Hoof's Arena Tactics Thread

[Hoofhurr]

So I decided to devote some of my usually squandered mental capacity at work yesterday towards freeing ourselves of the up and down stagnation that we're experiencing in all three of my arena teams. I isolated one event in particular that seemed to repeat itself over and over in our losses, namely the burning down of one particular target only to have that target escape our dps and be restored to full health. That event, of course, spells doom for a strategy that, in the absence of mass amounts of crowd control, relies on burst dps to even the playing field quickly before settling into sustained dps/healing combination that should seal our wins.

So what needs to happen to prevent our target from escaping imminent doom? Well we do have CC. Including me. But it's very little, easily countered, and often unreliable. But how much CC do we really need to get the job done? It turns out that not much is needed but what is needed is communication and coordination so that we stack the CC on the proper targets at the proper times and not just whenever we have the random opportunity.

Who needs to be CCed and when? Well that's always the same answer. The healer when their target (even if that target is them) has 30-50% health remaining. When you have widdled your target down to that point it's time to pop the dps cooldowns and simultaneously CC the healer. At that juncture all healing needs to stop and every person on the team switches to their CC/dps functionality to drop that target. If you can't drop the target with that level of concerted effort then the game is over anway so might as well save the cooldowns for that match-deciding event eh? Coordinating this is actually quite simple. It just takes one person who is watching the main target's health to gauge the timing and make the call. When the target has dropped our dps/healing strategy can resume and we patiently eliminate the remaining outnumbered opponents. Granted things won't always go as planned but Focus CCing is just as important as focus firing if you hope to win against a team with a competent healer. Yes this does make us more susceptible to those classes that have great abilities against clustered groups but we have to play to our known strengths and not to what may or may not be aweakness depending on the opponents we draw.

Arenas with Hoofhurr

Guess what? I'm a melee dpser! No surprise there eh? But what you might not know about me is that I have a suite of abilities outside of Mortal Strike that are very effective in arenas.

-Demoralizing Shout - Short range AE attack power reduction
-Thunderclap - Pointblank 20% attack speed reduction
-Sweepingstrikes - All my melee attacks hit an adjacent target for 4 swings
-Cleave - Strong 2 target melee attack.
-Intimidating shout - Point blank 4 target fear.

The take home message from the above is that if we want to maximize my abilities I should always be near multiple targets, preferrably melee targets. Most teams have a healer that needs to stand still to heal or a melee class that has to stay close to a target in order to cc/dps. We should be stacking on top of eachother and not running away from chasers or chasing after runners if at all possible.

To sum up the thread:
1) Focus CCing is as critical as Focus Firing
2) The two should be synchronized for maximum effect.
3) Staying clustered helps Hoof help you.

I admittedly know very little about my teammates class abilities. Ya'll should list those abilities that fit into the overall strategy that I've outlined in this thread so that I know a little more about how to incorporate them effecaciously.[/u]

[Hoofhurr]

I'm going to expand on this strategy with respect to our 5v at a future time.

Place Held :wink:

[Slamz]

I need to play with some macros. There's something built into WOW that's like a "memory recall target". You can set it, then direct attacks to it later on without having to retarget.

I should be able to do that to a healer, then switch to your target and start nuking and when the target gets low, I can pop off a fear on the memorized-healer without having to switch to him.


Only problems are:
1) Sometimes there's more than 1 healer
2) Sometimes the healer is out of range of my Fears but still in range of heals and it takes me a few seconds to find him, get in range and Fear, by which point he's healed like 6000 damage.
3) Sometimes healers resist



I was also thinking I could respec entirely to Affliction and go with Unstable Affliction + Felhound.

I can (in theory) use a similar trick as above with the Felhound -- make Hoofhurr be my "memorized target" and have a macro that tells the Felhound to Devour Magic on the memorized target. Hoof gets trapped or debuffed and I can have the Felhound do a devour. Keeping Hoof mobile is critical and sometimes Cerradwin is busy healing or is CC'd himself.

Problems:
1) I'll be somewhat squishier as an Affliction lock.
2) Felhounds can't Devour poison or physical snares and there's a bit of a recycle to their ability
3) Felhound DPS is obviously a whole lot lower than Felguard DPS


I tried the Succubus a few times, but she's just too high maintainence and too easily countered.

[Skaag]

1) Don't suck

2) If you do, claim you are drunk/high

3) If that doesn't work, blame Flabbo or Orsun.

