I decided to change up the template of the site... you might have noticed. Essentially, I did not like the narrow feel of it on a wide-screen format. Also, I have taken off the streaming video links from the top and will instead be posting them at the bottom of my posts (like this) so that they get in the way less.

We picked up a Rogue who is in decent gear and seems like a decent player for our 3s team. Guntir and I finally hit 5/5 Relentless with full offpieces, as well, and I have to tell you... there's just something magical about being BiS PvP gear. You go and stand on top of the bank and people are always inspecting you, asking what comp you run, etc. Plus, there is no more pressure of "we need to hit to make sure and get the shoulders next week!" Hopefully, the 3v3 bracket gets more fun now... but we'll see. Our rogue is rocking the poisons build. That is to say, he has picked up 5/5 Improved Poisons so that he gets the newly-implemented 50% chance to apply Deadly Poison, which allows him to get up a 5-stack of Deadly really quickly. However, the real reasons of why this build is nice are as follows:

1) Deadly Poison has dispel resist.
2) Deadly Poison acts as a dispel buffer for Crippling and Wound.
3) Deadly Poison does hilarious damage (1k ticks on my rogue and I have 2k less AP than our new rogue)
4) Deadly Poison will, when it procs while a 5stack is up, proc the OTHER hand's poison... meaning that once a 5stack is up, it acts like he has double-Wound AND Deadly.

Needless to say, this build does a LOT more sustained damage and it has an MS effect. We just need some practice, and this comp should run smoothly. If nothing else, we will get yet another teammate his shoulders (and weapon).

An interesting thing to note here is that I went onto the Arena Junkies to see what the "good" players think about weapon speeds concerning this new build. MY GOOD LORD... they're all retarded and 2600 rated. I will grace you now with one of the retarded comments I saw in the rogue forums:

I'm still going to be rocking 1.8/1.4, you need the slower weapon for bigger Eviscerates.

Moron... Eviscerate is based on AP alone, top-end damage doesn't matter. HOW did you get to 2600 and get this wrong... how!? He's right about the 1.8/1.4 setup just because Wound is a PPM proc-rate whereas Deadly is a flat percent chance to proc... so you want Deadly to proc more often to proc Wound more often, and the speed of your Would Poison hand doesn't matter, so you put that on the slowest possible for bigger Mutilates. BAH.

I will leave you with a video of some matches Guntir and I did in 2s on Monday.

I switched up how the video acts by default... it's kind of lame on the one hand because it basically cannot stream without ads causing it to bog down to failure every 15 seconds or so, so I simply will put up my newest stream recordings when they are uploaded. Also, I had to juggle the size a bit because the ads were showing up on top of the video itself and this was causing problems because for one reason or another, Firefox is handing the clicks wrong (or something) so you cannot actually HIT the "close" button on the ads or it will cancel the video and open the ad anyway... lame.

SO, I just made the video space big enough to have the ad on screen without overlapping the video. Everybody wins right?

We did 3v3 with our Warrior yesterday after the Holiday break... we are just not very lucky people. We faced RMP 5 times, TSG 3 times, and 4 teams we could beat... one of which was only worth 2 points. I think Blizz is really out to get us... We beat an RMP team once, but it took some amazing luck on our part and some amazingly bad play on theirs.

We got Blade's Edge (instead of RoV which encompassed 8/12 of our matches >_<), started up top, everyone got into combat, and I Cycloned/Abolished to peel Guntir on the bridge. We hoped down but not before getting a Rake/Rip off on the Rogue for miniscule damage (but putting up a long-duration bleed is always a good idea when resetting against a rogue). So, we get below, I don't have DoTs or anything, so I restealth. The Rogue hits CloS and Vanish while jumping off the bridge... which made no sense at all, since I hit him with Bleeds, not Magic DoTs. So, he immediately loses stealth and I Pounce him. Keep in mind that the Rogue didn't trinket earlier, so he trinkets during the Pounce, only to get Charged by Seere and we put up all our bleeds.

He then hits Evasion, Prep, and Vanishes again... only to get knocked out of stealth less than a second later from the bleeds. At this point, Seere is getting peeled with Sheep and rank1 Frostbolts to try and keep him away from their rogue... which Seere isn't calling out, so while Guntir is trying to keep me alive and duck LoS on Mana Burns, he's not seeing that Seere needs dispels (more importantly, he's not hearing it). However, we are absolutely wrecking this PvE-geared Rogue's day... he pops his second Evasion and finally gets on Guntir, but he's out of LoS from his Priest, so I start with a Cyclone while the Priest is in a bad position, toss Abolish on Guntir (I was at a corner where I could see both) and get back on the Rogue. By the time the Rogue realizes that he's dying without heals, he's at 20% HP and out of buttons. He Fan of Knives crippling up on everyone, but I SS out of it and he starts B-lining for his priest who is Cycloned. The Mage polymorphs Guntir and Deep Freezes Seere (this was some pretty exceptional play by the Mage, I gotta say) while I'm about to get on the Rogue... but then it happens... the priest starts casting Gheal instead of Flash/Penance. I assume this is because MS had fallen off and he wanted more bang for his buck... or something... so I go Bear Form and Feral Charge interrupt the heal.

