Arena Season 3: Mage, Priest, Rogue

[Lissa]

This was "the" power combo of Season 2, but I can't help but think Hunter instead of Rogue is going to be just as viable in S3. or Hunter / warlock / priest as an all out drain team, but I fear the warlock may not be as effective, the lack of sheep / nova / R1 frostbolt slow may be an issue for warriors vs. the priest, perhaps that group is best off as Hunter / Warlock / Druid (actually that sounds pretty vicious)

Hunters don't have quite the same OS defense capability as rogue, but a lot better ability to kite and avoid incoming damage. They are also better at keeping damage off a priest and have reasonable mana draining to boot. Rogues are easier to play well, but I think a well played Hunter can slot in the same role as the rogue. I'd expect a scatter / Wyvern sting type build to be the best for this combo, with primary use of frost instead of freezing trap to keep a "kite area" for the priest.

The team is a little more flexible due to the reliance of rogues on combo points. The hunter DPS and target switching is just easier to deal with, and the deadzone changes really have made their issues significantly better. Also the cooldown of Wyvern is slightly lower than blind.

You have the option against non-druid teams of chain CC healer (proper rotation of Wyvern + sheeps + scatter as interrupt + Counterspell + maybe a freeze trap, but I think the traps are probably best used as frost or freeze against their DPSers) and burn down like 3DPS (PS their focus target, PI the mage and 3 of you kill them before they kill the focus), you have a second option of playing outlast by mana draining and applying more steady damage than any melee team can against frost traps, frost nova, scatter shot, sheep and wyvern stings, and this is the strategy that would have to be employed vs. druid healers.

I think if VERY coordinated you can even pull off 2 CCs at the start with starting the sheep train on the healer and a fear / trinket / freeze trap on one of their DPS. Wyvern on the healer before sheep is out and you have potential for 2 people under control for a reasonable amount of time.

This season is a lot more interesting. The hunter changes (and soon mage changes) go a long way. Instant Wyvern is big, and deadzone change is bigger. Arcane shot dispel is nice, but I don't think it's huge in this composition.

I was thinking something similar when I saw it, but using a druid.

As to Hunter, I would go with a heavy MM build (all the way to silencing) over Wyvern Sting. MM is all about burst damage now and Silencing Shot, while about a 1/3 of the time of Wyvern Sting, will let you do some damage to the priest up front while allowing you to use Viper Sting and unless they have another priest or paladin along or the priest blows their trinket, they'll still be silenced for 3 seconds and the odds of having a druid along means druid could remove the Wyvern Sting, the Priest would take the damage, but would be back in the fight. Also of note, Wyvern Sting has a 2 minute cooldown, Silencing Shot is only 20 seconds (which means potentially 18 seconds of taking someone of the fight compared to 12 seconds).

The other downside now is all the things that would make a survival hunter good in PvP has been neutered (traps now last a maximum of 10 seconds) so the only real things to get in Survival are sub-Tier 5 (Humanoid Slaying, Savage Strikes, Imp Wing Clip, Entrapment, Survivalist, Trap Mastery, Surefooted). Most PvP Hunters are either BM/MM or MM/Surv with some MM/BM while high end Survival now is probably the most raid friendly build (you give up some of your own DPS to boost physical raid DPS).