Saturday, September 15, 2007

The Path of the eFamous

I woke up today feeling especially baller. There are a few things that make a man wake with a Christmas Grinch grin -- "I made you eggs", "I washed my foundation and mascara out of your pillowcase", "..." (Because she's fucking gone), and lastly sick WoW PvP video ideas.

There have been a lot of 1v2 arena videos, so many that they're almost old hat now, but my evening's dreams reminded me that there were many possibilities out there beyond simple 1v2, why not rated 2v3 or 4v5? A 2000+ 4 man 5s team certainly seems quite new hat. And what about trash talk? If you've seen the Shadow Word Dance videos, you know he frequently lets bitches know their status as a Suck before finishing them off. No, I do not have dreams of dark men finishing bitches off. I do have dreams about making an arena team with a dark skinned rogue and warlock (named Orpheus) called We Run Train. Hell, you could even do a clip of rolling up to Home Depot before you zoned into the arena.

My apologies for derailing into a discussion of group sex and jungle folk. The point is that I woke up this morning with ideas. In my head. The thinking kind. I sprung out of bed, checked myself out in the mirror for a bit, wiped my saliva off the mirror and raced to IRC to tell my compadres in balling my visions for future WoW greatness and eFame. Yeah, last time we spoke, they didn't think "My Little Dixie Wrecked" was a great arena team name and there were some harsh words, but these guys are MY wingmen. They're there for me.

Imagine my astonishment to find IRC utterly deserted. It's cool, they'll be back. Sure, last time they said some things, "Sorry, but I got RL shit now","WoW is dead, I'm playing LotRo now", "I never even liked you." But they were just angry. Besides nobody would leave WoW to play LotRo; it's like going from a halfsie to a redhead. It'll be okay, they'll be back. We made an oath. Danger Zone was playing. I clicked my teeth, they called me Iceman. Fucking LotRo? Beyond making a hobbit called Dildo Teabaggins, what the fuck would anybody be doing caught dead with that shit?

Whatever, my wingmen aren't around. They're probably just off practicing jumping grenades -- it's no big deal, they'll be back, we love each other. I'll just get on vent and talk to my teammates. You have joined the GameOver channel. "Blah blah Sven blah blah creep blah blah ultimate. " You have joined the AFK channel. Now at this point, I had the blade of my favorite pair of scissors up against my wrist -- how could this day go so wrong so quickly? I could get on WoW, maybe like talk to my guildmates or something. Generally, I just log on to spam guild chat in all caps with Biggie lyrics and log off bored and disinterested when nobody knows what the fuck I'm going on about. I SPREAD THE BLOOD LIKE MUSTARD, TRUST IT, MY HARDCORE RAIN LEAVE YOU RUSTED.

I remember in the early days of my guild, there were accusations that my language was offensive or even racist. Silly, silly hippies. I explained to them that if you go far enough back in time we all come from like Africa anyways, I'm just exploring my roots, expressing to them how I feel like I am a brother -- I'm part of the tribe. If anyone's a racist, it's the guys telling me that I'm not allowed to express my culture. Everyone eventually agreed, but for a long time I always felt that people were still uncomfortable with many of our discussions; however, now I realize it had nothing to do with any of that nonsense, they were simply jealous of my eFame and general awesomeness. If people only knew how truly rough the life of an eFamous WoW player is -- the sacrifices we make, the constant harassment, the lack of privacy and anonymity at all times, the fear that maybe you can't satisfy three women at once, the rigorous training, the inability to eat a donut without the Ming-parazzi snapping photos -- it all takes a toll on you. But we do it nonetheless, not for the money, women, or intense mental conditioning, but for the little guy, for the average Joe, we do it because we know the talent with which we've been blessed is a great gift from the heavens, and we know we can't live with ourselves if we waste it.

Guild chat was a bust. They were going on and on about some weird professions I've never heard of. Alchemy? Must be something new in the next expansion. Sometimes I think they just make things up as some sort of sick, twisted inside joke at my expense. Besides, I can't share any totally awesome ideas in guild chat in fear they might be leaked to rival ballers. There's too many people I don't know or trust in guild ever since we've gone Duke with our admission standards. You have to be careful with The Sucks. They infiltrate every guild eventually hoping to hide their true nature with epics and guild progression status, but inevitably their true nature will shine through, at which point they must be quickly excised from your roster, unless said Suck is a girl of course. "I accidentally used my PvP trinket and it put my Divine Shield on cooldown, I'm really sorry." And yes, the truth is more horrible than fiction, but it doesn't matter baby.

