Blood Sport: Season eight team compositions
by C. Christian Moore 
Feb 16th 2010 at 4:00PM
Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all-things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com's arena column.
Listening Music: Deadmau5 with "Ghosts 'N Stuff." The Mau5 might be a WoW player himself, as evidenced by a somewhat recent facebook post (thanks for the tip, Karl)! Check him out on YouTube if you have the time. I actually had a recent in-game conversation about his brilliant
Last Week: Part VII of our Beginner's Guide to Arena. We talked about seeking out and holding onto arena partners. There's a lot involved in molding a successful arena team.
This Week: We'll be discussing season eight team compositions and what they might hold for future trends.
Krebosh over on ArenaJunkies has compiled some interesting data about the most successful teams in season eight thus far. I wouldn't normally post on something like this at the start of the season -- after all, we're only two weeks in. A lot of things can change, and any speculation as to trends appearing is purely that -- speculation.
However, this is the start of a unique season in our Wrath of the Lich King era. Our beloved resilience has been buffed to all-get-out. Season eight has been prophesied to produce a significant deviation in strategy and composition that we haven't seen in some time.
SK-100 most popular [3v3] setups
http://www.sk-gaming.com/arena/team/3/all/all/all/all/
- RLS: 9%
- RMP: 9%
- Pal/Sham/Hun: 8%
- TSG: 5%
- Sham/Lock/Dru: 5%
- Pal/Hun/Dk: 5%
- War/Pal/Dru: 4%
- War/Pal/Pri: 4%
- 5 Pala teams
- 3 Warrior teams
- 3 Shaman teams
- 2 DK teams
- 2 Hunter teams
- 2 Rogue teams
- 2 Druid team
- 2 Warlock teams
- 2 Priest teams
- 1 Mage team
Sidenote: Can the arena community please stop using PHD to refer to paladin-hunter-death knight? P = Priest, D = Druid. Priest-hunter-druid was a popular composition in season four. Using PHD can be very confusing, even though it's somewhat 'clever' (PhD, get it?). I recommend Pal/Hun(t)/Dk, or even something relatively insider like 2346 or TSG over PHD. Paladins could also use a unique single-letter abbreviation, but that's a different topic entirely. Okay, tangent over...
I have to say (and I'm sure there will be those who disagree with me), that's a very balanced list. There are eight "cookie-cutter" compositions represented with only ~5% popularity deviation. In seasons past, we've seen >5% popularity deviation from the #1 most popular/successful team composition to #2. Right now, we're seeing ~5% deviation from #1 to #8. That is very balanced.
Statistics have changed a bit since Krebosh posted his thread, but our deviation has actually gone from 9% (high) vs. 4% (low) to 8% (high) vs. 4% (low). There is only a 4% deviation now -- the top 3v3 comps are becoming even more balanced in terms of SK-100 representation.
Season eight success story: holy paladins.
Krebosh argues paladins are currently the most successful healers. Five out of the top eight team compositions utilize holy paladins (Pal/Sham/Hun, TSG, Pal/Hun/Dk, War/Pal/Dru, War/Pal/Pri). I can't say I have a lot of evidence to disagree with his assertion.
I personally predicted that holy paladins would be hurt most out of all healers by the resilience change. My reasoning was that if holy paladins are heads and tails the best healing class in a high-burst environment, they will be most hurt by a large buff to resilience. Exceptionally potent immune-type abilities such as Divine Shield, Hand of Protection and Aura Mastery give paladins a heavy advantage when each team has ample burst to insta-gib opponents.
On the other hand, druids (and to a lesser extent priests) thrive in a low-burst environment. I predicted (purely to friends in-game) the mana efficiency and momentum-shifting power of HoTs would see its limelight as it once did in season three and four.
Well, I was wrong.
Perhaps not about the way certain classes in arena function, but how effective the resilience change was going to be. I'll be honest here, when Bornakk announced resilience was slated to be doubled in effectiveness, I saw rainbows, a pot of gold, and Chewbacca riding a unicorn with a ribbon in his hair.
Well, it turns out, burst is still high. I'm sure all my in-game friends are going to mock me about how I was calling this resilience change the end-all be-all saviour of arena. While I predicted double healer teams to be doing exceptionally well in s8, I didn't expect to see rogue-mage-priest or rogue-warlock-shaman anywhere close to the top. Swing and a miss, C-money.
