Arena 3v3 and 2v2

[Akuje]

After playing with our 3's last night, and walking away roughed up, but with better team synergy at the end of the night, I notice one problem. I don't know how to identify focus targets, as in priority targets. I can't find any online guides that really have information for a DK team.. so, I'm here. Some of you are PvP junkies and breath it.

How do you make the kill priority in a 3v3 or 2v2 match?

Combos for 3v3 is 21/0/50 DK, Holy priest and mutilate rogue
2v2 is DK and mutilate rogue.

[Moknim]

Kill the healer and CC the others?

I dunno really. When I was doing arenas with a MS Warrior in S3, it was a lot of back and forth (CC heals beat down the other, switch CC to the DPS and beat down heals - and a lot of kiting), but that is because of how Cyclone works (or at least, that was the reason for it in my head).

[Yatokth]

After playing with our 3's last night, and walking away roughed up, but with better team synergy at the end of the night, I notice one problem. I don't know how to identify focus targets, as in priority targets. I can't find any online guides that really have information for a DK team.. so, I'm here. Some of you are PvP junkies and breath it.

How do you make the kill priority in a 3v3 or 2v2 match?

Combos for 3v3 is 21/0/50 DK, Holy priest and mutilate rogue
2v2 is DK and mutilate rogue.

2v2:

DK / Rogue?

You have no healing besides Mark of Blood, so in general, go for squishy targets. Prioritize mages and rogues, they're squishy and do alot of damage. If possible, you want the rogue to pop on the DK, your rogue to pop on their rogue, then you IBF to avoid the rogue's stuns, and burn him.

Your problem WILL be paladin teams (surprise) as they have HoP to stop all your damage on another target, and bubble on themselves to basically reset. You'll have to smart with your survivability cooldowns, LoS, and kiting/peeling to beat paladin teams.

An example:

The gates open and you see a priest with only his own buffs. It's likely priest/rogue. What do you do? DK, open on the priest, wait for the rogue to pop. Soon as the rogue pops, your rogue hits him with stuns, DK pops IBF. Now, you have two choices. You can burst the rogue, force the priest to use CDs on him, or burst the priest and make him use CDs on himself. Then switch to the other target.

So, let's say you get on the priest. If you do this, blind the rogue to force a trinket, then Chains of Ice to keep him in place while you chase priest. Priest can dispel, but that's a GCD he isn't healing himself. Your rogue can also fan of knives > sprint to snare the rogue and get away. If he still gets free, put mark of blood on him so he heals your team.

You smash up the priest (If he's a cocky mofo, it's concieveable you could get a strang kill, but this will only work in low brackets) and as soon as he pain suppressions (bright blue bubble and he takes less damage) and starts smashing heals on himself (if you haven't killed him) INSTANTLY switch to the rogue, both of you, and smash his face in. Make sure your rogue saves a kidney so you can burst him through evasion. If the rogue goes below 50% and you can catch him (AKA he doesn't vanish and get away) then strang the priest and finish the rogue.

Double DPS is about pressure and switches to force cooldowns, and then killing something REALLY fast. You guys have the luxury of lots of snares, you can peel things off your rogue (Death Grip) and a silence. Mark of Blood also helps alot.

As for Paladin teams, if their partner is a DK (This team sucks) you'll want to force a bubble on the Paladin, switch to DK to make him turtle, then switch back after bubble is off. ALWAYS stay offensive, and stick MoB on the DK.

As for 3v3...

It will be mostly the same sort of strategy, squishiest targets go first. Only now you have heals, but another variable.

What will be important is communication when your priest has used GS and such, so you can peel him. DG > CoI and rogue stuns are GREAT peels, you can get shit off your healer easily, your healer just needs to communicate.

I'm not a 3v3 guru, I don't know the common combos.. Other than RMP. Which is gonna suck. You'll want to probably force the mage to Ice Block, then switch to the Priest to get him to pop CDs, then back onto the mage to finish him. (mages do alot of damage) Peel the rogue as best you can.

For all these things, I am not arena god, so if something isn't working, -try something else-, don't go just by my advice. Use your discretion.


Kill the healer and CC the others?