Strangely even though the guild had no solace to give me, I did feel less like inflicting self harm and after arguing with a few people on how Vanessa Hudgens would be better young, fresh and green with no hair in between, I knew what had to be done. And so, I've purchased another TB of HD space and begun recording. I realized that every star must overcome obstacles and hardship. Every star is at times alone in the dark. But the real stars keep shining and one day not too long from now, you'll see me shine.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

No WSVG? I Don't Even Want to Breathe Anymore

I don't want air in my lungs. I don't want fucking air. Don't even talk about WoW to me. That game is fucking dead. I'm going to go listen to music and masturbate to my Ben Gibbard poster. After that, who knows, with WSVG gone, who fucking knows. I think I'll clean out my closet, tell my mom I'm sorry (that I won't be bringing home those WSVG winnings), and maybe clean out my closet one more time.

Yeah, I'm a fucking douchebag, but everyone is so fucking Owen Wilson about this whole thing, and while I'm extremely disappointed, was this shocking? The WSVG events looked incredible to attend, and I was hugely jealous that I couldn't go because they seemed fun to be at -- not so much with the watching. And, yeah, I'm not eulogizing WSVG as the "best thing to happen to WoW" because while the twenty minutes of arena and 7 minutes of heaven that were Freddy Wong were great to watch, hours of dead time and those stupid IBM loser dancing commericals can kiss my ass goodbye. (the same teeth and tongues rules apply as previously discussed)

The demise of the WSVG is essentially the exact same as Marissa's death -- are you really going to blame Ryan (WoW), or can you just accept that the responsibility lies on Kevin alone? Sure, WoW wasn't there for WSVG -- there were some hard times for WSVG and WoW was off doing other things, but that doesn't make WoW responsible. He was just there and it happened too fast and there was nothing he could fucking do.

It should be an interesting few days. Lots of eFamous people will quit the game for other eSports to pursue their eCareers and despite the fact that I'm being a huge faggot about this, it is pretty brutal to the people who were in position to get paid a fair chunk of money or who were instrumental in running the events. Weirdly, this is my way of saying that I'm sorry for everyone hurt by the failure of WSVG...and that's about all the seriousness I have left in me.

I'll really miss that girl who announced the Louisville event where Freddy Wong cocked out with his rock out. I loved listening to her mental math, "An 8, a 7, and another 8. That's great. That puts you at 19, sorry I mean 22 for the round and in third place." I could listen to her add numbers for hours -- that is what WSVG should do instead. I'll be your VC if you ever want to do a "Cute Girls Trying to Add" show.

Just remember if you're feeling sad or lonely about this WSVG thing, I'll be there for you. Blogging. Defending. There.

Hey kid, need any help?

WSVG Cancelled

This is old news now, but in case you believe in WoW blog monogamy and only read RadikalNoise, which you would if you really cared about me, plus you should tell me how the other blogs are fat or too Spanish-looking, WSVG is dead as fuck.

This was pretty shocking to hear. I'm going to think a bit before emoing out too much.

This really smart, cute and awesome guy said:

I think lots of us want people to care a lot more about these events, but truthfully, even though Forgotten Heroes has a lot of PvPers, in a guild with over a 100 members, less than 15 watched the WSVG matches. And to be honest, if I couldn't duel on test between games or talk trash on IRC, I don't know if I would have the patience to sit around to watch the matches. It takes like 10 hrs of wasted time to watch 25 minutes of arena over the span of 3 days. I guarantee the viewership would grow exponentially if the WSVG product was just 25 minutes of solid arena. WSVG either needs overlapping "main stage" matches that they can switch between to reduce dead time or simply needs to not be live. The scheduling needs to be more precise and the whole thing needs to be thought of from the perspective of what the potential viewer wants -- I know this sounds like stupid MBA drivel but how many people have the time/patience for the current format?