[Hoofhurr]

Only problems are:
1) Sometimes there's more than 1 healer
2) Sometimes the healer is out of range of my Fears but still in range of heals and it takes me a few seconds to find him, get in range and Fear, by which point he's healed like 6000 damage.
3) Sometimes healers resist

1) In 3v there is usually only one guy devoted to healing. For 5v...I'm still thinking =)
2) We should really be compensating for range issues by sticking close to the healer as much as possible. Half the time he'll be my target.
3) Resist yep. But resist your fear, my fear/pummel and Veraphim's stuns? Less likely. We have to stack our CCs to lower the chance of resist.

I'd like this concept to be the core of our strategy for 5v. I haven't worked out the details but at least it provides a framework for us to conceptualize around, tweaking as we go. Sure we are going to run into team configurations and skilled opponents that counter our strategy. My intention is simply to give us something to work towards and raise our weekly rating to more quickly bridge the gear gap that we currently have. We can do better than batting .500 at 1550. I'm used to doing better anyhow.

[Demosthenes]

i think this is the macro you are looking for Zimjin.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.wowwiki.com/HOWTO:_Make_a_Macro#What_is_.22focus.22.3F">http://www.wowwiki.com/HOWTO:_Make_a_Ma ... ocus.22.3F</a><!-- m -->

[Snowreap]

nice link, I never thought to check wowwiki for macro information.

my current barely-functional macros are about to get a nice upgrade.

-ken

[Vanraw]

From a Resto Shammie perspective, Ive only played 3v3 and it was with Vllad (protection Warrior) and Doph (PVE speced Hunter). We sorta sucked, but had a blast. So I have to say the first goal is to have fun .

Here is the bottom line. Its all about surviving. I hear people talking about how they cant kill a resto shamie. Im hear to tell you that if 3 guys are beating on me, I die. If 2 of those can stun, I die fast. But if I can avoid 3 guys from beating on me, then I can help the team win. Good teams will target and kill me quickly. Then you just watch from the floor as they wipe up the rest of the rest of the team.

Also all the best laid plans are dead in combat. I went out and defined how much burst damage I could do out the gate. fighting against PVE its actually not to bad. I cant sustain burst damage, but I could get a fair chunk out in the beginning of the fight if I used nature swiftness, Blood Fury trinkets etc etc. But when I tried to apply these in the Arena, they didn't work well.



1. Don't run out there first. Let your MT's and DPSers engage. If the other team sees you first you will be targeted first and die really fast. I think its critical that we try to engage as a team fast, so that the other team is put on the defensive rather then the "healer hunt".

Bottom line, for most of our 3v3 wins, If I lived we won because Vllad and Doph won. If I was the first target and I died, we lost. So the lesson was try to not become the target.

1a. In the beginning do some damage. Get some frost shocks and chain lightnings out there. Then chill a bit on shocks and try to save them for the timed interrupt.

1b. Make sure your configuration is set up to not heal your self if a friendly isn't targeted. You should be able to target a enemy healer and watch for them to cast a heal. You can heal others in your party by casting a heal and then clicking them.

1c. With a level 1 earth shock (unless your mana is fine) interrupt the healer as late in thier casting as possible. the more time they consume waiting for their heal to hit the better.

1d. If you have clear casting and get the chime then always try to cast chain lighting. Its the most expensive and damaging spell you have.

2. Blood Lust. This is a great group buff for arena. The trick is to use it as soon as everyone is engaged in DPS output. It allows for everyone to kick off some very nice burst damage. Also if your mass targeted know that you are probabaly going to die, so cast it now.

3. Natures Swiftness. Save it for the crucial heal. There will come a time when it is the difference. You cast it on your self, in a survival attempt, or you use it to get that "running" last second save on one of your team members. It can be the difference between a win or a loss.

5. Chain healing. Honestly unless I'm left alone I don't use this allot in Arena / BG PVP. For the most part is because it gives the enemy a bright yellow line to follow to a healer. If I'm left alone and everyone is low, I would use it.

6. Totems. This is a deep subject. Many don't understand the difference between each totem type. People want windfury, and agility and grounding totem and wrath. Guess what, you only get one air. so which would you want. Earth, same thing. Earth bind is one of the best PVP totems, but so is tremor to manage the fears, and of course warriors like the STR.