I dunno really. When I was doing arenas with a MS Warrior in S3, it was a lot of back and forth (CC heals beat down the other, switch CC to the DPS and beat down heals - and a lot of kiting), but that is because of how Cyclone works (or at least, that was the reason for it in my head).

This was because Warriors have Mortal Strike. So you keep one target CC'd in order to control them away from your teammate, while you smash the other one to both put him on the defensive, and have MS on him while he's at ~60%-ish. Eventually, when cyclone goes on DR, or they use their CC, or their breaks and go for a kill/decisive blow themselves, they have 2 targets, both at 60% with MS, so they have to choose who to heal and keep alive, blowing cooldowns to keep them up, and you smash the other one.

It was partly Cyclone and partly Mortal Strike.

[Advurb]

After playing with our 3's last night, and walking away roughed up, but with better team synergy at the end of the night, I notice one problem. I don't know how to identify focus targets, as in priority targets. I can't find any online guides that really have information for a DK team.. so, I'm here. Some of you are PvP junkies and breath it.

How do you make the kill priority in a 3v3 or 2v2 match?

Combos for 3v3 is 21/0/50 DK, Holy priest and mutilate rogue
2v2 is DK and mutilate rogue.

I run both of these comps with Viiper and Chudly(priest).

in 2s, you should always focus on blowing up someone in 2 seconds. Some popular comps as examples:
vs:
Ret/DK: This is a hard counter for you. Hit the ret, when bubble comes up get out and attempt to reset fight.
Ret/rogue: Target rogue. Lots of dependence on your rogue here to get the opener. If the DK's gear matches up, have him 1v1 the ret at start(use frost presence and other cds as needed)
mage/rogue: It's up to you, depends on how well your DK can 1v1 mages. If he's good at it, have him do so. When the rogue appears, make a switch and tear him apart. Otherwise, it might be best just to blow up the mage at the start. During iceblock make switch to rogue but watch the mage carefully so you can switch back immediately.
priest/rogue: Again, up to you. If you're on a LoS heavy map like Blade's Edge, going for the rogue might be a better idea.
Holy/DK: Same as ret/DK. Wait for bubble, and reset.

Things to remember:

If the rogue gets opened on by another rogue, the DK needs to DG him immediately.
Warlocks, Priests, Rogues, Druids, Shamans, Hunters, Warriors, Mages, Paladins, DKs in that order are almost always your best targets.
DG is huge. Don't waste it. Ever.
Against healer teams, the DK shouldn't focus solely on DPS. Make two focus macros, one for Strangulate and one for Mind Freeze. Remember DG is also a spell interrupt. DK's primary role is to stop heals.
FROST PRESENCE. Consider it bear form. Use it often.
Ghoul Leap puts you in combat if used on the DK. Use it to screw up rogues at the beginning.
GNAW. It is epic. Bind it.
Remember, Scourge Strike goes through Hand of Protection. Take advantage of that.


I haven't done a whole lot of disc/dk/rog 3s, but I will say that the strategy is very similar to DK/rog 2s. Watch your priest at all times. The other team will be going for him often. Have the DK peel; without that you're not going to win against any decent 3dps or 2dps team.

[Akuje]

I haven't done a whole lot of disc/dk/rog 3s, but I will say that the strategy is very similar to DK/rog 2s. Watch your priest at all times. The other team will be going for him often. Have the DK peel; without that you're not going to win against any decent 3dps or 2dps team.

What we found, when the priest was Disc, it didn't go so well. There was not much we could do to keep three DPS off of her. after 9 match's she respecced holy and took spirit of redemption. and I think we went 3/6 then. Alot of it could have been synergy between us. It's all three of our first time doing arena on these class's so we expect a learning curve. (read after two or three weeks we are dumping the team and starting a new one )

[Advurb]

What we found, when the priest was Disc, it didn't go so well. There was not much we could do to keep three DPS off of her. after 9 match's she respecced holy and took spirit of redemption. and I think we went 3/6 then. Alot of it could have been synergy between us. It's all three of our first time doing arena on these class's so we expect a learning curve. (read after two or three weeks we are dumping the team and starting a new one )

Yeah, I don't think the comp is really that good yet unless you're 2k. Priests are just garbage without gear, which is why spirit is such a good thing to have. We decided to put our 3s on hold until we could get gear enough to pull it easily.

