ARGGGGGGG, the first week is always a chore... that initial grind is horrible, and to be perfectly honest, one is forced to get above 2k the first week or suffer the "not enough points for the T2 weapon on week 4, therefore you'll struggle to hit 2200 forever" stigma. I have been rethinking the previous seasons of arena, and I'm reasonably convinced that this is part of our problem.

We hit 2k last night after 124 games (this week, not just last night >_<). Our hunter has played all of them, and while I will definitely talk about that comp (because it's one of my favorites), we are going to try for ~2150 or so today with the Rogue (trying to train him up from 1000 PR). The idea here is that the Rogue and the Hunter should BOTH be 150 rating (or less) from the team rating so that they both get good points. Bio (our hunter) is especially worried about this as he cannot play today and feels that he NEEDS over 1000 arena points per week so that when we're better than 2200 at the end of week 4, he can buy the T2 bow; thus rocketing us to a gladiator position.

The ACTUAL problem here is that we are currently at 2k... if we get the Rogue up to 2k, the team rating (and Guntir's and my PR as well) will be higher than that; problematically, as much as 200-300 higher than that with a decent win-ratio. Now, I'm really not saying that I would have a problem with Guntir and me having 2300 team and personal rating. In fact, I think this would be a boon to the team as it would basically show that we can continue grinding slowly to get both of our teammates above 2200 by week four with enough points to buy the T2 weapon(s). However, it will be bad if the team rating is 2300 and Bio and Trake's PR is 2k... for them. I'm not sure how I feel about this... I think that if I can get the T2 staff, we can get both of them above 2k after week four, but it will be cause for concern for them, as they will be "behind."

We'll just have to wait and see... there's a very high probability that we'll play 50-100 games today with Trake, get him to ~2k, and the team rating will stay about the same because of a 50-50 win-loss ratio.

Anyway...

Hunter+Feral+Disc is basically my favorite (so far) Feral+Disc-based comp. Feral+Rogue+Disc is a good comp, but it has the problem of being a cleave-n-lawl team. By that, I mean that if we don't insta-gib someone out the gate, we're very unlikely to win (essentially, 30 seconds into the match will pretty well determine whether we can win because both Evasions will have been spent by then). With a Hunter in the mix, the game because a much more complex balance between his defensive cooldowns, his escape cooldowns, and our ability to lock up a healer.

HFD brings a bunch of control options to the table:

1) Instant-Cyclone (only for those Ferals who can stay in Cat Form without dying AND land finishers reliably... hard against Rogues and TSG who is training you... but not impossible) - doesn't share DR with anything but itself... never use unless for full duration OR a quick interrupt as the hunter is landing a kill shot.
2) Scatter Shot - Basically a 3 second CC, usually prefacing Freezing Trap, but not always.
3) Freezing Trap - Awesome for teams who cannot dispel or only have 1 dispeller and its the healer.
4) Silencing Shot - 3 seconds silence... hard to complain.
5) Psychic Scream - 8 second AoE instant-cast Fear.

The reason this setup works so well is because none of our crowd control options actually share diminishing returns. We have had matches decided out the gate because of a healer using his trinket on the first Cyclone, only get to Scatter->Freezing->PsychicScream->SilencingShot->FullCyclone for a total of 30 seconds of lockout. 30 seconds of lockout!?!?! Isn't that crazy? The idea is that when we are playing our best... it's a 2v3 for long enough that HOPEFULLY Guntir is able to get away and use a GCD or two to get some DoT pressure out... maybe even a Holy Fire.

The team is pretty strong, but it has a weakness against TSG... if a TSG walks out and trains Guntir 100%, they're going to win. We can't peel the warrior OR the dk off of Guntir, so he's going to get MS, then eat a brostorm and a Strangulate (perfectly acceptable, amirite?). We excel against Hunters and Frost Mages, simply because most Mages who aren't gladiator range are using a LOT of PvE gear for extra damage, so they take TONS from us, and they basically NEVER expect us to be able to drop 20k damage instantly on them before they block. Hunters essentially rely on the fact that they kite well and deal good damage when ignored... we train them 100% (in most cases) and end up killing them within a CC-train on the healer while they have popped Deterrence at 10% thinking that Rip/Rake/Serpent/Pain/DP won't kill him from there... which it will... pretty much without exception.

OH, I'm going to start streaming some fun that Guntir and I have been having in 2s. We were just doing skirms for a bit as Feral+Shadow and we had a 100%* win ratio (* - we actually lost one match, but only because we both got DC'D against Priest+Mage while the mage was out of blocks at 10% and the Priest was eating a full duration Psychic Scream). So, we're going to start pumping our 2v2 up against for funsies and run this comp... I'll try and stream it since I haven't posted ANY video for a long time now (focused too much on getting a good 3s team running reliably to worry about streaming the matches).