Sola Does Arena, Part 1

A central reason why I decided to create this blog was to document my foray into not only PVP but arenas! Our guild leader/captain (we have a pirate-themed guild, you see) is my 2v2 partner on his shaman. He is vastly very much experienced in the arena department...not on his shaman, but on his paladin, who is a force to be reckoned with in his 2s team with a guildie warlock.

Our composition is resto shaman/balance druid.

So far it has been an interesting ride. We've done two weeks' worth of matches which have run the gambit of compositions (but only tonight have I seen another moonkin, which was so wonderful), and so far, I have made some general observations on targeting priority in a 2v2 setting.

Assuming you roll with one of the specs listed in my earlier post, this seems to be the general strategy should you come across one of these teams:

Mage/Priest: If you happen to have a team with someone who can keep an eye on the healer, you should immediately engage the mage. With luck, the mage will run out of mana and attempt to run and evocate. Let them. Run up to them as soon as they start to channel and typhoon them away, interrupting their spellcast. Hopefully at this point, you are mere nukes away from victory.

Warrior/Paladin: This composition will be intimidating to deal with as a balance druid/healer team, but the important part here is to, at all costs, keep the warrior off your healer. Typhoon works great, roots, whatever you have to do. Hopefully you will enrage him enough to get him to attack you. After that, put up Nature's Grasp and Barkskin and typhoon him away between charges.

We actually lost our match versus a warrior/paladin team tonight, but this strategy seems to be one that will win the match. It's all a matter of protecting your healer and popping cooldowns that will keep your ass alive.

Warlock/Warlock: A team composition that is also known as OMGWTFWHYAMINEVERINCONTROLOFMYACTIONSGUYS. We lost ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLY to this composition, but should we see them in our bracket again, I have an idea. Pick a warlock and cyclone them. If the other one goes to fear you, drop trees only if it's the single-target fear. Let the fear happen as your trees begin to beat on the warlock. When the first warlock comes out of cyclone, immediately switch to the warlock you have treanted and cyclone them instead. Engage the second warlock. At this point, put up Nature's Grasp to keep pets off you and hit starfall every cooldown. When the first warlock comes out, hopefully the second warlock will be low enough that you can just finish them off without worry. An exception to this rule would be if one of the warlocks is using their succubus, in which case you would attack them with everything you have before the first seduction.

All in all, that composition is crazy hard if you have slow reflexes. It comes down literally to a 2v1, since the locks were essentially single-targeting me to remove me from the equation. Crazy times.

Warlock/Priest: On the other hand, while this may sound intimidating, your strategy will be similar to the Mage/Priest composition above. Try to have your healer keep the other healer occupied (or quickly cyclone them if they become too much of a threat) and single-target the warlock with everything you have.

My rule of thumb for using my PVP trinket against warlocks is to only use them on the long fear. The fear actually called Fear with a capital F as opposed to Howl of Terror or Death Coil. Your gut reaction upon being feared by anything will be to use your trinket, but if it's a warlock, and you're in an arena, it's important to be careful, for your partner's sake.

DK/Anything: Death Knights. They are so annoying to fight if they know what they're doing. There are still a lot of DKs who don't, but for the sake of argument, say you're fighting one who does. They have a lot of anti-magic, so you have to rely on your own survivability and careful timing of certain abilities. If the anti-magic bubble goes up, run away. Try and lure them away from the bubble. If they're smart, they'll pull you into the bubble, so what you do in this time is to engage the partner for a second until the bubble goes away. Without bogging you down with vocabulary, my next thought is to tell you to look out for the OTHER anti-magic bubble, which is a yellow glowing bubble about the size of Power Word: Shield. When this goes up, your reaction should be similar; engage the partner. This is where barkskin and nature's grasp REALLY come in handy, since in the time you go for their partner, they'll probably keep wailing on you.

Once I have a better grasp on my own abilities versus a DK, I will provide a more...comprehensive guide versus them in PVP. But the key thing to remember versus them is self-preservation, and watch out for their anti-magic abilities, since all you will do is waste mana.

That's it for now...that's a lot to take in (and it was a lot to type, but I was excited after our matches tonight). I will hopefully do a Part 2 to this post which will include more compositions to watch out for in 2v2 Rated Matches.

Happy PVPing!