Switch To Horde And Win 25% More Arena Matches, Tough Time For Rogue Heroes At MLG Anaheim Ahead, Rogue/Lock/Druid Strategy Guide Part 2

First a quote of the day from hunter hero Hamchook:

I like Verdak.  Why you ask?  She has entertaining content.  She's open about the aspects of her life that most people are incapable/afraid/[insert other reasons] of being open about.  I find this to be a liberating experience; something that I can't imagine being "OK in life" without.  I prefer to be able to face past humiliation as opposed to burying it and dreading the day that it resurfaces.  I also like Verdak because I have an interest in people who've had difficult lives (forgive that assumption if it is incorrect).  I call it my bleeding heart.  Damn I'm awesome. - Hamchook on Verdak

A little fun fact:

http://www.gameriot.com/user/Verdak as a link got more hits since her debut (and this is a non-WOM link) than link http://wowriot.gameriot.com/blogs/Eurospective, how can you not like this girl?  Must be the internet white knights PMing their confessions.  Euro Perspective as a blog did get more hits than Verdak's user profile however, so it is a win-win situation for GR.

Consider the four days before Verdak day is Zilea->Pookz->Ming->Azael, how can you not enjoy a little twist in flavor in the form of a Saturday Night Live special?  Power to diversification!

Switch To Horde And Win 25% More Arena Matches

The BG queues may be brutal, but every BG game I played, everyone played to win.  On Strand of Ancient, Alliance was breathing down our neck at the final gate with 7 minutes left on the clock.  No problem, we ended up winning.  I get much more heals from horde players and I feel like the Kevin Garnett of Boston Celtics instead of the KG of Minnesota Timberwolves.

One positive effect of everyone going horde is the consolidation of PVP talents.  If you are serious about PVP, you have to go horde and that really put everyone on the same page.  On medium sized servers like Black Dragonflight, this effectively doubles the number of quality PVPers you can put together an arena team with.  A lot more room to try out new comps with.

The $30 question, how big of a difference does racials make?  We were a 58% win rate team on alliance.  On horde, playing against the exact same teams with our 2350 MMR, we are rated 2162 after 100 games and a 73% win rate.   A 25% improvement and our MMR went up by 100 points. 

I didn't notice ANY difference on the loss of perception whatsoever.  Position/latency difference/target selection between the rogues make a much bigger difference when you are spamming the sap macros.  This is not the old school 20 second perception that guaranteed a sap.  I got sapped by Undead rogues all the times when I was human.  And now as Undead I sap Night Elf/Human rogues just fine.

With the rise of spell cleave teams, with the exception of PHD and Beast Cleave, every single comp on SK-100 3v3 has at least one fear user, WOTF basically offers you two trinkets against every top team.  Our win rate against the typical 2300-2400 spell cleaves went up quite a bit.  Because I can break one fear in early game AND I have two defensive dispels, there are games I don't get feared by a warlock at all because they can't afford to waste a cast on me.

And that is not all.  Because our priest is now Undead, the fear ward is always on our paladin, effectively making our entire team immune to fear in the early game.  The blood elf AOE silence is also without a doubt, the best racial for a paladin as ret is serious lacking in interrupts.  Against spell cleaves it has saved us countless times and forced kills after a kidney to hammer of justice to silence.

Obviously for defensive teams like warrior/double healer, alliance and full PVE gear makes sense and you won't see as big of an upgrade as 2DPS 1 healer teams.  A priest with 900 MP5 never out of mana with a paladin backing him up, I can't think of too many counters for that.  Then again he will probably still choose WOTF over the +16 MP5 per cast effect from a second Solace of the Defeated.  When he has this much MP5 already, a fear breaker still makes a bigger difference and wintergrasp trinket cancels out the spell damage portion.

Tough Time For Rogue Heroes At MLG Anaheim Ahead

Not sure why Blizzard feel it is necessary to buff the gladiator set when the majority of the players already wear at least 4 pieces.  The only reason people use PVE gear is because rings/neck/cape are itemized so poorly (and in some cases, overpowered 2-piece set bonuses from PVE pieces).  Add agility/strength to them and make sure PVE set bonuses are actually PVE oriented, and we are fine.  Increased damage from 200 more attack power will definitely help rogue heroes and they need all the help they can get with the vanish buff reverted.

Reckful-kun and company may be the best RMP in the world when they 5-0ed Realz/Pookz's SK-US, but as of right now, I can't see any rogue team winning MLG Anaheim.  They just took a 200 point loss against the new generation beast cleave/PHD/spell cleave's.  As Pookz/Azael found out, the second they dropped the rogue from their team and started playing wizard cleave, their struggle in the hyper competitive BG9 stopped and their ratings sky rocketed to the top of the ladder.  90% win rate in BG9, think about that for a second.  I really hope Azael can find a top mage to run spell cleave at Anaheim.  His RLS won't make it out of round robin play, but his wizard cleave even with S5 gear, will finish top three if not winning it all.  Like Inflame/Another who were embarrassed in past tournaments when they played on separate teams, will we see Azael/Pookz on the same team at MLG?  Contract issues prevent it, but SK/EG, if you are reading this, it is the best chance for you to get any ROI (return on investment) at all at Anaheim.  SK-US as RMP and EG as RLS will finish in the bottom 4.

