Thought I'd Share my moment of Epiphany...

I have posted my success from week to week from my "lol Emberstorm" battlegroup as someone once posted and I wanted to share something I thought might be of help.

In the 1500 brackets the queues for 5v5 seemed to always be less than 1 minute. If you're learning this is great! When I was in this bracket still gearing up I tried to play as many games as I could. The benefit is when you play for learning and not for rating...when you come across a good team you get to play against them with nothing on the line. What ends up happening is people stop queueing who are playing for rating and you end up losing 0-2 pts per match for experience against some of the best teams. This experience is priceless when your playing for rating.

Take advantage of your time in the lower bracket to let these teams farm you and work on your strat's against Eurocomp's, Triple Melee, 3 Healer Groups, etc... Getting farmed for points when your not after them means nothing. I also tried to play +100 games a week. How do you do that? Have more than one healer. Multiboxers are essentially running 5v5 teams with the requirement of 2v2. Recruit anyone willing to heal. Let people know your roster isn't set and your just trying to figure things out.

Im sure some of you are thinking, that sounds Silly! But theres actually some benefits:

• Theres no pressure on anyone to perform, you have nothing but your time at risk (dont make me remind you it is just a game, lol).
• You'll learn to identify the skill level of the healer you are playing with and the strengths and weaknesses of different healers.
• More games = more time to practice your Ellay impersonation in the arena.
• Switching healers means that you aren't dependent on a single classes spell to save you (ie. BoP, Pain Supression, +1 Grounding Totem, etc...)

Playing with so many people also taught me to make a standard convention on what was communication was necessary. Some people would give me play by play, these people could seriously work for ESPN. Other people wouldn't ever say a word but Hello. A big part of 5v5 success is your ability to communicate with your team. Since we only have 2 people with very specific rules I came up with these 5 phrases I tell my healer to use. Why only these lines? Because I react to the phrase rather than trying to process the information, we all know theres a thousand different ways to skin a cat (I only need to master one). So heres my list of Healer to Multiboxer Communication.

• Phrase 1: Heal your main.
• Phrase 2: Heal your Alt. ( I dont care which one, it only takes fractions of a second to find him on the bar.)
• Phrase 3: Heal me. (someone is obviously focusing my healer...good opportunity to burn them down).
• Phrase 4: Im silenced, Feared, Cycloned. (This tells me to watch out for any burst dmg cause I dont have a healer for a couple of seconds.)
• Phrase 5: Going to Fear, Hammer of Justice, Cyclone.

These 5 phrases win the game for me everytime. You could add in watch for rez, but this is a good thing because its 5v4 and they're playing not to lose at this point. Its just execution from this point. Some of you are probably wondering how I identify different classes. I have proximo and so do my healers no need to tell me what proximo already has.

In the end there are 3 reasons I will not accept a loss as a loss. 1st when I miss my nuke (4X shaman is built around this), 2ndly is Not determing class makeup (You can't counter an unkown team), and 3rdly is my healer missing one of the 5 phrases. With a 5 healer team theres no reason for anyone to die. Given it happens but when these 3 things have failed I find it a well fought battle.

Hope this was helpful, its not gaming changing and pretty much just my playstyle. I just thought I'd share it in a post and see what you guys thought of my perspective.

-Cheers and happy Boxing!

P.S. I can't wait to screenshot those S3 shoulders when I get home from work today! 8o

My max is 78 games in one week.

I agree it's good practice, and in my battlegroup I mostly face top 10 teams anyhow, so I do face the best. (Very inactive battlegroup, almost no competition in the grey area, it's all queue dodgers and those who can keep standing at the top ranks.)

I've learned to deal with three healer set ups while playing the best. There are still comps I have trouble with. Mostly it's because I lack like... A tinny tiny bit of gear. Getting chars on 1-5% etc, can be frustrating, but it's all part of the game. Either way, I agree farming works, so playing a lot keeps you focused and causes you to learn and adapt. But mmh, everytime I meet a team that's 1700 or lower, I don't learn much, to be honest. I just rape them and get ready for the next game. Until I face a top ten team that then farms me for a 4-6 points a game, ten games straight. Whilest the teams I beat I usually never see again. Unless I play on tuesdays. :P So, I should probably play more on tuesdays. (It's the EU day before reset.).

I'm also eager to try with a holy paladin, but I don't know any decent one on my server. So I play with a disc priest at the moment, he ain't too bad, but against some set ups he has major problems keeping me up. A paladin would have it much easier there. And would probably win me more games.

Anyhow, we use some odd tactics. We divise our own really. And often works quite well against some set ups. I love playing cat and mouse with drain teams. Communication is important, but, I still always watch my healer so I know what situation he is in, he doesn't really need to tell me anything.