2v2 Arena Progress, Lessons, & Strategies Part 2

Level 85 Destruction Warlock & Balance 'Moonkin' Druid - >> Affliction Warlock & Feral Druid
Follow our progress, the lessons we learn, and the strategies we try as we enter into Arena pvp with no experience and climb to the top!

This is Part 2 of our story! For Part 1 click here!
Lets recap, what have I learned so far?

The most important thing I've learned so far is that its impossiable to get ahead in arenas while being a clicker, so I've broken that habit. I've completely re-done my interface, set everything onto keybinds and gotten pretty use to it. The second most important thing I've learned is that in 2v2s you will be the primary target for the enemy 90% of the time as a Warlock. The majority of my time is spent trying to survive, and as a Destruction Warlock that makes it hard to keep my dps up at the same time. Since I have to focus on trying to stay alive its impossiable to do cast time dps, still continue to CC, and live at the same time.

So how do you plan to fix your survivability?

Well, it was clear our comp wasn't working. Since I had to focus on surviving and my dps dropped because of it, Kofo had to increase his dps to make up for it. The easiest way to do that was for him to switch to Feral. He had never played Feral before but we decided to give it a shot. He farmed BGs for about a week non-stop which was very frustrating for him. If anyone reading this is alliance they know what I'm talking about. You get about 80 honor per 30minute game since we lose about 80% of the BGs. In the end though he got his full set of BG pvp armor. The penalty though was he had to forfeit the arena pvp gear he already bought for his Moonkin since they use different armor. I decided to give Affliction yet another shot. I had only played it for a week so I didn't really give it a fair chance. I really hated the fact I was going to give up my Nether Ward though as it was awesome against any class that used magic damage, including Deathknights & Rogues.

So why did you switch?

I decided to gamble on the fact that Affliction can put on their dots and then focus on surviving while still doing max dps from damage over time. I also decided to mess around more with 2 addons, Debuff Filter and Gladiatorlossa. Both of them are awesome, Debuff Filter allows me to see the buffs my target has on and what CC's are on my focus target easily. It also allows me to keep tract of my dots on my target and focus aswell. Gladiatorlossa verbally announces when a nearby enemy uses a special ability like Recklessness, Shadow Dance, etc. even if they are not my current target. The video to the right shows how we did our first time using this comp. When watching please remember this was Kofo's first time as Feral and only my second week as Affliction.

Were you satisfied with the results, do you plan on sticking with this comp?

I wasn't satisfied but we planned to stick with this comp and get better with it. Our rating went up to 1400~ which was only a +50 increase. We did alot of things wrong since we both are just getting use to our new specs. The major thing I realized I was doing wrong after watching my own video was that I needed to take Spell Lock off autocast. I had to start getting use to using it on my own. I also had to use my focus targets more. I wasn't using them enough. We were also having alot of CC problems. So I decided to do some google searches on my own spec and see how other people played it. For the next week in arenas I mainly practiced using my Focus targets more and manually casting Spell Lock only when we needed to lock someone out of their spell tree and not letting it go off whenever it was up. In the end I would sometimes forget to use it completly since I wasn't use to it but I figured I was on the right track and kept at it. The video to the right shows how it went. We ended up going up another 50 rating and were now sitting at around ~1450.

What did you do next? What else did you need to work on?

Soul Swap! I wasn't using soul swap enough. So for next next week I just focused on getting use to soul swapping whenever I had the chance as well as continuing to practice manual Spell Lock. We were also still having CC problems but for now I wanted to get better at my spec. I felt that would help more in the long-run. In order to help fight the CC problems I tried to use the map more to my advantage. I placed my teleports in better positions and when people focused on me I tried to use it to seperate the enemy players from each other. The next video is to the right. We played ALOT of games so its quite long. In the end we went up to 1500~ rating a few times but kept falling back down to 1450~. We just couldnt quite break the 1500 mark yet. The CC problems hurt alot.

So how did you fix the CC problems?

Well I went back and was looking at the games I recorded where we lost to see what the problem was and I noticed something. I saw a druid instant cyclone me while jumping through the air chasing Kofo and I was like WTF was that! lmao! So we decided to investigate and it turns out Feral druids can instant cast cyclone as a talent tree proc. Kofo and I didn't know about this since it was only Kofo's second week ever playing Feral and I always played with him as Moonkin before. We both felt like complete noobs finding this out but figured 'Oh well' atleast now we know! ^_^. He's been hardcasting his CCs this whole time. So for the next week I kept practicing the same things as before and Kofo started practicing his Instant nature CCs. Not only could he instant cast cyclone, hibernate, or entangling roots on his focus/target, but he could also instant cast big heals on himself aswell if a CC wasn't needed. It turned out to be an amazing help. We ended up going on a major winning spree and our rating skyrocketed from 1450~ to 1600~!. Thats hard to do when you already have 200+ games under your belt. We got matched up against a few people with really high matchmaking rating and a further armory inspection showed quite a few of them were rated 2000+ in 3v3s. The video is to the right.