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

0/38/23 Baller Spec

I throw the word baller around a lot. In real life, the word baller is approximately 65% of my daily vocabulary followed closely by the expressions "you're doing a fine job, tiger" and "me? I'm Nick Digger." . However, I've found that using the word with such high frequency on the interweb is problematic. Apparently, there are some jealous, bitter shells of human beings who think that if someone was truly a real life baller, they would not be playing World of Warcraft. (They would be a playing an eSport which are basically the games that Spartans used to play in between lifting big rocks, killing gay Persians, and fucking real women)

I can't speak for anyone else, but I play WoW to save lives and keep population growth under control. When I look upon a man in the real world, he simply falls over and dies. Women orgasm uncontrollably and spew babies until I leave their sight. To protect the world from this devastation (and unite all peoples within our nation), I entirely avoid human contact unless a girl is really hot or some sort of halfsie.

With that out of the way, I've had a lot of people ask me about why I'm playing 0/38/23 aside from the very obvious reason that I'm gay for Pigvomit. So, here we go:

In 5s

We like to harass mages heavily against most matrices. We put DPS and mana burns on the mage early on and most teams return the favor. While in season 1, most priests stuck to trying to mana burn each other and thus "protect" the rest of their mana using teammates from burns, this doesn't work out too well because the priest runs off gets a few drink ticks and is just back to burning. It seems most teams spread the burns around a bit more or burn DPS classes hoping that if you can get early burns on DPS and outheal their early damage, they'll never really be able to mount a second offensive. (It's generally pretty much true)

While avoiding dieing as Water Elemental in these situations is relatively easy, you don't do very much damage under focus fire, almost zero if a hunter or felguard is involved. Teams have taken to killing Water Elementals extremely fast and the old days where your pet would pump out 10-15k dmg unnoticed are long gone. While a WE mage has considerably better damage than 38/23 untouched, the ability to get mini distance with blazing speed to peck with scorch or get out polymorphs is huge. Generally, I find my CC abilities much easier as 38/23 as it's harder to lock me down. Blazing speed also means that short of entrapment or lucky resnares, I'm going to be tanking significantly less damage than the Water Elemental mage on the other team. A 38/23 mage is also extremely adept at killing opposing WE, either witch scorch-> fireblast-> bwave-> AE (if necessary) or with just fireblast-> bwave -> AEx2. I generally tend to AE to kill Water Elementals, but that a whole separate topic. ^^

Basically, my thought is that when going up against a team with a WE mage, while he's in theory much better suited to 5s than you, you're able to counter his advantages quite well and you practically force them to pursuing a less "optimal" target. (I really think pressuring mages equals win most the time honestly)

As for how you actually play the spec, it's hard to do that in an article format, but I'll just bullet out a few thoughts:
  • You're mobile, have fast casts, and can change targets well with decent mini-burst through scorch->fireblast. (Add Bwave or AE as necessary) This makes you very competent at assisting for pet kills or taking out Water Elementals. A lot of teams put this responsibility on their shaman, you should assume this responsibility as 38/23.
  • Crowd control more. Remember when you used to play Arcane/Frost in season one and did nothing but sheep for extended periods of time. That works well still.
  • Blazing speed is great, but be careful not to outrange heals or overextend chasing with it. (I do a lot still >.<)
  • Focus on the team oriented side of the game. Take out totems, control healers, sheep juggle. Again, shift defensive responsibilities away from your ele shaman -- he needs to pick up the slack in damage. (You're really just changing who is doing damage in a sense)
  • Imp Scorch is huge, but you clearly can't scorch someone 5 times in a row lol. Get scorches off when you can if only to get the debuff up. Worst case he gets dispelled, no big loss.
  • Blastwave snare is extremely good. Use it early to burn trinkets.
  • Do not even bind Cone of Cold above rank 1. Only use rank 1 CoC. Mana is a seriously problem with this spec, you cannot afford max rank Cone of Colds. You can tweak the expect to get Imp CoC and MoE, but it's not really a 5s spec at that point.
  • When heroism is up, you can actually cast fireball, do not even bother if you're getting harassed or the target can potentially get LoS, but fireball does huge damage especially because it is non-improved on targets with a bunch of scorch stacks.
  • If you're assisting on DPS, scorch and immediately fireblast on targets above 80%, then scorch until they're lower saving fireblast for hopefully when they briefly dip to below 20%.
  • If you're on a target with MS up and low health but receiving heals, switch to a fireball. While it's tempting to be pumping 1300 scorches into that target at 2500 hp, they seem to miraculously survive a lot -- they won't if they're sub 20% when the fireball lands.
  • Combustion is extremely difficult to use effectively. I still am clueless. I pretty much wait till I think we have a good chance of taking down a target and a CS is landed and trinket+combustion, scorch-> fireblast-> bwave -> fireball. Obviously you have to adapt to LoS and the situation.
  • The focus meta gem is great for this spec -- I need it. ^^
  • Even though the damage output feels pretty weak, 1k scorches do matter and you're a good damage threat on fully stacked targets.
  • You have to be meticulous about getting OOC to drink or finding a time to get a good evocate. Always make ruby and emerald and use first stone very early. Mana is a huge issue for this spec.
Other Thoughts on Baller-Spec

