Fight 1: Prep Rogue - Yecal
This is just one fight that comes out of trying to practice the whole Invisibility into Ice Block trick. Summon WE, blink, pvp trinket and time the Invis between garotte ticks right after you let the DT hit you. This trick doesn't work anymore in the latest patch so you won't have the fun of thinking "that looks pretty easy" and finding out unreliable and frustrating this can be. ^^ A rogue can definitely deny this with a second DT, but there are of course disadvantages to doing this and the invis into IB is just another mixup to throw into the variations you run.
What I try for when doing this is to invis immune the blind as you drop IB and nova the rogue; this time no blind is attempted and I'm too slow to deny him re-stealthing so I come out with perception. This works now but didn't on live when I recorded this duel as vanish still protects you from perception (it does not now); when I realize I'm dumb and that vanish has not yet been nerfed, I use the perma-combat bug to keep myself in combat to deny sap. Basically you just make sure to buff yourself every 5 seconds, rank 1 mana shield is great for this.
He opens again, fight goes as normal, I scorch to bait a DT to waste the effectiveness of the kidney, but he doesn't bite, I try to anticipate the vanish with CoC but his timing is solid and he immunes it with the vanish. He opens again on me and lands a huge gouge on my pet as I'm novaing him when he chases. It's sort of a messy, awkward looking duel, but there's some good stuff in it! Note the blowup of my portrait shows how I never drop combat despite using Invis and not performing a hostile action for a LONG time.
Fight 2: Printt - WE Mage: No Imp CS
Imp CS is huge in WE mage against WE mage fights; I'm not going to get into a whole guide here on how I view this fight, that's for later. But I try to keep my options open and play the fight so I can outlast their mana pool by kiting their pet, while still keeping pressure up to make sure they can't stay on the offensive too long. (I don't want to eat huge damage duh)
Nothing fancy to see here. Honestly mage vs mage duels are never fancy unless I can pull off something like using cold snap to remove a spell lock or something. (Despite trying to find a way to work this into a duel with people, I never could heh)
I manage to dodge the first pet nova, after mine is resisted, and manage to land a nova as he re-applies fire ward so I'm able to move quickly to outrange his nova during GCD. We both kite each other's WE to minimize their damage, I probably should have PvP trinketed the CoC to pursue and better outrange the pet, but I believe I was wearing some silly other trinket. Nothing special here but it was tough finding strong mages on test with solid gear, and Printt was definitely very good even if this clip doesn't show it. Just ask the people who dueled him!
Fight 3: Daefuin - SL Sypon Felhunter Lock
This duel I don't do much fancy -- I get a lucky fear resist as I cold snap, though I think I would have been able to win even without that resist. I had a hard time with Daefuin as anytime you eat a fear->Drain Life, it is totally GG with his spec, or if you're CS is just down. I'll talk more about general warlock dueling in a later article, one thing you see here is me trying to rushdown to force an early DC and me trying to back out to range and be careful with being on global so that I can IB it; even though I do this, I still eat the DC and then a Howl of Terror I'm a million miles away from. Go test server lag!
The thing about dueling locks of this spec is that you're margin for error goes WAY down if you can't get good opening damage out. (And they will resist a LOT of novas)
Fight 4: Dahis - Fierce Gnome Warrior
I love dueling Dahis; best war EVER. ^^
You see a lot of straightforwardness here, a lot of CoC kiting while letting him howl you but he's slower. Lancing to keep him in combat of course if he goes for ooc charge, and of course using the awesome, overpowered flamestrike when he's nova'd so he can't spell reflect it. LOL.
Fight 5: Valanmor - BM Hunter
I hate to talk up my teammates as it is so annoying when others do it; but Valanmor is the best hunter I've dueled consistently. He's really the only hunter I see play the kite and viper sting style, and he is amazing at it. He controls my pet very well, by playing with its range and using FD as it's cast is about to finish on him and by abusing it's awful AI manages to get almost full bandages in.
Every fight comes down to the last thousand mana in fights like this; I play to force wrath early and I even try to keep the pressure on till I'm either taking too much damage or until he's reapplied a new viper. You really want to use pet nova to interrupt bandage if you can, even the small amount of healing from a few ticks is mana you need to spend that you can't afford.
