Ming's BC Beta Journal #17: Ming vs Nitrana (Yao vs Amare)

The only way to get better is by playing against superior teams. Notorius is supposedly the best alliance BG guild in supposedly the best BG group (BG9) and it is a night and day difference taking on their teams. One of their members, Nitrana, has a very negative opinion of my capabilities as a rogue and was very public about it on the forums. Like Amare's grudge toward Yao, he felt my selection to the "all star rogue team" over him is undeserved. He asked me to make a rated team so I did make a 2v2 team with a druid, but instead of playing the matches himself, he send a mage/priest team instead. Kind of like Amare Stoudamaire getting easy baskets playing behind Shawn Marion and Steve Nash.







With COS no longer usable back to back, this is now a very hard match up. 10 seconds of COS was normally enough for me to drop a priest with the assist of feral druid DPS but now it is no longer possible. I get feared, and if I trinket the fear, sheep and you have a 2v1 situation against the druid. We were 0 and 6 against that team.



We tried several strategies. Obviously the first thing we did was to try to DPS down the priest. Out of the six straight matches we lost, we were only able to drop the priest once (I think my druid partner got a big crit). Unfortunately we got over confident and I already blew full CDs, druid stayed in cat form for too long and died rather carelessly, I was left with zero CDs against a near zero mana mage, he sheeped me, evocation, summoned water elemental, nuked away, it wasn't pretty. Rogue is seriously free walking HK to good 41 water mages, even with full CDs my record against that build is extremely low. They fixed water elemental bug I think, while I can kill the elemental, it has 3000 health that is way too much for a dagger rogue to go through.











All other times, it was very difficult to kill the priest first. It relied on a lot of luck and they did an amazing job neither sheep nor fear into my COS. So we really had to go for plan B, outlast! We tried this only once in which we focused on the mage entirely and ignored the dwarf priest for the most part (I gouged him every now and then). This strategy actually worked surprisingly well, except the druid I teamed with was feral and both mage and priest had access to mana gems, just when I thought we had it when the ice mage had no mana left, gem + evocation (I was out of cooldowns, I couldn't stop him, WTB PVP gloves), he was right back in the game.



I think the best bet, is to blind the priest as early as possible to force stoneform, and basically focus on the mage. Druid should stay in bear form and wear pure stamina + healing gear when I get sheeped and be ready to run away from mage + priest if they focus fire him. Other than blind, there is honestly no reason for me to gouge the priest, there is no way you can kill a frost mage before you get rid of his ice blocks, and I should save all of my combo points for deadly throw, not eviscerate. Outlast two ice blocks and we have it in the bag. Either way, 41 water mage is very tough for me to handle. Once I am out of cooldowns, without dispel abilities, I can't do much at all. Shiv and deadly throw is the best bet and let the druid chase him down. If the priest gets carried away I can always choose to DPS him if he is too far from the mage.



Notorius also had a mirror rogue/druid team with their outstanding 30/0/31 dagger rogue Wisht and they beat us in the only match we played. Dagger rogue with renataki is still something to be feared. His druid also taught my druid a valuable lesson in great use of sleeping animals and cyclone. I really appreciate that lesson, I think my druid improved his game a lot after that match, although I don't want him to respec restoration, I still believe in feral for 2v2.



Just when I wanted to call it a night, we queued one last time, and behold, it is Nitrana himself with the exact same druid that beat us from before! Now Nitrana, like Amare Stoudemire is a VERY athletic player (and judging by his quick PVP video clip, he listens to the same type of music found on Amare's official website). He forms his seals and uses his jutsus very fast and his speed is definitely better than mine. With hemo + ghost strike he is very physical up close and personal, once we are both snared sword rogue has advantage and he can push me around. However, it is also clear the non-existent burst of a hemo rogue makes it much easier for my druid to heal me. In a long struggle that ended up with both druids out of mana, we pulled out the only win against Notorius. Nitrana is probably the quicker player, however to become a true franchise player instead of someone that just cleans up garbage baskets after his stars, he must work on his jumpers and spec dagger. There were several times I knew I would be dead if a dagger rogue caught me in a kidney shot with the same health, but a hemo rogue just can't do the same burst. Once he uses up the two cold blood's, he is a non-factor offensively. A 30/0/31 dagger rogue can do the exact same stunlocks hemo can, while providing far greater burst damage. He has to change his build otherwise he would be bench status very soon.



By the way, the druid I am playing have no idea who I am nor he is aware of this website, I really like it that way. Playing with a high profile player like Corrz on the same team gives me pressure because I feel I have something to prove not to mention every match we play may end up in a PVP video. Playing with someone who isn't aware is just so much better. I don't blame him if he messes up and I know he won't call me out if I did something stupid.



I specced shadowstep for skirmish games, and specced out of it 15 minutes later. The 20 yard range makes this thing absolutely worthless. By the time you are in range to use this ability, you can probably get the opener normally anyway. The way it doesn't work at all against moving enemies hasn't changed. Good luck ever landing that ambush on a mage jumping around spamming AOE's. You give up way too much for it, cold blood, quick recovery, and seal fate. Sinister Calling is also useless for players with AP/Crit gear instead of AGI gear. 60 AP, 1.5 crit and 3 dodge at level 70 is nothing.



I am still undecided about 38/0/23 and 30/0/31. The global CD of premed sometimes mess me up. And it is VERY difficult to land that 5 CP ambush on people spamming AOEs and spinning around. I like both builds, I can't choose. It really depends on what you are fighting. In extended fight, healer + DPS vs healer + DPS, I probably prefer 38/0/23, as DPS + DPS against healer + DPS, 30/0/31 all the way.



P.S. Killing alliance is FAR MORE satisfying than killing horde, unload renataki combo on that Nightelf rogue who called you out on the forums, priceless. After killing Nitrana's guildie and he managed to restealth, boy did I love hunting him down with the anti-stealth power-up (the range on it is rather mediocre, think warlock + felhunter). The same faction PVP of arena is just too good. I honestly never had any bad blood against people from the opposite faction, all the grudges are in house.