"Meowmix"

That was the name of my 2v2 team on the PTR.

So. Me. A 17/0/44 frost mage (by the name of Spatula), and a 41/5/15 beastmaster hunter (by the name of Inda (pet's name was hizzouse)).

(Just mentally remove Ice Block from the talent tree, put Cold Snap there, and put Icy Veins where Cold Snap is)

We did quite well, I think, for the rather unorthodox matchup of Hunter/Mage, for a 2v2 anyways.

To be quite honest, this type of arena was practically a 3v2 effort. A beastmaster's pet is quite a deadly force, especially when sent after a squishy. We had some rather devastating combos as a team here, and our kiting power was unmatched.

Thought process behind my talents:

Maxxed out Imp. Arcane Missiles, for use as un-LoSable nukes whenever clearcast procced. Did that sentence make sense to non mages?
Anyways, Arcane Missiles is a spell that, once started, can only be stopped when its target is massively out of range. We're talking 50 yards away. Even if you run behind a pole, or something like that, you cannot stop them. They keep right on channeling away, pounding into you like the LoS whore you are.
Essentially, I would pop this any time clearcast procced on a spell, and would use it generally whenever someone, like a healer, tried to run away and prevent me from hurting them. In this way, I can keep right on nuking while they're trying to hide. Needless to say, very effective.
Clearcast is obvious, free spell casts ftw. And besides, what else am I going to take while trying to get to Improved Counterspell?
Magic Attunement was taken because I put Dampen Magic on the both of us before every fight. We don't have a healer, so we don't lose out heals because of it. So, effectively, we get a couple hundred damage shaved off each spell cast against us, which of course, is just plain sexy.
Now. Improved Counterspell. If you're serious about PvP, you will want this spell. It is devastating. It is horrible. Healers will cry in their sleep because of this.
Go on. Ask a healer you know. Ask them how they feel about a 4 second silence in rapid-speed PvP. See what kind of response you get.

The frost tree is easy. Maximizing my frostbolts, and other roots and cooldowns. Cone of Cold was never used as a damaging spell, merely as a snare (and thanks to frostbite, quite often a full out root as well.
Putting only 3 points into Winter's Chill was deemed alright by me. Disagree if you want, but here's my explanation.
The whole point behind Winter's Chill is to put pressure on the other teams' dispellers. When you sheep something, most likely their dispeller is going to try and get rid of that. Be it a Paladin, whatever, they don't want their buddy being useless meat. The point of Winter's Chill is to provide an additional "debuff", to make it harder for the dispeller to get rid of the Polymorph.
(PS, for arenas, use rank 1 Polymorphs. Zero point using higher ranks, they cost more mana for no reason)
You can max out Winter's Chill to get the full debuff, but as a team, we didn't feel it was necessary to do so. Being a hunter mage combo, we already had substantial annoying things at our disposal. Things like Concussive Shot, Freezing Traps, Polymorph, Counterspell; then factor in the pet's stun ability, Cone of Cold, and my very frequent roots. Already so much powerful crowd control going on, we didn't feel it was necessary to spend the points to add to what was basically a dispell fodder talent. That, and I really like Arctic Reach >.>

So, the hunter's talents seem simple enough to me. Maxing out the health talents, getting all the usual pet dominatrix abilities, etc. Beastial Discipline was gotten (is that a word? Getted, maybe?) because my hunter buddy didn't have Go for the Throat, and so would need the extra focus.
(Inda uses a kitty cat, therefore he can spam Claw as long as the focus is there. For further questions, go ask BigRedKitty, because this isn't a hunter blog, no matter how much my hunter alt craves attention)
Inda felt that getting Imp. Revive Pet was a good way to spend two talent points. See, he figured that in some battles people would go for his pet, in an effort to de-rail his build. So, he picked up the talent in order to recover really fast if that ever occured.
It never actually did, but whatever.
(Note: arenas are flagged as outdoors, thus Bestial Swiftness does work.)

So. Our combos. The most obvious one that springs to mind is the classic Warrior/Paladin thing.
First thing, the pet rushes after the Paladin, Bestial Wrath going full bore. Oddly enough, this caused the Paladin most times to blow his bubble right away? Was the Paladin new or not? Either way, it made for a guaranteed win for me and Inda, as we would simply kite the warrior for 10 seconds, then annihilate the Paladin very quickly. Turns out, Paladins don't last very long while Silenced and stunned, with no bubble to escape from their early demise.
Intimidation followed by a silence immediately after is a horrifying experience, I'm sure.
Meanwhile, Warrior rushes at me. He gets rooted. I walk away. He intercepts. I blink, then he gets hit with Concussive Shot. I whip out the water elemental, root him again, Shatter combo. Turn WE on Paladin as soon as bubble falls, toss a frostbolt/fireball on the Paladin, giggle as he tries to cast a heal and counterspell him. Paladin goes down, then the warrior meets his fate. Never touched either one of us after that intercept.