It is not just the tier 2 players finding more success with wizard cleave over RMP/RLS.  The lesser players can blow something up with the sheer damage of bloodlusted shatters/destruction nukes, but in the hand of elite players, the amount of CCs a wizard cleave has pretty much forces you to end the game early by rushing down the shaman.  And with Pookz/Azael peeling on the same team, forget about it.  With the amount of debuffs from mage on a target, it is almost impossible to dispel immolation fast enough and I don't see the 3.3 conflag nerf affecting this team more than BM change affected Microsoft's Beast Cleave.  How about fear/sheep on same DR, blind/sap/cyclone on same DR?  Even then spell cleave will still be a top comp, just not flat out ridiculous as it is now.

Rogue/Lock/Druid Strategy Guide Part 2

Part 1: http://wowriot.gameriot.com/blogs/World-of-Ming/World-of-Hordecraft-RogueLockDruid-Strategy-Guide-Part-1

Vs Warrior/Ret/Druid and Warrior/Protret/Druid

The regular ret is easy to deal with as this team can not remove fear.  The only thing you have to watch out is felhunter kills.  As long as you protect fel hunter well, they shouldn't be able to get on your druid and you should win easily by sitting on the warrior, CCing the ret. 

Vs the Protret version, go on the druid, blind warrior immediately and fear the ret.  Once you force bark skin, trinket and BOP, switch to warrior and force the druid to hot him up, then switch back to the druid for the kill.  Rotate fear/root/cyclone on the two melees and you should be able to survive their rush.

Vs Beast Cleave

Start on hunter and double dismantle him when he goes BM.  Super early blind on shaman to force trinket, which should buy your lock/druid enough time to fear/cyclone him.  Coil him to buy more time if needed.  Lock needs to take care of tremor totems with felhunter, rogue needs to blow all of his mobility cooldowns to limit hunter damage early. 

Once the rogue is out of cooldowns, get back on the shaman and by this point bloodlust/wolves should be gone, you should be able to score a kill as enhance is quite squishy without wolves.  Lock/druid should be able to fear/cyclone hunter and his healer.

If the beast cleave is running with priest, double offensive dispel will make it VERY difficult for a druid to keep a lock up.  Go on the priest instead, full DOT, coil + spell lock. rogue blows all of his cooldowns early.  If you can trade your lock for their priest, you should still win.  Void sacrifice after the first felhunter spell lock to reduce damage taken, blind/dismantle the shaman.

Vs Rogue Cleaves

Rogue/ret/priest is just like RMP (see the previous guide on vs RMP).  They don't have the same number of CCs but they do have stun removal and a second defensive dispel.  Druid needs to be at maximum range after trinket/bark skin.  Felhunter needs to save dispel for the druid as fear/repentance/blind is still a very good chain.  If they sap lock and go on druid, your rogue should open on ret (not the rogue, by the time the rogue comes out it is too late), disarm immediately into gouge.  Blind the enemy rogue (not the ret as sacrifice makes it moot).  If the rogue trinkets, vanish CS KS and by this point your lock should be able to catch-up.

Rogue/feral/priest is quite a bit harder because of instant cyclones.  You need to cyclone the druid before he gets 5 combo points to keep the momentum on your side.  Stick to the rogue and blind the priest.  Watch for the feral GCD and you may be able to sleep him while he is caught on a GCD.  Eventually you should be able to worn them down by CCing the priest and scoring a rogue kill.

Vs Warrior/Double Healer

This will usually be warrior/priest/druid or warrior/priest/paladin.  Switch between warrior/priest when your CCs are all on DRs.  Once warrior is out of cyclone DRs, start fearing/shadowfury the priest to deny mana burns and switch to the warrior.  Once the warrior can be cycloned again, go for priest. 

Your lock doesn't have to DPS much.  Full DOT the priest, curse of tongue on the other healer if they don't have curse removal, mana drain the priest.  If you lose felhunter go void walker as this is a long fight and you really don't need to spell lock a lot. With quality cyclone into disarm on the warrior your druid should be able to get drinks off.  Your rogue doesn't have to stop priest heals, just full DPS and early blind the warrior.  Kick the mana burns selectively.

You won't be able to drop the priest until he is out of mana, so the entire game is about wearing down the priest mana bar.  This is why Korea got the 900 MP5 priest with 90% win rate, but against most double healer teams you should be able to wear them down.

(To be continued)