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.

1700... 1700.

Well 1691 exactly. It where the biggest rating we achieved last week. People were laughing on TS, saying that we'll be able to go into the 1750 bracket this night on.

Just before a 11 loses streak taking us back to 1550.

Reason : War-Druid-[Insert Warlock/Priest/Shaman] or Rogue-Mage-Priest for a change.

It seems that this season, we will have those clone compositions all the way out. We have pretty good result versus RMP, but the other combo is dreadful for us. After having understood that the f*cking druid is the one to kill, we understood that we ain't have the dps to put a correct S2-S3 druid below 20%. Raddy was right.

So well, now that i'm full glad stuffed, I will focus the next month by changing trinket (Battlemaster), gems, enchant (I already begin on that point). I have spent my holiday working on Blacksmithing so I'm 375 since yesterday. Already crafted Thunder and working on Drakefist Hammer. Now I need some heroics sessions to upgrade to Deep Thunder and Dragonmaw.
Freak also have to work on his stuff as he his undergeared at the moment as he has lately saved his points for the S2 Maces.

And Happy new year for you all, hope you will have a great year and provide hapiness in your environment. Emo time is still so good. I don't like to talk about resolution, but my objective is to write each day something interesting on this blog. Now I can check my Joe's Goal ticket of "Update Blog" for today.

Cheers everyone ! It's Season 3 !

This last month I was mute for a single reason : during my leisure time I was doing straight gaming, learning and optimizing myself to be prepared for this new season. I was also working on the "creation" of my RP-PvP-PvE guild, I'll do another update on this one.

So it's an important date for me, Freakhill and Cromagnonman. After preparing ourselves to high-end PvP at end of season 2, there is the most anticipated Season 3 we were waiting for.

Our 3vs3 objective of this first season is simple : breaking the 1850 points cap with a team based on an Enhancement Shaman on Cataclysme battlegroup (the best French one).

Since the last few weeks, I've changed a lot of thing in my gameplay and adquire hell a lot of automatisms. As said on various other blogs, Pvping is a never-ending learning of your own class and your enemies capacities.

So what I finally plan to do with my PvP points.

Currently :

• ~60k Honours points : Unfortunatly not capped as I've bought the Talisman of the Alliance two weeks ago as it was one of the only resilience item I was planning to have on my Shameliotank ­©.
  So S3 Girdle, S3 Sabatons, S1 Spaulders and S1 Shield,
• ~3800 Arena points : S3 Gloves (The 5 Yards bonus is just gamebreaking with my current specs) and S3 Pants. My 40 Stam/12 Agi Epic enchant wait for its owner. Saving the rest of the points.
• 18 Heroic Badges : Waiting to collect 60 of them for Dory's Embrace. So not for tonight.

About my new specs, I'm now 18/43/0. I'll do also a specific post about this, but I really don't think that you've seen a Shaman spec as mine on your realm. Shameliotank ­© for the win.

Tonight will be Armageddon on the realms, between the Area 52 ganking issues and the 2k+ teams which will be mixed with the 1.5k ones. So I decide that tonight, we will just watch a TV show then going to bed early with some books. I will continue my honour farm to complete my stuff on Thursday and we will probably do our games next Tuesday, so that the 2k+ teams will be at 2k+. We're not crazy at all.

Otherwise I'm now an accomplished Leatherworker, with 375/375. Thanks Patch 2.3 and Drums of Panics available at Honored Shattrah Reputation.

Engineering & Arena

Well, now that I'm 365 Leatherworking with my 57 Warrior already 311 Skinning, I'm considering switching my "farming" skill.

At the current moment, I'm considering seriously either Blacksmiting or Engineering.

• Nigh Invulnerability Belt
• Goblin Rocket Launcher
• Rocket Boots XTreme
• Net-o-matic
• Gnomish Deathray

Well aside from the nice gadgets (Turbo-Charged Flying Machine could be one), Engineering bring to Shaman brings unique advantages : crowd control (grenades, Net-o-matic), resistance to burst dps (Nigh Invulnerability Belt), escape way (Rocket Boots XTreme). Critics may said that a lot of Engineers tools aren't available in Arenas and you'd spec to Enchanting/Jewelcrafting in order to have more stats. I definitely don't agree to those.

For me, up to a certain subjective ratio, possibilities > pure stats. Between +40 Sta and the possibility to zerg out of a situation, I would take the second.

I love PvP, all forms of PvP and in world pvp or battlgrounds those goodies are reals joys <3.

On the other side, as Freakhill told me, is that worth the 5000 golds to farm ? This time could be invested in Battleground, resulting in perhaps more dedicated PvP items.

P.S : At least with the Net-O-matic, I'll be able to CC myself :>.

PvP Matrix

Did I ever precise here that I'm definitely a PvP Fan ?
I love to read each posts of the blogs of Keystone or "God I'm your next Prophet" Ming.

But, there is a consensus saying that Enh. Shaman can't PvP. Well.

I'm from the first players of WoW, doing the stress bêta-test and so. For the love of the lore and the class, I decided at first to play my druid. During two years and a half, from the luxuriants forests of Darnassus to the abominations of Naxxramas, I've loved playing my druid on the PvE side. And I loved the PvP side too. And I remember what people was tolding to druids, early 2005 : Resto. Druids can't PvP.

Seems, that the Enh. Shaman community needs a Ferahgo* too.

Pre-BC, I was a Resto. PvP Druid, a proud one. I got an excellent PvP team with 4 people of it have gone to the Grand Marshall title, which means hardcore PvP, both in terms of performances and availability. Because of work, PvE Objectives and friends to help, I did not go to these, which is one of my regrets from Wow v1.

I want to feel the same with my Shaman, because I deeply think there is quite an underestimate potential in this class. So let's prove this on the ground.

First of all, gather your team.

• Divayth : the most impressive pvp mage I have played with. No matter he is outgear or focused, no matter what his current specs are, he will able the best of his class tools.
  + High/Burst DPS
  + Crowd Control (Nova, Sheep)
• Stillgäärh : PvP-Resto druid. He his more and more improving his skills in the PvP Area. As I know well the man behind this keyboard, a pure perfectionnist.
  + Burst Heal (Swiftmend, Nature Swiftness)
  + Crowd Control (Cyclone, Feral Charge)
  + Best dispell Poison spell in game (Abolish Poison)
• Freakhill : Well, I know much his impressive warrior skills. But this guy IS PvP at hearth and he migrated from his server to engage in my PvP squad with the goal to prove something.
  + DPS
  + Crowd Control (Sap, Blind, Poison)

As for me, I bring my Purging abilities (hello Shadowpriest, Mage, Warlocks), the versatility of my totems and my *sig* uncontrollable DPS (waiting for a correct two-hander to go). Moreover, I could really be a onspot healer if necessary, just by switching weapons I could have +500 healing, which is quite nice to send a quick Lesser Healing Wave or Chain Heal.

So Rogue/Resto Druid/Mage/Enh. Shaman. We need one more, but we didn't decided yet. Paladin, Warrior, Warlock ?

What is your opinion about that ? What is missing from our matrix ?

_________________________
* Ferahgo : First ever great resto druid videomaker, his video showing him completly owning couple of rogue and warlocks have revolutionized the way people were looking at Resto. Druids in PvP, sending much confidence to the community.