[Akuje]

Yeah, I don't think the comp is really that good yet unless you're 2k. Priests are just garbage without gear, which is why spirit is such a good thing to have. We decided to put our 3s on hold until we could get gear enough to pull it easily.

Yea, 15 seconds of invincible healing was working well. That and the fact res. doesnt do much now is kinda sad.

[Gorvena]

Kill the healer first. Unless there's a mage, then kill the mage first.

[Moknim]

This was because Warriors have Mortal Strike. So you keep one target CC'd in order to control them away from your teammate, while you smash the other one to both put him on the defensive, and have MS on him while he's at ~60%-ish. Eventually, when cyclone goes on DR, or they use their CC, or their breaks and go for a kill/decisive blow themselves, they have 2 targets, both at 60% with MS, so they have to choose who to heal and keep alive, blowing cooldowns to keep them up, and you smash the other one.

It was partly Cyclone and partly Mortal Strike.

The reason Cyclone was so good was because you can't heal someone cycloned (unlike other forms of CC) - reduce healing on one target, the other target can get no heals, and is at 60% (or less).

[Advurb]

Kill the healer first. Unless there's a mage, then kill the mage first.

Not always true. Mages are terrible targets because of Ice Block and instant invis (which leads to evoc/bandage to full behind a pillar)

Healers are usually bad targets as well because they tend to have several defense spells (Earth Shield, bubble, etc) that can only be used on themselves, but if you silence/interrupt them (which DKs and rogues are both very good at) you can take down the other player pretty fast.

[Gorvena]

Yeah...our 5v5 wasn't all that successful...

[Yatokth]

I run both of these comps with Viiper and Chudly(priest).

in 2s, you should always focus on blowing up someone in 2 seconds. Some popular comps as examples:
vs:
Ret/DK: This is a hard counter for you. Hit the ret, when bubble comes up get out and attempt to reset fight.
Ret/rogue: Target rogue. Lots of dependence on your rogue here to get the opener. If the DK's gear matches up, have him 1v1 the ret at start(use frost presence and other cds as needed)
mage/rogue: It's up to you, depends on how well your DK can 1v1 mages. If he's good at it, have him do so. When the rogue appears, make a switch and tear him apart. Otherwise, it might be best just to blow up the mage at the start. During iceblock make switch to rogue but watch the mage carefully so you can switch back immediately.
priest/rogue: Again, up to you. If you're on a LoS heavy map like Blade's Edge, going for the rogue might be a better idea.
Holy/DK: Same as ret/DK. Wait for bubble, and reset.

Things to remember:

If the rogue gets opened on by another rogue, the DK needs to DG him immediately.
Warlocks, Priests, Rogues, Druids, Shamans, Hunters, Warriors, Mages, Paladins, DKs in that order are almost always your best targets.
DG is huge. Don't waste it. Ever.
Against healer teams, the DK shouldn't focus solely on DPS. Make two focus macros, one for Strangulate and one for Mind Freeze. Remember DG is also a spell interrupt. DK's primary role is to stop heals.
FROST PRESENCE. Consider it bear form. Use it often.
Ghoul Leap puts you in combat if used on the DK. Use it to screw up rogues at the beginning.
GNAW. It is epic. Bind it.
Remember, Scourge Strike goes through Hand of Protection. Take advantage of that.


I haven't done a whole lot of disc/dk/rog 3s, but I will say that the strategy is very similar to DK/rog 2s. Watch your priest at all times. The other team will be going for him often. Have the DK peel; without that you're not going to win against any decent 3dps or 2dps team.

^ If this advice conflicts with mine, take his, as he plays the classes/comps and I don't. XP I was theorizing.

[Advurb]

Actually Yat I didn't read your post before, but it looks like a lot of it was right.

[Tylorvias]

If you don't already have it, get the Gladius addon. It shows your enemies right out the gate so you have a few more seconds to cordinate and prioritize and also shows the duration of CC effects on a target, helps lots.

As far as priority, it depends on your team and what it is capable of as much as what you are up against. Each match is different, situations change in a split second. The best advice I can give you is not to target the enemy's weakness because they are ready for that. Make their strong point worthless and then its a cakewalk.