With some interesting changes, we still have a dichotomy of top 3v3 arena teams. You've got your haves and your have-nots. You've got your teams which have burst (one healer teams) and your teams which are trying to fight against it (e.g. double healer teams). We're not seeing teams that win primarily via draining mana or consistent pressure.
It looks like the entirety of WotLK arena will go down in history as a 26 mile burst-a-thon.
Druid-shaman-warlock?
DSL (or LSD, lulz) is without a doubt the most surprising and interesting team on that list. I could easily be wrong here, but I believe the only time I've played a match against a team with that composition was in season four. The opposing team was restoration-enhancement-affliction. It didn't have a lot of synergy.
Mage-warlock-resto shaman has since taken it's place since the time of Krebosh's post, which is a much more commonly accepted setup. It will be interesting to see if more unique spell cleaves will be a top contender in 3v3 this season. I'm still waiting for shadowplay (affliction warlock, shadow priest, healer [usually resto shaman]) to begin dominating, shadow priests are perhaps the best they have ever been.
What about 5v5?
2346 (primarily hunter variant) is absolutely dominating. The high levels of burst damage combined with the best 5v5 healing combo and reliable Mortal Strike effect is just too much for almost anyone to handle right now.
The most interesting fact about 2346s this season is they seem to be very versatile when it comes to spec. Hunters seem to be switching between marksman and survival (MM is the norm) while warlocks also seem to be switching between destruction and affliction (destro is the norm). I really wish I could say more about 5v5, but that's about it.
Let me know your thoughts on season eight right now -- it's still early and anything could happen. Do you have any predictions about what comps might excel in 3v3 in the near future? Leave a comment below.
Want to ascend the arena ladders faster than a fireman playing Donkey Kong? Check out WoW.com's articles on arena, successful arena PvPers, PvP, and our arena column, Blood Sport.Filed under: PvP, Blood Sport (Arena PvP)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Nick S Feb 16th 2010 4:25PM
Burst is definitely still very high. Many of my 5s games end with a kill that takes less than a second from 100%-0. You can only prevent so many switches before a good team just globals someone.
Afflic Warlocks have actually overtaken Destro, in my experience, as the most popular Warlock spec.
Lemons Feb 16th 2010 4:57PM
Seems like hunters and retadins have more burst than ever. Even rocking over 1000 resil I can still get roflstomped by them, and usually I wear a mix of pve and pvp gear so I usually don't even wear that much. Basically any class that doesn't have a pve rotation is good in pvp because they can front load all their damage and before they run out of buttons to mash you're already dead. People complain about rogue envenoms critting for 8k (they hardly ever do), but at least I have to #1) stack DP and #2) have at least 4 combo points. It's not like I can just whip out gigantic envenoms whenever I feel like it.
I would say buff resil again, but then BGs would be a living nightmare. Healers are very, very strong in BGs right now. You can usually tell which team is going to win simply by counting the healers and finding out which side has more.
cvbarbatti Feb 16th 2010 5:26PM
Lemons, I will agree on the hunter burst...kill shot in particular is beyond devastating at the moment. Warriors are kind of in the same boat, in terms of nearly unhealable damage.
Ret, however, is not anywhere near the top of the burst game anymore.
Looking at the initial list on the SK site, I was heartened by the number of paladins; in comps like Sham/Hunt/Pal and Druid/War/Pal, I basically assumed they were retadins - more fool me.
Some of those teams had a ret, to be sure, but most of them were double healing the physical burst kings, and understandably so. Ret is viable in 3v3 usually, almost exclusively, with a hunter or warrior to bring MS and damage - at this point the spec is a bit of pressure, a stun, and Hand spells for utility.
Many pallies go protribution (trying it myself), simply to make up for ret's weakness versus heals - better burst in the form of holy damage, and a shorter cd stun and 30 second cd blanket silence. Most of the rets putting out good damage are having to stack pve set bonuses, rep rings, and raid trinkets to keep pressure out; this is not unique, but it is unfortunate.
I hope when considering the spec for Cataclysm (since an overhaul seems doubtful before then), that the developers will consider trading out a bit of ret's damage for an interrupt, talented or baseline. Upping the skill cap on the class, even by a little, while simultaneously making it more flexible, would be a win/win scenario.
Lemons Feb 17th 2010 2:32PM
I think ret has more burst than warriors or hunters, but those classes bring MS so their damage seems a lot worse than it is, but just comparing the damage a class can pump out ret is still king, their damage is nothing short of astonishing (especially with 2p T10) and playing 3v3 with my ret partner I don't think I've ever beat him for the top damage in an arena, he usually doubles whatever I do.
