Of Gnomes and Rogues

I as happily reading about all the patch changes on wow.com yesterday when I saw this:

The newest season of Arena gear can only be purchased if you meet the requirements with your 3 or 5-player team rating. Rating requirements from 2-player teams can still be used to purchase the previous season of gear.

This made me a little upset.  I like 2v2…I mean, I really like 2v2 and I’m actually getting better at it.  There is something so simple about such a deathmatch.  Not that my arena scores in 2v2 are near good enough to purchase the top tier arena gear….but I like to have my illusions of granduer and think I’m actually gonna get there someday. 

Along with this change, I imagine more and more people will stop playing it so the queue times will become longer and/or you’ll keep meeting up with the same teams (good if you stomp them…bad if they continually stomp you).  I guess 2v2, when played, will be considered entry level arena…much like entry level raiding.  A stepping stone to the lower level pvp-gear you need to survive against players in the 3v3 and 5v5 brackets. 

I do understand the balance issues in 2v2, but I wish there was another way to address it – like make the 2v2 ratings needed to get the uber gear higher…or, just delete the bracket altogether.  Somehow I think that S7 will be the last time we see the 2v2 bracket.  My guess is that by S8 they will have phased it out altogether.  *Sigh*  I still hope to play 2v2 next season, even if it means I also need to do 3v3 every week to keep in sight my slight glimmer of pvp-uberness.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I am really, really bad at 3v3. I’m not sure exactly why that is, but I am exactly the opposite of the description of super uber. In fact, I really think that if I put a monkey at the keyboard, he would perform better at 3v3 than I would. Of course 3v3 is not anywhere near as bad a 5v5 for me, but that’s a post for another time.

A few nights ago my regular 2v2 partner, Galyan (Holy Paladin), and I found a guildie (an Enhancement Shaman) to come with us to try 3v3. Being a new grouping, I expected the learning curve to be high, but perhaps not that high.  We certainly lived up to our team name (Team Splatt), however, and went 5-15 that night. I guess it’s actually not as bad as I’m making it out to be. I tried 2v2 for the first time last season and I think I went 2-8 in my first 10 games. I’ve had a lot of practice and read up on some strategies for 2v2 since then, so I’m starting to get better.  In fact, I think I’d go as far as saying I’m not horribad anymore!

There is also a lot to be said about having a good team dynamic. I got comfortable with my first 2v2 partner (a Disclipline Priest), and we started win more as we could better anticipate each other’s moves and develop strategies for specific team makeups. He decided to leave the game for a while, but I found another Discipline Priest and the above mentioned Holy Paladin to do 2v2 with me each week. It took a while playing with each person to really get comfortable with their playstyle (and them with mine), but after a while something just “clicks”.  For example, last night I did some 2v2 with the Paladin and we went 15-5. Vent is nice to have during arena play, but its much better to have a level of familiarity with your partner so you don’t always have to communicate via words.

So I guess the moral of this story is that if we keep on playing 3v3 matches each week, something will eventually “click” and we will start to win a few more battles. If not, maybe I’ll hire a monkey to play the matches for me.