The arenas against Ret Paladins were incredibly sad. I'm sorry, but if I find out you're a retribution Paladin, I'm going to mentally picture the sight of two blood elf Paladins riding straight at me, dismounting, and bubbling the second their feet hit the ground.
Pure idiocy, that made for some ridiculously easy kills.
Even worse, these Ret Paladins would... well, never heal. When they did, which was very rare, I'd just counterspell them and be done with it. Never once saw a Flash of Light of these guys, just Holy Light.

One interesting team we came across was a pair of Marksman hunters. How do I know they were Marksman? Easy, I got chained with Silencing Shot. Our strategy was simple when it became obvious they wanted me dead. I simply ran away, abused LoS, and let my hunter buddy kill them off. Mostly I just harassed them, rooted them, then ran around a corner and first aided. It was all good fun.

At one point, we came across a Resto druid paired with a Soul Link warlock. That was a very odd fight, and we almost lost it, too. We only won because the druid had the exceptional bad luck to run straight into a freezing trap at a critical moment during the fight. Critical meaning that the warlock took enough damage to be unhealable once the Trap broke. Oh, the druid tried. Damn right he tried. Got off one Lifebloom, which the hunter promptly dispelled with Arcane Shot. Pure luck there, in my opinion. Anyways, warlock died because the next autoshot critted, and then we turned to the resto druid. At this point, we have a full health resto druid, me at 25%, and my hunter buddy at just under 50%. And one pet who's Intimidation cooldown will finish in 4 seconds.
Getting that druid down took a bloody long time. We were at it for a good 9 minutes before he dropped. Longest 9 minutes in my life.

And that rogue/warlock team... Gah, it was ruthless. They didn't focus on killing me, they focused on crowd controlling me. What I looked at was Deathcoil, then feared right after that. Trinketed out of that. Got spell locked right then, and I hit Ice Block. Sorry, couldn't restrain myself. It just had to. Immediately broke it, in an effort to save Inda who had just gotten hit hard. The rogue didn't even touch the freezing trap. (No flare, I berated Inda for that one.)
As soon as Ice Block broke, the rogue hit sprint and CloS, and rushed right at me. I got blinded, then he rushed right back to the hunter and kept ganking.
It was relentless. It really was. Inda was getting stunlocked to hell and back, dotted to hell, randomly feared, and the warlock had somehow managed to switch to a Succubus in the middle of this and was Seduce-nuking at the same time.
Splat goes Inda, and then the rogue immediately pops Vanish.

Well, I'm fucked.

And it went like this the two other times we fought them. Ruthlessly destroyed by this team. Dunno why, but thats what happened. Maybe I need to learn to play.

But the fact is, I could not escape from so many Crowd Controls so fast. Hell, the last fight I got sapped near the beginning.
How do you counter Deathcoil, fear, spell lock, blind, kidney shot, sap, and mace stun effects? It gets even worse when you see "Seduce" on your screen when you were just spell locked a couple seconds ago. Harsh times...

So that's some of my stories for my 2v2 arena on this last past PTR. Good stuff, we did pretty darn well, in my oh so humble opinion.

Oh, Yeah, Patch 2.3.2

So as you may have noticed by now, patch 2.3.2 went live.

Let's go over the good stuff, shall we?

First off, there has been some major changes in the frost tree. Major, as in, 3 talents have been seriously moved around.

1) Trainable Ice Block.

Anyone who's spent some time reading this blog knows my thoughts about Ice Block. Bluntly, it is an incredibly useful skill that can be used to incredibly good effect in both PvE and PvP. In arenas, it is a necessary talent that literally any mage will need to be widely successful. Without it, the mage is at a very serious disadvantage survivability wise. Versus warlocks, for example, you gonna eat thems DoTs without an Ice Block. Ice Block is a cooldown that allows you to survive other people cooldowns. Spot a PoM Pyro headed your way? Ice Block. Spot a giant red raptor coming your way? Ice Block. And so forth.
PvE wise, it can be a major life-saver in an incredibly high amount of PvE encounters. Magtheridon? When the entire raid takes 6k damage at 30%? Ice Block. No damage for you!
Hydross got yeh Watery Tombed? Ice Block. No damage for you, or anyone standing near you.
Have three Cave'ins dropped on you at the same time in Gruul's? Ice Block. It'll save you for a bit.
Pull aggro on Illidan? Haha, you're fucked. No, seriously, Ice Block it onto the ungrateful warlock next to you. That'll show that snooty demon master a thing or two about Soul Link.

