Arena: Edging closer to my 3v3 goal

Sigh, I did it again. I ended up with capped conquest all night and was not getting anymore points and wondering why I was still stuck on 1700 for the week.  Silly me.

This patch is going to be the last patch before there will be no more battlegroups, and the top 2000 teams will be the top 2000 teams over the whole region.  Being in Vengeance has increased our queue times and decreased our team variety, but it has allowed us to place in the top 2000 for the battlegroup.  So when patch comes, we will never place in the top 2000 ever again /sadface

Every time we would get a little bit of extra rating I'd take a screenshot and say "OMG this is our best rating ever in 3v3!" and Sev and Shab would laugh at me.  Sev told me to stop talking about it because it was going to jinx us and make us lose.

So I was pretty chuffed last night to get a 1683 rating which was the best rating I had ever had in 3v3.  That places us at #502 which is SOOO close to the magic #500 which I was aiming for as a personal achievement.


We had some really good games last night and some spectacular losses.  Our last game was memorable - boomkin, disc priest and warlock that we had played before and I thought we had lost to them previously.  It was a long match, and with an all caster playoff it was to my great disadvantage to play on their side of the field.  We were in either Tol'vir or Nagrand arena (I only remember pillars) and I had mushrooms laid on our pillar but we spent a lot of time fighting at their pillar.  I was trying to keep out of range of those fucking OP fears but I still had a lot on me, with the priest doing a good job fearing me and someone else silencing me.  I only had a few cyclones on me but that was probably because they were trying to kill the boomy and he didn't have time to get them out.  I think what won us that game was running back to our own pillar, popping mushrooms to get us back up and then burning the druid again.  Sev's dots were causing a lot of damage and the priest was having difficulty keeping up with the damage as my mana seemed to be good and hers wasn't so good.  Sev said the priest was rather squishy so they switched and down went the priest and after that it was easy.

Shab had recently suggested some changes for me to try in arena (after watching some more druid videos), and at first I was skeptical but it seems to have gone rather well.  I used to use Glyph of Blooming, Glyph of Barkskin and Glyph of Regrowth for PvP, but he suggested I use Glyph of Cyclone, Glyph of Lifebloom and Glyph of Barkskin.  It used to annoy me that my lifeblooms would be refreshed when I cast regrowth, and I wanted the lifebloom to bloom for the big heal.  However, Shab said that there was benefit to keeping the stacks rolling (as well as not wasting global cool downs stacking them on again) and being able to transfer it to another player with 3 stacks rolling and because I use that Glyph for PvE it's not that much of a difference.  Glyph of Regrowth is a tougher one for me to give up.  I really liked having EVERY regrowth crit, and the dot was so pissy I never missed it.  Shab said it was good to have it as an extra hot for swiftmends and also then shaman will have to purge an extra time to get rid of the hot, so I am trying to cope without it.  Glyph of Cyclone is cool, just never had room for it before but it's nice to have the extra range.

Shab also encouraged me to use tranquility more by hiding behind a pillar and casting it.  It's actually been quite useful and I really like that, and I have been using it a LOT.

It have only just gotten used to having Ironbark on my mouse, so I am able to cast it a lot more now, and quicker.  I kept forgetting it was there and pressing the hotkey for it but now that it's becoming more habit, I feel like it's fitting into my repertoire a lot better.

A number of games stand out from memory.  We were up against a Disc Priest/DK/Warlock team and both team's warlocks died at the same time, but Shab and I could not last against the priest and DK.  I was also running out of mana.

There was a hunter and double rogue team which was going to be painful.  I took a risky gamble and went tree 3 seconds after the doors opened, so I could get full LBs and rejuvenates on all 3 of us.  It would have been terrible if they had decided to wait me out and my tree form faded, but I was afraid of the double rogue attack which would lock me down and render me unable to get any heals off - I think that's what they were counting on.  Hunter pets came out early onto me, and the the rogues appeared and they opened up on me but fortunately I lived through it long enough for the hunter to die but I died not long after and the boys finished off the two rogues.

There was an interesting combo - fire mage, holy priest and warlock.  But never underestimate an odd combination, and boy was that a REALLY close fight.  Constant cc's with polys, silences, counterspells, dragon's breath, fears... boy was the potty language pouring out of my mouth!  There were so many close moments... and Shab managed to make it back to mushrooms and got to full health and he was happy.  Shab nearly died, I nearly died but our cooldowns were just right for healing and survival because we lived and they didn't.  Glad we weren't overconfident with them or it would have been a humiliating loss.

We did poorly against teams with elemental shamans.  One team had a boomkin and an ele shamaan and that was really painful and I was cycloned heaps and killed with lava burst.  Didn't even have time to hit ice block :(

One team fell for our typical Void Hawk opener in a Blade's Edge arena - Sev sets up a portal, Shab goes invisible, frost nova's them all and Sev takes his portal and starts dotting them up and I just run in at the back and heal from range.  One other thing that Shab told me was to stop stealthing in.  Now I run in and prehot everyone (which you can only do once the doors open because the start of arena removes them all if you did it in prep time) and lay mushrooms.  The temptation to displacer into the crowd to warstomp or roar is still very high and I have done it a few times to try to keep the healer cc'd while they smash their target.  However, if I get close then I am susceptible to cc as well.

Shab said we should stream one of our fights.  I said no way.  People will see the stuff ups I make.  Like when I accidentally warstomp instead of tranq (their icons are next to each other on the bar).  Or when I displacer beast into a pillar and run into it for a second before I realise I'm not going anywhere.  Or when I hit tree form when I'm trying to lay mushrooms... /facepalm.  Maybe I will one day, but only for our own benefit, not for public viewing LOL!

Comments

  1. One of you guys should DL Atrox Arena Viewer so I can watch in guild!

    Your rating went back up so fast! Good work! I can see Void Hawks ending the season in a nice place!

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    Replies
    1. It's kinda weird to have on - I need to have it on when the boys are fighting so I can watch!

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  2. I wasn't meaning to make the video available for public viewing. Would be nice to just watch back how we play so that we can see our mistakes and hopefully learn from them. It would be useful to pick up things which we may not be aware of during the game. But yeah, games with accidental poly's on the wrong target will be immediately deleted!

    But I won't say no if luxy or anyone else wants to cheer us on :) That addon Luxy linked looks pretty cool. Might check it out.

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    Replies
    1. Don't worry Shab, I'm happy to yell loudly on vent anytime you accidentally poly the wrong target. :p

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    2. Haha you sounded like Navi.

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    3. Still think you both should get FRAPS and video one - both of you have flash computers, I'm sure it could hack it! Then we could do a combo video.

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