ESL Invitational Week 4 Results, How Would You Balance RMP & Cleave? Unmercy's Last Video

ESL Invitational Week 4 came and gone, as Inflame's warrior/lock/druid came out of loser bracket to face INNERFIRE's RMP in group finals.  Unlike the first three weeks of the tournament, where the team came out of loser bracket won two in a row to advance, Inflame and his warrior/lock/druid couldn't finish the job, as they won the first set 3-1 but lost the second set 1-3.  Coupled with his disqualification in group 2, as he and Another teamed up to beat AAA's RMP as DK/lock/druid with Icematix on a team they were not supposed to be playing on, Inflame is out of the tournament.  You can catch the week 4 show here.

I doubt he cares about a tournament without any tangible prizes, when the Blizzard regionals are right around the corner.  Perhaps his team held back some of their nastier strategies as well, knowing his real competition will be watching.  Either way, the ESL Invitational Finals will be next week, with three RMPs and one DK/lock/druid.

Week 1 winners: Edawgs (RMP)
Week 2 winners: against All authority (RMP)
Week 3 winners: SK Gaming EUROPE (Warrior/DK/Druid)
Week 4 winners: iNNERFiRE (RMP)

How Would You Balance RMP & Cleave?

Having played both cleave and RMP to 2600+ this season, I have to say RMP is indefinitely more challenging.  I played as/against well over 1000 RMP matches in WOTLK alone, and watched every major tournament to date, I feel there are still too many misconceptions about the comp's true strength.  In term of burst damage, I can think of at least half a dozen teams with equal or superior bursts.  A lot of people are complaining about elaborate CC chains with sap->fear->sheep and having to play 2v3 for 20+ seconds.  At higher levels, this rarely ever happens.  The much more common scenario is single CC after single CC coupled with damage pressure, and like any comp you are eventually forced to cough up your trinket, from there mage alone can pull off a deep freeze into improved counter spell chain on your healer, and if your own DPS can't do something to stop/reduce the incoming damage, you lose.  That is why I don't feel putting more CCs on same diminishing return will do much.  I can't remember too many tournament matches where an RMP landed a long CC chain to score a kill.

The true strength of RMP, is the strength of the mage class as a play maker.  A 51 frost mage is probably the highest skill cap character ever in a MMO, there really is no limit to what a player can do with it. Even at the highest competitive level, we saw Pookz doing something two other outstanding mages (Redhot and Venruki-san) could not, stopping one of America's best DK's incoming damage on his priest, AND dishing out enough hard casts of his own to drop the enemy paladin.  Even with cleave's immense popularity here in S6, RMP is still by far the single most popular comp.  And that is because the frost mage is a true cleave stopper when played correctly.

For Blizzard to fix 3v3 arena balance, they should balance the game around melee/range DPS/healer type of teams.  Instead of nerfing the RMP, it should instead be used as the model to balance other class combination's.  Hunters should counter double melee a lot harder than they have been in S6.  Affliction warlock should get buffs in their fear ability as well, at the very least their own DOTs should not count toward the damage cap before the fear breaks, in fact I think they should get a damage bonus to feared targets as fearing a full DOT target and nuking it should be the warlock's equivalent of shatter combo.  If melee/hunter/healer and melee/warlock/healer teams can deal with cleave more effectively, all we need is a small buff to resilience and we are right there.  Hunter, lock and shaman account for 5% of SK-100 3v3 each, we are really not that far from the perfect 10%.  I would like to see them increase the skill cap of all three classes, allowing them to do more in less globals, and have a greater impact in face paced WOTLK games.

Unmercy's Last Video: Hana

Like many Chinese students, Unmercey-kun is going back to his home land after his education, to serve the great People's Republic of China.  While The9 and Netease's negotiations went smoothly and CWOW will likely resume at end of the month, there is still no WOTLK release date.  Going from WOTLK back to level 70 PVP, coupled with job hunting and the start of a brand new life, is this Unmercey's last video period?  I wouldn't doubt it. 

The video itself is filled with what you would expect from an Unmercey video.  He stringed together clip after clip's worth of inhuman reflex's and anticipation's.  Gouged/blinded trinkets, sapped vanish's, a very nifty trick to hearth stone + trinket spam to trinket a stun the millisecond it lands and more vanish immune's than you can shake a stick at.  He also had a very good mix of BG 1vN's, arena matches and duels.  I think the last tournament realm dueling event was an eye opener for him, as he faced some of the best duelers of every class, and it really showed. 

Unmercey 7 resulted in a long thread in CWOW rogue forum, as fans debated the merits of Neilyo vs Unmercey.  Many Chinese fans feel Unmercey is the flashier of the two players and plays power/rush style, but Neilyo's calm, silent, calculated and deadly jutsus still make him the top dog.  Unfortunately in this day and age, no matter how well a PVP video is edited, it can not replace tournament success.  Pookz, Neilyo-kun's own teammate had to leave both him and Akrios for Enforcer, who not only got him into the regionals, but also won their first ever LAN tournament, outplaying every rogue along the way including Happyminti, another big video producer.  You probably won't see Sekko in a PVP movie any time soon, but his resume is already more impressive than any American rogue I can think of, with at least two more tournaments next two months.

 Unmercey 7: Hana, one has to wonder whether this video was dedicated to the love he had here in the states.  With his trip back to China, he probably had to leave something precious behind here in America.  Hana stands for "flower" in Japanese, the entire video had a melodramatic glow to it.  The sharingan saw Unmercey's heart in this movie, a flower blown in the chilly wind, its petals shattered into many pieces.

However, when one door closes, another one always opens.  The hokage went through his own pain many years ago, until the great game of WOW brought me to Estel.  It is one of the many things we have to go through, and in the end a stronger ninja is born.  Believe it Unmercey-kun!  Make our country proud!