My fights look nothing like Ellay's

[magwo]

Does Ellay not get warstomped, AoE silenced, stunlocked by 2-3 T6 rogues, shadowburned, etc?
I also today encountered a hunter that completely shut down my dps because he was in Feign Death for half the fight.. and my macros didn't work on that.


I'm playing at ~1500 rating on Cyclone BG EU, and from what I can tell the opposition looks a -lot- more competent than what Ellay faces in his training video. :)

[TMNT]

Ehh yeah. My 68 team of Shams got rolled by a lonely 70 warrior. I just don't seem to last. (Like i don't get that enough irl lul)

[magwo]

Well that can be a problem xD until you have your totem skills down. :)

You know what would be cool? If totems didn't display their exact function, only what school of totem it was.
So for example a warrior punching down your earth totems (probably tremors) would sometimes hit a stoneclaw totem and get stunned. =D


I am however mainly referring to arena play here. BG play is so much easier.

[Tizer]

i could say im having similar experiences, i've been working my balls off over the last month of so gearing up, im now in full s2 with s3 chest, have neck, belt, bracers, s1 wep, s2 shield, 41 badge trinket and the 30k honor trinket with the +dam on it. I sit on 880 spell damage and 380 ish resi. Now, thats not bad tbh.

This week i've managed 5 : 5 in arena, i started on 1377 points and now im on 1401 exactly. The first game i won got me 23 points, i think i played it really well, the others i won were quite close, but the 5 i lost were all over the place, but the team make up i found v hard to beat, i had people ressing on me and all sorts, dam priests, druids and warlocks giving me the run around, a complete loss of focus fire :/

[Ellay]

Oh man, you should see .. well I guess that's a catch 22 I need to film it first! but you should see the lock outs people put on my group. I have a few clips of me squeezing out wins and making it look harder because I fumble on my side, let me see if I can render some and show ya :)

Also with the hunter Feign Death, if you decide to go for the hunter you need to set them as focus on your main character, so if they try and pull that you quickly put your target focus macro and start blasting him. This only becomes an issue if the hunter is Night Elf and they mix in Shadow Meld with Feign Death causing them to drop off Focus. Either way gotta click them fast!

[magwo]

Ok cool.
Do you use pvp trinket to break stuns etc?

[Pandastriker]

Yes I would also be intrested in any of those clips, no fancy editing or music. Just some fights for the arena intrested people on this forum, I'm sure we are not the only one who want to see more fights from you ellay :rolleyes: .
Also a good question by Magwo, when exactly do you use the pvp trinket and how? Like; If the leader gets cc'ed and you use your trinket on all 4, would'nt that be a bit of a waste? Im guessing there is no other way tho.

Edit: Before I forget, congratulations on your rank 1 in reckoning 5v5! :thumbup: Good luck staying there for the Brutal Gladiator title

[Ellay]

I guess I should use it on all of my characters but.. I only use it on my main. It is used if I am Blinded or in a Sheep that is full duration and I can't get out of. Only use it in extreme situations where it's make it break. Or if I get feared and my tremor totems are down.

[Tizer]

I played a game last week where a priest decided to wand all my totems down and i hadnt noticed, he then ran into me and feared my toons everywhere, i dont use the pvp trinket as i favour the + damage one, man did i curse a lot. I knew i was going to get raped after that happened so i just got up and made a cuppa :)

[bugilt]

I just turned 70 a few days ago and got s2 gear from the 75k honor I saved up. I dropped to a 1400 right off the bat after playing a 3 mage 1 warlock team 1 Priest team. I knew it was going to be bad at first, but not vs 4 AOE and a healer.

I am working on building up more honor for s2-honor gear, but I'm lost as to what is the best direction. Should I be getting some instance gear TOV?...

