Thursday, February 12, 2009

Back to our Roots

I ground out some 2's as Druid/Lock last night with my old S3 2's partner (we pushed our way up to shoulders way back then) and aside from being completely unprepared against a bad DK/Priest (screw you, Plague Strike) and one silly UI induced loss vs Feral/Ret, we did reasonably well. Of course, this is considering that a) we were in the 1600's and b) Mr. Warlock is still wearing Brutal gear.

We stopped due to time constraints, but probably would have stuck to the grind if RL didn't expect us to be up early the next day. I blame waiting for control of WG and actually getting a Vault team together with all this Valentine's Day BS for killing my evening.

Also, screw you, Archaevon, for dropping everything but Druid gear every damn week.

C'est la vie.

There's something about playing through the 1600's that's just fun. There's a few things you can expect to happen below 1700:
  1. CC chains never happen. If you some how got Psychic Screamed into a Blind into a Sap, they got lucky.
  2. Kicks/Pummels always miss. Fake casting is not needed. I think I hardcasted a non Nature's Grace'd Regrowth in a DK's face, with pushback, and never got Strangulated.
  3. Positioning always puts them into bad situations. Out in the open, easy to CC.
  4. Cooldowns used at the wrong times. Divine Shielding the first Fear against a Warlock, when you and buddy are both at 100% is always the wrong move.

Case in point, last night's second match was against a DK/Pally team and aside from some random strikes and auto attacks, my Lock and I kept both opponents perpetually cc'd. We basically stood in the middle of the Blade's Edge Bridge and spammed CC, while spreading damage. If that DK wasn't sitting in a Fear, he was Cycloned or Rooted. Unstable Affliction over Entangling Roots is so awesome. Poor dude had less damage done than the Felhunter. The funny part was that whenever my partner was pressured, he'd jump off the bridge, watch the DK and the Pally jump off after him and then Demonic Portal back up to the top.

Lemmings comes to mind.

Sadly, I'm stuck grinding honor again for the Deadly Ring now. I really don't even want to think about the amount of honor I'm going to have to grind to get the Battlemaster's Trinket, the upgraded Medallion and the Deadly junk to replace my Hannibal-Lecter-look-alike-trash (Titanforged Leather Helm of Dominance).

2 comments:

Gronyon said...

Hi.

Reading your Druid/Lock success, since I'm below 1600, make me feel like I'm a totally retard noob.

I still wondering how it is possible to actually get over 1100 rating. We lose 50% of the matches, we have to spent tons of hours to get enough honnor for a freaking shitty piece of blue, and still wearing most PVE items.

And the best is we still fight opponent with 1600 or 1800 teamrating (as armory says).

For someone who started arena two weeks ago, it's very very very very frustrated.

Somehow Naxxramas is totally free loot compare to pvp. You can get into naxx in heroic and blues, and loot 2 purple pieces in your first weak. For purples in pvp you need... 1650 rating !! or 40k honneur for some non set parts, or 40 marks of joug victory. ouch. that's gonna take quite long :)

Chu said...

@Gronyon,

The fastest way to get over 1100 rating is to start a new team.

Just kidding!

Seriously, though, I'm guessing from your blog profile that you're Feral. With Feral/Lock, as with any druidspec/lock comp, the Warlock needs to have a good amount of HP/Resil and be adept at fearing and covering fears with UA. It may seem like a nobrainer when someone says "you must fear", but in actuality, many players just tab dot like in BG's and hope to win. This wont work.

Coordination and proper positioning are required to progress anywhere. Fearx3 into a Bear Charge, Bash, Maim is incredibly strong and will guarantee a trinket usage or an equal cooldown.

As for gear, I would recommend not using Honor for Savage gear. It's a waste of time to grind 60k honor to buy 1 piece of blue gear. If you can raid, use badges to buy Savage/Hateful gear and save your honor for Hateful Offset (or Deadly if you get that high) pieces. If you really are feral, wear alot of PvE gear if you cant get PvP gear. If anything, it will end games faster (either you die fast or you kill fast)

Best of luck!