Want to know what we did next? How we improved ourselves even more?
How did we get past 1800~ rating?

Click here to goto Part 3 of '2v2 Arena Progress, Lessons, & Strategies!'
(Coming Soon!)

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2v2 Arena Progress, Lessons, & Strategies Part 1

Level 85 Destruction Warlock & Balance 'Moonkin' Druid
Follow our progress, the lessons we learn, and the strategies we try as we enter into Arena pvp with no experience and climb to the top!

Before I begin let me just say this. When my friend Kofo and I started playing 2v2 Arenas for the first time 3 months ago in June 2011, we had no prior pvp experience and were just looking for fun. We had no idea about comps, strategies, or anything of the sort. Not to mention both of us were heavy clickers. Meaning we clicked most of our hotkeys instead of keybinding them. Since then we've learned quite a bit and have gone through alot of frustration in order to improve our gameplay and actually enjoy the pvp, because for awhile it was just plain old aggrivating. ^_^.

What are you going to be discussing here?

In this article I'm going to show our arena progress from the very beginning, the strategies we've tried, their results, and the lessons we've learned from them.

What did you do to get ready for Arena's and how did you do when you first started?

Well, now that our minds were made up and we wanted to give PvP a try we decided to grind BG's for a few days and equip ourselves in full blue Bloodthirsty armor, which was the best we could get at the time. This was near the end of Season 9. At this time I was mostly a clicker, had a messy UI, and not very good at PvP in general. The video to the right will show you the beginning of our PvP experience. Its small so view in fullscreen.

While making this video I realized that there were several things I was doing wrong and needed to change ASAP if I wanted to compete at all in PvP. The major problem was the fact I was a clicker. The fact I clicked my skills had me at a huge disadvantage. My reaction time was considerably slower then my opponents, I could only do a few things at once, and I had a hard time trying to place shadowfury quickly as I tried to survive. I also realized that I would be the first target in Arenas the majority of the time and had to improve myself alot if I wanted to survive long enough for us to even stand a chance at winning. At the time of this video we won about 1 out of 3 of the games we played.

What did you do to improve your gameplay as a Destruction Warlock?

Now that I knew what I had to overcome first the real challenge began. I had to change my old habits and stop clicking my skills. The first thing I did was completly change my Interface. I got rid of all my addons and went back to the generic Warcraft interface. Then I went and downloaded Macaroon, an add-on from curse gaming that helped me redo my hotkey bars and set keybinds for every single skill I had. After that, I played in BGs NON-STOP until I felt comfortable with my new setup and my new playstyle came naturally. It took me 4 days of BG after BG to feel confident again and I made another video. This video shows me 4 days after I switched from clicking to keybinding and re-did my Interface completly.

How did you do in Arenas after the change? Was it worth the effort?

We did great! It was DEFINETLY worth the effort! 2 Days after the making of the last video we decided to try arenas again and test our progress. The results were astonishing! We went 11-1! With this, I was convinced I was on the right track and decided to look for more things about myself to fix. Little did I know that things would get ALOT more difficult later on as our rating started to climb. For now though my confidence was high and I was ready to arena some more. Unfortunetly though season 9 came to an end the following week and we had to wait almost an entire month before we could try some more. During the month we had off from Arenas we both BG'd alot to make sure we wouldnt get rusty and saved up honor points for the season 10 BG rewards.

How did things go once Season 10 started?

Average. We won about half the games we played, and we played alot. It was partly due to the fact that since a new season started EVERYONE was back at 0 rating so we got matched up against other new PvP'ers like us and seasoned pvpers alike. Either that or there were just alot more people searching for games now so we met up with alot stiffer competition then we did at the end of season 9. Either way, one thing was clear. We were having alot of CC problems. If I stopped dpsing to CC somebody and only Kofo was left on Dps, the person just simply wouldn't die. If Kofo stopped to CC somebody and it was only me on Dps they still wouldn't die. Sometimes it wouldnt matter either way though and they just dropped like flies in a few hits. I think that was due to the gear difference since we kept up on honor and had the best BG equipment from the start. When gear was even though it was a definite problem and something had to be done if we wanted to move up in rating. At this time we were stuck at about 1300~ rating. Winning 50% of the games we played kept us right around that mark.

How did you fix the CC problem?