Okay, the Rogue is in a really bad way now, not only did the Priest NOT use Pain Suppression on him, but NOW he's at 10% hp from Bleeds and DoTs (Guntir had spare GCDs while the Priest was out of LoS... so DoTs, right? He already busted CloS about 30 seconds ago!). The Rogue then uses Blind on me, but I immediately trinket and land Bash on the Priest as the school lockout ends (4 more seconds of no healing). The priest tosses out Pain Suppression on the Rogue while stunned, but it's not enough, the Rogue is at ~4% now and I'm on him full-bore and Seere is out of Roots/DF/Polys now, he charges in... we kill the Rogue, they leave.

We played this team twice on RoV and couldn't do ANYTHING to them... when Mages have 100% LoS the entire match, it means your priest is going to get Poly+CounterSpelled+Feared and someone is going to die. This is the thing that bugs me most... RMP isn't a skill comp until you get above 2200. Below that, you are facing scrubs who train 1 target and CC 1 target until they win. Usually, if we can break LoS against these teams, we are going to win because they simply do not have the ability to think on their feet and adjust to changes in the matches. Luckily for them, and unluckily for most others, they do not really have this issue on most maps... they can start it in a good position and faceroll to victory.

/sigh

We did some 2v2 as well (that I didn't get recorded >_<). Went against a 2300 RestoD+DK and beat them hilariously easily. They really had no idea what to do against us on Sewers. I got a new addon that shows the diminishing returns timers for me and it's REALLY helping in 2s. I wish I had recorded this match to show how amazing Feral+Disc can CC a target who doesn't know how to play. It was an UNDEAD DK... so that means he has Fear-breaks all day and night. We start the match on the boxes and the DK gets Feared (so does the Druid... he was in the wrong spot), which he then TRINKETS... wtf.

Okay, so the DK trinkets, I'm staring at him laughing and have an instant-cast Entangling Roots on him as he busts his Gargoyle. So, I hit the Gargoyle with Mangle to get up the snare, use SR to get that rolling again, and proc another instant... so I Cyclone the Gargoyle and get on the Druid. I am absolutely destroying this Druid, and Guntir is free to do whatever he wants because the DK is still rooted and the Druid refuses to stand next to him, so we get off a bunch of damage, land a stun, and mana burn him... same story, right?

Okay, the DK gets out of roots and the Druid has just expended 50% of his mana while Guntir is still above 12k, it's going well. I switch to the DK to get a snare up and use a 5pt Maim, which he uses IBF on, then eats Psychic Scream again. He uses Lichborne after 2-3 seconds of Fear and breaks it, only to get Cycloned by me (remember, he trinketed before >_<). After the Cyclone, DR on Entangling Roots has fallen off, so I hit him with it and get back on the Druid who has been bleeding mana keeping his DK up (and has not yet used Innervate). Rinse-repeat and we get the Druid to ~20% hp, but he has full HoTs and Berserk runs out... fine, I Cyclone him with 2 seconds left on Lifebloom3. He waits, he waits, lifebloom blooms while he's Cycloned... trinket... no healing received.

BUT IT GETS BETTER... he then uses NS to Cyclone me instantly and starts casting Healing Touch on himself. This part is a little confusing, I thought Regrowth was the claim-to-fame big heal for Restos, but whatever. I trinket the Cyclone immediately (though I will admit, I sat there for about a second going "wait wat..?" after the instant-cyclone figuring out how he did it) and get back on him. I actually HAD 5cps ready for a Maim to I interrupted his HT and threw another Cyclone on the DK so Guntir could get some damage out there. Back in cat, we land Holy Fire, Shadow Word: Death, Pain, DP, 5pt Rip (sr'd of course), and Rake before he gets out of the stun (admittedly, he used Barkskin so he's taking reduced damage from it all, but that is why we're putting out damage with DoTs so that when Barkskin falls off, he'll be in a bad way).

Guntir hobbles over to the druid and the DK comes charging in so that they both eat the Psychic Scream... which the DK finally uses WotF on... only to get Entangling Rooted again as DR had fallen off... again. We are laying into this druid SOOOO hard. He's trying to heal through it and bleeding mana like you wouldn't believe; it's basically 20% mana on the druid and 60% mana on Guntir... neither have gotten their Innervate but the Resto doesn't have dispel protection from Barkskin anymore and they don't HAVE a dispel... things are going well. We keep laying into the druid with about 6 seconds left on Rip and I refresh Rake, hit him with a 5pt Maim (fell off DR), and the DK Deathgrips me off the Druid who is at 10% hp with no HoTs up (Guntir was dispel-training them and we were out-dps'ing Lifebloom), stunned, and I have zero energy and just refreshed my DoTs and got pulled off the druid. I am actually laughing at this point in Vent. Guntir winds up Holy Fire + Death and gets the kill. We win.

Great match, wish I had it recorded... they were ~2320 and they had NO idea how to fight Feral+Disc... we should do 2s more...