Shatterplay (Mage/SPriest/RDruid) - Questions

[Ultima-EU]

Hi.

Anyone playing this setup to successfull rating, that could share some detailed information on key tactics on what you are doing ?
On all our games we out damage the other team by far, but still somhow manage to lose.

I play the Mage in this setup, so i want some information on spec, reforging and playstyle.

1. Would you prefer Nether Tempest over Frost Bomb ? With NT i can really push out some overall damage, but with feel that FB shine due to burst. Should I switch between the two based on which classes/setup we meet? What to use against who ?
2. The new flameglow talent looks like it would shine against dispellers and classes that to alot of low damage hits. (ie. Roges, Aff.Locks.) Would it be wise to switch to this talent when fighting against such classes and classes that can dispell/spellsteal?
3. I se most high end players reforge mastery, and some haste. Which would be bether for FB or NT and for which playstyle should i use with which reforging?
4. As shatterplay, should i play defensive or agressive?

Tactic questions

1. Who to focus? Should we pressure all players, and wait for someone to go low and go for a kill? Or CC the healer as much as possible and go hard on the two DPS? Every team we face, the healer pillarhug and makes it very hard to land a sheep.
2. Hunters, what to do? :-( Kill their pet, and then what?

Please keep your feedback constructive, and if you have opinions about some of these questions, please state why.

[tsunny]

1. Usually it depends on the comp, but NT is really good atm. It benefits from frost mastery, so if you cast it on a frozen target, the damage from it is unbalanced.
2. Flameglow rocks against dot cleaves, etc.
3. I think mastery is the way to go atm.
4. Play defensive or aggressive based on your opponents.

[Yvaelle]

1. Frost Bomb IMO. Frost Bomb into Shatter combo is amazing - not that nether tempest is bad though, a lot of people use it and for good reason - but FB is better imo (just harder to use).

2. Flameglow versus Aff locks, Spriests, Rogues, Windwalkers - and definitely any combination of the above.

3. Mastery definitely.

4. As a frost mage in shatterplay, your primary job is to play defensive-ish. Peel for your priest and shaman with CC's on the DPS - this will let them freecast - if both of them can freecast the shaman should take over purges on the kill target and potentially capacitor / hex on the enemy healer, the spriest should set up the kill - and then you burst the spriests target. You are primarily there for CC and burst, not pressure - leave that to the Spriest (or the afflock in MLS, which plays pretty much identically and will make a come-back this season).

Tactics:
1. Mostly just root / stun / cc the DPS as an fmage in shatterplay - this will force the healer to you - then you can CC the healer, if the healer hides - CC the DPS again. This way it will always be either Spriest+Fmage+Rshaman vs. 1 DPS (if one dps is CC'd and the healer hides) or Shatterplay vs 2 DPS who aren't getting heals (CC'd healer), and are thus forced to play defensive: such is the power of Frost.

2. Hunters. Root their pets (don't bother killing them) - your team has two frost novas, cone of cold, circle of frost, void tendrils and earthgrab totem - this is why Shatterplay was so strong last season during KFC dominance, it can chain-root the pets and warrior: which may as well be AoE polymorph for what it does to pets/warriors. It was the KFC counter-comp, in a season when KFC made up over a third of all top comps.

Final note: The real deciding factor of success for most Shatterplays is how well they all defensively dispel one another. The shaman of course has cleanse spirit and tremor totem, but if someone gets hexxed - particularly the shaman - that's the mages job to decurse (which a lot of mages seem to ignore). If the shaman gets poly'd or repentanced or stunned - that's the spriests job to dispel. If the mage gets CC'd - generally that's the shamans job though - the spriest should save dispels for the shaman. Also if the mage gets CC'd that means they weren't mage'ing hard enough - or they got blood fear'd - in which case it's their fault for not being undead (but now blood fear is removed).

The key is to keep all three of you free-casting, while you keep the odds constantly in your teams favour by peeling / CC'ing at least one enemy at all times - and bursting when needed.

[stickyjam]

Hi.

Anyone playing this setup to successfull rating, that could share some detailed information on key tactics on what you are doing ?
On all our games we out damage the other team by far, but still somhow manage to lose.

I play the Mage in this setup, so i want some information on spec, reforging and playstyle.

