Multiboxing 3v3 tips?

So I'm thinking of taking the plunge into 3v3 with my shaman, mainly for the quick games, rating (to upgrade to my relentless pieces), and a just the good ol feeling of multiboxing by yourself (play when I want, no one to blame, no one to apologize to).

5v5 queues are still slow, and my healer comes online maybe once a week. Definitely still want to push high in 5v5, now that I have a full season of experience. Want to get a few upgrades and a new healer first (best rating was 1740 last season, very mediocre healer)... that and the FoK nerf.

Ok, so last time I did 3v3 was at the end of season 5, in savage gear (when most people had hateful/deadly or naxx 25 stuff), and win rate was like 15% maybe. How do you hold up to cleave teams with no healer at all, and what if you burst damage gets absorbed or healed through? Is there a good strategy?

ive found that I really have to lead off on warrior cleave killing the warrior or its gg usualy. People have weapons with such high damage that I cant heal or dps through it.

That said, i wait for the inc and lead off with LB or CL , flame shock... which ques me for a quick lavaburst x3 and they die. If that fails, well fuck me cus its pretty much over.

Double healer is just laughable, lusted I can burn through more then almost anyone can heal for so I just focus the dps or try and blow a healer up, while magma totemz tick away on the one guy beating me.

Grant it I only got to 1075, and then lost a match but so far so good i think. Im roughly about 50% win ratio, about 60 games played. Alot of it was learning curve and different gear on my one shaman but I lost like 7 matches using one of my guys lol.

On double healer do you mean you kill one of the healers first? In 5v5, double healer can keep someone alive thorugh 4x lava burst, 4 chain lightning, and 4 frost shock, no problem at all. I can imagine it being near impossible to kill a single target with 2 dedicated healers with only 3 shaman. But a healer (other than a priest) should be an easy kill.. especially resto druid or shaman, I love ganking them.

Don't really mind doing 50-100 games to get to 1200 or so and start getting upgrades. Probably be faster than getting 15 games in with my paladin, after waiting all week for him to log on. And then we have to deal with the aoe spamfest that is level 80 5v5 arena. We did do pretty well last week, better than last season. We went 8-4 but the 4 losses were to two teams we recognized from last season that already know how to beat us, 2400 MMR teams. One of em we've beaten before, but now they have 2 or 3 blood elves and my healer is not good enough to do things like pop aura mastery at the start of the fight, so we lose to cheap tactics like them charging in and aoe silencing. And then after that they generally just play terribly, shooting the wrong shaman (I've already switched to an alt at that point) but everything is so screwed up that we lose anyway.

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Originally Posted by heyaz

my healer is not good enough to do things like pop aura mastery at the start of the fight, so we lose to cheap tactics like them charging in and aoe silencing. And then after that they generally just play terribly, shooting the wrong shaman (I've already switched to an alt at that point) but everything is so screwed up that we lose anyway.

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I'm not surprised your healer doesn't log in to play 5's with you if he's faced with a fraction of the negativity you've shown towards him in the few arena related posts you've put up here.

You obviously feel you know how to play his class better than he does - so why not give him the benefit of that great knowledge. Give him tips and tricks. If you want him to pop aura mastery for a fight, ask for it (you are on vent aren't you?)
Perhaps give him the simple rules you use to decide what to pop and when. Time spent helping him improve will help you too.

Try to remember - without that independant healer you probably wouldn't have attained the ranking you did have.
If you do criticise do it constructively.

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Originally Posted by shaeman

I'm not surprised your healer doesn't log in to play 5's with you if he's faced with a fraction of the negativity you've shown towards him in the few arena related posts you've put up here.

You obviously feel you know how to play his class better than he does - so why not give him the benefit of that great knowledge. Give him tips and tricks. If you want him to pop aura mastery for a fight, ask for it (you are on vent aren't you?)
Perhaps give him the simple rules you use to decide what to pop and when. Time spent helping him improve will help you too.

Try to remember - without that independant healer you probably wouldn't have attained the ranking you did have.
If you do criticise do it constructively.

