Tips for 3v3 (mage/lock/pally)

[Deleted]

We've all never done any high level arena before, just done a lot of BGs and stuff and we can't seem to get a team for RBGs together. I came up with an idea to do Warlock (me)/Mage and a healer and try some arena.

So we ended up doing some matches and it didn't go amazing, but then again we could have seen that coming since it's the first time we're doing arena like this. That's why I'm here to look for some tips and tactics for most games.

For example we kept facing this one team, UH DK/BM hunter/Shaman and there was no way we were beating them. We tried going for all three of them, tried to cc chain, but the shaman was pillar humping/tremoring/wind shearing all cc while the hunter and DK were pounding on the mage. Any tips on what to do here?

Also what specs/talents should we go for? I tried both destro and affli, both kinda seem underwhelming to me. CB damage isn't as good as I'd expected and affli needs 100% casting time to do decent damage. And I was wondering if the mage would go for nether tempest or frost bomb? He said frost bomb got dispelled a lot but gave good burst when it didn't. Maybe affli + frost bomb mage would be a good idea?

Should we play defensively with this comp too? The mage kinda likes to go in there and kill stuff, he doesn't really like/know how to play defensively but if that's a good tactic for us I could convince him otherwise :P.

[Redversion]

I would recommend watching streams of players playing this comp. Regarding the comp, shaman is usually considered the more viable healer. A stream I would recommend is Nadagast, who is a well respected warlock who has played at a competitive level for many years now.
He just played MLS last week in this recording: http://www.twitch.tv/nadagastt/b/381495613

Regarding which spec you play, you will see warlocks who play with a mage playing either affliction or destro. I advise you choose one and stick with it, as they are fairly different and learning to play both will probably slow down your general arena improvement.

Regarding tips for playing the comp, the main rule for MLS is that coordination is truly key. There are some comps where you can "tunnel" a target much more easily, but MLS is not one of those comps. There are two things you will want to work on with your mage.
1) Rotating crowd control. You want to make note of which CC causes a diminishing return on other CCs. For example: if you shadowfury a target and then your mage wants to deep freeze that target, his deep freeze will be shorter because of diminishing returns. Poly and fear are both nice 8 second CCs, and you will want to often pair them back to back. Example: Mage gets a polymorph on their healer, the healer trinkets, but then you cast a full fear on him and he is sitting in 8 seconds of CC without trinket.
2) Setting up kills. You mentioned your mages frost bomb getting dispelled. Frost bomb is a hard hitting ability that will get you kills, and healers know this so they will always try to dispel it when they know it's dangerous. The trick to getting effective frost bombs is to make sure that it cannot be dispelled. Let's say you are facing DK/Hunter/Shaman. If you want to frost bomb the hunter, the mage can cast frost bomb on the hunter while you use your blanket silence ability (from your pet) on the healer so that he cannot cast dispel. Another more difficult thing would be to track when the healer dispels. If you fear a target and it gets dispelled, let your mage know so that he knows he can cast a frost bomb without it getting dispelled in that 8 second window. One more note, if you are playing affliction lock, you have dispel protection! When your frost mage wants to frost bomb, make sure you have unstable affliction on that target. That way, even if it does get dispelled, you know that the healer is going to get silenced and the target is going to take some damage from the UA.

MLS is a comp where you will have to play defensively sometimes. Let's use the comp you were having trouble with as an example. One tip that gets thrown around a lot latey is: shaman healers are usually good targets to attack. However, like you said the shaman was kiting and LOSing both of you. Try this: The hunter and DK are going hard on your mage. Your mage backs off and goes behind the pillar and you and your mage attack the hunter or DK. If you use good positioning, now the hunter and DK are not within LOS of the shaman, and he has to move forward to go heal them. Now the shaman is exposed and you can both attack him. This counter-pressure not only puts you on the offensive, but it also forces them on the defensive because the DK and hunter will most likely have to help the shaman to survive.

There are other things you can work on such as fake casting (you mentioned trouble against wind shear). Overall, practice will improve your play, but you do not want to go on a non-stop, mindless zergfest of games. After games, evaluate what you could have done to improve on. Try to take note of what your team did well, and where your team failed. Again, I recommend Nada's stream. He's entertaining to watch, and sometimes you'll get a few pointers from watching and listening to him that you won't find on forums posts like this.

Good luck with your future arena games!

[Deleted]

Thanks for those tips man. I tried some of those tactics out today in arena, went up a bit in rating, but got stuck around 1600. The baiting technique with the mage worked a couple of times, but half the time they backed off and starting hitting the healer (I could only get a pally healer, good friend and guildie). CC chains need to be improves, it's not always easy to chain them. And we're also trying to work on communication and watching streams and stuff. I will definitely follow nadagastt and try to improve.

[stickyjam]

I think if you guys work together on the basics of producing a chain cc on the healer/ dps while both hitting the same target with cooldowns up you will progress.

this means CC1 goes in CC2 follows etc master that, calls such as Ive sheeped paladin then says i'll follow with hoj etc

then line up your cds. deep freeze > chaos bolt + shatter combo is alot of damage.

you can also play afflicition where your goal is to spam fears, keep dots rolling and add dmg during deep freeze. everything should be going low enough that the mage can deep someone and get off good enough damage to kill/force cds.

[Avada Kedavra]

Most definitely go Affi -

If you keep your dots rolling, and the rsham tries dispelling frost bomb, he will get hit with a 4 second silence and a big'ol UA crit to the face. also I would suggest using Grimoire of Sac. Increases your damage as well as major utility buff. I personally sac my voidwalker - and use the 30% increased health in conjunction with dark regeneration and my healthstone and dark bargin if you need to - when you use the voidwalker ability, my health jumps to 576k health for 20 seconds - but dark regen and healthstone heal for a percentage of your health, not a specified amount.

Dark Regeneration: 30% of your health= 30%*576k=~172k heal
Healthstone: 40% of your health= 40%*576k=~230k heal
GrimofSac: Heals you for 2% of your health every 5 seconds - its about a 10k heal for me

I use this when i have a healer - major survivability.

( I think those numbers are right, Ill link my toon so you can see - if anyone sees anything wrong, please let me know - but I think i picked a decent build)

Immobulus

[Senathor]

I think Destro would be nice becuase you could combine bomb shatters with chaos bolts and literally one-shot people. If u go Affli be ready for very long games.