In conclusion, a very welcome addition, one that mages have and are going to continue rejoicing about for days to come. And to the following classes: Warriors, Rogues, Hunters, Warlocks, and Priests, the QQ was delicious, let's do it again some time. Maybe over lunch? I'll bring biscuits.

Cold Snap has moved to Ice Block's old position. Ok, cool, seems fine to me. Because....

ICY VEINS!! This new spell is bitching. Reeeeeal bitching. Need I go into detail? Well, too bad, 'cause Girl Meets WoW did it for me.

However, I would like to touch on this fact...

If you're raiding fire, you now essentially have two choices here. 10/47/3 (+1), the old spec; 2/47/11 (+1), the new spec.
Basically, you keep all the same fire raid talents, and just mix up where the other points are going. Frost? Or Arcane? Minimum of 11 points frost for Icy Veins, or 10 points Arcane. Do with the last point as you wish. Don't matter too much.

I heartily recommend everyone keeps putting the 2 points into Arcane Subtlety, by simple fact of the 40% arcane threat reduction. Will help with AoE fights, if they're called for.

The frost tree is practically garbage raid fire wise, you're only really there for 4 talent points. 3 in Elemental Precision, and 1 in Icy Veins. The rest, we could really care less. I put 2 in imp. Frostbolt, because the other option sucks so hard it makes Bill Clinto raise his eyebrows.
Tier 2, 2 points went into Improved Frost Nova, and the other 3 into the 15% chance to root. Imp. As I do a lot of random PvP in my spare time, stuff like rank 1 frostbolt does get used frequently, so the 15% root there is noice to have. 1 second snare, or a 1.3 second snare that has a 15% chance to root? I went with the latter.

Now, as to Icy Veins itself. To put it bluntly, you DO NOT want to spec to get this right as you start you're raiding career. Why? Because you're mana pool won't survive.
Putting 10 points into Arcane nabs you Clearcast, which essentially gives you a 10% mana efficiency boost. Icy Veins gives you a DPS boost, but at the cost that you are, essentially, using 20% more mana for those 20 seconds. If you're mana pool is a little on the low side, Icy Veins will see you going OOM disturbingly often.
Stick with Clearcast until you have at least 8500 mana with Arcane Intellect up. Shouldn't be hard, but there ya go. Once you have about that much mana, snag Icy Veins, have a sexy 3 minute cooldown, and make sure you're using your brand new mana gems often =D

Speaking of those brand new mana gems, they are some might fine stuff.

See, the top level gems now come with "charges". A single mana gem can be used 3 times, meaning that over longer fights, you don't have to downrank your gems, simply use the same best one over and over again.
Oh! And the amount of mana it restores has been buffed, too, so it restores the same amount of mana as Super Mana Pots.

The mage community has been complaining about mana efficiency for quite some time. To put it bluntly, we run through mana much faster than any other mana-based class, with the notable exception of Shadow Priests. Each mana using class has a way to restore mana, and up until these last couple of patches, the mages was the worst. We had an 8 minute cooldown spell that restored ~30% of our mana, and some rather crappy mana gems that could hardly rival the old school 60 raids style mana potions.

This has largely been fixed, thankfully. Evocation has been buffed right the hell out (shut yer trap, leveling mages, suck it up. What the 70's want, they get).
With the mana gem "fix", our mana pools are far more padded out then they were a short time ago.
And we have the druids to thank for it, I'm sure. Those crazy peeps have an unnerving ability to come to a forum, take all the gripes and QQ of an entire class forum, and condense it into a short, well-worded, intellectual, and excellently formatted post.

WTF, druids? WHAT THE FOOF?

Oh, and that means the PTRs are down...

Le sigh. Arenas then!

