5v5 tactic.

[xaedon]

Yesterday, me and my 5v5 friends played our first games this season and it did go well. Got 11-1 and reached about 1650 before we had to go to sleep. The thing is, our elemental shaman left our team before this season and we've replaced him with a lock. So our setup is Frost mage (me)//MS warrior//Holy Paladin//Disc Priest//Sl Lock. I know we only lost one game yesterday and most games wast just impossible to lose but my question is. What tactic should a setup like this play? Last season we used this setup for like a week and it didn't work at all (that's why we got a shaman instead, which worked very good). The problems we had with the lock in s2 was that we didn't get enough dps, so im just worried that this will occur to us again once we get to 1800-1900 rating.

Therefore, I wanna know any standard tactic etc. for this setup. Like should we nuke or play defensive? maby drain? All experienced answers are welcome.

Thanks in advance

[Clay]

On your raiting I would suggest that your lock and priest go for drain and the rest of you guys try to play as defensive as possible. When you get higher up this might be a problem tho due to better cc.

[Azain]

most arena strats, 5v5 included, come down to two basic strats: drain/outlast or burst. most burst teams are 4 dps 1 healer, or 3 dps 1 off-healer and 1 healer. off-healer being a resto sham in ele gear, or a boomkin, or ret pally, or offensive disc priest or w/e. however given your makeup i would say go drain/outlast. the warlock or priest is most likely going to be your first target, as once the priest is dead the pally becomes ez mode to CC.

i would suggest putting yourself, the frost mage, on a weaker target to 1v1 (undergeared warrior, holy priest, shadowpriest) something that you can easily kill. the other classes will be forced to defend/heal, opening the chance for drain mana and mana burn. your warrior can assist you on your target for MS, or he can be put on something like a pally or shaman to stop him from casting, perhaps with the lock pet. a rogue works better for locking someone down but warriors are just as scary. if you can survive you get a few of them oom, then it becomes way easier to CC/focus dps, and once you go 5v4 or 5v3, its all but over.

your combo suggests drain/outlast, but you are capable of burst for sure.

[xaedon]

Ok, that seems like a sold tactic, maybe we'll try that next time. Thanks for the answers and feel free to add any other tactics that your team have found successful.

[Azain]

i'm not sure if you are rl friends or can replace someone, but replacing the warrior with an mm hunter (imp shots and stings of course) could work. your pally would be able to use freedom on whoever is getting focus'd instead of always tossing it to the warrior, and you have another drain class which is OP plus the aimed shot MS when you do decide to focus a target. i would def suggest a hunter over the war for drain/outlast.

[xaedon]

Im afraid we can't replace the warrior, RL friends but you do have a point. Im thinking that with "only" 2 who can drain it'll take some time to get any of the opponents oom.

[Azain]

Im afraid we can't replace the warrior, RL friends but you do have a point. Im thinking that with "only" 2 who can drain it'll take some time to get any of the opponents oom.

yes, if its an rl friend then not much you can do. even more likely is that the priest will be first target, and outside of bubble the pally will be CC'd. in this case you lose 1 of those drains, and chances are with 2 healers and a strictly drain lock, you rely on shatter combos and warrior burst dps to drop your target, and i don't think that will be enough in the 5v5 setting. if you fight a 3 drain team, such as lock/hunter/priest the first person they will target is you, and then all dps goes out the window.

you should survive well against burst teams however, with poly, fear and two healers. unfortunately only playing 12 games its hard to assess how well you will do over time, especially with the random draw of teams you get early on in the season. i definitely think your combo will be successful to a higher rating, but if you can't create a single identity as drain or burst, then you may have to rely on what i suggested in an earlier post, about splitting dps/CC while you are draining to throw the other team off their game. gl