Breaking the Premises

Currently, the arena scene has handful of successful setups, formats if
you will, most of them rather well known; such as 2345 [war/mage/eleshm/prst/pld], CC setup [war/mage/wlk/prst/pld] and all the versions of 4dps. These formats usually revolve
around killing their opposition before the opponent does the same to you. The
base mindset if simple, very straightforward, dog-eat-dog –style approach. But
what happens, if the opposition doesn’t go for the kill, if the other dog is inedible?

Regardless of formats, teams wish to beat each other in the same game,
with the same set of rules. The winner isn’t that hard to come up with, since
you know the variables, you know the rules, its mere theorycraft at that point.
If you know you can’t beat something in a game, it’s quite smart to swap the
game.

I’m here to talk about mine:

Consisting of warrior, marksman hunter, demonology warlock, priest and a
paladin, a drainburn setup plays a whole different game. Focusing on destroying
opponents game on multiple levels, instead of trying to play one’s own (ironically,
demolishing the opponents routines is playing drainburn’s own game) is the trademark
of the setup. In a nutshell, freezing the game to a slower paced, controlled, wide spread grind of opponent's mana bars is the main goal of this format. Adapting
a few thoughts ahead of the opponent and countering attempts to break the
progressing chill before they even happen is a pretty rough prerequisite, which
isn’t something you can do right away.

Sure a seasoned Arena player can read the common signs, but to really
play the setup well you really need to know your opponents. There’s a pretty
big difference in scattering a warrior mid-intercept and CC’ing him once the
hamstring has landed or landing a BoP
on a priest on 90% before eating a deathcoil
on point blank range and BoP’ing him
once his at 20% and a shatter combo is on the air.

Generally it requires more on almost all levels; you can’t just queue up
and expect to outlast anything before you’ve acquired top notch PvP gear and
experience. Without them both you’d get decimated over and over again, and you
would probably deem the setup bad or even suicidal.

The setup requires quite heavy personal resilience and stamina to
compensate the lack of CC and healing power compared to other setups (only one
real healer, since when the priest isn’t tanking he’s quite busy dispelling and manaburning
until he’s tanking). Without proper gear, even if you wouldn’t get instantly gibbed
by the friendly neighbourhood elemental shaman, you’d be hemorrhaging mana all
over the place, which is quite contradictory to what should be your goal –
outlasting your opposition.

What comes to the Arena experience, you’d probably wipe a lot against
other teams with branded formats, before and learning the tricks of the trade
(I know we did). Whereas with 4dps or
2345 for example you could see
instant results (when we tried 2345 with
a new team, we climbed over 900 rating in two nights, not mastering the setup
even close, just that the base strength and the mentality of the setup are so
easily adoptable).

Now I said it requires more on almost all levels, the one I left out is
the one that it doesn’t really require; you don’t need to actively burst anyone
down (“don’t need” can also be read here as “can’t&rdquo. They’ll fall like apples on
autumn when they’re ripe enough, well at least in theory.

Though in practice, someone is always bursted down. Due to the
limitations of the classes in play, the bursts are not that significant (multi>arcane>auto, sbolt>sburn, ms>heroic>ww, and not to forget mb>sw:d & jor+hs!),
and commonly are only lethal after someone in the opposition has screwed up badly
or has ran out of mana.

Seldom though, hunter/warlock combo can duo warriors who’ve strayed out
of their healers’ LoS with a well timed scatter>soulfire
combo, but those are quite rare.

This simplifies the overcomplicated playstyle quite a lot, as in you’re
in no pressure to find the weak spot, since it’s only matter of time before it
presents itself. Also not having to worry about the offence frees up the usage
of offensive/interruptive cooldowns for defensive use, which greatly enhances
the survivability. For example, silencing
shotting frostbolt casts and using
felguard’s intercept to stun warriors
instead of using them to interrupt opponent’s healers.

Personally, as paladin, I find playing in a drainburn setup much more
enjoyable experience compared to for example 2345. Mainly it has more to do with the fact that game is much more
cut-throat without a 2^nd backup healer or bloodlust to aid you through the rough spots (or when I happen to
mess up). You need to be on top of your game, your calls make or break the game
every time.

It’s just so much more rewarding to win because you played well your
role, as well as played well as a team, and not due to RNG favouring you.

Tags:

Arena

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