So I think it depends on the situation. But here are some facts.

Water- Healing totem for a Resto shamie heals me for about 100 hp a tick. Thats not bad. However if you have a couple of rogues your fighting, cure poison will cure what ales you. In the end, I use Healing totem, and then mana tide later on as needed.

Air - Grounding totem is nice, but you should cast it ASAP, so that you can cast another as soon as its spent. However if you have hunters and rogs in your group agility will boost the groups DPS very nicely and give you the win. If you have loc;s, mages and shadow priest, then wrath of air will help destroy the enemy. It depends on your group. But my take is if you have a mixed group, then keep a grounding totem out there as often as possible. Very low mana, and will eat a mages 3k bolt. Thats a heal your dont have to give. Mash it as soon as its up.

Earth - Either earth bind or Tremor. It depends on your enemy. If they have a bunch of fearing classes, then tremor totem all the way. If not then get that Earth bind into the middle of the fray so your tanks can pound on em.

Fire - Its easy to cast a searing totem that will do 140 dps every 2 secs. If everyone is gathered togeather then nova is cool, but its allot of mana for something that can be destroyed with one little hit.


not checked for typos..... course I rarely do...

[Slamz]

Couple macros I set up:

Primary:

Code:

/focus [target=focus, noexists] [target=focus, dead]
/stopmacro [target=focus, noexists]
/cast [pet:succubus,target=focus,harm]Seduction;[pet:voidwalker]Sacrifice;[pet:Felhunter,target=focus]Devour Magic;[pet:Felguard,target=focus]Intercept

Secondary:

Code:

/cast [target=focus,harm] Fear
/cast [pet:Felhunter,target=focus,harm] Spell Lock;[pet:Felguard,target=focus,harm] Intercept

The first macro assigns my current target to my focus, if I don't already have one.

It will Intercept, Seduce or Devour Magic on my focus, depending on the pet.

The second macro will cast Fear on my focus as well as Spell Lock or Intercept.


So I can target a healer and do the first macro to set him as focus, then change my target to whoever, then hit the second macro whenever I need to interrupt that healer: between Spell Lock, Intercept and Fear, I ought to be able to land something.


Was able to test it a little bit on NPCs and it seems to work. Could use some tweaking, might also need a "clearfocus" key, but I'll see how it goes.

[OrsunVZ]

So what is the command to switch back to your previous target? I need this badly.

[Slamz]

If you're talking about the "focus", you don't need to switch.

Doing "/cast [target=focus] fear" will cast the spell on your Focus without changing your current target.




What I really wanted to say, though, was that you should all go download the mod called "Proximo". It's an Arena helper and it's pretty awesome. Shows you the health and class of all enemies in the Arena (as soon as you detect them) and you can click them to target them.

[tanktastic]

Jeez Orsun you idiot, just type /cast [target=focus]....what a noob

[Slamz]

Oh yeah, and download the mod called "Proximo". Huge benefit for the Arena.

One of the things it does is sets your focus if you right-click a name in the Proximo window. This makes the macroing easier since now I don't need a "set/clear focus" part to the macro. I just set it with Proximo and use it with the macro.

[Vanraw]

Very cool by the way I just tried it with earthshock lvl 1's on mobs and it seems to work.

I havent loaded proximo. One comment, is that I cant seem to change focus once I set it and entered combat. Example.

Set focus on target mob1.

target mob2.

earthshock focused mob1 while still having mob2 targeted.

Try to change focus to mob3 by running the macro again. Doesnt work, mob1 still is set to focus.

[Slamz]

That's because of this line:

Code:

/focus [target=focus, noexists] [target=focus, dead]

That says to set the current target as focus only if the current focus doesn't exist or is dead.

If you want to make the macro ALWAYS set the current focus as target, just change it to:

Code:

/focus

In Proximo (which only works in Arenas) you can right click names inside the Proximo window to set your focus.



On a related note, I think I'll switch to full affliction. The good teams are impossible to DOT or keep feared because they just insta-dispell it (probably with the help of a mod). I can get away with Demonology in 3v3 because they might not have a dispeller, but basically every 5v5 team has a dispeller, if not 2 or 3. Throwing some Unstable Afflictions around might be what I need to make all those dispells risky in a 5v5 situation.

[Vanraw]

To bad purge doesn't work on friendlies.

