I like to delude myself on occasion. It is not because I like getting my hopes up so they can fall farther, rather it is because getting one's hopes up is enjoyable. It is fun to look ahead and hope (and in rare occasion: expect) that the future will be okay.

I don't expect that fdruid+warrior will be a 2s contender come 2.4, nor do I believe we will magically hit 2000 with it (I'm not truthfully expecting to hit 1850 with it). However, I do think that it will be more fun than rdruid+warrior. As a resto druid, you spend the entirety of a very long match running, healing on the run, cc'ing on the run, and trying to live through any team with a rogue. This is the crux of my main complaint. Before I spec'd restoration, I was feared by rogues. It did not matter what spec they were, they were putty in my hands head-to-head. Feral is good at dealing damage and being versatile enough to heal through rogue damage. Eventually, the rogue would bleed to death. However, as restoration, there is not a whole lot I can do against a rogue. Sure, I can heal through their damage for a while, but it is incredibly mana intensive, and I have to use cc's to live through the worst of it.

That being said, my brother and I were playing golf yesterday (through gail-force winds... it was incredible) and talking about the matchups we will be facing in 2s come 2.4. We came to the conclusion that for most 2s teams with a resto druid, we will likely win. This is slightly surprising considering the amazing numbers for resto druids in the 2s bracket, but if we really break it does, running, healing, and cc'ing are all a druid can do, they have trouble healing through mortal strike, so they cc the warrior until it drops, then heal without it. Against our fdruid+warrior, cc'ing will be tougher because more often than not, I will eat the Nature's Grasp rather than my warrior because of the wicked fast swing timer. Also, the improved Maim (which is supposedly fixed on the PTR) glove bonus will be amazing against druids because of Cyclone-school-lock from maim. I can likely keep cyclone off my warrior (or myself) and lock the healing tree up quite a bit in between pummels. With improved inability to escape MS, the druid will be forced to heal through MS... which is horribly mana inefficient, especially with two dpsers on you.

Additionally, against mage+rogue, our resto team usually lost because of the amazing double-cc action going on. However, as feral+warrior, we will be able to split our dps better. The mage will get charged, nova, blink, then get pounced, thus stopping the initial polymorph cast on my warrior. So, after a significant beatdown from myself (or, more likely, after the rogue shows up and starts the beatdown on me) my warrior will have broken his icy chains and have intercepted the rogue and disarmed him to break the stunlock. This leaves me free to do what ferals do best: straight-own-up-and-down mages. The smarter teams will iceblock, but as long as I can keep the mage from casting polymorph on my warrior, we should be able to out-dps and out-utility that team... at least, that's the hope.

Again, we haven't tried this out, and we have no idea if it will truly be a viable solution, but it seems like (at least at this early anticipation stage) as if it will be a good playstyle. My brother is looking forward to having ~40% crit (and so am I) with his sword, and we keep talking about facing the teams that give us the most trouble (which also happen to be the teams we face the most). I can only hope that there are a few more feral buffs to come, but as of right now, fdruid+warrior won't be a HORRIBLE team...hopefully...

MOVING RIGHT ALONG.

It has been a bit since I updated this blog. I have news! We gave up on having 2 different 2s teams. We decided that since my brother is finishing up his last semester in college ATM, he probably does not have the time to really be focusing on two different teams. We simply combined our 4 players onto 1 team. This really worked out well for us this week because we ended up going 7-3 over the 4 players. The most interesting side-effect of the entire idea is that our druid+warrior had their personal ratings reset, but still play matches at the 1750 level (which the team rating is at), so when they win a match, and it is only worth 14 team points, it might be worth something like 38 personal rating, whereas a loss of 18 team points may only lose 6 personal rating. It's very odd, but we might actually be able to game ourselves into the 1850 personal rating with a lower team rating.

Also, I respec'd my warlock over to 9/41/11, which I was told by a friend-of-a-friend is the new warlock build to be. I have to say, having never played nubguard before, that this spec has a ton of damage. We faced sl/sl+pally 3 times and won each match-up as spriest+nubguard. It was rather amazing, actually, because our plan was "just keep dotting stuff and the pally will have to chose whether to heal or to dispel". While this is an interesting plan in principal, it works better than I would have ever imagined. The simple fact of the matter is, I have only 2 dispelable dots... I have corruption and immolate. Whereas, my spriest brother has like 10 on only 4 casts (or something equally ridiculous). So, I spend the match making sure that the healer has CoT up the entire match, and replenishing dots which don't get dispelled as often as my brother's dots do, so I find myself with literally MINUTES of free time during matches. Free time which I have decided needs to be occupied with fearing the off-target and sbolting the main target. This strategy is amazing because, as the team mate who is hardest to kill, I am honestly ignored for the majority of the matches. Aside from dots or fears, I do not see much direct contact, so I am free to drop these sbolt bombs on my enemies without any resistance.

Also... why is it that my sbolt hits harder now than when I had shadow mastery?! It makes no sense, I have survivability coming out the wazoo and my damage is increased!?!? Oh well, I'm going to ride this gravy train until someone notices and changes it, I suppose. They have nerfed the spell damage bonus from demonic knowledge... but everyone knows that spell damage doesn't account for the huge damage; it's the giagantic multipliers I get. I get +5% damage done with nubguard out, I get +5% damage from soul link, and I get a bunch of spell damage just for having a pet out. Now, I am no slouch at math, but apparently I've noticed something that Blizzard hasn't: Shadow Mastery increases shadow damage done by 10% whereas spec'ing soul link with nubguard increases my damage (shadow AND fire) by 10.25% AND increases my spell damage by a considerable amount.

Okay, that's interesting... but here's what will be truly amazing. Once the expansion is released and I get my warlock to 80... there had BETTER be some amazing 51 point talents, otherwise I'm going to spec 30/41/0 for shadow mastery and nubguard. With that spec, I will have a base of "increases shadow damage by 21.275%", nubguard, siphon life, soul link for damage soak, and the draining abilities. HEYZUESCRISTO... it's going to get nerfed as SOON as the expansion releases and someone hits 80... because there is no way that is intended.

I think I'll end on that note... that insane note... they'd better have some amazing 51-point talents...