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Bloodscalp&n=Tioget

[magwo]

Well vs AoE, it's all about gear.. if you have the toughness to endure it, np.. nova totems, shocks, meelee, stay alive. If you're already in S2 armor, you should focus on S2 mainhand.. makes a huge difference. Then go for S2 shield or guardian gear.
Also, I like to gem/enchant for maximum spell damage on my slaves, and maximum stamina/resilience on my main, where possible - for example leg enchants and so on.

This makes you more durable because many teams will go for your main.. it's a good practice to make him tough as a nugget.

[Mercurio]

i could say im having similar experiences, i've been working my balls off over the last month of so gearing up, im now in full s2 with s3 chest, have neck, belt, bracers, s1 wep, s2 shield, 41 badge trinket and the 30k honor trinket with the +dam on it. I sit on 880 spell damage and 380 ish resi. Now, thats not bad tbh.

This week i've managed 5 : 5 in arena, i started on 1377 points and now im on 1401 exactly. The first game i won got me 23 points, i think i played it really well, the others i won were quite close, but the 5 i lost were all over the place, but the team make up i found v hard to beat, i had people ressing on me and all sorts, dam priests, druids and warlocks giving me the run around, a complete loss of focus fire :/

Bless you, Tizer. My shammy gear and stats are very close to yours and I'm sitting at around 1450.

I thought I was the only one that sucked that bad. (No offense, I'm refering to my own suckiness.) Makes me wonder if those of us in killer gear that are getting our butts handed to us are the silent majority. Still, it is odd just how much better some people do with comparable gear.

[Kicksome]

If you want to get good - you need to play about 100 games then play 100 more, then you can think about getting a good ranking. I don't care how geared you are - you need to learn to play the arena's and different team compositions first or you'll get rocked by any decent team. I have all 1000+ spell damage gear and 400+ resil on all my toons - almost as good as Ellay (he's got about 20 more spell damage on avg with each char than me) and I got rocked today because I hadn't played in 10 days and I was rusty. I had to calm myself down, get myself together, and start thinking about what to do vs. each team we played. We won the next 5 games and got back to 1700 rating - one game lasted 23 minutes. Ellay makes it look easy - but it sure as hell isn't. It takes a ton of practice and experience to know exactly what to do when.

[Tizer]

Im in total agreement with you kick, i know its all about practice, i dont dispute that for one minute. I've never been a huge arena fan but if i want the gear i need to do it, so i've got onto a rather huge learning curve. I plan to spend a few days doing nothing BUT arena. I think some of theone of the biggest lessons i've learnt this week along is that purge > * and mages need to die pretty quickly :) Closely followed by making sure your insta kill doesnt get wasted, because there are plenty of teams that know about this ability now and lots of players tease you into using wasting it.

[Elektric]

Purge and not missing the nuke are Fundamental in beating any team. Mastering these things take time and practice. Purging effectively, remembering to do it, getting of as many purges pre-opener are all things that slowly put the odds in our favor.

I rarely miss a nuke on those Mages, man are they annoying. The Purge definitely ensures that I take them down with the nuke. I have also started to use the 1 button nuke, rather than a castsequence macro. I don't know what I was thinking but never realized that you need the "/stopcasting" in your nuke for it to go off instantly. I still spam the button but it definitely seems to land more.

The stopcasting in that macro also lets me stop a lightning bolt in mid cast and throw down the nuke. With mages the biggest problem I use to have after purge was I'd cast Lightning Bolts and then throw the nuke. I think mages are watching my casting bars and in an effort to squeeze out a little more damage they dont iceblock until they see the lightning bolts flying at them. Since my macro stops the casting of the lightning bolt they never see it coming. I have ran into a couple mages that can survive the nuke totally purged but I try to follow with an earth shock and it has been taking them down with no problems.

Mages have incredible damage and there's not a class in the game that makes me worry like they do. So if a team doesnt have a mage Im not so quick to throw the nuke out. Realizing that lesser healing is one of the highest healing spells in the game (terribly mana efficient) 5 healers can last through almost anything. Many of my wins are happening from letting them blow their cooldowns, sneaking in some purges, and then destroying the softest target. I then continue to heal through their damage and at some point Im really low on mana, thank goodness for Star's Tears, I drink up and kill the last 1-2.