That's all I can come up with for now. I don't think the spec is as strong as Water Elemental in 5s, but I think its oddly effective against some of the most common matrices and strategies being currently used. I haven't really dueled with it much, although I'm fairly certain that I couldn't win against any top opponents except warriors with much reliability. ^^

In BGs, I play it just how you would have played 28/23 back in wow 1.0 except I find that I don't use r1 frostbolt very much at all. It's refreshingly potent in BGs where you face less resilience (and fuck you to any rogues who think resilience hits rogues hardest); honestly, I find my greatest challenge with the spec in most situations is my inability to survive hypothermia without the 2 Ice Barriers you'd have as frost. If you look at my spec, I play a slightly weird variant of this spec currently, I'm still undecided as to what exactly you "need" from Frost.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Who Liked World PvP Anyways

I actually sat down firmly stick-in-ass to write a very serious post about some very serious topics. I re-watched a few of the old Albis vids yesterday and I was reminded how a lot of the best PvPers that I played with before TBC quit due to the death of World PvP in WoW. It made me realize a question I really wish I had asked at Blizzcon:

Are you fags like gay or something?

I'd have probably tried to phrase it a bit more politely and planned to ask:

Did you realize that with the changes you added to TBC you would be effectively removing World PvP from the game?

Now I don't know which faction of The Sucks complained about dieing on a PvP server enough times to warrant the Flying Mount, the Garadar guards, or the ability to hide 100% of the time within instances, but I wish a plague of penises upon their domain.

I'm not going to lie to you because I have strict video game blogging ethics -- I kind of maybe liked it the first time I flew. Things happened pretty fast, besides it was just beta...and it's not like it was even my gold! I still remember how Stryfe got on Beta to give me the gold; I flew around for hours listening to my guild wipe and curse at each other on some Naxxramas boss from which I needed no loot -- I apologize for that was somewhat of an "in-joke" and I try to keep this site strictly just-the-tip when it comes to such things.

Actually, I remember way back in the day there was a bug where you could make a macro that jumped and tried to logout at the same time letting you climb into the sky leading to hours of flying around and sky-dueling. After sending everyone I saw in the air tells, "You'll be my kite and I'll be your kite string" which NOBODY got, I went to Grim Batol to check things out, and wow I really do have some sort of weird "exploration" fetish. The point? Yes, the point is that flying around in the sky is fun, but, in TBC, the price you've paid is the ability to engage in World PvP -- hopefully WotLK will be our "kite string."

I spent about 2 hours today running around trying to get some World PvP clips for a video that I'd like to do. I'd love to do a World PvP/Battlegrounds video with light 5v5 and dueling -- I will inevitably be doing 2s/3s seriously next season hopefully, but it will be on my gnome, and it feels strange to have never released a "traditional" PvP video on Radikal. I didn't really find anyone while running around today, but perhaps Blade's Edge is just a horrible place, so I ended up pugging AB and WSG for a while. It was a lot of fun -- I didn't fraps anything and probably won't until I can practice BGing for a bit longer as I feel extremely rusty, but it was honestly way more fun than I had expected. The video is not exactly on the horizon, but don't think I've lost interest or anything. My goal is to have a teaser out for it before 2.3 hits, but don't hate me if I end up slacking. ^^

My Trip to 7-11

Where do I begin? Nowhere, because it's awkward and fucking creepy. I was going to write about how my true love lives on the top shelf within the refrigerator wall at the 7-11 across from my condo building. I had this whole thing with how Red Bull cleansed me and something about Naruto and dicks and flowers and it all led to me naked in a bathtub of Red Bull defending you all from mediocrity in World of Warcraft. However, I remembered this comment from Kzn:

"Raddy is slowly becoming more like Ming.
This is depressing to watch -.-"


After I read that, I used a small scrap of sandpaper to remove all the skin from my body. You know why? Because you hurt me. You were right though -- I've changed and so I had to hurt myself.

