Topic
@Anyone running Junglecleave at high rating
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1) RLS - wat do?
Good ones can basically just rot us down if we sit the Rogue, and the Lock is a meat-shield. If we go Shammy, they have too much control for us to really push a CD (it seems). 2) VIP Pets Cleave - wat do when they just sit on Guntir (my priest)? If they try to go on my Hunter, we just kite for 10 years and eventually kill the Ret, but if they go on Guntir, we have such a hard time peeling between 75% movement speed on the DK and freedom on the Ret. They basically have 100% up-time and we cannot land a kill before they gib Guntir. 3) ThugCleave - wat do? We went on the Priest against a 2k-rated one and accidentally gibbed him before he used Pain Suppression (got kicked after a Maim like a baddie), but we usually get wrecked by this comp because of the on-target control. |
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Edited by Clay on 2/21/12 10:35 AM (PST)
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I have two places for you to look for better information. - If you watch the last NAO tournament, you can watch Datah's team play against an RLS. Those videos are probably available on the twitch.tv site. - There's a thread on AJ posted by hype, where he discusses their teams strategies for handling (Rogue, Mage, Spriest/Lock/Shaman). It usually involved setting up a double-cc situation, where you have a long time frame of 3vs1. From my observation, it looks like you hang on by your fingernails the entire time. Every few minutes, you have to retreat/play defensive to let your healer recover your health bars a little bit and clear dots. Then you get a gib on the rogue. 2) I played Junglecleave just a little bit this season - and we were struggling keeping our shaman alive vs cleaves, including DK/Ret. When I asked Datah, he really emphasized that against cleave teams you need to intercept them across the map and go incredibly offensive off the start - early cc on the healer. Once they've broken your offense, then you peel. And do another offensive round as quickly as possible. If you go into the match with a defensive mindset, you will just DR your cc - giving them a big enough window to kill your priest. 3) Is thug rogue/hunter/healer? If that's the comp, I don't remember having any problem with them. I would let them 2v2 until the rogue opened. Then I would open on the rogue and my hunter would swap to him. |
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1) I'll try and check out those vids. One thing about Datah's team is that he and his Hunter have some impressively OP PvE loots, so it's a bit different; their offensive pressure basically doubles ours >_<. 2) Yeah, I'm noticing that, but how -- as Feral -- do you get out to open on a DK+Ret+Disc team early? Just have the Hunter use launcher on Frost Trap as soon as he can and I blow Dash before even opening? This is mainly the problem for us... when we DO play offensively and they don't (usually 1800 cleaves have trouble with the "charge in and blow all cooldowns offensively" strat that works so well for them), we win by virtue of this strategy falling in our laps, but when they charge in we have trouble opening hard enough far enough away from Guntir for us to get our offense going and their CDs popped defensively. 3) Is thug rogue/hunter/healer? Yes, and the Rogue just sits my hunter and locks his damage into nothing while the Hunter peels like crazy. |
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then sit the rogue and lock his damage just like he can to your hunter...if you play feral right you can stun lock something ALMOST like a rogue, obviously rogues are better at it but believe me feral rip (no pun intended) rogues apart.
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I start mounted and switch to cat/stealth at about the 25% mark on the map... if necessary sprint in stealth from there. I started to avoid using cat-charge on the opener, because I frequently over-shot the target and it would basically ruin us when that happened.
