New strategy for Arena

[Ellay]

As always there is a constant struggle to always improve and adapt to others. Many teams on my realm in the top 20 know exactly what multiboxing is capable of and act accordingly.

So what's new?

Rushing, I never really thought it was possible or doable but I've had a really high success rate with it lately, about 25-2 or so while rushing. I'd say it's a half and half for rushing though, I charge where they usually run to and throw down my totems first then purge, then go offensive. You eat a few hits in damage in the process sometimes but that happens anyways when teams finally decide to come at you. With this method your team is already set up and they have not been able to formulate a gameplan. Will be making videos to show how it disrupts them.
The main benefit of this, is it avoids the long boring drawn out 30 minute wait times (though the team can run around and reset the rush, but usually it starts faster)
Strat will not work repeatedly on the same exact team if they are anygood and know they are facing you in the next match. Kind of a Shock and Awe treatment.


Focused Targeting, they can't heal what they can't see and the person getting focused has no idea he's about to take damage since it doesn't show up on target of target.
I've switched my macro's around so that I'm using straight up /assist Main /cast Spell. This does consume a lot of bars and space if the main dies I have to replicate another 2 rows of bars and be able to switch to it smoothly. But opens up the ability to set a focus target on all of my characters that allow me to cast spells at a target they can't see. I will target something else, throw damage at it and then switch to the new target. Success rate is very high with this method as well, but with anything I can still improve on it.

Just giving a heads up on new techniques I'm putting into the matches.

[Nixi]

Always ahead of the curve. Thanks for letting us know how you've been adapting and changing styles!

[magwo]

I'm not quite following.

/assist Main
/cast Foo


I don't really see how this is focused targeting? And why does this cloak your incoming nuke? As far as I can see, with this approach, every single character you controll will have the dps target targeted. Hm?

[Nixi]

I think he is doing what i was contemplating to do, just use /assist /cast spell to do general pew-pewing but when you're ready to kill a target go with a /cast [target=focus] button and then you can basically launch a couple of volleys before they can react.

So i'm assuming (damn i hate to assume but..)

He's just got lots of buttons with

/assist
/cast spell

and then a few special buttons with

/cast [target=focus] spell


amiright?

[Ellay]

Nixi is correct =D

[magwo]

I actually just tried this today in ~15 games around 1500.. due to recreating my team.. had an old inherited 5v5 with a strange name.

Anyway.. it didn't go very well.. some teams were very surprised and died quickly.. whereas some teams just LOSed me calmly.

[bugilt]

I've been working to get my rating to 1500 again since I started. I'm almost geared to where I would deem finding a good healer worthwhile. The last few games I encountered teams that charge, wrap around or pick off. I'm still lacking the basics of a arena setup such as easy to reach turn key, non main based targeting, and frost shock RR. I hope to get around to that, but WOTLK is killing my multi time.

I feel I have still made good progress with taking down teams who have been a challenge before.

[merujo]

i've been rushing on lordaeron ruins, making the central tomb my territory, and so far, i won all games on that arena.
rush middle, and drop totems if they rush, or make an NS to scare them if so far working...also a fear on their attack works like a charm.

[Icetech]

On my BG i can't rush seems soon as the doors open i have people in my face before i even setup totems... tongiht i did my 10 losses.. i killed maybe 7 people in total.. i am a mess in arena:( im only at 7300 hit points and that doesn't help with 196 res... HATE the arena.... next week im doing it nude and just rushing in to get it over.. WAHHHHHHHHHHh

[Pikey]

Nice look forward to the video.
What rating is this ellay? New team or 2k+?
Are you having any probs getting your totems down before you are charged/Intimidating shouted or SS?