Because all of my articles need to be "strategy focused", I'm going to briefly cover some highly advanced player vs player technique. As we all know from Ming and Minti's successes, the purpose of competitive PvP is to ultimately attract mates*. Who needs the Mystery Method when you're 2500 rated and got Mana Pots in the bank? (Shorty what you drink) Because we all play a highly social video game, I'm sure talking to potential mates is no problem, so I'm skipping straight to kissing:

  1. Peaches. No, don't practice making out with one. Just say the word peaches slowly and gently over-enunciate each syllable. Whisper it gently if you're embarrassed someone might hear you: volume is not what's key, it's lip shape. Practice in the mirror -- don't be shy, I swear everyone does it.
  2. Three Zones. There are really three areas to the mouth that are critical in any kiss. The obvious two are the upper and lower lip and the third is the mouth and tongue. A good kiss is not simply going open mouth to open mouth and tongue fencing.
  3. Palm technique. By now you've gotten the hang of the general mouth motion with your peaches training, but what if you don't currently have a partner to practice with? No worries, the palm of your hand is perfect. You can experiment with light and hard pressure and with varying moistness. Train until you are comfortable at maintaining light pressure with extremely little moistness. Absolutely make sure you never let your teeth touch your palm.
  4. The Tilt. Find your favorite romantic kiss scene in a film and notice how the characters heads tilt oppositely to make the neck tilt comfortable for both characters. Always be aware of this and remember that in a lengthy kiss you are going to move around the three zones a lot and will need to be frequently changing your neck angle. What's important is you keep pressure lighter than you think is necessary as it be can very uncomfortable if someone is shifting around and pushing against you forcefully.
  5. Teeth. It happens to everyone. A tooth click. Recover and laugh if it happens and go back in more carefully. If you pay attention to the three zones and keep pressure lighter than you think is necessary, you should be able to avoid this. Don't get too nervous!
  6. Outside-In. Your first 10 seconds of any kiss should be on the upper and lower lip zones. Skipping straight to tongue action is not only intimidating but your performance will suffer overall.
  7. Tongue. Tongue is what separates those innocent middle school kisses from the next level. You can do a lot of things with your tongue, but a few classics include: gently touching the tip of their tongue (a good start), running your tongue under the bottom of the upper lip, licking the bottom of their tongue, or straight out pinning their tongue to the top of their mouth with yours. It is difficult to practice these techniques, but think moderation and don't let over-aggressive, creepy tongue work ruin the rest of your kiss. Again avoid the teeth.
  8. Breathing. While it makes sense to breathe through your nose while kissing as your mouths are occupied, this generally isn't possible and you'll find yourself or your partner "gasping" for breaths intermittently. This is perfectly normal, just pace yourself. If you want to, you can inhale breath from her mouth which beyond being slightly comical will make her more "flustered" by the kiss.
  9. Wind down. Don't just stop a kiss. Slow down the pace and back out to the outer lip zones as you break away.
  10. Bad breath. This is a common fear many people have. Actually, the issue here is not so much bad breath but different breath. Want proof? Try kissing a girl after she's had a hot cinnamon mint when you've had a cool mint -- it's not too pleasant. Offer her a sip of your drink or a bite of your food a few minutes prior to going for the kiss, it makes a huge difference. Smell is very important and don't let poor breath hygiene ruin your otherwise flawless technique.

Also, I don't like to brag but I'm actually 2500 rated in all 3 kissing brackets (white, yellow and black) and NO I'm not high rated in that "4th bracket" of kissing other dudes...at least not on the mouth.

Congratulations, you've just read an extremely awkward and emasculating post about kissing.


* Note the diction: mates NOT bitches out of respect for my many female readers

** Small Update **

For those of you too lame to read the comments here, they're more fucked up and beautiful than my Smurfette fetish.

So there I was, walking down the aisle at my local grocery store, practicing the 'peaches' maneuver to myself in a small, inconspicuous handheld mirror. A supermodel happened to be shopping nearby and noticed me as I was passing.

