I generally don’t like crossbows

…but this one was just too badass to pass up. Look at it..!

…and another

After 2 weeks of pounding my head against the wall, we finally broke the 1800 rating gear threshold in 2v2 the other night.

My partner and I joke that the arena match making system is actually just a couple of Blizz devs, who are sitting around drinking beers and controlling our fate. How else do you explain being within one game of breaking through 1800, only to have them throw a 2100 MMR Unholy DK/Holy Pally team at us to crush our hopes and dreams. This happens far too often to be purely coincidence… at least I think. 😉

What a job that would be though, eh… I can just picture these guys…

Well, let’s see… they’ve won five straight and are one win away from 1800… We could give them this Enhancement Shaman/Rogue team… Nah, here we go… how about a 2150 MMR Resto Druid/DK instead. This oughta be fun to watch. 😈

The other thing you can count on, is if you are sitting at 1790-something and manage a win, you’ll be sure to only get 5 or 6 points for it. I swear, we’d have like 3-4 wins in a row, with each win giving us 12-17 points. Then once it’s do or die time, we’d usually get about 6 points for a win, putting us about 3 points shy of getting new gears. Fun stuff… 😕

Prior to last Monday night, we’d had two straight weeks where we fought like dogs in the 1700s – topping out at 1797 and 1791 respectively. No matter what sort of streak we were on, it was pretty much guaranteed that a well-geared counter-combo (which there are plenty of vs Ret/BM) was going to come out of the opposing gates. However, this past week we persevered and clawed our way past 1800. *breathes sigh of relief*

Faced with the decision of which ranged weapon to purchase, my first choice was the gun. The gun looks amazing, plus I miss using one. Ever since I upgraded from my Nesingwary 4000, guns have eluded me. I really miss the bang, plus the Wrathful gun has gnarly spikes sticking out from the end of the barrel. Tell me that’s not awesome.

I decided against the gun mainly because I don’t want to bother with two different ammo types. This left either the bow or x-bow. Now normally I am not very keen on crossbows, but in my opinion, the Wrathful Crossbow kicks the Wrathful Bow’s ass to the curb. This is how a gladiator’s weapon should look.

I even had enough points left over to buy an off hand. Seems that 2 1h’ers are all the rage this season, as opposed to a 2H stat stick with a weapon chain. The reasons for this…

• Faster 1H’ers make it easy to tab target and swat down totems.
• 1H’ers still allow you to Deterrence while disarmed vs any class outside of a Rogue.

I hadn’t thought about that, but it’s a huge advantage being able to Deterrence while disarmed vs Shadow Priests, MM Hunters and Warriors (even though Warr’s generally disarm on the defensive).

I’d just assumed that all disarm effects prevented Deterrence, but I guess that’s what I get for assuming… 🙄

By the way… if you want to talk BA weapons… you should see how sexy the glad axes look on a hunter. Hopefully I’ll have a screenie next week. *crosses fingers*

Once I get my mitts on a 264 PvE 2H from ICC, I’ll be able to switch to it in arena when I’m not facing a team w/ a disarm, for a little extra juice.

The ranged weapon is mainly what I had my sights set on this season, so anything beyond that will be a bonus. As I’d mentioned in the past, we mainly do it for fun, but we do try our little hearts out. We’re well aware that BM/Ret isn’t going to set the world on fire, but we have fun with it. Truth be told, I’m fairly optimistic about this season. We’re fairly ahead of our usual curve in terms of gear, so I think we may be able to make a push for our helms. We’ll see…

On a side note, I’m back to using the Chimaera. After a few weeks of using the Silithid, I switched back to my Chimaera. I’ve found that the Silithid is most useful vs casters, but the Chimaera is far better when dealing with melee. That’s what I’ve come to notice anyway.

The Silithid’s root is fantastic for putting pressure on a cloth wearer, but the near perma-slow from the Chimaera’s Froststorm Breath is more of a benefit vs melee. Once the Silithid’s web has worn off or the enemy has trinketed, there is a 24+ second gap before it can be used again, where as the Chimaera’s slow is up almost constantly.

I haven’t given up on the Silithid altogether. It’s still my first choice for BGS, and I may still bring him out again for 2s depending upon the sort of comps we’re facing in the coming weeks.