Ellay's stratedgy on taking the DPS out of the fight is so unconventional, but so is 4 shaman and thats why it works. 4 lightning bolts is enough to keep any great healer busy. Add in our ability to switch targets and lay down the nuke and I am a believer there is no counter. Sure spam fear is a PITA and AOE silence is annoying but as long as you land the nuke its one huge step in the right direction. 4 beating 5 is very unlikely.

[magwo]

Cool! I can see the big advantage of having a /stopcasting in your CL/alphastrike macros.
Will definitely try.

I've also been appreciating CL+shock a lot more lately.. I think that when you hit 70 and try it, it doesn't kill stuff... but 5-6 pvp items later, your CL+shock combo kills anything but locks and discpriests.

[magwo]

But wait.. when you talk about nuke, do you mean EM+NS+CL?
I'm currently running with TOWs.. finding them quite awesome for that extra punch to take out really tough targets on a regular basis in BGs and so on.

So I don't have an instant nuke.. and I like to spam my alpha strike button.. so I shouldn't have /stopcasting in it right?
It's not possible to do a conditional stopcasting right? Like for example /stopcasting [!Chain Lightning] or something?

[Elektric]

"/stopcasting" does not work with button spam. It essential executes everything at once. If you hit it twice it will interrupt your casting.

ToW is great for gearing up. It makes heroics ez mode and gives you a ton of lasting power in burning down people in AV. It doesnt work so well in arena...simply because the chance of winning a 5v4 fight is much higher than a 5v5 with 12% more crit and hit. Hence why landing the nuke is fundemental and is many times the difference between winning and losing.

Maybe I didnt describe what I think is happening when I light up the mage with NS+EM+CL. The mage is casting, burning down my grounding totems, While I am purging everything off of them. At the same time making my way closer so that distance isn't an issue with the nuke. When all the buffs are off the mage, by this time my grounding totems are gone and the mage is in the middle of casting another fireball/frostbolt. I then start to cast Lightning Bolts. The mage feels safe because they now they can finish their cast and Ice block before my lightning bolt hits them, because normally the you can watch the lightning bolts fly through the air. I then hit my /stopcasting NS+EM+CL macro and the lightning bolts get cancelled and instead a totally debuffed mage feels the wrath of 4Xcrit CLs INSTANTLY (there is no travel time for CL) followed by whatever ES I can slip in. Its gg about 90% of the time.

I dont believe conditional macros work in BC.

[magwo]

Ok, I will consider the stopcasting macro once I get enought spell damage.
There are some conditional features of macros.. for example combat/non-combat.. and all the conditions on targets, and some other.

[shockernub]

I think you really need NS for arenas, that alone will make up for a lot of gear. I have crap gear, had even worse gear last week and still went 3-7 in my first attempt at arenas. The wins mostly happened as a result of vaporizing the first target incoming, a LB, NSCL,ES/FS seems to do the trick on most non-mage/pali targets.

I couldn't imagine doing arenas without the insta nuke.

My guys on US Crushridge are:
Natarkah
Natarkuh
Natarkoh
Natarka

[Tizer]

My games have finally started to turn around this week, 14 wins 6 losses, considering i was on 1377 and im back to 1540 im quite chuffed :)

Lots of helpful tips and reading in here so my thanks go out to those who contribute xD

[Alemi]

I'm currently running with TOWs.. finding them quite awesome for that extra punch to take out really tough targets on a regular basis in BGs and so on.

TOW isn't worth it at all in arena. The instant nuke prevents any mass dispels from removing your elemental masterys, which i assure you most good disc priests will spam mass dispel on you at some point to try to take that and your bloodlusts out. Additionally, you're missing the fire totem damage. Magmas and Novas force healers to come within range to heal their melee rather than sit outside your LoS. Overall, I've found ToW to be great for PVE but not as useful in arena.