She asked, "Oh my God, are you practicing peaches? I read about that on RadikalNoise.com, but does it really work?" I nodded, grinned, and chewed slowly on my Cool Spearmint Trident. She then proceeded to ask me if I wanted a makeout practicing partner, to which I casually replied, "I was planning to work my reputation up with my hand, but you look like you give valuable experience points." I winked and she, of course, blushed. I handed her a piece of Cool Spearmint Trident and we went back to my place where, suffice to say, I was exalted in no time. -- Zarthustra

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Where Have All the WoW Blogs Gone?

Where is my World of Drifting? Where is my Yea We Lift? Where is my Shadow Gaming? Where have all the WoW Blogs gone~

People are burning out. During times like these, it used to be Warhammer. But, we all knew that nobody was really quitting WoW for Warhammer. Those little toy figure things? Good luck with that brosephs, don't let the door hit you in the NEVER GETTING LAID on the way out.

And NO, I'm not going to rant anymore about Fury because I'll fucking "regret it." I will say that Fury will leave you all like Eva Green after witnessing Bond murder those men in the stairwell, scared and shivering, crying and alone in your shower trying to wash the filth off your bodies, but it just won't come out, it won't fucking come out. YOU WILL BE THE ONES WHO "REGRET IT."

So...what happened? I'm feeling it too and I don't do the whole black lipstick emo thing. Yeah sure, I might have used a girl's gloss once, but it was to moisturize and I didn't know it had glitter in it. Anyways, I spent a long time thinking about what's making everyone lose interest in the game, and I'm pretty sure that it is warlocks. They're really fucking gay. Nobody likes them.

It has gotten so bad I've taken to watching "Exploration" vids. And no, we're not talking DP or fisting, they're videos of people like jumping off cliffs with Slowfall and just...like walking around. Fuck Neilyo7, I can't wait to see what this guy jumps off next! Apparently, even the "explorers" are pretty emo as, at the end of Nerf Slowfall2, there's a long segment dedicated to how flying mounts ruined "hardcore exploration." (I previously blamed my sense of decency)

Perhaps part of it is people not actually trying to have any fun with arena. Logging in to obsess about your rating and act cocky while never actually playing any good teams somehow does get mildly tiresome -- yet makes great PvP blog material. Of course, this just leaves you in a position to be horribly humiliated and humbled inevitably, and nobody wants that. Yeah, it's like that. If only my blogging was as good as my... oh fuck subtlety.

And seriously where are the boomkin and enhancement shaman PvP blogs? Must we all play the exact same matrices with the exact same strategies and then complain about counters and resists and crits? Let's see you counter my enhancement shaman, 30/0/31 druid, rogue/lock 3s team. People have prioritized winning over balling and that's why nobody is having fun. Why spec Slow? BECAUSE ITS BALLER.

I'm not advocating becoming one of The Sucks. (You know who you are) I just miss when people were trying out new shit. I don't agree at all with the notion that 4DPS was made possible by season 2 gear scaling -- it was made possible by people seeing that other teams were making it work, so they adapted and made it work. The same will hold true for the next big thing -- that's just how it is in this game. (And it is exactly true in PvE too. Oh Nihilum killed this boss? Well I guess he's killable then blah blah blah)

The whole situation isn't improved by being in permanent limbo on this stupid 2.2 patch. Thank you for giving The Sucks who are too antisocial to use Vent the ability to shriek into their mics at us. I can't wait to hear the voice of that female NE hunter who takes zerking from me in every WSG. Somehow I doubt its a hottie with a slight HK accent, a broken air conditioner, and a webcam.

Ultimately, WoW doesn't depend at all on competitive arena tournament-style PvP. I was always content with the guild vs guild BG matches, test server duels, and world PvP against the big names on the server. I always thought WoW PvP was pretty solid well before arenas, tournaments, and sponsored "professional" gamers -- I love these things too, but the notion that the "hardcore" "elite" of WoW are going to move on to some other MMO and destroy WoW PvP with their exodus is retarded. I think SC2 cannibalizing WoW's PvP "space" is a much greater concern.