[Dominian]

On my BG i can't rush seems soon as the doors open i have people in my face before i even setup totems... tongiht i did my 10 losses.. i killed maybe 7 people in total.. i am a mess in arena:( im only at 7300 hit points and that doesn't help with 196 res... HATE the arena.... next week im doing it nude and just rushing in to get it over.. WAHHHHHHHHHHh

lol 7300 hit points and 196 res you cant realy expect much :)

[Ellay]

Usually don't have an issue getting tremor's down, since if they do fear I'll usually have 2 down before it happens.

[shockernub]

I've been doing the rush this week, but really just to get my 10 losses over a bit quicker, lol. My healer is out of town and didn't feel like finding another, usually wind up 50-50 or worse anyway so no major loss, just a freebie for those that get me this week. I have been rushing, using NS-CL than just afking, lol. :sleeping:

[merujo]

Usually don't have an issue getting tremor's down, since if they do fear I'll usually have 2 down before it happens.

lol i wish that happens to me. its either ur amazing gear, or the amazing time they take to fear ur team, because with me, theres 2 things they abuse: fears asap and rez's as their team8's die. If im unlucky with my tremors or the place where i kill them, i know its gonna be a long match.

im working on the positioning as i kill one though.

[Ellay]

Well when I rush I don't actually run into them and bump heads, I throw down my totems a little early but I'm close enough that it forces the fight to start. Perhaps my live stream will do better justice.

[Alemi]

Focused Targeting, they can't heal what they can't see and the person getting focused has no idea he's about to take damage since it doesn't show up on target of target.
I've switched my macro's around so that I'm using straight up /assist Main /cast Spell. This does consume a lot of bars and space if the main dies I have to replicate another 2 rows of bars and be able to switch to it smoothly. But opens up the ability to set a focus target on all of my characters that allow me to cast spells at a target they can't see. I will target something else, throw damage at it and then switch to the new target. Success rate is very high with this method as well, but with anything I can still improve on it.

Just giving a heads up on new techniques I'm putting into the matches.Happy this is working out for you :) It's quite amazing to see a pally targettarget healing the wrong person before they realize their mistake.

[xtobbenx]

I used to Rush alot earlier when i was training alot. Baiscly testing out everything.. And Yes.. i was wining alot. I dont know why i stoped with it, guess i lose a few and then was like "okay, i will go back to basic".. But reall, rushing especialy on blade edge and ruins is awsome. Ruins ismaybe the best one.. If i rush on Blade edge i do it over the bridge as of the Los element in the stairs, and i need to drop totems half way over the bridge aswell.

I think i preaty much did it like elly says.. Drop totems a bit in front and just nuke directly as they are in range. This way you will start the fight directly. I have allways only used /assist /cast. never learnd the other ways. and never felt i wanted any other ways. But ofc.. if my mains dies i am Solo finishing it. Baiscly i will then target with my main and solo move my shammys form the other windows and spred them out since there is normaly just a few left at that point.

But really try some rushing. And have your healer to some funny stuff in the begining. Like my pally used to run in and start AOEing and bubble asap, in those seconds where i'm droping totems and starting my casts... While my Resto drood would just charge in one one and start rooting another.

ADDING : In ruins, Make sure you use wolfs and not mounts, that way alot of teams wont see you coming since they are so low and the LOS in the middle will hite you untill you sudanly comes around the cornor with your nuke waves :D

[TheCrow]

are you using in your alts comething like

/assist [target=Aelli,nodead][target=Aellie,nodead][target=Aellii,nodead],etc...

/cast spell

?

i was thinking about to use that macro in my alts and if i press CTRL then something like [mod:CTRL=target=focus] so if i dont press CTRL then i cast on my target and when i press it i cast on the focus.

if my main dies then i change of window to my alt and then pressing a key i change the hotkeybar of that alt replicating my spells but with no macros. (the other 3 are still using the macros hotkey bar but they will /assist my alt because my main is dead)

right now im not using the focus to target my opponents but i really really really hate the second of lag in my alts when i change of target with my main. i have lost a lot of arenas because that second of lag. 2 shamans use EM+NS+CL in 1 target and the other 2 shamans in other target for example :( )

[Nixi]

There is still a second of lag when using your slaves to focus your main. I used to use the /assist method when I first started boxing, but for the life of me I can't remember if the lag was worse than the lag associated with the focus method. I've busted my EM/NS/CL macro on split targets plenty of times when I first started playing arena's using the focus method; 3 hitting the old target with my lead hitting the new target. I'm just more used to the timing now, but I'm sure i've lost matches due to the time it takes my alts to catch up with my main's target.