1. Would you prefer Nether Tempest over Frost Bomb ? With NT i can really push out some overall damage, but with feel that FB shine due to burst. Should I switch between the two based on which classes/setup we meet? What to use against who ?
   NT generally is saved for melee cleaves who are likely to train you but ultimately the more you can frost bomb spec the better, you're looking to kill things in deep switches/big shatters with dmg from priest with devouring plague, basically he gets 3 orbs you have deep off cd. put out some cc and blow up kill target.
2. The new flameglow talent looks like it would shine against dispellers and classes that to alot of low damage hits. (ie. Roges, Aff.Locks.) Would it be wise to switch to this talent when fighting against such classes and classes that can dispell/spellsteal?
   I dunno how much i'd be playing this outside boomkin affliction/shadowcleave... especially if your play style means you like to use ice barrier often as you should
3. I se most high end players reforge mastery, and some haste. Which would be bether for FB or NT and for which playstyle should i use with which reforging?
   personal preference really, easier casting vs more dmg if you get the casts off
4. As shatterplay, should i play defensive or agressive?
   You should switch regularly between these 2 based on your cc drs and your offensive cds

Tactic questions

1. Who to focus? Should we pressure all players, and wait for someone to go low and go for a kill? Or CC the healer as much as possible and go hard on the two DPS? Every team we face, the healer pillarhug and makes it very hard to land a sheep.
   Healers are actually very good kill targets. a combination of double/triple fear with a sheep on something like a warrior who may berserker the fear leaves you set to kill one, holy paladins shud blow up as your comp
   
2. Hunters, what to do? :-( Kill their pet, and then what?
   novas, roots, fears, freezes, priest dots if the priest multi dots to a good standard the hunters pet can be switched by both of u wen its low enuf to kill in a gcd from each of you, else dont mindlessly dmg the pet let the priests dots have a good go and switch if u can kill. the hunter himself is actually a good target to kill leaving his team mate in as much cc as possible

Please keep your feedback constructive, and if you have opinions about some of these questions, please state why.

see above.

[Ultima-EU]

Thanks for the replies. Will try to play more CC/Defensive, and be there for the kill
About the hunters, I cant see them as viable targets. 16% reduced damage, 10% increased healing and 2x deterence sems like alot to get through.

Would rather CC the hunter (and or kill the pet), and try to kill one of his teammates.

Any more input from someone playing this comp would be much appreciated. Any tips and trick that would benefit me, my team or my teammates

[Snuggli]

Played about 200 games as Shatterplay and beat a couple of multi r1's as it, so I can give a little bit of input:

NT vs Frost Bomb
As someone pointed out earlier, Frost Bomb is better the majority of the time unless you're against cleaves who will be trying to shut you down. Frost Bomb is almost completely useless against a Enh/Warrior/Monk team for example. Take Nether Tempest when you think you'll need to take it, there's no right or wrong answer. Some comps NT might work better against, but then they won't train you and then you'll regret swapping, then next game you'll take bomb and they'll train you instead and you'll do 0 damage. Very much rock paper scissors. NT is definitely the safe option though.


Flameglow
Haven't looked into it much, but I remember someone adding it up and to get the same amount of absorb as Ice Barrier you have to take a lot of little hits. Ice Barrier is an on-demand shield for quite a lot of health, easily the better talent. Flameglow might have its uses later in the season, or maybe next season, but right now Ice Barrier is way better.


Mastery vs Haste
Mastery for suresies. If you see a Mage reforging Haste it might be worth looking at the comp he's playing, he might be playing a cleave rather than a healer-eater like shatterplay.


Tactics
I think this is where you're going wrong. From the description you gave it sounded like you were trying to set up CC chains on the healer and just training a DPS all game. Hitting DPS is a good way to force CDs from the Healer (trinket, bubble, etc), but once those CDs have been used you should be looking to set up big swaps on the healer. This tactic will win you pretty much every game if you do it right.

Fear Bomb on DPS (when tremor is down vs shaman teams), Frost orb + bomb and 3 orb devouring plague with shadow fiend inside a deep when the trinket is down will win nearly every game, if they survive that, then you've got the Spriests 5s blanket silence after the deep. Your Druid can clone / root both DPS towards the end of the fear and have a 10s 3v0 situation with massive burst.

Basically, if you've got defensive CDs and your healer has CDs available you can play very-in-your-face and harass the healer as much as possible with CC or burst. If the other team is bursting you better, you can try the defensive tactic of playing behind a pillar and forcing them to you. If they LoS their healer, burst them in a deep and you'll force trinkets etc. If both DPS pillar you can fear bomb and blink up to the healer and hard swap to him.

Best example i've got of our typical tactic is this game (youtube clip). Open semi-hard on healer and force trinket. Our team could go offensive because we've got defensive and healing CDs available. Play defensive and survive their burst while deep comes back up, force tremor with fear on Shaman too. Once Mage and Spriest are ready to burst again, we fear bomb DPS and swap hard to shaman with CC on DPS. Game was just over 1 min 30s.

Vs Hunter teams, we found the best tactic was to play round pillar and kill their pet. Once their pet was dead we pretty much chased them round the map stopping them from ressing the pet forcing CD after CD. If they go too far from their healer, swap to the healer and either get a kill or force the Hunter back out... then just go back on the Hunter if the healer didn't die. Rotate CC on the 3rd person.