Written by Elliot “Venruki” Venczel
coL.WoW checks in with a status update for the coL Community
Alex, Jordan and I have been playing the composition of Druid, Mage and Rogue or DMR for a very long time. Back in the days of The Burning Crusade we were pretty much an unbeatable team on the Battlegroup of Shadowburn, receiving Vengeful Gladiator in every bracket which includes 2v2, 3v3 and 5v5 and Brutal Gladiator in 3v3 and 5v5. Merciless Gladitor, Vengeful Gladiator and Brutal Gladiator were titles awarded to players at the end of the season who were the number one team.
The reason we were so successful as a team was because of how long we had played together and the amount of crowd-control the three of us could put out on people. Druids at the time were the most dynamic class out there, and most sponsored Druids all had very unique play-styles depending on the classes they were playing with. Greenranger, a Druid from the team GotGame, had a very laid back play-style where he would stay away from danger, cast a couple of heal over time spells, and keep his mana up by drinking, which worked out great for the compositions he was playing. Sodah had a very different play-style from most other Druids at the time. He was constantly involved in the fight throwing out all of his crowd-controls which included feral-charge, cyclone, entangling roots and bash. This play-style is essentially what made our team successful. In order for DMR to work you had to have a Druid that was willing to put himself in risky situations playing as offensive as possible to help your team score a kill.
Unfortunately for us this new game came out called “Wrath of the Lich King” basically destroyed almost all of the dynamic things a Druid could bring to the table. Blizzard balanced Druid heals for when they were in tree form. While a Druid is in tree form he is essentially a useless blob that runs around casting heals, and because of this we had a much harder time scoring kills against teams we usually had a much easier time with; not to mention Blizzard’s new “Hero Class” Deathknights – which essentially negate Druid heals at this point of time with the ability Plague Strike. “A vicious strike that deals 30% weapon damage plus 113.4 and infects the target with Blood Plague, a disease dealing Shadow damage over time. The strike removes one heal over time effect from the target.” Druids are a class that are very heal over time centric so having your hots just fall off leaves you basically unable to heal yourself. Because of Druids being forced into tree form and Death Knights removing druid hots, Druid’s arena representation is at an alltime low. On the Arena Tournament realm right now, I think there is one team over 2200 that uses a druid as a healer. For us, Druids only worked because Sodah was considered the best in the United States. But not even he could overcome how bad they’ve become.
Sodah was basically going to give up his Druid because it had become a lost cause. Luckily for us Sodah has been playing a priest for the past three months and has showed a ton of promise with it.So we made a choice after our poor performance in Germany. Sodah was basically going to give up his Druid because it had become a lost cause. Luckily for us Sodah has been playing a priest for the past three months and has showed a ton of promise with it. I can now say with confidence that after an immense amount of dedication and practice from Alex he is easily one of the best priests I’ve ever played with. Priests, unlike druids, bring a lot to the table in terms of offensive pressure. Whether it be with assisted damage, dispels or fear it seems like if we play it right the other team is constantly on the defensive, which is a side you really don’t want to be on in WoW. We have been climbing the Tournament Realm ladder since Jordan got back from Germany, and are now the highest rated PMR. Priest, Mage, Rogue has been a signature three vs three composition since WoW arena started, particularly with the Koreans who basically solely dedicate all of their time to playing the one composition. Our ability to play PMR has shown a ton of promise and with upcoming nerfs to Death Knights, Paladins, Hunters and many other classes I am extremely confident we will qualify for the North American finals.