Anticipation

It's been 2 weeks since GameOver has last played 5s, and much longer since we've really played much. Now with everyone done with vacations, hopefully Stormstrike will be seeing a lot more of us in the coming weeks. ^^

I've been dueling a lot more than arena-ing the past week and BDF is honestly AMAZING for dueling at this point. There are no shortage of strong players of any spec for any class either in full s2 gladiator or in full t6 or glad/t6 combinations. Here are just some unrelated thoughts on a few various duels I've slightly changed my perspective on:

Enhancement shaman in retarded BT gear - This is obviously pretty easy with pet or if you sheep/rushdown to keep them healing, but it used to be pretty trivial even just r1 kiting out of shock range and fireblasting and CSing heals just enough to keep wearing them down. I like to be able to have a "run them oom" strat against every mana user just because I think that going for the blue bar is a lot more viable than people give credit, and enhance shamans used to be the easiest as even if you made a mistake, you took a few thousand damage and could simply get away and play more aggressive. Now when a mistake can cost you 6-8k damage instantly (as can nova or coc or bolt resists sometimes), it's a lot more fun and I think its weirdly good kiting practice despite enhancement shamans total inability to reliably close the distance.

Resto Shaman in Elemental Gear - This is pretty interesting, but I haven't dueled anyone on the level of GC with this setup. Basically they play it the same as normal resto, and here are a few quick things on that:

• Start with Earthshield, after its spellstolen, obviously purge and use WaterShield the rest of the duel. Mage cannot afford to steal it and it prohibits r1 kite to run oom reasonably well. (If you aren't vigilant about WaterShield, gg)
• Frost mages are honestly pretty lame with WE out in how much damage they can do. Don't lose the duel to stupid spike damage by getting too baller on CS fakes. Try to save NS for the second pet nova which hopefully you can waste by saving an earthshock for the frostbolt cast, but that's not always reliable. If you grounding as you come out of poly, grounding when it's up, your third grounding is up by the time of the pet nova, but using groundings this predictably might not be worth it.
• Max rank ES and rank 1 Frost Shock. Never frost shock when grounding is on CD and you aren't EXTREMELY close.
  
• If getting kited at 30+ yds, don't chase, move away for efficient heals or bandages to force the mage back to you. Keep WaterShield up.
  
• The point of late duel r1 kiting is two things: frostbite procs for lances which is very mana efficient damage and stalling for polymorph DR. Letting me r1 kite you for 15 seconds, full DR poly->full bandage, over and over basically means all that mana you spent on max rank shocks has been wasted. You need to be making up for it with WaterShield regen.
• Searing totem is retarded damage and forces mana to be spent lancing them down.
  

Resto Shaman in T6 Resto Gear - I find this fight pretty easy at this point and weirdly it is harder to run resto shamans in dmg gear oom than resto shamans in resto gear. If you are vigilant about taking out searings and maintaining range, you just don't take enough damage. I generally will do lots of silly stuff like r1 Mana Shield and r1 Frost Ward in these fights, but you might find smart players will watch your mana bar and realize you're being sneaky with low rank. Some people will spam re-apply EarthShield, you can afford to spam steal it, but as I've said in some previous article, be really careful of Earthshield->grounding to bait you into Spellstealing the grounding totem. (This will get you pissed off quickly)

Mage vs Mage No Pet Duels - These are fun. ^^

Hardcore Defensive Prep Rogues - I'm not saying this is the way to go, but wearing +stealth gear so I can't trinket->fireblast off the sap, and generally playing keep away to go eat over and over is interesting. Vanish and wait out every pet. Never reopen till Cloak is back up. Eat to full on each open. This isn't new or anything, people have tried this as a strat for a long time, and I've always thought it sucked as it seemed to me the rogue was wasting CD while I was just getting full health and mana every time he ran off. It's also risky as it is relies on avoiding petnova to deny vanish and perception. It is fun though and I've had some weird 3 and 4 pet rogue duels with 5 cloaks and a LOT of eating to full. I'm not really sold on this being viable still...