Misadventures in Organized Mayhem Episode 3: Never gonna give you up!
I have a triology!
Yes, I've poked my head back up from playing Starcraft 2 to bring out the latest edition of my HOW DO PVP series.
Interest in pvp has increased slightly since the last installment, so today I thought I'd discuss a more specific topic.
WHAT?
Communication and You!
Yes, it's something simple as just talking.
Communicating is the single most helpful thing you can do to help out your teammates. Well, at least assuming they have the cranial capacity to understand what you're saying. Case in point:
I do not miss that little shithead.
Anyway, you may be asking, "But Grand Overlord Kael, what should I communicate to my friend?"
The answer young padawan is simple:
GODDAMN EVERYTHING
Every enemy, every trinket, every cooldown, every interrupt, every target, every respawn etc etc.
You get Counterspelled? CALL IT OUT! Your priest friend will hear it and will know they can cast freely for the next 20 seconds.
Are you sheeped? LET YOUR PAL KNOW! He may be able to dispell it, or he can play defensive until you're free.
Enemy use his trinket? MAKE MUMBLE CRY! Your teammate can chain CC on him.
You'd think this would be fairly obvious, but it's so important it has to be stressed. To maximize your effectiveness, you and your team have to use your abilities in tandem. That kind of syzygy requires good communication to get right.
Land a Polymorph but didn't say you were sheeping the target? Maybe your friend dotted it up and broke the CC. Now your opponent is free and poly is on DR!
Fortunatley for me, this concept is hard to explain in words, so I don't have to type a whole lot. Instead, with the help of our resident enhancement shaman, I've put together this video to help convey some of the communication that goes back and forth while pvping.
Now Youtube kinda fucked up and filled a bunch of space with a black border, so you should probably watch it with a larger video window or even in fullscreen at 720p. Here's a direct link so you can do just that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmTdh76n9kc
DO NOT WATCH AT WORK WITH SOUND CRANKED WHY ARE YOU SO DUMB
Of course, there is a Catch-22 here. When you get to a point where you've played with someone for a long time, you get to know how each other play. For example, Jurchen knows that I will almost always prioritize a hunter target over anything else, and as such won't try to Hex it. Your communication therefore may drop off a bit since you both understand what the other is doing.
Don't be fooled though, it's still really friggin' important (especially in the non-forgiving environments of arenas and the upcoming rated BGs) to communicate interrupts, target switches, and cooldowns as much as you can. I'll leave you to enjoy the video, since it's a whopping 7 minutes long.
Also as an aside, this is a good chance to see my UI in action with all the addons I mentioned in episode 1!
Congratulations! You are now at least 2.6 steps ahead of the rest of this clusterfuck of mental degradation we call a battlegroup.
Old Episodes:
| Posts: | |
User login
Navigation
Footnote:
Everytime I've posted a video like this, someone has asked the question, so here's my answer in advance:
Weapon of Choice - Fatboy Slim
Watercolour - Pendulum
Footnote 2:
@ 4:36
YES I KNOW HE USED DISENGAGE, NOT DETERRENCE
SHUT UP
WHY ARE YOU SO MEAN
Hey Kael
I'm thinking of swapping my secondary spec in Cataclysm to being a dps spec, that I could also turn into my pvp spec....
What's better in PVP? Boomkin or Feral Cat?
Right now?
Boomkin.
A geared boomkin does obscene amounts of damage. Your strongest ability is going to be Starfall. That spell is balanced around being an AoE spell, but against one or two opponents it can do 12k damage without you having to think.
You also have good CC with cyclone and can heal yourself fairly well since you're stacking spell power.
Also typhooning people off cliffs is ftw.
Of course that could all change in Cata.
Fikkiw ne!
I laughed so hard at the title. Win.
Also, excellent write-up. I really need to level my other priest up so I can pvp-spec her out and go piss people off in BG's.
Talking is key
Talking to your teamates is very key. Even if your not the best pvper around a couple people in a BG communicating can swing the tide for you quite handily. If you want to practice this go into a BG with only a couple people no more than 3 or 4. Designate one person as the target caller. Everyone should put that person as their focus target and get used to targeting that persons target. Make sure you always move as a group apart from emergency situations. After a fight the rest of the group should wait near the graveyard for anyone that died. Make sure you communicate where you are respawning if you die. Focus Fire alone will win alot of fights.
From here start to have awareness of abilties your friends and enemies use. The target caller should not be afraid to switch targets if he sees the target pally bubble or iceblook. Just make sure you call out the switch so that the people with you know to go to the new target as well.