A Few Dueling Details/Tricks

These are things you can do as other classes to fuck me over and be like "OMGZ I BEAT RADDY IN A DUEL FRAPS INC." This is certainly not an inclusive list of anything, but just a few things off the top of my head. (what a gay expression)





Warrior

• Never trinket nova. Escape Artist if you have it. Assume the first poly cast is a fake.


• When sheeped, do not trinket immediately. Either wait 6 seconds for combat to drop and trinket charge or watch my cast and trinket spell reflect if you have the rage. I will ward up before I cast on you, so the charge option is IMO the better of the two. Its arguable that it is better to not delay my initial sheep just so that hamstring can potentially still be on when you charge me I suppose. (Shrug) I should resheep you 5 seconds into the first poly to stop the charge, but sometimes I forget or get lazy because I think you're a suck. ^^


• You should either intercept right as my Fireblast comes off cooldown (8 seconds) or when I come in for a nova or CoC. Obviously, if I'm going from 25 yds hopping around lancing you to 12 yards I have a reason, try to anticipate the global on the new snare. I have to circle kite you because of dueling range restrictions, so this is usually going to be when I have to cut the arc of the circle.


• Spell reflect bandage is amazing. I have been trying to wand out of it because I'm terribad and should just quit the game, but the correct mage counter is rank 1 Blizz. (Yes, it does take fucking forever to kick in, but so does cocksucker wand plus wand gives me an extra global CD where you can fuck my face with an intercept) Anyone else love how retardedly slow the arena wand is? And that it is fire? Coolio.


• Every time you force me to blink should be a mixup. You either chase me or run away for combat to drop. You'll do a lot better in this if I'm the one chasing you most the time.


• Don't hit spell reflect the instant you get nova'd unless that nova is on DR. Wait for the cast, otherwise you reflect a lance and still get shattered. (not so hot)

Druid (Resto)

• Entangling roots is the most powerful thing you can do. Roots and run away to drink. Blinking out of roots repetitively is prohibitively mana expensive especially for the majority of mage specs.


• Cyclone bandage. Particularly good to go for when swiftwend is soon to come off CD anyways as even if you get locked, you can SM yourself immediately afterwards.


• Make a focus macro for the mage and use the focus to feral charge. Do this especially when you switch to bear to kill the WE -- the mage will almost always hardcast frost, feral charge that nonsense and run back to kill the WE.


• Do not moonfire more than is needed to keep the dot refreshed. This should be common sense. Do not moonfire just because the mage is "pretty low."


• I think starfiring is retarded but it can be used to convince me to blow IB.

Warlock

• If you're destro, for the love of god do not try shadowfury->fear against a mage. Either I'll CS shadowfury, or I'll blink CS the fear. I'm not terribad.


• If you're FG, do not intercept me to start the duel. Wait for a cast. What am I going to do to you without casting? One fireblast? OMG NO. Also, FG intercept->fake fear cast is the most surefire to fake my CS. I really can't tell on that one at all. =(


• Don't banish WE. Certainly never fucking cast banish while my CS is up. You can fake banish while I'm in block to draw me out, but I think you're better DoTing up the WE and Drain Life spamming.


• Drain Mana is pointless against a mage in 1v1. Never cast it when you can instead Drain Life. The only way I can still pull off the whole sheep-you-kill-your-pet thing is if I trick you into PvP trinketing my first nova. Spellstone and wait on blowing PvP trinket on stupid crap until you force me to abandon the killing your pet route. (Takes all of like 5 seconds for me to realize I'm fucked and need to zerg you for any chance of winning, don't worry)


• Deathcoiling my pet instead of me is perfectly reasonable and often a better option if I'm at medium range. Or just wait on my Fireblast cooldown and DC as I Fireblast you. Warlocks are hard.


• If you're pet is about to die, don't panic and DC me -- just let it die and DC before you Fel Dom summon. Odds of me getting that Counterspell = REAL BAD.

Priests (Disc/Holy)

• Manaburns on the WE = doneski.


• Mind Control is actually extremely annoying. I can't really afford to CS it, so if you've got a fresh renew and high hp, going for an MC is definitely a viable option.


• Don't PWS yourself above 75% health just because the CD came back up -- know that fire mage burst is either coming after an impact and frost burst after a bite proc. Mages will use either to get some free "extra" damage before going for burst and spell locking for the finish. Using PWS after impact or bite greatly reduces the chance of that ever happening.


• I'm going to blink through your first or second mana burn cast. Use that to set up a fear.


• The only ways for you to lose is to get carelessly bursted down or to let me reset the fight repeatedly with bandage + eat/drink to run you oom. Keep pain up even if only rank one ALWAYS.

Test Server Sweetness

After dueling for about 30 hours as 33/28/0 on PTR, here's some thoughts:

• One set WE mage is a rough fight. I haven't fought anyone who didn't suck at dueling WE against other mages, so I'm not really sure, because I shit on them -- but I think they were all terribad. WE mage needs to play rushdown and then find range with early pet and needs to maintain distance from pet as if against a rogue to avoid blastwave + AE on him and pet. (Fuck cumbucket WE mages who LoS against fire mages btw)
  
• Mut and even SF/Hemo rogues seem farm. Shadowstep I haven't found any good enough to say anything about. AR/Prep is about 50/50. The trick to all of these is faking the PoM Pyro by splitting when you use AP and PoM. You can also do stuff like trinket kidney->PoM Pyro or try to catch the rogue on a global, etc. Obviously, play aggressively? ^^
• No resto druids of high talent on PTR. I'd guess I'd probably go 50/50 against top druids as 33/28. It's very straightforward from mage side. Stack scorches, either fireball or consecutive scorch to force a dip, and thus a swiftwend. Repeat until that swiftwend is not a full topup and start pressuring with scorch impact procs etc. until you see a burst opening. What sucks is that Natural Perfection is pretty much always fully stacked. Without WE for the mana efficiency , I don't think you can run the normal outlast strategy unless the druid aggressively spends mana trying to kill you. (Which is retarded and scrub but happens)
• Resto shamans are somewhat easier. I like to play a weird outlast strat where I blow burst early to force the NS, and kite around and resheep bandage until second set is up basically. Against a shaman who spams underwater breathing to keep ES up all the time, I don't believe you have a chance, but that is pretty god damn homosexual. As scrub as it sounds, poly AP fireball, PoM Pyro, scorch (grounding), scorch (hit) is probably the best guaranteed way to force NS off the poly. Against shamans with Battlemaster trinket, BT epics gems and offset pieces plus full S2/S3, unless they make an egregious error, there isn't going to be a great opportunity for a CS->AP PoM Pyro rushdown like we used to pre-TBC.
  
• Warriors you can kill in sheep.
  
• For all the above, I've at least dueled people who hit gladiator last season, and weren't retardedly awful. Lots of good rogues as per usual on PTR. I probably won't be dueling much more this PTR as interest has been low and while I love dueling as 33/28 and there is perhaps some potential in 2s as the spec, the reality is that WE is still dominating and its delusional to think you'll be playing something else if you want your teams to be the best they can be. (2.4 ptr maybe!)
  

I can talk more about specific fights if there's interest -- people assume its a scrubby dueling spec, but there's a few technical things about playing it well.