Before I started boxing I used to always be the group/raid leader and I had a macro to mark the kill target with a skull. When I started boxing that was my assist macro on all my alts. Basically i was already in the habbit of marking the kill target, so when I started boxing I would use a button to set the kill target (via assit) on all my alts so they would pew pew and not automatically attack what my warrior was attacking. It worked great in PVE, but for PVP that's not really what you want to be doing using 4 shamans.

I think using macros on all your characters,

/assist [target=toon1,nodead,exists,help] [target=toon2,nodead,exists,help] [etc..]
/cast spell

is a great way to start, but my concern for this is the impact of when your Toon1 [ie your main] gets crowd controlled. I know for a fact that polymorph completely screws up the targeting of my alts when i use the focus main method, and I have to switch main's (via focus change) on the fly. Sap is less of a problem because I can still control the alts via the main's window when he's sapped. Sap doesn't seem to screw up the targeting like poly does. I've had mixed results with fear in PVE (and i swear in pvp but pvp is more chaotic so i'm not positive.) Sometimes after getting feared my alts won't attack what my main (using the focus method) has targeted until I retarget. It's really a PITA but it happens so rarely i'm not sure what the cause is, however it seems to happen after fear.

[Dominian]

is a great way to start, but my concern for this is the impact of when your Toon1 [ie your main] gets crowd controlled. I know for a fact that polymorph completely screws up the targeting of my alts when i use the focus main method, and I have to switch main's (via focus change) on the fly. Sap is less of a problem because I can still control the alts via the main's window when he's sapped. Sap doesn't seem to screw up the targeting like poly does. I've had mixed results with fear in PVE (and i swear in pvp but pvp is more chaotic so i'm not positive.) Sometimes after getting feared my alts won't attack what my main (using the focus method) has targeted until I retarget. It's really a PITA but it happens so rarely i'm not sure what the cause is, however it seems to happen after fear.

Have you tried using sticky targeting? Atleast if not hooked on with me it used to change targets during poly and fears..

[Ruodhaid]

iv seen in a few threds that you say live steam arena :)

But i cant find a link to it, can anyone healp ? :)

[Icetech]

/assist [target=toon1,nodead,exists,help] [target=toon2,nodead,exists,help] [etc..]
/cast spell

thats the setup i use kinda.. is there a way to add if they are outa range? nothing worse than hitting follow or attack in AV and my main is alive at a gY 50 miles away.. and nothing happens

[TheCrow]

There is still a second of lag when using your slaves to focus your main. I used to use the /assist method when I first started boxing, but for the life of me I can't remember if the lag was worse than the lag associated with the focus method. I've busted my EM/NS/CL macro on split targets plenty of times when I first started playing arena's using the focus method; 3 hitting the old target with my lead hitting the new target. I'm just more used to the timing now, but I'm sure i've lost matches due to the time it takes my alts to catch up with my main's target.

But i dont mean set my main as the focus (is the system that im using now btw), i mean set the opponent that i want to kill as focus and dont change it until he is dead.
so at the beginning of the arena i target their mage (for example) and use with all my characters:
/assist myMain
/focus target

and later when i want to kill that focus i shouldnt have lag casting a spell to him because he has been the focus all the arena.
until i want to kill him or after of i have killed him i just will use:
/assist my main
/cast spell
(yes i will have lag using this but i dont care, just i dont want to be lagged when i attack my focus.)


