The mirror's horror...

I once helped drive a girl insane.

It was unintentional.

And when I mean insane, I doan mean normal levels of female craziness.

I mean, her mother had to fly to china to get her out, because she started screaming uncontrollably whenever she was alone with nothing but chinese people. Er... I doan think it was ALL me...

I say strange things, and am often misunderstood. How misunderstood, I did not realize until I was talking with Arms&Fury last night.

We were discussing combat against frost mages... One battle, a while back, it came down to a ice mage, 50% (go Mabd go!) and A&F at relatively whole health. Mabd and frosty's partner were down. The mage ice blocks, leaving A&F whacking on a cube with his axe while the elemental blasted him. A&F then ran around a pillar to bandage... and the elemental followed and interrupted. Then the mage popped out, and ended up killing A&F with 3% health remaining.

So I tells A&F, I tells him, "Why not just kill the damn elemental while you wait? You'll get plenty of loverly rage, and might off the damn thing. It's not like there's anything else you can do while waiting..."

See... that's what I meant to say. What I probably said... "Why dintcha kill the elemental? Not like you can get the bandage off with it active.." You know, same overall meaning, but with a phrasing vulnerable to misinterpretation...

I came to find out, last night, this (in my mind) excellent advice got translated through A&F's ears as... "Attack the elemental first!" Of course, not being Melvin, he's only tried this theory out a coupla times... with deep reservations...

K, Shifttusk has been helping out with the pvp theory craft. It's taking me a while to get the MM thing down... I used to run deep survival with my NE hunter back in the day, but I find I really need to retrain my combat reflexes...

And Zman (isn't that soo much cooler than the infinitly over used xman?) has been givin the advice on frost... hopefully how to kill the bastards...

Shifty, love the recent pvp posts. One problem. There are three types of spells. Instant, casting time, and channeled. What you refer to as channeled spells are actually spells with casting time, and subject to "pushback..." or spell interruption. Pushback is the phenomenon by which steady shot goes from a 1.5sec casting time to a 15sec casting time while a BM pet pounds on you.

A casting time spell only takes effect (and the mana cost paid) after the spell is cast. A channeled spell is much more rare. The most common one to see in arena is arcane missiles... channeled spells only have effect *while* the spell is cast. And mana is paid at spell start.

The problem with moonkin is that they have a instant buff called "barkskin" that for 15 or so seconds

1. reduces damage taken by 20%.

and

2. eliminates pushback.

Now when something with as much armor as a pally gets 20% damage reduction... hunters are screwed. Add to this the wrath (1.5 sec cast) hitting for 1.1k damage.... you aint gonna outlast em...

If they stupid enough to starfire (3 sec cast)... it's all good. However, one thing I finally figured out... wrath is nature damage... and we have a solution for that, doan we?

2.3 is gonna change pvp forever... the one change I'm not seeing talked about... we'll be able to see all the buffs on the enemy! So when laser turkey pops barkskin, and then arcane shot takes it off...

/point
/lol
/danceonroastturkeygrave

As for frost mages... I actually haven't been having the same problems with them that I've had with rogues... BM, they were all too easy to kill. Smack em once or twice, get em to waste that frost nova or elemental, then BW... BW lasts 18 sec, IB only lasts 10. When they IB, both Mabd and Maj know what to do...

With MM, its a little harder... Hawk eye is vital. You NEED that 6 extra yards to start the smackdown early... however, at the end we get to have fun with...

THE COUNTING GAME! Position oneself correctly... ignore the damn pet if its out...

and count from the IB cast...
1
2
3
4 (start casting pyroblast)-Maj
5
6
7 (start with aimed shot)-Mabd
8
9
10 Welcome back to the wide wide wonderful world of pain!

Thersa pally varient on this, of course :)

If they smart, they'll try to break IB early and stop you... but they playin frost for a reason... they just too lazy to play a real mage build (sorry z, gotta get the dig in somehow).