I was on a 2v2 for a while, paired with a BM hunter (Tauren, therefore "pre-made"). He was pretty good, we played 28 games, won 25 of them. To be fair, at least half of those involved a ret pally, so no surprise there. The 3 we lost were all the exact same team. Rogue and Warlock. Never encountered that kind of arena team before. Oh, well, we kept getting owned by those guys. Made me a sad panda.
Also went onto a 3v3 team with an Arms warrior and a Disc Priest. Very odd makeup, don't you think? Priest/Warrior/Mage... well, it was odd. Ended up with 1698 rating there, so no love lost, I guess. The Warrior was insane... only spoke Spanish. Made for some very interesting times.

Let me take the time to say this... Whoever that priest was, I love you. All of our wins were because of you, and your incredible skill. I am honored to have PvP'd with you. AoE fear bombs at precisely the right moments, heals that seemed to land the exact moment they were needed most... it felt like you were omnipresent.

Ehh, might do some more arena posting later. I might have to, considering that this might be the last arenas I do for a while. I have purchased the Orange Box, you see, and TF2 has consumed my mind.

A Disturbing Trend

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Powered by Wowhead!

I USED to have proper pop-ups working here.

Then they stopped for whatever reason.

Let's try this again.

Malistar's Defender

A Dull and Flat Elven Blade

Elven Gems

Edit:

Invisible elf gems!

Primordeal Essence

A PRIMORDIAL ESSENCE?!?!?

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!

HELLLLLZ YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!


Finally, after all this time, I can go gouge my eyes out in peace.

Theory of PvP? Mobile Fighting!

A deep mind for deep thoughts.

This whole thought process was sparked by a comment I left on Galoheart's website.

To reiterate here, World of Warcraft can actually be divided into two separate games. One of which is the PvE, and one of which is the PvP.
These two worlds do not interact with each other, much as players and developers alike would love to say they do. They don't.

One version is the technical detail, the precision, that goes into player versus environment. This is pitting live, human players versus artificial intelligence, and in WoW's case, its almost always not intelligent, just scripted. Not a criticism, just a statement of fact, is all.

Then we have PvP, where it is a player versus another player. Nothing is scripted, little is preset. It's simply players killing each other in a competitive environment with the tools they have.

PvE does not mesh with PvP. PvP does not mesh with PvE. You can have one or the other. A player character does not react to "aggro". A prot warrior cannot use taunt to save his healer. A hunter cannot use disengage to drop aggro. In PvP, a PoM Pyro would be a great opener, dropping a huge amount of damage right at the start. In PvE, this is called "suicide".

But I need not go into depth here.

Quite bluntly, PvE and PvP each require completely different talent specs and gear sets to be successful in each.

If you're a heavy disc priest sporting 400 resilience, you are going to be a very poor raid healer.

If you show up to an arena with your epic Tier 5 healing gear, able to keep a tank up solo for an entire boss encounter, you're going to be annihilated by a rogue named Zephirotth.

You can find hybrid specs, you can put points into both PvE and PvP talents... but in most cases, this will leave you sorely lacking in both spots.

Take mages, for example. In order to be successful arena wise, you must put hefty numbers of points into frost to be widely successful. You won't go anywhere in a competitive arena as a raid fire mage, except for a quick and speedy dirt nap.
Likewise, if you try and raid as PvP frost, you will find yourself being out DPS'd by the main tank.

So. Now that we've got that out of the way.

The developers at Blizzard have made substantial efforts to attempt to make every class viable in both PvP and PvE. Not at the exact same time, but the tools are there. The tools to be successful in PvP are present, so there is no reason you should suck, as long as you know how to use these tools.

Let's generalize.

There are two "classes" of classes in PvP. There are the melee attackers, and the ranged attackers. That's all there is to it.
Some classes attack/heal from range, other classes attack from point blank.

Each of these generalized classes need to have certain tools to be successful.
Still speaking generally, the melee attackers are restricted by the fact that they must be, well, in melee range to be able to do anything. This means, to be successful, the melee class needs to have these 2 key tools:
1) A way to very quickly close with a target;
2) A way to keep that target close.

Warriors, for example, can charge to a target, thus getting to point blank range swiftly, and can use hamstring to keep the target close.

The ranged attacking/healing classes require pretty much the opposite tools. They need to have:
1) A way to very quickly leave melee range;
2) A way to keep their target away from them.

Druids, for example, can swap to a movement form and quickly run away, and can also flat out root their target, preventing him from moving.

These abilities can be further generalized as ways to "control" the encounter. This is the essence of player versus player combat in any and all games. CONTROL.

If you do not have control, you get killed. If you have control, you are the one doing the killing.