Riffraf? Streetrat? I Don't Buy That

I've been told that WoW arena can be simplified to the point where half of the outcome is dependent solely on choosing the right target to focus in a given situation -- this might be a significant understatement. With season 2 games typically running shorter and being more unforgiving of ignoring DPS classes, the need to choose targets wisely is paramount. So, from a 2345 perspective, he's how I think about the following three common matrices:

Mirror Match:

Early Game - Mage

While putting your warrior on a deep frost mage with good survivability and Ice Block might not at first seem appealing, your goal initially is not to kill but to disrupt. With enough pressure, you can totally prohibit casting of not only Frostbolts, but deny the ability to Polymorph spam your team's DPS classes. While the mage is reapplying Ice Barrier, Blinking and using instants he's spending an enormous amount of mana, which coupled with a few mana burns will cripple his overall damage for the game. Moreover, putting your warrior on the mage frequently makes killing Water Elementals when they're summoned much quicker which is a huge priority in this matchup.

Ideally, you can force their mage to Ice Block without using your big cooldowns and either land a mass dispel for an early victory or rushdown during hypothermia with a Counterspell and some EM NS+CL cheese. Often you're left with the choice of using cooldowns to force the Ice Block or simply switching to a different target. If BoP or Divine Shield has been used already at this point, switching to a new target is generally best as they've used they're defensive cooldowns and are still playing catch-up healing the mage.

Middle Game - Warrior

So both teams have made it to the point where the opposing mages were not going to die, perhaps they've used their first IB but a rushdown during hypo is out of the question. Mana is getting thinner on everyone except the paladins and if you're playing a team who likes to pressure your priest instead of mage, his ability to tank the warrior's damage is starting to fade. While trying to spam CC the warrior at this point is tempting especially since you're on fresh DR most likely or will be soon, you're often dealing with a horny warrior with Deathwish up... a perfect burst target. One of the real strengths of 2345 is the ability to insta-gib a target, and this is pretty much the perfect time to try.

If the warrior is clearly not going to die, and you should know in 5 seconds if its happening or not, you're going to need to get back on the mage, CC their shaman, keep their priest in combat, and CC their warrior when the shaman is free. Your three goals are keeping their team in combat, their mage taking damage, and allowing your priest to escape to get some drinks. If they've been on your priest the majority of the game, the mana war is likely way in the opposition's favor, and you're looking to lock in a win sooner rather than later. (i.e. take risks!)

Late Game - Mage

Deny evocate, get one last good burn on the mage and while he still may Block, you should be able to deny his ability to poly with solid pressure from your DPS. An out of mana mage will die very fast to a shatter combo and Skillherald. Their shaman should be only a moderate DPS threat at this point, keeping their team in combat and your healers safe from their warrior will win the game.

How All of the Above is Countered:

The thing with mages is that they can be quite elusive. After getting focused the whole game a few games in a row, they're probably not going to ride up into you and try to drop novas and CoC your team as they rush. Moreover, their healers will be well prepared and basically pre-healing any damage you dump into the mage at the start making it very difficult to get an early IB. Their mage can harass from the outskirts of the fight to the point where it isn't effective to overextend your DPS to try to get to him.

What Not To Do:

Don't focus priests as 2345. You want to put your warrior on a priest to deny mana burns and play a long game where you burn and outheal their damage? Fine. Your mage and shaman should not be dumping mana and damage into a target immune to their burst though. (BR is cool) Moreover, since priests usually only pop out briefly to manaburn or dispel, they're extremely capable of using LoS to avoid the majority of your caster damage -- Stick to targets you can hit: warrior, mage, and shaman.

Classic+Lock

It's hard to summarize how to play against this matrix as there are two drastically different ways this team plays. They either use their abundant CC and caster DPS to land a quick kill and strategize accordingly, or they play super turtle and just mana drain and mana burn your team to take advantage of their bottomless mana pool DPS.

Aggressive +Lock - Early Game - Mage. (Lock if UA)
Turtle + Lock - Early Game - Mage (lock will not be UA)

The early game is nearly identical either way -- you're going to get on their mage as generally polymorph is a much greater concern early on then fear. (Tremor and Fear Wards!) However, the warlock that you're lightly CCing and generally not pressuring is a much greater concern than an elemental shaman and at some point as wards are burnt and you're failing to make progress on their mage, you have to switch things up. Switching your warrior to the lock, even if SL, pretty early on isn't a bad option. You reduce the lock's damage and CC capabilities hugely while your warrior isn't poly'd or rooted and you put indirect damage on the Felguard which your two casters can quickly kill once its down to 60-70%. It's important that you're shaman is either shocking poly while you're on the lock or you're sheeping the opposing mage hardcore.

