The first two weeks I probably spend too much time jumping between teams, and as a result I racked up a lot of games with very little to show for it.  Estel is still new to New York City and I really need to spend more time with her as my mainhand weapon requires a lot of raid attendance as is.  For the foreseeable future I probably will hold onto my current teams (still would like to try DK/Paladin/Rogue, although DK/Paladin will probably see some dramatic nerfs over the next a few patches) and I am now under Estel's strict supervision during arena.

One of the teams she enjoys watching is rogue/double arcane mage/boomkin druid/holy paladin.  On paper, it is about as cheesy as you can get outside of double BM hunter.  In reality?  We hit 1750 without a loss before running into a few teams that know exactly what to do against 4DPS.  It is ironic we have so many "top players" complaining about how DPS is out of control, but when you look up the ladder, 5v5 is still dominated by double healer comps.

The Dreaded Anti-Magic Zone

In my opinion, this ability is more overpowered than DK's unfair damage-to-survivability ratio.  In 2v2 and 3v3, if you run with any magic DPS at all, DK/healer teams pretty much shut you down cold.  This is why DK/Paladin is so incredibly overpowered.  BOP vs physical, and Anti-Magic Zone vs casters.

Even in 5v5, it is pretty much impossible to penetrate this barrier if their team is not stupid.  I have seen teams that drop the anti-magic zone at wrong spots, teams that all stand inside of the zone and our AOE's take it out in two seconds.  But once they know what they are doing, Anti-Magic Zone is the ultimate counter to heavy caster DPS teams.  Heck you can death grip someone inside of it to force the fight in your home court.

Now, I actually do believe 5v5 should reward balanced comps, and having hard counters that discourage you from stacking up certain classes is a good thing.  However, what really worries me is this ability in smaller brackets.  Got a counterspell on the paladin and caught the rogue in a kidney shot?  Anti-magic zone goes right up and there goes half of RMP's damage.  And there is absolutely nothing you can do about it (outside of running a DK yourself and pull the guy out of it).  This ability alone encourages you to stack physical DPS in every bracket.  At least you can dispel BOP.

Even Without Anti-Magic Zone

Double healer teams that play well can still beat 4DPS teams consistently.  3DPS is just as capable of dropping someone in 2-3 GCDs as 4DPS, especially considering every healer can put out 4-5K damage in two globals.

Here I must comment on blue chip classes like warrior and warlock.  Warrior is a completely different beast here in WOTLK than it was in TBC.  They can absorb enormous amount of damage with shield wall, defensive stance and spell reflection.  And they dish out incredibly damage the second you leave them open.  A well-timed blade storm wins games all by itself.  Unlike mutilate rogues who drop in one stun, warriors just keep going.  This is why there are 13 warriors in SK-100's top 20 5v5 teams, and only 7 rogues.  And this number will skew even more in warrior's favor as people pick up more resilience.

Warlock?  There are already two warlocks on the top 10 ladder of SK-100 5v5, and we still have a ton of people in low resilience.  Once you start playing in high ratings, you will see how difficult it is to drop one.  With group buffs they can hit 30K health easily, with soullink, high armor bonus from demon form, fel armor and of course, high resilience, they don't go down easily at all if their teammates actually know how to peel for him.  Classes like paladin and priest also provide enormous amount of damage reduction via pain suppression, hand of sacrifice and divine guardian.  Demonic portal is one of the best escape tools in 5v5.  Fighting against warlocks from 1900+ teams, I feel I am way, way, way easier to kill.  It won't be long before they can live without demon form.

My prediction is Blizzard will over buff this class and they will be a top 3 class in a patch or two.  Comps like warrior/lock/druid as well as rogue/lock/druid will be top tier again once DKs and Paladins are nerfed.  They still do their damage just fine even if focus fired, and they are still the class you absolutely can not afford to leave open.

Youtube Banning PVP Videos With Copyrighted Music

I got this in my email today:

Video Disabled

A copyright owner has claimed it owns some or all of the audio content in your video Niar Xmas Pain. The audio content identified in your video is Famous Last Words by My Chemical Romance. We regret to inform you that your video has been blocked from playback due to a music rights issue.

If they are going to ban PVP videos with copyrighted music, they will have to remove 100% of the PVP videos out there.  I understand it is not up to Youtube as they are merely doing it to avoid lawsuits.  But I really believe the recording companies are shortsighted.  I would have never heard of a lot of those artists if their songs weren't used in PVP videos.  If anything PVP videos are free advertisements for them as most authors include a track list with full author/album with their major releases.

Youtube is also getting a little too clean for my tastes.  I miss the days when I can go on Youtube and find every music video or every episode of Naruto.  Anyone know some good alternatives?  I guess I can always try the Chinese equivalent at Tudou.com.