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Whatlol? Are you his healer? lol

Instead of petting cute pink fluffy bunnies you could try out several healers and then you could choose which ever one was available when you want to play and drop the ones who suck. I did get my 3 BM hunters to 1650 last season. Zerg the squishy gave me a 50% win rate. I am starting to gear out my shaman for Enhancement thinking I can do the same as my hunters.

I am also at a 50% win ratio in 3s. It's surprising the hell out of me how good im doing. Last season I was around the 10-20% range.
One thing that is pissing me off is that my match making number is currently in the 900s......with a team rating of 750~. Playing a majority of teams with a MM# in the 1000s....if i loose I get negative points.....if i win I get 0 points...........WTF?

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Originally Posted by Fat Tire

Whatlol? Are you his healer? lol.

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hehe - it did come across that way didn't it.

I Kind of lost the real point i was trying to make though :)

Good healers are hard to find - and even harder to keep.

So training your healer to do what you want them to do can be more practical.

I think the core issue is that of communication.

Things like popping aura mastery and not having a druid cyclone the target you are about to hit your iwin button against are easily fixed. Get vent and talk to each other whilst fighting.

If your partner continues to do stupid stuff when you've asked them not to - well then it's time to get a new partner.

And of course if they aren't playing as often as you want to then it's time to get another.

Thanks guys, will try some 3's in the next few days and see how it goes.

So going pretty well so far. About 30 games in, maybe 40% win rate (mostly because of me being a noob, should be 60%) but here are my early observations:

The bad:
- Decent comps (RMP, etc.) I'm not going to beat. Who cares.
- Anything with a warlock (like half the teams) have a pretty good chance unless they are all terrible. More than once got down to 1 warlock 1 shaman... lol elemental shaman vs warlock. It's like having lava burst without a cooldown, and 45% magic mitigation at all times. Forget it.
- Cleave teams with a shaman (bloodlust means gg for a few of my shaman right off the bat). Some cleaves can be beaten, but the bloodlust really puts them over the top in damage
- Wizard cleave. "Where are my grounding totems? Oh they're on cooldown already, just put them down 2 seconds ago"
- Played a team with an enh shaman... needs to die first. They cut through elemental shsmans like butter (this guy had all 3 killing blows).

The good:
- So many less buffs to deal with since it's typically only 1 buffer/healer. People are softer. Surprised to be able to gib full furious people with only 3 shaman.
- Much less twitchy players than 5v5. Any scrub 1000 MMR team in 5v5 has bubbles, pain surpression, and oh sh**t spells bound to mouse keys. So much as target something and they have every damage mitigation ability imaginable on them before you even flame shock (in 5v5s).
- People aren't used to 3 dps and extremely high burst, which means you'll catch hunters who don;t deterrence, pallies who don't bubble, and rogues who don't cloak (or do it at the wrong time). Obviously not true in higher ranks, but quite a disparity between this and 5v5 where every 500 PR retard will bubble before you even think about nuking him.
- With the exception of geared destro locks and warrior+paladin cleave, it's actually possible to heal myself and survive
- The "aoe everything" theme of this expansion is so much less significant than it is in 5v5s. As much as I love quad boxing, the plethora of aoe cc and aoe damage spells (that hit nearly as hard as single target spells) of 5v5s make it kind of irritating to play, even when you're winning.
- Quick games, quick queues, and no one but myself means you can shake off that 10 second loss and requeue and be playing again before you even have time to wonder why you even bother boxing pvp
- Rogues are typically not throwing weapon spec, and I've yet to have someone use FoK on me even once. Not saying it won't happen, btu I can see in 3v3 this being a mediocre spec for higher ratings. You're likely to only hit 1 or possibly 2 targets with it.

About 600 rating at the moment. Don't expect anything amazing, but my goal here is to get my relentless off pieces as quickly as possible, and if we hit snags in 5v5 (like last season), I'm going to do myself a favor and upgrade gear instead of doing the entire season in hateful crap and earning low points because I'm simply outgeared.

I think what I like the most is that I just don't care. It's a stupid comp for 3v3, it's one guy playing the entire team, and the time investment is negligable. 5v5 takes more energy, another person, and there's always that thing in the back of your head that says you can be better because it's been done well before.

Excellent report. Definitely sounds like there's some fun to be had there.