Your hunter should be putting CC as early as possible into the healer, because you're trying to put out enough pressure to break their charge. I don't think frost trap is the way to go. I'm pretty sure you really want to kill the ret, but we had problems with the ret just bubbling and continuing to run. When opening DK, we had problems with the ret putting freedom or HoP on the DK and the DK continuing mounted. We didn't play enough to have a chance to figure out solutions to those problems. I'm thinking that I would try one of these: Open DK w/ Silencing shot on Pally, to prevent freedom or hop. Switch to pally once you've dismounted the DK. Open DK, if you get enough CPs to clone or root DK in response to paladin's spell. Maybe switch paladin at that point. If you can't force the DK to dismount he's going to start putting serious pressure on Guntir. And eventually, the paladin will join him and it will be over. |
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Agreed... but it's such a big portion of my burst!! Your hunter should be putting CC as early as possible into the healer, because you're trying to put out enough pressure to break their charge. I don't think frost trap is the way to go. Yeah, Ret is definitely the kill target; the DK just will never die and Selfless Healer + WoG is OP. I kind of feel what you're getting at here... Pounce the Pally while Scatter+Trap on healer, immediately Entangle the DK (like immediately; Pounce->ER on DK), follow my stun with Silencing Shot onto Ret to keep him from Freedom'ing the DK. I think we can do this. Open DK, if you get enough CPs to clone or root DK in response to paladin's spell. Maybe switch paladin at that point. If you can't force the DK to dismount he's going to start putting serious pressure on Guntir. And eventually, the paladin will join him and it will be over. I'm just going to hard-cast it out of the opener; Pounce->Entangling Roots on DK, back to DEEPSING the Ret hard. |
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It would require a few things set up: 1) Blade's Edge, Nagrand, or Lordaeron; RoV/Sewers are too small to start the match mounted and get stealthed against non-VIP cleaves. 2) Scatter Shot on the DK so I could Root him. Although, I think I do like this idea... it seems ridiculous, but a 5s stun opener without costing me energy might actually work for bursting early on... ----------------- Completely non-related side-question: Blood in the Water... does this reset the Glyph of Bloodletting too? That is, I get Rip up, Shred 3 times increasing Rip's duration by 6 seconds (max from the glyph), the target is sub-25%, I refresh Rip via FB; does the next Mangle/Shred extend Rip's duration by 2 seconds? |
Yup. |
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Hot and dangerous... Just asking because I'm looking into Feral-double-healer with 2p PvE. I love how strong our 2p is; do any high-rated Ferals consider using it in any non-gimmick comps (lawl, Feral+Disc+RSham is a gimmick, if you ask me)? |
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I haven't had any trouble starting mounted on any maps against any comps. Just be careful of hunter's mark.
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Edited by Reygahnci on 2/21/12 1:39 PM (PST)
Clay... 1400s... what are you doing, man? I'll try the ride-out tactic; we need more pressure against a lot of comps anyway. |
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Edited by Datah on 2/21/12 4:30 PM (PST)
I'll post in reference to priest/feral/hunter because that is what you seem to be playing. These are going to be really long posts, so I apologize for that beforehand (they'll still be missing infinitely many things too).
1 - Good RLS is obviously hard, since it's the strongest comp in the game right now and can kill anything on your team. However it is not your hardest matchup or anything like that. You can win very consistently against RLS that isn't absolutely top-notch if you play well enough, and win at least a fair proportion even against absolute top-notch teams (though really top RLS almost certainly has an advantage to one degree or another, especially if they have the best PvE gear [in the worst case, it may actually be relatively one-sided]). What you have to do, at least early in matches, is actually really simple - just train the warlock hard. The rogue will probably sap your priest. Your positioning should be such that the priest gets sapped in line of sight of Roar of Sacrifice (this actually applies to any rogue team) in case the rogue plays a strategy where he just tries to solo priest while shaman warlock 2v2s. Your hunter is in the middle in Camo, and should be in position to pounce the warlock as soon as he moves away from line of sight to try to get your hunter out or cast UA. When the warlock moves in to do that, just pounce him and have your hunter open too. The rogue can cheap shot either of you but top RLS will probably open on you to try to delay your proc so that they can try to deny the early clone. Just eat the cheap shot. Depending on whether they get dots up right away and how aggressive the rogue is you may need to skin the opener (and your priest needs to be very aware of how aggressive they're being immediately too). Your hunter should normally silence shot the warlock's UA during the opener on you to delay it more, and try to get cc on shaman at the same time. He may or may not land a trap right away, it depends on positioning and how aware the other team is being. If not, you can just try to get a double fear on rogue/shaman right away off of scatter or monkey (or just a single fear on shaman) to get tremor. In the midst of all that you should be trying to get a clone that you will be able to land. Sometimes you will do this before the fear, and if they're positioned to eat an early trap you may want to delay the trap and do it before that too. There are subtleties to this point. Good RLS will do a lot to try to deny the clone, between grounding, purge, coil, cheap, kidney, howl, and devour. What you need to do to get it is situational and depends on what they are doing and how much they're concentrating on denying it. Sometimes you want to delay applying rip a little while to bait grounding/howl/kidney/coil or to wait until you can get the proc without the shaman able to purge. There is a little metagame between you and their team here and you will not always win it (but you should pay attention to details that will let you get the clone more often). Also, if the RLS tries to let a howl sit on you early (say they cheap shot your hunter) instead of opening on you, it's very important for your priest to try to dispel that before UA. You always want to use an early Berserk. This doesn't mean in the opener. It means when you land your first real control (either clone or trap) that you can chain off of, or when you know you will land long control very soon, and you are not going to get peeled (this may mean a clone on the rogue, or FF'd NG roots with the shaman in cc, or whatever, usually in combination with either Howl being on CD or you being on fear DR). The first Rapid Fire can be earlier than the first Berserk or at the same time, depending how things go. You will almost never get a kill here against teams that are playing remotely properly but you want to force at least the shaman's trinket and NS, or spirit link and NS, or trinket and link, or something like that. You should fiend early also, but it's better to be more unpredictable with this (you may want to wait for the shaman's trinket to be down, land a readiness trap, and then fiend instead of doing it instantly on the first control chain, for example). |
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HORRY SHEET... reading... thanks for the post Datah, I'll edit with questions if I have 'em.