I think a lot of people think WE mage vs any hunter is a "free win" but not against this style at all. ^^
It's pretty self explanatory, but recognize that your health in this fight is your blue not your green bar. (It is kind of neat to watch the fight from this perspective I think)
Fight 6: Odd - Ret Pally
I believe this is a matchup where mages have a huge advantage; you do not need Ice Block or WE to win this fight, though it is extremely close and challenging using neither.
There is a lot going on in this fight you probably don't see on first glance. At the beginning, I go straight to sheeping, this is wrong. You should rank 1 kite and even nova and lance a bit to force him to use mana on freedom, start his freedom timer ticking, and to stack WC before you poly and quickly nuke. But this is before I learned that!
It's important to rebarrier before going to max range otherwise Eye for an Eye will interrupt your second bolt and you won't get all 3 casts in.
He saves repentance for when freedom wears off. Which means that DS is up for the next non-freedom period, and uses HoJ to buy time for his next repentance CD when the next freedom wears off. This fight is all about managing their freedoms and getting in your damage when freedom is off; if you don't do this you will go oom trying to both outlast their damage and do enough damage to kill a pally.
Fight 7: Valanmor - BM Hunter Take 2
He plays this extremely well and keeps pressure on my health and on my mana this time.
Fight 8: Tally - Feral Druid
Here you see my favorite IB immuning cyclone. ^^
I spellsteal innervate at the end which is REALLY overkill and then jump around like a fool overconfident that its GG and almost lose. LOL.
You have a lot of room for error against feral druids even with CoC and nova misses or resists, you just need to keep kiting and let your pet do your damage. When they switch to caster, use IB to immune a cyclone, use silence if you have it, do whatever you can to pressure them to shift back into bear with low hp so you can keep momentum. Sente = win vs feral druids.
Fight 9: Bynis - Disc Priest
This is a great fight; I make a bunch of mistakes, I don't use pet nova well against him at all, which is something I've gotten better with lately. This fight was in my previous vid, I reused it because I could find no disc priests to duel for this video, and for some reason, even though its full of silliness and mediocrity and points, I love this particular duel.
Fight 10: Eviscerate - Combat Rogue
Even with that great impact off the bat, he still imp kick denies my opening pet. GRR.
I don't think many people play this fight the way I do, so eat rogue duels!
I should not have icelanced after nova, HUGE mistake. You have to CoC there, I got greedy.
I love the "Are you guys dueling?" It MAKES this duel.
His blind as I'm lancing that pet nova is huge, really turns the fight around almost.
Fight 11: Daefuin - SL Syphon Felhunter Lock Take #2
Holy nova resists. Inexcusable how I let both me and pet eat that howl. That is BAD play.
I hesitate on bringing out second pet because I sort of let myself give up after the previous mistakes and bad luck -- DON'T DO THIS EVER IN DUELS IT MAKES YOU A SUCK. Play your hardest no matter what, you can come back from fights that look impossible sometimes!
This duel really shows how you can get dominate by this spec's Drain Life, goddamn. o.O
Fight 12: Eviscerate - Combat Rogue Take #2
This time I don't have time for the nova so just go for the "safe" CoC...too bad I MISS.
I get a good vanish deny with pet nova and think that once I land this blink, it's all over. He snags me with the Blind as I'm blinking -- look at my hands! He hesitates too long deciding what to do after that blind however, and definitely should have bandaged sooner for the extra 2 ticks. Not getting that imp kick after the blind really ended it.
Fight 13: Spoh - Feral Druid
Keep the pressure on! Just look at his mana even if he survives somehow there; feral druids are ridiculous on the offensive, and the new t5 2pc helps them keep it, play to deny their sente!
Fight 14: Dahis - Fierce Gnome War Take #2
Fake fake fake. Uh oh. He really tricks me with his getting OOC, I really thought he would cut back in to howl as I was CoCing. I pretty much have to blink that charge just to make him waste range on intercepting me, I get some stupid lucky frostbites and almost squeeze out a win still!
And what a horrible flamestrike! Just because it's cool and fancy doesn't mean its generally good. ^^
Fight 15: Ming - Prep Rogue
This fight is probably my favorite rogue vs mage duel I've seen. It's played very well on both sides; you can say that I should have max rank AE as I cut away from him with perception to anticipate that CS, since that is how Ming likes to play, but otherwise it is really good... I think so at least!
