So I went with the 25/0/36 build for 5s last night, and I was pleasantly surprised with how will it survived and healed. Also, the additional damage seemed to surprise the opposing teams just as much. I would start the match in cat form and prowling (of course), and we would decide on targets for crowd controls and focus targets, etc. Then once the main dps'ers on our team, which I'll get to in a bit, started their stuff, I'd start cycloning a dps target, and start the wrath-spam on the main target.

Of course, I'd have to throw some lifeblooms into the mix, and keep CoT off the paladin as much as possible, but I had more time than I figured I would casting wrath. The very first match we played, we ended up ghosting the first target before my target got out of cyclone (apparently saving his trinket for the "real" ccs lawl). I only got two wraths and a starfire into the mix, but at 5.5 seconds and ~2600 as the off-healer, their paladin couldn't keep the shamang up.

It wasn't the greatest night for 5s. I'll be honest, I had never met 3 of my team-mates before we started doing arena last night. For some reason, my rogue cannot keep a team together long enough to have good strats. So, every week we walk into the arena with a new makeup, and have to learn how to play with one another again. This week, it was rogue, mage, mage, paladin, me (resto druid).

Some surprising survivability in rogue, mage, mage. Between cheat death, and two iceblocks, no team could burst down any of our dps. The only losses we sustained last night were against drain teams (which isn't completely surprising). Hmm, something just came to me...

I like the idea of having two mages... it suited us. It was a LOT of damage output coupled with a LOT of survivability. I'm having a thought: replace the rogue with a shamang, either enhancement or elemental (preferably elemental). Bloodlust would almost guarantee a gibbed dps out the gate. Essentially, if the mage gets their polymorphs off, then one of the dps classes will have come out of hiding to attack me or possibly the shamang. At this point, if the shamang pops bloodlust, then the mages, the shamang, and our pally (also, I suppose that I am included in there some how) will be casting ridiculously quickly.

1.75 second cast frostbolts (and waterbolts would be flying quickly too), 2.1 second starfires, 1.5 second lightning bolts (yeah, fine, 1.4... but it's still 1.5 on gcd), and fast holy lights since likely some people will be being beaten (ouch, lots of "be"-words) on. Still, I'd love to see the dps output, if one guy goes down quickly, then it becomes 5v4 and the 5-man team is a 3 dps and a 2 healer. It has all the makings of starting as a 4-dps team, then turning into an outlast 2 healer team once the dps advantage has worn off.

I really like this idea, I think I'll give it a try... we shall see. I'll report back with how well this works.