Before I start, I want to express that this series on team makeups are complete theorycrafting on my part due to personal experience and view point. I welcome any comments stating otherwise, as a matter of fact right here I will also ask, what do you think are the best 2v2 teams? But without further adieu here are my thoughts as to why these teams work.
Mage & PriestThe Mage: Mages... when I think of mages I usually get angry, thinking about being turned into a
sheep,
turtle,
cat or
penguin. But when I think about level 29 mages, the first thing that comes to mind is
Blink,
Counterspell, and
Cone of Cold. These three spells are probably some of the most powerful utilities in the mage tool box between level 20 and 29, especially in BG's and Arena skirmishes. Blinking at the right time can keep you out of conical effect spells, if you blink behind your opponent it can interrupt a cast, speaking of casting, Counterspell is effective to cancel out a healers ability to support their partner or flag carrier, since most healers utilize a single school of magic. And Cone of Cold is easily one of the best spells shared between offense and defense, either as a means of kiting when being on the defense or slowing your opponent down to allow melee to get into range if you are on the offense, in pvp 8 seconds can mean life or death. While more situational you also receive your Ward spells during this bracket,
Frost and
Fire ward can easily offset a good deal of damage at these levels. Also while not quite PVP related you also receive your teleports, and a mages ever friendly
Mana Gem and
Evocation spells. Now as far as spec's go, I have to admit I am bias towards Frost in PVP, especially at this level, you can't quite get all of the talent points distributed for a good PoM/Pyro spec, Arcane seems a bit like the good ole days of the 5 second mage, and Fire while somewhat bursty, doesn't seem quite powerful enough yet. But I am up for a challenge, below are my takes on decent pvp builds for each spec.
Arcane - Much of the first couple tiers of the arcane tree seem to be more support talents, related to all three talent trees. Many highlight spells from all three talents rather than arcane specific abilities, with this I truly feel that Arcane at this level is more of a utility option, and that is further highlighted by the good talents you get from this tree. Such as
Focus Magic, a 3% crit bonus that continues to stack by 3% each time you crit again during a 10 second period, this is nice, but at these levels a little impractical. Though my favorite talent in the arcane tree has to be
Improved Counterspell, a 20 second Counterspell could really gimp an opponent, especially one that uses a single school of magic, like a shaman, resto/balance druid, priest, or a paladin. The potential is very wide. Now another great talent that seems to be a must have for everyone at higher tiers of content is
Torment the Weak. Now an extra 12% damage is no joke, especially since you will likely have your opponents frost nova'd or under the effects of Cone of Cold. So while Arcane may not be a single focus output spec it definitely brings enough utility to the table to be considered.
Frost - Ah, frosty, how I enjoy you. Talents in the frost tree brings so much homogenization between spells. You got
Frostbite giving you a 15% chance to freeze your opponents by your chill effect, your
Permafrost increases the duration of your chill effect by 3 seconds and reduced their movement speed by 10%.
Shatter gives you a 50% damage bonus against frozen opponents. Then you have
Ice Shards giving you a 100% crit bonus for all your frost spells. and
Icy Veins gives you a 20% speed boost when casting your spells. Frost is a great support spec, but it truly shines when you are the one required to control your opponents movement to allow your team mate(s) to burn them down, or when you are a flag carrier.
Fire - Much like Arcane, I don't feel fire really gets good until a little later. Luckily for Fire though is the fact that much of the basic necessities for a fire spec are in these first few tiers of talent points. For example, the wonderful Nuke spell
Pyroblast, this is the basis behind PoM/Pyro and many fire specs. Another great talent is
Ignite dealing an additional 40% damage to the victims of your fire crits. The other PVP staple for a fire build is
Impact, it gives a 10% chance to stun the victim of your fire spells.
The Priest: While I do not have a priest myself, I have known enough to encounter the pitfalls an opponent can run into. Between the Heals, the Shields, and the Fears, a well played priest can be a very scary character to run up against, and most of these tools are learned between 10 and 19, but the toolbox is perfected in the 20-29 bracket, with Mana Burn, Devouring Plague and Flash Heal. Oh and lets not forget, Holy Fire. /cower
Disc - Much like the arcane mage, Disc gets stronger the higher level you are, and at these low levels you are basically establishing your utility. But these utility spells cannot be overlooked, things like
Improved Power Word: Fortitude giving an additional 4% health , and
Imp PW: Shield giving 15% more damage reduction,
Improved Inner Fire giving the priest 12 more charges and a 45% increase to the inner fire spells effectiveness, then you have
Inner Focus, their cooldown talent that gives them a 25% crit bonus as well as a free cast. While at low levels Disc may not seem the greatest, they bring a lot to the table in the way of buffs and utility.
Holy - At low levels Holy is the Bread and Butter healing spec. While Disc gives a 15% damage absorption through PW: Shield, Holy is capable of boosting their allies Armor by 10% for 15 seconds when casting heals on them, thanks to
Inspiration. Holy Priests are also one of the only ones that has a single talent point self heal, thanks to
Desperate Prayer. And their HoT ticks can be a life saver thanks to
Improved Renew.
Shadow -
Ah shadow, my personal favorite spec in the priests arsenal. Everyone has been the victim of a Psychic Scream or two, but it's shadow Priests that have the lovely talent to improve it, with
Improved Psychic Scream the shadow priests cooldown has been dropped by 4%. The talent
Shadow Weaving is an interesting one to me, making it so when you have 5 points allotted you have a 100% chance to increase your shadow damage by up to 10% for 15 seconds. Also, you have one of the shadow nukes in the one point talent spell
Mind Flay, giving the shadow priest a channeled style DoT, that also reduces the victims movement speed.
So you might be saying to yourself, "ok, so now I understand the classes and the specs, but which make the best teams?" And I will answer "Mage and Priest". But no really, if it were up to me, I would stack an Arcane Mage with a Shadow Priest, a Fire Mage with a Disc Priest, and a Frost Mage with either a Disc or a Holy Priest. Overall my favorite combination is the Frost Mage with the Holy Priest because of the self heal, as well as the control available with the frost spec, also Frost Mages are capable of handling multiple enemies through Chill Effect and the healing specced Priests are capable of either mitigating damage received or healing through it to a great degree. So I definitely recommend trying this combination out.
The picture shown is of the winning team. And before you say "you probably had more 16-19's than the other team" I should point out that we had 4 people above level 16 and the other team had half of their crew above level 16. It was truly due to how much coordination was happening between those people that were of higher level and the fact that the high level characters knew their role in the game, to retrieve the flag and return it. Where as every round afterwards the high levels seemed to just sit in mid-field farming honor kills and allowing the level 10-13 to try and "win it". And while we may have had a few good attempts, it was made very clear that we were not meant to carry the flag. And 5 out of 7 times we lost 0-3, when we probably could have at least given the Alliance a run for their money.
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