WHEW
We didn't hit our goal of 1600... We had decided to give today a try so that we could get a good idea of the quality of players that arena this day of the week. It wasn't so much that everyone was much more skilled, it was that the teams we faced were much more cheesy. Comps like DK/Boomkin, or DK/Pally. With my partner being Shadow instead of Disc, its much harder for him to stay alive against them. When he played druid he would regularly kite them without a second thought. Team this with a boomkin. If they're on any other team we fold them like wet bags. But, with the control dk's bring, aoe ground dots that slow like a hunter trap, direct dots that slow you and so on. It made it very hard to finish one off. They have excellent tools to peel with. Going from bottom rung arenas were DK's yank you sheerly to get you back to them, to now at higher rating where they use it wisely is a change we have to adjust to and perhaps entirely change strat on.
All was not lost, we got just under halfway to our goal and we still have Monday to play. We finished our play after a really really rewarding match against a Disc/Mutilate team. Fighting against a mutilate rogue when you're both unstealthed can be a challenge when you play sub. They're able to mutilate at any time, and with talents consistantly have crippling poison on you. This makes it quite a challenge to get behind them, especially if your both the kind of players that use a mouse to turn. Your real big window of oppertunity is when you shadowdance them. At this point you can pour real damage into them that in most cases will put them quite low and hopefully force a vanish, I always include a garrote in my dance rotation no matter what the class, for rogues to prevent a vanish, for casters to get the 3 second silence buff.
What happened in the end? I hard focused the rogue and blew my dance on him to sheerly crowd control, giving my priest much needed time to get dots out and to spot heal me enough that i'd live. The enemy priest was feared, I sprang off to keep myself alive, with initial thoughts of just bandaging, but as I saw him coming I restealthed, Cattywampus shouted in vent, I saw what he was talking about. The rogue was one hit from death. We finished him off, and it made for the highlight fight of the night. I only wish I had xfire running to record it, as it went on for a good 10 minutes it felt like(it probably only lasted half of that, but time slows down in there). I was in a constant flirt with death. I was blowing all my cd's defensively. In the end it was creative play that got us the win. After that match we felt it was best to call it on a good note, we had pulled ahead of our original rating, and we had just got done with a titanic match that even the losing team would have to tip their hat about.
Creativity IS THE BIGGEST CONTRIBUTOR TO WINNING BAR NONE. You can be completely under geared and bag a win for the only reason that your team was able to do things differently, to find a way to get the damage in and stay alive yourselves. This is equally important on a 2's team where you don't have a healer. Even in my case playing with a class that can heal, I know I cannot rely on my partner to always bail me out and keep me up. It'll drain his resources and he'll be in as much trouble as I was.
I deadly threw and evasioned to give myself room. The other rogue had used the same attack, however it was the lucky dodge from evasion that made that entire win possible.
The mechanics behind the victory because of what he did aren't immediately clear when your playing, but after writing this much in thought of it. I can see how we got it. The other priests incapacitated status is nothing at that juncture of the fight, as one hit would kill me. It was the fact that I had room between the two of us, separating myself and the rogue, and the priest. The rogue followed with sprint, completely ranging out his healing partner. I had enough time to restealth and move away. As enticing as it is to just jump on him immediately, I knew he would fan to spring me out from stealth. I backed away and let him fire 2 off. At this point he'd have to wait a few seconds before he could use it again. I struck then. The rogue went down, my priest had perfect situational awareness, he was right there to cover me, and may have gotten the kill instead of myself. Whatever the case he was there to provide support in the way of damage, and it also kept him away from the enemy priest who may have used some mana burns or anything else.
I had really felt this was a losing match, and I was doing my best to keep myself alive, and the rogue pinned on me to bide him some time. I even forego'd putting direct damage in, and instead started firing both my bleed attacks. In the event I did die, he'd take a stream of damage long after I was taking my dirt nap, preventing him from stealth and hopefully providing enough damage to finish the job.
I really have to say that I got respect for that team. It was a squared away match that could have went both ways.
I did do some things that were deeply in our favor. Sapping the priest will always get the attention of the rogue if he hasn't already sapped your partner. Sure enough after the sap the rogue came nearby, and I was able to sap him out. While this doesn't initially cause him a loss of a cooldown, the initial opener for a rogue is pivotal for your team. With pressure on him he had the only option of scrambling by trinketing out and firing off cooldowns. In any arena match even when you're a burst down team, the goal is to try to get the other team to blow their cooldowns quickly, and before you have to.
Other factors are that defensively playing is sometimes also playing offensively. In my case I had to use shadow dance to keep my opponent in a never ending cheap shot. My partner was able to line dots up, and I was able to keep my ass from eating grass.
So we deduced that today isn't fun day to play, and will probably keep it to Mondays until we get a hunch that another day is better lol.
1600 will happen this week BELIEVE IT!
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