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Your first set of cooldowns should force some of theirs, and they will have normally used a lot of offensive cooldowns too to attempt to counterpressure to force you to be more defensive (don't be too defensive, though). At this point the game normally stabilizes to some degree. The RLS will be trying to do swaps a lot. This can be to any player on your team, all of you are potential kill targets. Whenever the warlock is trying to be aggressive at all you need to be on him.
You can kill the rogue too in some situations, but you really need to understand when it is a good idea to do that. Normally, a switch to the rogue should happen when he is overextended extremely far and the warlock has just used port with the shaman behind the pillar with him also. If you let a competent warlock get dots on your whole team you are going to fall behind extremely quickly - even a few seconds in line with him in an aggressive position can lose you the game at some points, and this is what happens if you go on the rogue at the wrong times. If the game stabilizes like this it's really a give-and-take matchup where either team can get a kill (though the RLS has an advantage in terms of really long games). The RLS can kill anything in a swap with FW up if they happen to land double control or a spell lock at the right time (or if you don't have Roar of Sac at a crucial moment, or if one of them is on DR at the wrong time, or whatever). You will just be trying to land control chains whenever you have any damage for the warlock, probably just fearing the rogue when you can cover it (you can do this earlier in games too, if he's on your hunter especially), and when you can't follow the warlock while he's playing defensively doing swaps to rogue. If the match gets to this point, it's actually fairly straightforward - just play the game. Normally though, you want to end it before it gets to be quite this much of a stalemate. If you are able to force a lot of things very early, it is likely that you can get a kill even without your cooldowns if you land a monkey->trap->clone->scatter->silence->kick or whatever with fear on rogue at least once later in the game. |
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Edited by Datah on 2/21/12 5:05 PM (PST)
There are really a ton of small (and large) things that I haven't mentioned at all that factor into this though - even a question like "how to play this matchup" is really too general. =p I'll try to mention a few of them though:
a) You may need to trinket offensively early to get enough pressure to force the shaman's cooldowns (or at some point later in the game too). If you do this, especially while barkskin is on cooldown, you must communicate your situation very effectively to your team and be extremely aware of what the other team is trying to do. There are many situations where you should do this - you may need to in order to win. However, they can kill you instantly in a swap after this with any CC on priest or with a bomb. To avoid this, you must either be very high on health and bear form the swap/bomb, or shield wall the swap/bomb, or get gripped on it (or your hunter has to be able to peel it completely). Awareness of things like this means knowing when the warlock can soul swap to you, for example, and carefully watching the rogue [along with keeping track of KS use and dance cooldowns - you may want to use an addon for this, but just conscious attention to these things is probably enough]. Also, your hunter needs to be ready to sac you as soon as a swap is going to happen in situations like this. It is perfectly fine to be in this position but you need to realize that you can die instantly and preemptively know what to do to avoid that. b) Early in the game you really should try to get fears on shaman or double fears on rogue+shaman against RLS if at all possible. Later, unless you're in a really aggressive position, you probably just want to fear rogue when you can cover it with cc on shaman or the shaman is too far to tremor/dispel. c) If the rogue is not that aware of what is happening, the other team doesn't expect it, or they just decide not to use cooldowns correctly, you may be able to switch rogue and just kill him with your first zerk+cc chain on shaman (especially if the warlock has just ported and can't assist the rogue, for example). A rogue who doesn't combat readiness+evasion immediately against you will cheat death within seconds if you have all of your cooldowns up (and you may even be able to force NS or link through those). Against RLS that understands this can happen, that probably will not work. Also, as I indicated earlier, if the warlock is competent, going on the rogue at the wrong times can lose you the game very quickly. d) You can certainly attack the shaman also, and may even be able to kill shamans sometimes (and almost definitely force cooldowns if you double/triple cc well). Like going on the rogue, this probably will not work against good teams that know not to hesitate with cooldowns just because you're doing something they don't expect. Also: I'll try and check out those vids. One thing about Datah's team is that he and his Hunter have some impressively OP PvE loots, so it's a bit different; their offensive pressure basically doubles ours >_<. I haven't used any PvE gear in 3s for quite a while (except a few silly double healer games). The games Clay mentioned were from the first NAO invitational, and nobody on our team was using any PvE gear except tsunami. Kurum does use tier 13 2-piece on live, but didn't for a while before this last NAO tournament (i.e. the one in january). However, those NAO RLS games from the december tournament were just after patch 4.3 hit, and were in last season's gear. The game is quite different now, and most RLS teams play much differently too (in particular, much more aggressively, and frequently with more potent PvE gear). So, it's not a great indication of how matches look now (also, venoma's RLS went in to those games sort of assuming they'd lose to us based on our live history - really top RLS is definitely a hard match, even if those games look relatively easy [in the first one, we had some quite clear problems and still won, for example - the second game was a lot cleaner by our team, but theirs had some problems]). However, indeed, the tactics haven't changed too much (the main difference is that now, it's easier for RLS to kill the feral or the hunter - previously it had to rely a lot more on priest swaps/trains). |
