It Is About The Players Not Classes, The End Of Fnatic/GGE As We Know It?

As players are more and more used to the pace of the game, the better players/teams are rising to the top regardless of the comp they run.  Mindless zergs happen a lot at lower ratings, but at higher level you still have to create a window of opening while shutting down their offense.  It just happens at a much quicker pace and every mistake you make is far more costly than TBC.  It is kind of like going from Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition to Street Fighter 2 Turbo for the first time, once you get used to it, the faster pace is just so much better.  It actually allows offensive classes/specs to actually play offense, yet at top tier, it is still all about getting the defensive stops.  

Playing RMP myself to a rating of 2126, I will be the first to say the mage on my team is the heart and soul of our offense/defense. But even with a spec as one-dimensional as mutilate, there are so many things I have yet to optimize. Am I using fan of knives to hit rogues out of vanish fast enough? Am I always hitting dismantle from behind or off cc's given how valuable the CD is? Was I 1-2 second slow in identifying the mage from his mirror images? Could I have disarmed that hunter's trap when I vanished? Did I give my mage tricks of the trade when he was lining up his shatter? Was I a second slow on blinding the healer? Should I have used that last vanish offensively for ambush->mutilate->eviscerate to burst someone down or should I have saved it knowing they will be training me every game?

Individually, those little plays may or may not have added up to a win or loss, but if you are playing in a money tournament, every position counts, just like the fourth quarter of an NBA playoff game.  In virtually every game we lost, I can point at a number of things that I could have done better. And that comes from the most one-dimensional class in the trio of RMP. The best NBA teams will not blame on questionable calls from the referee or a lucky RNG 3 pointer with a hand in the face, they look at what they could have done better instead, so the game won't even come down to that one isolated event.

It Is About The Players, Not Classes

A warrior/paladin team sits at the top of our BG's 2v2 ladder.  A rogue/shaman team is at the top of BG9's 2v2 ladder.  And, in the ultimate defense of his class's honor, Glick took the rogue/warlock/paladin(druid) comp to the top of BG9's 3v3 ladder.  How is that possible?  BG9 may not be what it used to be, but that is still one hell of an accomplishment to take a warlock to the top of a 3v3 ladder ANYWHERE. 

I have said over and over that warlock is not nearly as weak as what people make it out to be.  It is just in the past, SL/SL was easily one of the most scrub friendly classes while packing so much power when played by a master.  You could put a druid into a 15 second CC and still can't drop the warlock because damage was just so low compared to survivability unless you rocked full PVE gear.  With demonic portal, against rogue/warlock/druid as rogue/mage/priest, I honestly believe rogue and druid are better targets at the moment if the warlock knows what he is doing. 

If there is one thing I learned from all the team hoppings I did first a few weeks into the season, it was that even with the hero class status of death knights, paladins and BM hunters, you still should play with the best possible players available to you, as opposed to building the best possible comps. I tried three different double arcane mage 5v5 teams and BM hunter/shaman/rogue 3v3, but once I settled in with the same guys night in and night out, things just got a lot smoother.

This is why I strongly believe as far as balance is concerned, 3.0.8 in addition to a significant buff to resilience should be sufficient for now.  Death Knights will quite a bit more manageable, and there will no longer be double BM's.  As far as paladins are concerned, I do believe divine purpose should be moved deeper into retribution, but other than that, they really should see how all four healers perform when survivability is higher before handing out the nerfs. 

The End Of Fnatic As We Know It

Unfortunately, this probably marks the end of Fnatic as we know it.  Rhaegyn, the ultimate RNG warrior is simply not the same without his perfectly timed mace stuns, and will find a team that can better appreciate his talents.  All is not lost however, as Fnatic picked up Yog who is widely considered the most versatile player in the game.  He can play at least six classes above 2400 which gives them tremendous flexibility come tournament time. 

Will Max "Yog" Chow leave his teammates of Gumbot and Merciless Gladiator Wojo to take Rhaegyn's spot for good?  It is bad karma (just asked Azael), but my sharingan says Yog-san is not doing this for money and fame.  His old team finished second place in Blizzard's 2008 world finals, and they can certainly rebuild around his versatility.  I believe Mr. Chow has ulterior motives, such as possibility of "yogging" Mrs. Wang aka Hafu-chan.

Got Games East The First Casualty?

As predicted, 2009 will be one tough year to find a sponsorship, as companies cut back on spendings and e-sports will see many casualties.  The first of which may be the team of Happyminti, Venruki and Sodah.  Their contract with GGE is expiring and it won't be renewed for a number of reasons, and I have my doubts whether they can find a new sponsor with the current roster.

Sodah is going to Harvard so I really don't know how much gas is left in his tank as far as pro-gaming is concerned.  Can he really master a priest at tournament level with limited playing time?  The mage/druid synergy is still lacking.

This also goes out to all players looking for sponsorships.  Get the offer while you still can, it will be much much harder to land a deal as we are about to see a lot of layoffs in Q1 . . .