I do agree ret needs to trade some of that damage in for some CC if they're ever going to be arena viable but Blizz is probably just sitting on their hands until Cata so I wouldn't expect any miracles.
Miir Feb 16th 2010 6:01PM
As far as team setups coming up, Spriests/lock/shaman with hasted dots is insane and also spriests/hunter/shaman (which I have had the luxury of trying and must say its pretty fun) those are the two to watch out for.
Wyred Feb 17th 2010 5:26AM
I've started running spriest/frost mage/resto shaman (usually called shatterplay or shadowshatter), and it seems a pretty damn good comp so far. It brings every dispel in the game, a fair amount of cc/snares/control, windshear silence and counterspell, and burst during bloodlust is insane. Main weakness is your shaman getting zerged down by double melee during immunities early in the game, but other than that it's not too shabby.
Agree with the OP, shadow priests are great right now, I doubt I'll be going back to disc. Disc is still strong of course, but playing shadow is so much fun.
Dave Feb 16th 2010 6:35PM
Somewhat unrelated, but I've been listening to this song all week. So good...
Redielin Feb 16th 2010 8:04PM
All the resilience/healing changes do is maintain the status quo, especially once people bring raid weapons into Arena. We'll see how the stamina changes work in Cataclysm. It is nice that you can force kills with relative ease now, however it is annoying that one mistake pretty much will cost a team the match. There's no back and forth, give and take. There's no chance to adapt and innovate.
DWSR Feb 16th 2010 10:02PM
Nice to see arenas being more "balanced". Also nice to see some decent lock representation in the cookie cutter comps. :) Also, great song. Old, but still quite good.
PS Would like to point out that "techno" is mislabelling Deadmau5. While I try to not pidgeon-hole every song into some miniscule sub-genre, it should be noted that the word you're looking for is "electronica" (a catchall term for electronic music), with Techno being a subgenre therein. Deadmau5, in particular, makes House music. This is a particular pet peeve of mine. Sorry!
C.Christian.Moore Feb 17th 2010 4:51AM
That's true. Good point -- I'll change it.
rawrawrawr Feb 17th 2010 12:01AM
I don't Arena at all, but i always look forward to "Blood Sport" just for the music.
Wyred Feb 17th 2010 5:48AM
I'm surprised to see only 1 mage team represented (rmp, that is SHOCKING), as frost mages in particular seem really strong right now. With the amount of haste going around it's getting damn near impossible to SW:D a polymorph, and they bring all that kiting/burst that everyone loves. Anyone got an idea of what's stopping them hitting the top, or is this just a bit early to draw conclusions from the SK100?
Miir Feb 17th 2010 11:21AM
It is a bit to early to really draw conclusions, but MM hunters counter mages pretty hard, If hunters get nerfed like they did at the beginning of s6, mages will make huge rise, and DK's will probably crumble into non-existance with hunters.
Greenjojo Feb 17th 2010 9:05AM
I stepped into an arena for the first time since BC this season. Got talked into Hunter/Shaman/Pally(MM/Enh/Holy) on my shaman. It's pretty insane - i pop all my cooldowns and someone just dies...I'm sure this will change as we progress and meet teams with better gear.
The only thing I fear is an ArP warrior. I'll usually be dead right after the charge, even through Shamanistic Rage =/ I know I don't have the best gear but I can generally survive burst from Retadins and hunters just fine and Spriests/locks provided the dots are cleansed fast enough ;). However once a warrior get ahold of me it's game over.
Holy pallys are going to be insane - ours is only in Naxx10 gear for the most part and has no problem surviving and keeping us alive as well...
You can't go wrong with Deadmau5 - "Faxing Berlin" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnEUfeiSKt0 and this mix of "The Reward is Cheese" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a33moSfTzt4 are my favs.
Noscy Feb 17th 2010 6:31PM
I'm currently doing 3v3 consisting of Disc (Me) / Rogue / DK, and we are struggling more than we ever have compared to the previous season.
All the matches I have been seeing have been 2 melee plate and a healer namely a holy paly.
The problem is that once the rogue breaks into combat, he is instantly switched and burst down, over my healing capability, so its pretty much killed our composition.
In saying that I'm keen to try the double shadow/affliction/healer team (Possibly Druid), if I our current team cannot get off the ground