It shows the strength of prep well and really illustrates what you are up against as a mage. Yet, it isn't too doom and gloom, because you can really imagine what happens if I lived with a few hundred health there as I land that nova and die.
Fight 16: Azael - OP SL Felguard Lock
I think this fight is pretty straightforward -- it's a pretty good comeback; had he used fel dom, I would have been screwed, but I was so far behind it looked overkill. HA! I actually think I play this really well, it's probably my favorite fight in the video. Never give up!!!
Fight 17: Unsouled - Prep Rogue
If you read my mage vs. rogue dueling guide (WHICH YOU SHOULD IMO), I think this fight illustrates what you're trying to do pretty well. Early pet, stall on the IB a tiny bit, pet nova deny the vanish, use pet to protect eat drink while it is still up, then chain into perception to try to catch a sap as the pet despawns and to finish re-meding up. Rank 1 spam buys you time on PvP trinket even if you don't get lucky and deny the garotte. Take advantage of lack of CD!
Fight 18: Kakeash - Feral Druid
IB the first cyclone to keep up pressure, and limits his ability to go for a fake on the second cyclone attempt. (Sente against feral druids is a win!)
Fight 19: Gc - Incredible Resto Shaman
I came into these fights pretty overconfident; the number of shamans who play this matchup and deny poly so well while playing the fight aggressively is pretty limited, and Gc is crazy fierce at it. He destroyed me in our few fights on test. I learned a lot from these fights; it is a matchup where I think we are the favorite, but strong play on his side really tipped the scales. I cut the clip where I did because it lasts for a while longer of just poking and wanding, but I think it should be pretty clear that resto shammy with totems and low health >> WE mage with no CD of any kind and no mana. ^^ It is a pretty cool fight -- I think that the general strat I use actually does work, you just need to be more precise on the pet nova timing, which I'm used to having room for error on. What lost me the fight honestly was choosing to bandage during the sheep instead of evocating first, reapplying ice barrier was stupid and a waste of mana there too. I really like the purge as I'm getting invis too lol.
What I try for when doing this is to invis immune the blind as you drop IB and nova the rogue; this time no blind is attempted and I'm too slow to deny him re-stealthing so I come out with perception. This works now but didn't on live when I recorded this duel as vanish still protects you from perception (it does not now); when I realize I'm dumb and that vanish has not yet been nerfed, I use the perma-combat bug to keep myself in combat to deny sap. Basically you just make sure to buff yourself every 5 seconds, rank 1 mana shield is great for this.
He opens again, fight goes as normal, I scorch to bait a DT to waste the effectiveness of the kidney, but he doesn't bite, I try to anticipate the vanish with CoC but his timing is solid and he immunes it with the vanish. He opens again on me and lands a huge gouge on my pet as I'm novaing him when he chases. It's sort of a messy, awkward looking duel, but there's some good stuff in it! Note the blowup of my portrait shows how I never drop combat despite using Invis and not performing a hostile action for a LONG time.
Fight 2: Printt - WE Mage: No Imp CS
Imp CS is huge in WE mage against WE mage fights; I'm not going to get into a whole guide here on how I view this fight, that's for later. But I try to keep my options open and play the fight so I can outlast their mana pool by kiting their pet, while still keeping pressure up to make sure they can't stay on the offensive too long. (I don't want to eat huge damage duh)
Nothing fancy to see here. Honestly mage vs mage duels are never fancy unless I can pull off something like using cold snap to remove a spell lock or something. (Despite trying to find a way to work this into a duel with people, I never could heh)
I manage to dodge the first pet nova, after mine is resisted, and manage to land a nova as he re-applies fire ward so I'm able to move quickly to outrange his nova during GCD. We both kite each other's WE to minimize their damage, I probably should have PvP trinketed the CoC to pursue and better outrange the pet, but I believe I was wearing some silly other trinket. Nothing special here but it was tough finding strong mages on test with solid gear, and Printt was definitely very good even if this clip doesn't show it. Just ask the people who dueled him!
