2008 PvP Logs, Week #2 : Designing a RMP Counter, Hemo-Shadowstep Rogue specs, Battlemaster trinket utility

Not a really what we could call a good week. We only managed to play one night between 11PM and 3AM last Wednesday, after that our Paladin partner Cromagnonman got an important irl problem. As a consequence, he wasn't able to play the rest of the week (until now actually) and we wasn't able to test the adjustments to our strategies we made after this night.


W-L : 13-11, 1614 rating.
We basically lost to all the RMP which were powerlevelling, which cause us to have only 20 or 19 points defeats. We won basically versus all the other ones, including War/Druid/Locks or War/Double healers. The fact that we weren't able to manage those Rogue/Mage/Priest teams has really annoyed us not to say more. So we worked on our plan. This is War.


Collateral consequences
We have read about all what google (and my favourite blogs) can tell you about RMP, their strengths, their weaknesses. So we, as a team, declare war to those teams.

Freakhill has respecced Poisonstep aka 20/0/41.
Assassination: Apply better poisons on our focus and be able to insta explose armor at the exact moment we want to kill our focus.
Subtlety: Lolstep in order to not be kited anymore by anyone. In the race to have the open sap 5/5 Master of Deception, Heightened Sense, coupled with some specific stealth detection gear. Hemo. Prepa. Premed.

For sure he has lost all the tools of his HARP specs, but we feel that it's better for the specific counter we want to create.

Now i'll make an effort to summarize how we plan to counter RMP, thanks to all we have read.

→ Countering the Crowd Control
Stay together in order to make them waste their cc (force nova on a blind/sap/sheep)
Having our Paladin with either Blessing of Sacrifice or the stealth detection buff witch dot as soon as possible. Having him dispel Sheep and Nova as fast as possible. It's all about Cromagnonman skills there. Trinket only for blind or Fear is tremor isn't up. Me trinketing Fear save the two others as I will instant-pulse my tremor totem asap.

→ It's all about having the open Sap
Having Freakhill prepared to sap/blind combo the other rogue, letting us with a window of 14 seconds "alone" with the mage. Pressure them down to see them commit errors. If Freak is opened, it's almost finished.

→ Outlast the burst
Don't be shatter-comboed. Ever. Our paladin has to be brilliant dispelling all the frozen effect from us. Grounding totem must be used only on a Frostbolt (get it out at the very last moment) as Cromagnonman task will be to dispel sheep/nova. The massive shield, Earthbind totem, Poison Cleansing totem and Frost resistance totem : try to damage-kite the rogue, LOS the mage without LOS-ing your healer (quite an art), fake cast on holy tree (Gift of the Naaru \o/) to force silence - kick CD. Try to run away. And pray.

→ Prepare to unleash your burst
All targets have to be preventively purged of any buff they might have at the beginning of the fight. When a target could be focused, we will first have to stop him. Judgement of Justice, Frost Shock, Earthbind totem, Crippling Poison. We are able to stop a Druid, we are able to stop anything. Then Improved Explose armor, Wound Poison, purge the upcoming bubble and Pain Suppression (it can take time...) then burst him down in no time. Save a Grounding totem to prevent a polymorph of one of the DPS.


Personal contribution
Having farmed 27k honours points those last week, I'll have my Battlemaster's Determination trinket by tomorrow finally. I can't wait having this non-interruptible, non-limited (MS, Wound poison) heal. It could have saved our life so many times versus rogue/ice-mage focus when we were short.

[Randomicemage] Frostbolt *Crit* [You] 2700
[Randomrogue] Hit [You] 400
[You] Die.
[Cromagnonman] Heal [You] 5000

I can't tell the number of times it happened to us matchs that way, me don't surviving the insane cc/burst from them, with wound poison applied. As I had to loose some HP/Resilience to play the "KILL TEH DROOD" game on War/Druid/X teams - with pretty much success -, I am not that Shameliotank I used to be anymore. No more focus casting, no more 10% resistance on frost/fire/nature damages, no more resilience cap, no more 13kHP. I gained much more dps and way better totems at this price. So this trinket will be a welcomed addition.

This week, due to Cromagnonman problems and Freakhill exams, we will probably delay our match to next Tuesday night, so we will fight a load of the T5/T6 PvEBoi. It will be a good training. Waiting for this, I'll try to do some Heroics (I still miss 6 Primal Nether for my Dragonmaw), training (aka dueling front of IF) with my Shaman and, at least, leveling my Druid.

2008 PvP Logs : Week #1

So after our last "performance", we had a nice PvP Session last night. After having run the 5vs5 to stuff some of our friends to prepare for serious things later in the year, we jumped into our favorite wagon, 3vs3.

Looking up

11-5, leading us to a 1609 rating.

3 losses to the same RMP (Rogue-Mage-Priest, the "hype" combo of the moment) because of lack of controls on either the Mage or the Rogue. We are working trought it, we got some place to improve. The lack of gear of Freakhill (lol 35 resilience and blue/kara gear) is kinda annoying because the guy is gibbed so fast that our Paladin or me ain't have the time to do anything. Versus those very aggressive RMP teams, it could turn in their favor in just a shatter-combo. Fortunatly he definitely knows how to play and he is kinda impressive sometimes. Well, enough flowers.


Our PvP Learning-curve

We are pretty confident that we can enter in the 1700 bracket in the following weeks. We are more and more learning how to play together and it feels kinda nice elaborating strategies, playing nice game, creating our own matrix and simply... having fun.

We have to improve in different ways :

1. Our communication : we still have some room to improve. Like every other teams.
2. Our survivability : we talked about Freakhill (rogue) case. Even with my 350-400 resilience I can be burst down to zero in no time by a Mage or an Elemental Shaman.
3. Our CS rotation (welcome Holy Light / Greater Heal / Healing Wave / Healing Touch)
4. DPS in a good situation. To unleash our burst, we need to be on the focus. And that's a real art itself.

Concerning myself, I'm working on my dps output as fast as I can. Now I have the whole Gladiator stuff, so the minimum 11k HP / 350 resilience necessary not to be gibbed, end with the benediction of Cromagnonman, our paladin, I'm focusing into improving my DPS.


Template and stuff concerns

I decided to go 0/47/14, as I needed more DPS scaling and improved utilities for my totems. I have also to learn when to ghost wolf when it is necessary.

As I don't have access to PvE gears, I'm focusing on improving my DPS by obtaining the PvP Gems (I will write something about those) and obtaining new weapons : Dragonmaw and Merciless Gladiator's Pummeler.

I'm now collecting the Primal Fires (I'm 13 on 20 now) and Khorium bars (1 out of 3). Primal Earth and Eternium Bars does worth nothing so I don't really count them in this farm. With those I'll be able to craft the first evolution of the blacksmithing mace, then, some heroics later, I'll be able to craft Dragonmaw. Hope to have it by the end of this week or last week. For the S2 mace, if we say an average of 400 points per week, I'll have it in 3 weeks, so this January the 30th.

Nearest to me, there is the nice up to Water Shield, which provides a 50MP5 plus its initial mana bonus. Well, I am definitely think that could help us as Enhancement to be able to sustain long pvp fights which is not really the case now, even by having Water Shield up the whole time.

Finally, I would like to thanks the people who visit my blog and subscribe to my RSS in 2007, hoping that I will provide you in 2008 with a lot more news and facts about being an Enhancement Shaman in Wow.