lot of different ways to zerg down a enemy, but the important part about playing this comp is that you need to keep the pressure up as much as you can!

This comps weaknesses is the heavy CC comps that can control both the warrior and the DK at the same time!

I would say that this is the best beginners combo to run with as you can learn pretty fast the rundown of this comp. You can switch out the Paladin for a Druid also and this is also a really good comp, but things to remember is that you will have less mobility for the team but you gain another CC in Cyclone form.

Another comp that I played in Season 8 and tried it abit in Season 9 is WMP

Warrior/Mage/Paladin

This comp provides a lot of damage from both the warrior and the mage, it also provides a very very nice CC from the Mage and a very good counter melee control from the Mage. But this comp you can’t just train a target to the ground mostly you need to switch really good with like a DF -> Throwdown and just burst them down really hard.

Another comp that is similar to this is Warrior/Warlock/Paladin (WLP)

I have not played this comp myself this season but I have met a fair share of WLP teams. This however makes you be able to keep up a lot of pressure because the Warlocks ability to have DoTs on two targets at the same time. You can switch a lot here for example if a target doesn’t go down, whenever the warlocks going to reapply Haunt on a target you can switch the target, when he casts Haunt you just charge the other target.

This strat works pretty well with Warrior/Warlock/Druid (WLD) As well, the comp here also is very similar to one and another, just that druid provides even more CC here and with a Paladin you can keep up much more pressure as a Warrior because of the Hand of Freedom

Kitty Cleave/Bleed Cleave – Warrior/Feral/Holy Paladin

This comps really have a ton of damage output, and still a lot of CC ‘s from the druid! Now the strengths about this comp is that you can really prevent a mage from casting at all cause the warrior can get the Hand of Freedom and the Feral can keep up with the mage because of their ability to break roots with shapeshifting

Now to the comp that I play at the moment is Warrior/Enhance/Druid I have also played with a Paladin in this comp and it works just as well.

The strengths about this comp is that you can keep up a lot of pressure, and the enhancement shaman brings Tremor Totem to the team, he also brings Bloodlust and grounding totem and do not forget the Wind Shear to interrupt incoming CC’s or heals. Now this comp that we play have had quite a lot of success against spellcleaves that isn’t MLD , Usually mage combos we can either sit on the mage to prevent a lot of CC or you can split the dps and put the Shaman on the Mage and the warrior on the other dps!

As you can see Warriors work really well with Paladins because warriors can really use the hand of freedom ability to keep up with the pressure on targets.

Also now with Druids having dispel now this is also a very good healer to pair up with a Warrior in arena

Now my favorite healer to play 2v2 with is either a Druid or a Paladin, they both give pretty much for the warrior. Druid giving a really good CC and the paladin helps you a lot with uptime on your target, so I would say either of this two healers is really powerful pairing up with a warrior. Sometimes when I play with a Paladin I meet comps that would be easier with a Rdruid and vice versa!

I can’t really give out any points of 5v5 atm cause I have not played enough 5v5 to get the feel of it this season, I would guess the old Warr/Mage/pala/Ele/Priest combo is still really strong but you might aswell change the priest to a druid.

I am offering private 1-1 lessons for the warrior class. Note that I am playing on European servers so my available times might be abit off from US times, so the best day for me would be on a weekend so I could match your times that you want to have your lessons with me.