Fight 3: Daefuin - SL Sypon Felhunter Lock
This duel I don't do much fancy -- I get a lucky fear resist as I cold snap, though I think I would have been able to win even without that resist. I had a hard time with Daefuin as anytime you eat a fear->Drain Life, it is totally GG with his spec, or if you're CS is just down. I'll talk more about general warlock dueling in a later article, one thing you see here is me trying to rushdown to force an early DC and me trying to back out to range and be careful with being on global so that I can IB it; even though I do this, I still eat the DC and then a Howl of Terror I'm a million miles away from. Go test server lag!
The thing about dueling locks of this spec is that you're margin for error goes WAY down if you can't get good opening damage out. (And they will resist a LOT of novas)
Fight 4: Dahis - Fierce Gnome Warrior
I love dueling Dahis; best war EVER. ^^
You see a lot of straightforwardness here, a lot of CoC kiting while letting him howl you but he's slower. Lancing to keep him in combat of course if he goes for ooc charge, and of course using the awesome, overpowered flamestrike when he's nova'd so he can't spell reflect it. LOL.
Fight 5: Valanmor - BM Hunter
I hate to talk up my teammates as it is so annoying when others do it; but Valanmor is the best hunter I've dueled consistently. He's really the only hunter I see play the kite and viper sting style, and he is amazing at it. He controls my pet very well, by playing with its range and using FD as it's cast is about to finish on him and by abusing it's awful AI manages to get almost full bandages in.
Every fight comes down to the last thousand mana in fights like this; I play to force wrath early and I even try to keep the pressure on till I'm either taking too much damage or until he's reapplied a new viper. You really want to use pet nova to interrupt bandage if you can, even the small amount of healing from a few ticks is mana you need to spend that you can't afford.
I think a lot of people think WE mage vs any hunter is a "free win" but not against this style at all. ^^
It's pretty self explanatory, but recognize that your health in this fight is your blue not your green bar. (It is kind of neat to watch the fight from this perspective I think)
Fight 6: Odd - Ret Pally
I believe this is a matchup where mages have a huge advantage; you do not need Ice Block or WE to win this fight, though it is extremely close and challenging using neither.
There is a lot going on in this fight you probably don't see on first glance. At the beginning, I go straight to sheeping, this is wrong. You should rank 1 kite and even nova and lance a bit to force him to use mana on freedom, start his freedom timer ticking, and to stack WC before you poly and quickly nuke. But this is before I learned that!
It's important to rebarrier before going to max range otherwise Eye for an Eye will interrupt your second bolt and you won't get all 3 casts in.
He saves repentance for when freedom wears off. Which means that DS is up for the next non-freedom period, and uses HoJ to buy time for his next repentance CD when the next freedom wears off. This fight is all about managing their freedoms and getting in your damage when freedom is off; if you don't do this you will go oom trying to both outlast their damage and do enough damage to kill a pally.
Fight 7: Valanmor - BM Hunter Take 2
He plays this extremely well and keeps pressure on my health and on my mana this time.
Fight 8: Tally - Feral Druid
Here you see my favorite IB immuning cyclone. ^^
I spellsteal innervate at the end which is REALLY overkill and then jump around like a fool overconfident that its GG and almost lose. LOL.
You have a lot of room for error against feral druids even with CoC and nova misses or resists, you just need to keep kiting and let your pet do your damage. When they switch to caster, use IB to immune a cyclone, use silence if you have it, do whatever you can to pressure them to shift back into bear with low hp so you can keep momentum. Sente = win vs feral druids.
Fight 9: Bynis - Disc Priest
This is a great fight; I make a bunch of mistakes, I don't use pet nova well against him at all, which is something I've gotten better with lately. This fight was in my previous vid, I reused it because I could find no disc priests to duel for this video, and for some reason, even though its full of silliness and mediocrity and points, I love this particular duel.
Fight 10: Eviscerate - Combat Rogue
Even with that great impact off the bat, he still imp kick denies my opening pet. GRR.
I don't think many people play this fight the way I do, so eat rogue duels!
I should not have icelanced after nova, HUGE mistake. You have to CoC there, I got greedy.
I love the "Are you guys dueling?" It MAKES this duel.
His blind as I'm lancing that pet nova is huge, really turns the fight around almost.