The first thought I had was to try and ditch my Felhunter for the Succubus. It would allow me to CC without stopping my dps. I tried playing with the Succubus in some BGs to see how it worked but it wasn't really a good test. Most fights were either zerg fests or a fight were CC wasnt even needed at all. So, we decided to sacrifice some rating and MM value to go test it in Arenas and see how it worked out. At this time I just put seduction on autocast and my pet on Assist mode. So if I was attacking someone it would automatically seduce the other person and then switch back to my target and dps when it couldn't.

Once you got use to this strategy were you able to raise your rating with it?

The answer is no. While we won more games then we lost with this strategy when it pitted us against someone with a MM rating over 1500 which was quite often we would simply get annihilated. Against a team with a MM rating closer to ours it worked out really well as shown in the video to the right, but in the end we lost more rating from losing to people 1500+ then we gained from beating people in the 1300~ range. Clearly something else had to change but I had no idea what. One thing became clear through all the 2v2s we did though and that was that 2v2s are extremely comp bias. Meaning if you go against a comp your comp is weak against its practically impossiable to win as long as they know what their doing.

So what did you do?

Something had to change but we didn't know what. And Kofo at the time had just finished leveling a warrior alt to 85 so we decided to have him BG and get his warrior fully pvp geared. Once Kofo's warrior was geared for PvP I decided to switch to Affliction and try that out. We played a few BGs to get use to our new class and spec but mainly we wanted to learn it in an arena setting, so we decided once again to sacrifice Rating and MM value to try it out. At the time we didn't really expect it to work out and it was mainly for fun and to get rid of some frustration. The result turned out to be pretty bad. While it was fun we did horriable. We had to re-learn our target priorities and how to work well together. Our main problem were Mages. Counterspell combined with frost nova spam on the warrior was hard to beat. Rogues however became easy targets. A good change of pace as before they were the most difficult for us to beat.

So now what? Did you stick with Affliction or go back to Destruction?

I went back to Destruction and Kofo went back to his Moonkin. It just wasnt working. We decided to keep trying our Destruction Lock / Moonkin comp and hope as we got more experience it would just become easier on its own. We ended up being half right. While some things did get easier no matter what we did we still couldnt get over 1350~ rating. By now it was already week 3 of Season 10. The video I made at the time is to the right. It probably wasnt the comps fault, but more our own. For now though we needed a confidence booster and the only thing that could do that was a fresh start with something new. So, we decided for the time being to go with something new.


Want to know what we tried next? What comp finially worked?
How did we get past 1500~ rating?

Click here to goto Part 2 of '2v2 Arena Progress, Lessons, & Strategies!'

If you like this article, find it interesting, or helpful please share it with your friends!






Tags: wow, world of warcraft, warlock, pvp, arena, gaming, tutorial, guide, strategies, druid, WoW, World of Warcraft, 85, Affliction, Warlock, Feral, Druid, 2v2, Arena, PvP, Cata, Cataclysm, Patch 4.2, Rating, 3v3, 5v5, Priest, Paladin, Warrior, Rogue, Shaman, Deathknight, Mage, Hunter, HD, 720p, High, Definition, Quality, Tutorial, Guide, Lessons, Strategy, Strategies, Gold, Help, Level, Lv, Lvl, Undermine, Agony, AgonyPvP, Kofo, Kofosk, Video, Gaming, Channel, Season 9, Season 10, Destruction, Demonology, Restoration, Balance, Moonkin, Highlights, Horde, Alliance, Humman, Night Elf, Pro, Best, Own

WoW [Season 10, Week 6] Level 85 Affliction Warlock & Feral Druid 2v2 Arena PvP - World of Warcraft Cataclysm Patch 4.2 HD 720p

Kofo and I have been practicing this comp for 3 weeks now. When we first started playing this comp it was my first time ever playing Affliction and Kofo's first time ever playing Feral. I think we've come a LONG way in those 3 weeks. Its been only a few months since both of us switched from mostly clicking to full keybinds. Its taken alot of hard work and frustration but this is the result so far. I hope you enjoy the video below. Please comment on this post and let me know what you think! Your feedback is why this blog exists! ^_^

WoW [Season 10, Week 6]
Level 85 Affliction Warlock & Feral Druid 2v2 Arena PvP World of Warcraft Cataclysm Patch 4.2 HD 720p 




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WoW World of Warcraft 85 Affliction Warlock Feral Druid 2v2 Arena Pvp Cata Cataclysm Patch 4.2 Rating 3v3 5v5 Priest Paladin Warrior Rogue Shaman Deathknight Mage Hunter HD 720p High Definition Quality Tutorial Guide Gold Help Level Undermine Agony AgonyPvP Kofo Video Gaming Channel Season 10 Destruction Demonology Restoration Balance Moonkin "wow warlock" "warcraft movies" highlights "world warcraft" lvl horde alliance "video game" "wow world"