[magwo]

Well.


I find that against dumb opponents, it doesn't really matter. NS EM will kill one target, then you will have to work on the remaining 4.. with TOWs you will have a constantly high killing capacity.. but anyway.. where it matters is against smart opponents that see the NS EM coming.

Countless times have I been completely spell reflected on my NS EM.. and rogues with a brain will see it coming from a mile away and do COS. That is why I currently prefer TOWs - it makes me constantly very dangerous. Often I can just keep nuking and surprise the healer with a CL+Shock.

[merujo]

what makes u constantly very dangerous is the ability to insta-kill someone, not +12%/15% crit.



Countless times have I been completely spell reflected on my NS EM
either u dont pay attention to either their with shield on, or they just kickass.
how often does a warrior casts spell reflect upon a 0.1 cast time spell ? they usually just put it hoping something lands.
i've never been spell reflected with ns+em.


and rogues with a brain will see it coming from a mile away and do COS
i wouldnt consider rogues with brain, but rather flash gordon's reincarnations. how fast can someone, just like warriors and spell reflect, cast something to avoid an instant spell ? never happened to me.

perhaps ur just showing ur game too much.

tow is nice, but i doubt anyone would change a nuke capable of killing instantly for some crit.

[Nixi]

after doing kara for the week I'll run battlegrounds with TOW. It's really fun to have that +12% crit. Plus when one of my caster friends join me they go gaga over it too. But it's not something I take with me into arenas. The opposite is true also, taking the insta-kill into pve over the TOW (due to respec laziness) is painful. DPS drops a ton.

I used to let rogues/warriors/mages/paladins eat my Killshot all the time too. I'm just getting better at reading my opponents and having patience to wait until the right moment. It comes with practice.

[Tizer]

I avoid trying to insta kill rogues and take out the more dangerous targets tbh, especially arena spec rogues with the annoying cheat death ability. At the top of my list are mages then pallys and hunters for the insta kills, also shaman being careful to take out grounding totems. As for using ToW's, na, not for me, cant beat the insta <3

[Tizer]

Oh man, you should see .. well I guess that's a catch 22 I need to film it first! but you should see the lock outs people put on my group. I have a few clips of me squeezing out wins and making it look harder because I fumble on my side, let me see if I can render some and show ya :)
Any luck sourcing out some of these videos Ellay? My weekend has been somewhat frustrating on the arena front. I've managed a 24 win 23 loss week. Not as many games as i would have liked but i'll probably do another 20 on Tuesday night for more practice. When i watch your training vids i think to myself, "ok, i can do that" and i do quite a bit, but i've faced so many frustrating opponents this weekend that play so differently to the people in your vid its rediculous :) I know season 2 gear against season 3 / 4 geared people must be the cause of some of these complete muntings i am getting so im really hoping to see some changes with improved gear in weeks to come.

[Ellay]

ya I found the answer to showing everyone how it's done I hope. I'm going to be having a low key or at least I hope not many will know besides those here on Dual-boxing.com about a set time weekly where I do arenas for a couple of hours. I'll record it as well and put it on a loop. That way you can see real games and not a highlight reel.

[Tizer]

That would be very cool. I think many people here enjoy watching others pvp just as much as they enjoy pvping themselves. I know while im sat at work i've got some free time to "get a fix" :) I for one am really not worried about seeing every game won hands down, the losses are just as important as the wins as you learn from them for the next time. Anyway, looking forward to seeing some more games xD,

[Tizer]

great work on the streaming games, looking forward to seeing some hard competition. a bit like the stupid bastid 2 warlock 2 priest 1 shaman team that had me feared all over the place tonight ;c or the 2 war 1 rogue, shaman and priest team who simply stunlocked my healer to death, applied MS on nearly all my shaman and proceeded to rape meh :D

Altough im happy about getting s4 gloves + head enchant from rep putting me at 950 odd spell dam and 388 resi ;x