Think about it. If you're a warrior rooted to the ground, while your target stands about forty feet away shooting burning arrows into you, who's in control here?

If you're a rogue, plunging your daggers into some poor priest's behind while he sits there, writhing in pain, due to the sword you shoved into his kidney, who's in control?

And if that same priest suddenly unleashes a Psychic Scream, and melts your brain while your running about, guess who regained control of the situation?

This is the greatest principle behind PvP in WoW: keeping control of both your movement and your opponents.
You want your opponent's movement to be as hindered as possible. Have them moving slower, in the wrong direction, or not at all is very much desired.
Keeping yourself moving as fast as possible, always in the correct direction, and at a standstill as close to never as you can manage, this is what you must strive for.

Turning to mages now. We are one of those ranged attacking classes, depending on our ability to flee our melee attackers to win in a fight.
In my rather humble opinion, mages are an extremely well equipped class in the war of mobility, and every spec adds at least one more tool. Let's go over them, shall we?

• Frost Nova. This is an AoE that roots all targets around the caster. Natch, an 8 second root is an incredibly potent ability, and rightfully so. This leaves our opponent motionless, leaving them helpless while we can safely get to range.
• Blink. A spell that simply fires the mage 20 yards forward. It breaks any and all roots, as well as stun effects. It is an incredibly potent spell. Breaking movement impairment affects on yourself, as well as instantly gaining twenty yards on your opponent... it's probably the best tool you have on the mobility front.
• Frostbolt. Simple. Damaging spell that also slows the target down to 60% of his base movement speed. This spell is most effective if the mage is specced into the frost tree. Namely, it will do more damage, take less time to cast, can root the target outright, and can reduce the movement speed down to 50%.
• Polymorph. Turns the target into a cute farm animal. This is a pure form of crowd control. The target cannot move, and cannot use any abilities.
• Frost/Ice Armor. Only bother with this pre-Molten Armor. When you get hit with a melee ability, the target is almost always slowed, and if specced frost, can be rooted some of the time as well. Use this for PvP up until Molten Armor becomes avaliable.
  
• Slow. This is a spell that is at the end of the Arcane tree, and is the only snare/root the Arcane tree has. Many do not like this spell, seeing as how it is rather lacklustre for an end tree talent. Nevertheless, it's here, an excellent kiting tool right up until it gets dispelled. Excellent to use against other ranged attackers/healers, as it vastly increases the amount of time they spend casting. It also increases the time between a hunter's ranged attacks, so there ya go.
• Impact. An extremely handy talent, it adds a 10% stun chance on any and every damage-dealing fire spell. Stuns are extremely effective in PvP, and these are no different.
• Blazing Speed. Essentially, it makes you run real fast, as well as dispelling movement impairing effects. A very nice ability, it is limited by the fact that it is random. Maybe it will proc and allow you to escape from hamstring, maybe it won't. If it does, it is a golden ability that will have your enemy in fits of rage.
• Permafrost. Increases the effect of the mages slowing effects. With this, spells like Frostbolt become more powerful.
• Frostbite. 15% chance that a frost slowing effect will instantly freeze the target. Basically a frost nova that procs at random.
• Water Elemental. A handy little minion who deals extra damage for you, and also comes with his own rooting ability wired in.

Anyone see the natural synergy that the frost tree has? Go take a look at the talents in the frost tree. DO IT RIGHT NOW!! You see whats in there? More powerful snares? More root spells? The chance to proc an additional root? And of course the incredible high power frost spells have against rooted targets?
See why mages go frost for PvP? The spec is designed for it.

So when should we use these abillities?

With all these tools at our fingertips, knowing when to use these abilities requires a cool head, and knowledge of the class you are fighting to avoid doing something incredibly stupid.

If a warrior charges you, and you frost nova and blink away, that same warrior is simply going to intercept and start beating on you again. This is not smart.
Blinking away from a rogue, and then watching them sprint + cloak of shadows and run straight at you again is also not smart.

The first step is to familiarize yourself with the classes you are fighting. Learn what other classes have to control mobility. Go check out an ability list on wow wiki if you must.
Learn that warriors have Charge. Know they cannot use it while in combat. Realize that they can Intercept in combat. Learn what its cooldown is.

This can be the hardest part about playing a mage in PvP combat, is knowing what abilities your opponent is going to use, and how to counter them. So let's quickly run through them, shall we?