Fight 11: Daefuin - SL Syphon Felhunter Lock Take #2
Holy nova resists. Inexcusable how I let both me and pet eat that howl. That is BAD play.
I hesitate on bringing out second pet because I sort of let myself give up after the previous mistakes and bad luck -- DON'T DO THIS EVER IN DUELS IT MAKES YOU A SUCK. Play your hardest no matter what, you can come back from fights that look impossible sometimes!
This duel really shows how you can get dominate by this spec's Drain Life, goddamn. o.O
Fight 12: Eviscerate - Combat Rogue Take #2
This time I don't have time for the nova so just go for the "safe" CoC...too bad I MISS.
I get a good vanish deny with pet nova and think that once I land this blink, it's all over. He snags me with the Blind as I'm blinking -- look at my hands! He hesitates too long deciding what to do after that blind however, and definitely should have bandaged sooner for the extra 2 ticks. Not getting that imp kick after the blind really ended it.
Fight 13: Spoh - Feral Druid
Keep the pressure on! Just look at his mana even if he survives somehow there; feral druids are ridiculous on the offensive, and the new t5 2pc helps them keep it, play to deny their sente!
Fight 14: Dahis - Fierce Gnome War Take #2
Fake fake fake. Uh oh. He really tricks me with his getting OOC, I really thought he would cut back in to howl as I was CoCing. I pretty much have to blink that charge just to make him waste range on intercepting me, I get some stupid lucky frostbites and almost squeeze out a win still!
And what a horrible flamestrike! Just because it's cool and fancy doesn't mean its generally good. ^^
Fight 15: Ming - Prep Rogue
This fight is probably my favorite rogue vs mage duel I've seen. It's played very well on both sides; you can say that I should have max rank AE as I cut away from him with perception to anticipate that CS, since that is how Ming likes to play, but otherwise it is really good... I think so at least!
It shows the strength of prep well and really illustrates what you are up against as a mage. Yet, it isn't too doom and gloom, because you can really imagine what happens if I lived with a few hundred health there as I land that nova and die.
Fight 16: Azael - OP SL Felguard Lock
I think this fight is pretty straightforward -- it's a pretty good comeback; had he used fel dom, I would have been screwed, but I was so far behind it looked overkill. HA! I actually think I play this really well, it's probably my favorite fight in the video. Never give up!!!
Fight 17: Unsouled - Prep Rogue
If you read my mage vs. rogue dueling guide (WHICH YOU SHOULD IMO), I think this fight illustrates what you're trying to do pretty well. Early pet, stall on the IB a tiny bit, pet nova deny the vanish, use pet to protect eat drink while it is still up, then chain into perception to try to catch a sap as the pet despawns and to finish re-meding up. Rank 1 spam buys you time on PvP trinket even if you don't get lucky and deny the garotte. Take advantage of lack of CD!
Fight 18: Kakeash - Feral Druid
IB the first cyclone to keep up pressure, and limits his ability to go for a fake on the second cyclone attempt. (Sente against feral druids is a win!)
Fight 19: Gc - Incredible Resto Shaman
I came into these fights pretty overconfident; the number of shamans who play this matchup and deny poly so well while playing the fight aggressively is pretty limited, and Gc is crazy fierce at it. He destroyed me in our few fights on test. I learned a lot from these fights; it is a matchup where I think we are the favorite, but strong play on his side really tipped the scales. I cut the clip where I did because it lasts for a while longer of just poking and wanding, but I think it should be pretty clear that resto shammy with totems and low health >> WE mage with no CD of any kind and no mana. ^^ It is a pretty cool fight -- I think that the general strat I use actually does work, you just need to be more precise on the pet nova timing, which I'm used to having room for error on. What lost me the fight honestly was choosing to bandage during the sheep instead of evocating first, reapplying ice barrier was stupid and a waste of mana there too. I really like the purge as I'm getting invis too lol.
2 comments:
The Dahis duel was by far the most impressing from my perspective.
Also, this write up actually helped clear up a lot of the technical things, so thanks
just one question, when duelling bynistwo, is it possible to spellsteal pain suppression?
hmmm and what i'd give to see a good shadowpriest fight in there :) Raddy III didn't have any, and your previous movie only had one fight. i hope you don't sweep them all the time :s
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