Sometimes after getting feared my alts won't attack what my main (using the focus method) has targeted until I retarget. It's really a PITA but it happens so rarely i'm not sure what the cause is, however it seems to happen after fear.

yeah it sucks, i see that my alts arent casting and i think "mm..a BE has silenced them? have i paused keyclone? are they stunned? ouch wait is the bug...i retarget but too late boom "you are dead".

[kidvid]

Caster Heavy Opponents
A) They don't have a chance to assign roles.
I.e., "Mage you sheep the pally and silence the shaman out in front.
Lock, you fear the shamans and cast curse of tongues on the pally.
Warrior, you stomp them and then fear. Huntard, set your pet to auto-kill the totems
using that macro you made.
Same with you mage, use that macro you made to kill their totems with your water pet."
And so on...

B) (A leads to B) Their CC is not coordinated.
They still have CC but it's going to be haphazard.
This negates their biggest strength, which is massive amounts of coordinated and timed CC,
in order to lock us down.

C)) They don't have a chance to set up a list of priority DPS targets.
"Ok --everyone DPS shaman on the left in the back, then quickly do a switch to the one in the front
when I give the command on vent.
We've got to get his main shaman down.
Oh yea, mage, keep sheeping the paladin to keep him from healing."

Good against melee too?
I think these same advantages would also be present against melee heavy
teams, but because we have a BOP, and we wear mail armor, and melee aren't as
good at CC as casters are, so we really don't gain as much advantage .
At least that's how I see it.

How I see this strat panning out in the first 10 seconds Ride in and dismount 20 yards away.
Quickly drop two sets of totems.
Throw a set of lightning bolts at the mage.
Hammer of Justice the healer.
Mage panics and iceblocks.
Throw down another set of totems.
Shoot the healer with a frostshock just to get his attention.
NS + Frostshock the mage to kill him now that he's out of ice block.
Mage dies and the match becomes so much eaiser. :thumbsup:

[SuS]

/assist [target=toon1,nodead,exists,help] [target=toon2,nodead,exists,help] [etc..]
/cast spell

thats the setup i use kinda.. is there a way to add if they are outa range? nothing worse than hitting follow or attack in AV and my main is alive at a gY 50 miles away.. and nothing happens

To fix that problem

I was using that method until recently then I saw this thread about a no focus no leader system using Keymaps? (cant find link atm thought it got a sticky?)
Then I realised I was either to tired or drunk to figure it out and there were problems with /castsequence??

So I took the concept and changed it to suit me, I downloaded Trinity bars started to config it gave up (drunk) came back figured it out.

I hot key PiP to Shift 1 through 5 the same as bar Pages 1-5, I made my follow macro on each bar for each toon (in Trinitys macros) to reflect the main screen.
So Shift 1 follow macro read’s

/focus Toon1
/follow Focus

If I hit Shift 2 PiP moves to my 2nd toon as my main display all toons follow and assist the new leader as PiP shifts so does the all toons bars to page2.

/focus Toon2
/follow Focus

Then ofc for my DPS spells I have /assist focus

This works well for me in PVP I can swap main toon anytime even on death and all follow and assist the new leader and it really does confuse the feck out of people.
Granted it’s a PVP only option in PVE I use the old Key bound assist toon1.

Works well for me, Im sure it could be adapted to use Ellays nuke focus?

[Elektric]

/assist [target=toon1,nodead,exists,help] [target=toon2,nodead,exists,help] [etc..]
/cast spell

thats the setup i use kinda.. is there a way to add if they are outa range? nothing worse than hitting follow or attack in AV and my main is alive at a gY 50 miles away.. and nothing happens

To fix that problem

I was using that method until recently then I saw this thread about a no focus no leader system using Keymaps? (cant find link atm thought it got a sticky?)
Then I realised I was either to tired or drunk to figure it out and there were problems with /castsequence??

So I took the concept and changed it to suit me, I downloaded Trinity bars started to config it gave up (drunk) came back figured it out.