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Edited by Datah on 2/21/12 4:33 PM (PST)
Anyway, on to the other matchups:
2) DK/Ret/Priest Against almost any priest team the strategy is largely the same for feral/hunter/priest (and, indeed, most hunter/melee teams) - train something extremely hard and put almost all control into the priest. You should dash out of the gates against something like this. You can pounce either DK or ret paladin but you want to kill the ret paladin either way. There are a lot of ways to open and without playing the matchup recently against a really top team it's hard to say which is best, but ideally you want to accomplish all of the following immediately a) delay the DK from getting to your priest as long as possible b) get immediate hard pressure on the ret paladin c) waste their freedom early d) land cc instantly on the priest [note that (c) is important through the whole match - whenever freedom is on cooldown, it means you can full FC root the DK with no out which is extraordinarily powerful, especially if your priest can shield at the same time] So here's one way to do it (assuming they are rushing across the map - if not, then wait until the ret moves into the open and do the same thing, or just work out a way to open on him behind los with a shield if they're playing really really defensively [if they're doing that, it is probably good for you anyway, though]) Dash immediately and pounce the ret paladin. Off of this, either your hunter should conc shot the DK, or you should just instanlty bear form FC him off of your pounce on the paladin [or both]. If is very likely the DK gets an early freedom here. Now go extremely hard on the paladin with an early zerk+agi trinket after TF, and land a monkey blind trap on the priest immediately. If you have to, use scatter shot to land the trap. Your priest should fiend on the paladin his first global, and your hunter should obviously use cooldowns as soon as you have CC also. The DK may try to frenzy CC on the priest - be very aware of the priest's focus frame and watch for frenzy. Ideally it should get either tranq shot or soothed before it ticks every game. Alternately, try to land a clone on the DK while you are landing cc on the priest. If the DK uses frenzy on himself, soothe or tranq it anyway - it's a huge amount of damage for him. It is very likely the DK will try to AMS cyclone early. Try to get your proc very fast to get him to do this, but don't use it on the DK. Instead, either scatter the DK on AMS, or just let him get to your priest and have him use cooldowns as soon as both enemy players connect (obviously your priest should have RoS early against this team [actually, i don't know if RoS cooldown resetting has been nerfed yet on live - blizzard wants to do this, so if it has you may want to be more careful with it]). Use your clone on the priest out of trap instead (or off of frenzy breaking cc, if it ticks). If you get a full monkey->trap->clone->silence (with a potential scatter here too) on priest with your cooldowns up on the paladin, you should get either the priest's trinket or the paladin's bubble (preferably the priest's trinket!). Now you get into the tricky situation where both players will connect to your priest and you don't have effective cc for their priest. You may or may not still have pressure on the paladin. One thing to realize is that once they connect to your priest, he should not be behind line of sight. HIn fact, he should almost certainly be in the open running towards their priest so that he can get a fear off of your next control and so that neither of you gets line of sighted trying to peel for him. If you got the paladin's bubble in the first CC chain on their priest, you should now be looking to land a full maim on him. That leaves him with two choices: Either trinket and get peeled by cyclone, or eat it and get peeled by maim (into a potential cyclone, or in combination with a cyclone on his DK). You should also bash the DK, which will force IBF - off of this, you can clone to force trinket and then either FC root (if freedom is down) or scatter/monkey him to effectively peel him (or fear him with cover on the priest if he lichborned something earlier). He may have trinketed something else earlier too, if you used a scatter on him for example or feared him and he didn't want to lichborne for some reason. Anyway, at this point the idea is to make sure you are getting full damage on the paladin, land more CC on the priest as soon as you can, and abuse trinkets being down as much as possible. You should have quite ridiculous pressure on the ret paladin if he's in your line the whole time. In the interests of not taking hours typing I'll leave this matchup at that for now but again there are obviously tons more things to talk about too - if you have more specific questions I'll try to help. |