Midgame - Mage

If their lock was UA, he died to your warrior because that's how life is. If not, your mage or priest is emoing out about faggot warlocks and how stupid felguards are. "I'll just r1 CoC this thing off me...OH WAIT...or frost nova it...OH WAIT. Coolio." Even if your CC on the opposing mage has been good, he's hitting DR at this point and you can't have him chaincasting into your teammates. Use this time to get CC on their warrior, and put cooldowns on the mage to at least guarantee an Ice Block. When mage blocks, look to kill felguard, which, if it is the second FG, is huge as it not only removes about half of the lock's damage, it allows your priest to mana burn more effectively and also get out of combat for drinks. (and no more SL)

Aggressive +Lock - Endgame - Warrior (or lock if no pet alive)

If you still have burst options available, their warrior is the best available target. You've hopefully neutered the mage's damage through burns and pressure and the lock's by killing pets. You're team is extremely oom and you're going to win by bursting their warrior while keep yours up. If you can trade one of your players with the exception of your paladin to kill their warrior, the 4v4 should still be very favorable. If you were actually able to kill both FG which is pretty reasonable in this matchup, the lock is extremely fragile with no SL and is a solid option if getting a kill on their warrior isn't happening. (not enough caster burst or mana remaining) The goal is to kill one of their two "unlimited" DPS classes.

Defensive +Lock - Endgame - Mage

Wear down the mage and just try to CC for the win. If this game goes this long and you're still on their mage, you're probably looking at a loss as you've been eating mana burns and drains too heavily. Even if you spent some time harassing the priest and did well shocking burns, their extra drains with their lock coupled with the FG prohibiting drinks is leaving your team looking REAL bad blue bar vs blue bar.

How They Counter the Above:

Mage hides and uses LoS heavily. Warrior is careful with Deathwish up and uses Spell Reflect well. (read luckily) They put felguard on your mage, their warrior on your priest and park the two on those two targets the entire game. Their priest mana burns extensively and harasses with mind control.

What Not To Do:

Same as before, don't focus their priest. Don't try to outlast and win the blue bar game against the defensive version of this matrix. Do not lightly harass their mage, try to really kill the mage. Don't forget that you have huge burst potential and they are often really working with only one healer. (Their priest is very focused on burning)

4DPS LOL

Early Game - Split DPS

This sounds a bit crazy, but if they have a rogue, your warrior is extremely limited in what he can hit. (mainly the rogue) Even if they don't, your warrior priority is doing as much damage as possible while not opening himself up to get gibbed. Shadowpriests are the highest priority target followed by UA locks and then rogues.

Later Early Game - Shadowpriest

Your shaman and mage should have put some real hurt into the spriest by now. Ideally, your warrior can intercept over and you can 2345 yourself to victory. If this isn't possible, you no longer can spend any of your globals doing damage and you must switch to hardcore defensive. Poly juggle, have your shaman heal to get through the shatter/AR/whatever. It is better for your shaman to be healing and your priest to be manaburning -- shadowpriest and then mage. Often you can simply survive this stage and you're left facing an oom mage and an oom spriest for an easy win.

Midgame - Paladin

4DPS teams bubble early -- they have to or they lose a DPS too early and its game over. (Game Over get it?) Often you'll be in a situation where its still 5v5 or maybe it is 4v4 and you've traded warrior for spriest. If its 4v4, if you don't kill the paladin, you will lose as the warlock will simply dominate. If it is still 5v5, switch from shaman assist healing your warrior to priest assist healing your war and have your shaman DPS their paladin with your warrior. Mage should CC with a particular focus on controlling the rogue who will reduce your warrior's damage output.

End Game - Warlock

The mage and spriest should be out of CD and nearly oom. The lock is the remaining threat and the rogue should be out of cooldowns and quite snarable/controllable. Your casters are also out of mana so you really want to kill the lock and take advantage of how your warrior is not mana or cooldown restricted in his damage output.

How They Counter the Above:

They kill your warrior in 10 seconds no matter what he or you do. They fail to kill anything and, despite being burned heavily, still win the mana war because warlocks are imba.

What Not To Do:

Don't have your warrior running around in defensive with a shield out all game. Don't ever get on 4DPS mage or Elemental Shamans. Don't ignore the rogue. Don't miss Counterspells on cyclones. Don't think you've won just because you killed their shadowpriest -- they can still 4v5 you.