I hot key PiP to Shift 1 through 5 the same as bar Pages 1-5, I made my follow macro on each bar for each toon (in Trinitys macros) to reflect the main screen.
So Shift 1 follow macro read’s

/focus Toon1
/follow Focus

If I hit Shift 2 PiP moves to my 2nd toon as my main display all toons follow and assist the new leader as PiP shifts so does the all toons bars to page2.

/focus Toon2
/follow Focus

Then ofc for my DPS spells I have /assist focus

This works well for me in PVP I can swap main toon anytime even on death and all follow and assist the new leader and it really does confuse the feck out of people.
Granted it’s a PVP only option in PVE I use the old Key bound assist toon1.

Works well for me, Im sure it could be adapted to use Ellays nuke focus?
I have achieved a no follow no leader set up. I use the keys I used to use that pointed to the focus (ie. keypress 1 = toon1, keypress 2 = toon2, etc...).

Instead of binding the keypress to a button with the macro "/focus toon#"

I have bound the keypress to the page action bar keybinding. Now to execute this properly with my quadbox I need 4 seperate bars.

Toon 1
1 bar = when that toon is the main (theres is no follow button and his focus key is "/focus target"
2 bar = when Toon2 is the main (my follow button is now "/target toon2 /follow toon2")
3 bar = when toon 3 is the main (my follow button is now "/target toon3 /follow toon3")
4 bar = same thing....

This allows me to also use "/focus [target=targettarget]" when that toon isnt the lead also. Using this approach I am limited to only using the first bar for binding keys that need to be targeted. Things like Totems, trinkets, ghost wolf, bloodlust can be placed on one of the remaining three bars. The focus spell dont need to go on the paging bar either... "/cast [target=focus] spell" remains the same regardless of who is leader.

At first I though this would be impossible but it turns out theres plenty of room for all your spells. I have also moved away from using "lshift" modifiers in my macros and instead keybinding them to the actual bar. I like the way it works out, hold shift to fire at focus, hit the unmodified key to nuke target.

I cant believe I have done so well without using this focus stuff. Now that teams dont have a clue who I am targetting, mana is not an issue. People die much faster and anyone willing to stand and have a dps fight is getting smoked.

Feedback welcome and I hope this helped. Really looking forward to using this with my 3xLock + Spriest team and setting 4 focus...mana burn and 3 different fears, although I dont think there will be a need with all the DoT power...hehe!

[Nixi]

I've been interested in switching to the focusless leader setup, but I haven't taken the time to do it.

Other than that, I've tried a few different things while playing in arenas, but have yet to relyably stay into the upper 1800s. I'm stuck in the low 1800's now.

Rushing is so-so. If the other team is rushing also it's always a loss on my part. The teams that rush are typically 4 dps teams that obliterate me anyway, so I'm not blaming the rush loss on the fact that i happen to be rushing also, it's just an even faster loss because I don't have Groundings preset and i'm scrambling to get my tremors down.

If I rush in Nagrand it'll turn into a pole humping match in very unfavorable position. My success with it is, again, so-so. Nagrand and Loredan seems to be a bit better but I still find myself more comfortable with holding back and advancing with slower pressure instead of gunning for them in the first few seconds.

4 dps caster teams are my bane. They are overly popular now and they are killing me with a combination of superior dps and CC. They don't even need a shaman for bloodlust/heroism if their CC is good enough. I've only played around 20 games since reading this post, but the past week I played well over 100 and I'm still losing very badly to CC/Caster 4 DPS teams no matter which tactics I employ.