[Slamz]

Shaman are a pain too, with tremor and grounding totems, and they can dispel paladin buffs, namely Blessing of Protection and Blessing of Freedom. That always screws our team, since we're Paladin heavy and rely on those buffs to keep the mage and warlock alive and to keep Hoofhurr free from snares and roots.

I'll say again, though, that the shaman deficiency is in the way totems work. Totems have always been underpowered and too easy to "dispel", IMO. It's basically a buff that anyone with a dagger or arrow can dispel, which is pretty retarded.

[Vanraw]

Yea, I have SCT set to display the buffs my purge removes, and Pound that sucker until it says "nothing to dispel.

I do wish it worked on friendly debuffs though.

[Waeloga]

Shaman are a pain too, with tremor and grounding totems, and they can dispel paladin buffs, namely Blessing of Protection and Blessing of Freedom. That always screws our team, since we're Paladin heavy and rely on those buffs to keep the mage and warlock alive and to keep Hoofhurr free from snares and roots.

I'll say again, though, that the shaman deficiency is in the way totems work. Totems have always been underpowered and too easy to "dispel", IMO. It's basically a buff that anyone with a dagger or arrow can dispel, which is pretty retarded.

I used to have a macro that, if I spammed it, made my pet target and kill totems automatically. I agree, totems are simply too easy to kill.

[OrsunVZ]

I need that macro Wae!!!! what is it?

[Waeloga]

I need that macro Wae!!!! what is it?

After 2.0 this sort of macro got a lot harder to make but i did come up with something.

I don't have the origional but basicly it went something like this.
(from my imperfect memory)

/petattack [target=Grounding totem,exists,harm]
/petattack [target=Tremor totem,exists,harm]
/petattack [target=Earthbind totem,exists,harm]

Basicly this will tell your pet to attack the last target on the list that exists, and is enemy, the macro works best if your pet is in passive mode to start.
Change the names of the totems to what you hate the most, remember the last one is the first to get attacked.
Don't spam this if there are no totems, it will cause your pet to attack targets who's names are simular the totems.

You might try adding this to the end of the macro, but I think it will screw it up, I can't remember that part of it.
/petfollow [target=pettarget,exists]


It's been a while.. I might have mispelled something, check my syntax, ect.


I was exparamenting with /castsequence to do a better job of totem killing, but I never finished.

Duel some shamans to test this out, it's not perfect just yet. Give me some feedback and I'll see if I can improve it. I don't have the abilityt o test.

[Vanraw]

Hrmmm that explains why alot of the hunters / locks I fight, and even mages destroy my totems almost as soon as I cast them. My grounding totem gives me a message on how much damage it took. Way to often is it some lvl 1 spell that must be macro.

On the totem note that doesn't make sense to me. Why do they have PVE Totem encounters that can not be learned by a player. For instance there are a couple of regular world PVE encounters that have a root totem. Also the PVE totems are much harder to kill then 5 hp PVP totems.

In a PVE scenario, if I'm just doing a quest or farming something, any multi pulls will always destroy the totems as well. Unless I grab agro from the all, Any time I cast a nova or fire totem it is destroyed before it does a ounce of damage. Its a real mana waister, unless I can make sure agro is established.

So the Macro aspect makes sense now.

[Slamz]

Yeah, pre-2.0 there was a totem-killer mod and you could tell who had it. You'd drop a totem and pow, they'd instantly turn, hit it, then be back on you in the blink of an eye. Seriously annoyed me when playing level 60 BGs as Zimjin.

I'll have to try those macros. :-p Wouldn't surprise me if the totem killer mod was actually reduced to a simple macro now.

[Thudz]

New Shaman talents -

Improved Totems (1/1)
When a totem is destroyed by an enemy that enemy is inflicted with The Wrath of the Totem. Inflicting 500-700 nature damage and silencing the target for 5 seconds.

[Slamz]

What would be cool is if totems had something similar to Paladin seal judgements -- every totem has a special effect that occurs if you destroy it.


Destroy an earth totem and you're rooted for 5 seconds.
Destroy a wind totem and a gust of wind knocks you down.
Destroy a water totem and you lose resilience and haste for 5 seconds.
Destroy a fire totem and you get a Horror effect for 5 seconds.

Or even per-totem effects.


You walk into 4 totems and kill them all, you're going to be screwed.


Really, the mechanics of buffs, debuffs and cleansing kind of annoys me in general, but that's a whole other topic.