This week I've jumped into 3v3 with my shamans and managed to crack into the 1600's but I've been pushed down as low as 1490 before starting to win again. it should be called, "3 of you vs. rogues and druids". The druids aren't terribly bad, if the rest of their team isn't made up of rogues anyway, because i can insta-gib a druid easy enough as long as i can get a couple lightning bolts off to soften him up. The rogues are just so damn hard. If I know they have a rogue, (or 2) I've resorted to staying in ghostwolf form and letting my totems expire so they can't open with sap. Blind, sap, the stuns.... it's just amazing how well they can lock you down. And it's not like you can really insta-gib them with their Cheat Death and Cloak of Shadows. The non rogue heavy teams I'll regain my rating, but then they come back out of the woodwork. I've also found warlocks to be fairly difficult. I faced a team of 3 warlocks and died pretty miserably, but even if they just have one they can often turn the tide of the battle, by simply not freaking dying. A SL/SL warlock can be tough to kill, and I've lost 2 vs 1 a few times so far. The non Soul Link locks go down pretty easy, so it's just that one type that cause a mountain of headaches.

In 3v3 I've had much greater success rushing. Plus pole humping isn't as big of a problem. Well, it is still a problem, but they can't kill me as fast so I can recover from getting one guy caught up and I can often flush someone out into the open to get a NS/EM kill off. After playing 3v3, i wish there was 4v4 so I could use all 4 of my shamans. I feel like 4 shamans is enough fire power to REALLY tear one target down without them having much hope for survival, and going against 4 people isn't quite enough DPS to drop me if I drop one of them first. (leaving 3 dps vs. 4 of my guys that can heal). I still prefer the 5v5 bracket, mostly because I see less rogues, and I can put most of the healing burden on my paladin, however 3v3 has allowed me to hone my self preservation skills and i feel like i'm better at keeping my guys alive in 5s when my paladin is cc'd. Although it hasn't show in our ranking. We're the same (low 1800s) as we were last week.

[Kaynin]

I can safely say, this does not work when you're undergeared. :P

Having to put up totems first for me would cause it all to take too long and chars start dying.

It has worked for me against badly geared or badly skilled teams only.

[Ellay]

I played against about 3 top 10 teams last night, and I switched back to my usual methods for them. The rush method failed horribly against the #1 team. I did beat them though using my normal strat.
Also the higher rated teams make the fight happen a lot faster it seemed as well, and one of the main points of rushing in the first place was to get the fight started instead of sitting around all day.

[Crayonbox]

I've been playing around with a new assist macro set up as well ellay.

I am in the same battlegroup as you so I tend to often fight the left over trash you stomp over and since I dont have the experience you do, they tend to know how to counter me and stomp me fairly easily.

Most of the higher end teams watch the main char and assist heal off him as I switch targets and go back and forth. I was even on "OMG WHO TALKED TO DOMO"'s vent channel when they were fighting you and they were calling out all the target switches fairly easily and adapting. They lost, but the fact that they can still see all the target changes and adapt accordingly is kinda meh and there needs to be a way to work around it.

Kinda thinking about setting my assist macro to a character in my clone pile and use my main to target duds. having my character target random toons and hopefully the other team doesnt know who I will be going for when the fight starts.

I havent had time to try it out, but I think im gonna have to go buy me an xkeys board to set up all the macros I am thinking about doing :(.

[Elektric]

After last night Im sold its simply the only wait to go.

Setting a focus isn't so great for the nuke, but its priceless for them not knowing who your real target is.

You know those pesky melee characters that run in and just MS the hell out of you but you can't cut through their HPs because they are getting spam healed. I know set them as the focus, target someone else, purge 1 volley of LBs and then proceed to damage them using my focus damage spells. They dont even get healed once, I can only imagine what their vent sounds like...lol "He's targetting me heal" and then "WTF Heal me im taking DMG, DOH Im dead"

Teams cant respond to normal damage when they cant predict where its going. Take it for what it is, but my opinion is the real potential is in the effortless change in targets without them ever knowing.

[wougoose]

I've personally been using this setup ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=11459') and I believe that it can really help out with faking the opponent out :)

I still have yet to hit 70 and hit the arena, but the seamless main switching has helped quite a bit during the many gank encounters I've overcome.