WARRIOR

Remember, only EVER use blink AFTER the warrior has intercepted. NEVER BEFORE. EVER. If you blink and he has the spell avaliable, he WILL use it and you WILL be anally raped. That's just how it works.
When going into combat, try your best to prevent them from charging. Open with ice lance to get them in combat before they can charge.
When the warrior first closes to melee range, either by charging or simply walking up to you, use frost nova then and simply walk away from them. Get off a frostbolt and/or Shatter to do some damage and get them snared.
Don't forget about Cone of Cold. If things get intense, use it. It is a better snare than Hamstring.
Use the water elemental liberally. Its root effect can be targeted, meaning you can root a warrior thats so far away it isn't even a threat yet.
And Blink right after Intercept. It'll blow there MIND.

DRUID

Notorious escape artists. Spam them with snares/roots as much as possible, laying it on thick with instants. The goal is to wear down their mana, so as to render them unable to shapeshift.
Treat Feral Charge the same way as a warrior's intercept. Wait for them to use it before you blink.
Mobility wise, they will most likely break anything and everything you throw at them very rapidly. Hit them with something new every time they shapeshift. If they shift out of frost nova, nail them with cone of cold right away. Pop a water elemental freeze on them ASAP. Pray for a frostbite proc.
An excellent strategy is to silence them, then Shatter combo the druid. That will force them into caster form to get heals off, which is your cue to unload with everything you have. A druid is vulnerable while in "normal" form, and really cannot take very much damage at all.

ROGUE

Your biggest enemies here will be cloak of shadows and sprint.
CloS removes all magical effects, and gives them a 90% immunity to all spells while it is active. You have little choice but to simply flee when they use this. Hit them with at least one ice lance during this time to prevent them from leaving combat. Once CloS fades, get them re-snared/rooted ASAP.
Sprint, by itself, is not a huge threat. Once they use it, hit them with a snare/root of any kind to defeat the running boost.
The true threat here comes from when CloS and sprint are used simultaneously. At this point, you CANNOT run, because they will catch you. This, is when you Ice Block. Tag them with ice lance first to give you the full 6 seconds to out of combat. You must break ice block early, or the rogue will stealth. Alternatively, have the elemental out to keep them in combat, letting you remain ice block for the full 10 seconds if you wish. Get them resnared/rooted right as you come out of ice block. CloS will be gone at this point. Also, you can use blink upon emerging from ice block, and land a snare from there. With CloS/sprint burned, the rogue will have almost no means with which to get at you.
Dealy Throw is not very deadly. A simple snare, simply ignore it. It is not a threat. If your spells get interrupted, oh well. No big deal. Deal with it like you would a counterspell or shield bash (?) or whatever reason.
Shadowstep is an interesting development, and would be the bane of you but for one, slight problem on the rogues side. It does not break snares or roots.
Obviously, if they CloS then shadowstep, you have a problem. Well, one that can quickly be solved by Ice Blocking, but whatevs. Usually, the rogue should end up behind you, rooted to the ground. If they aren't, root them ASAP, or use blink then root them. Blinking from a rogue is usually their cue to hit sprint or something, so try and refrain from using it until after CloS, at the least, has been burned.

SHAMAN

Shaman are embarassingly easy in the whole mobility department. They have only two ways to keep you close. Frost Shock, which is a "meh" snare, and Earthbind totem, which is another snare, with the added difficulty that they already have to be in melee range for it to be useful.
As a class, shamans are going to have a lot of trouble fighting you as a mage. They will never have an opportunity to use earthbind on you, since they should rarely actually close to melee, if ever. If they do, blink, and their totem is officially useless.
Frost shock will be a hard use for them. If they use it, they'll have a standard snare on you, and will be unable to earth shock your casts.
Mobility wise, spam them with roots, stay out of the earthbind.

PALADIN

Paladins really only have the one way to affect your mobility. Hammer of Justice, we all know it. The uber paladin stun. You can blink out of it; do so. They will have nothing left at that point.
Also, beware of them Blessing of Freedom..ing... themselves, rendering them immune to roots and snares. It is highly worth a spellsteal attempt or two to snag it. Otherwise, wait it out and immediately root them again once it has expired. The cooldown will be ruinous to them once they have used it.


Please note that I have only covered stuff that has to do with Mobility here. Stuff like counterspell has been ignored, as that has nothing to do with mobility.

Questions? Comments? That's nice, I don't care.

I'M KIDDING!! Jeeeezzz.....



Edit: can someone tell me why the line spacing is all buggered up after the list in there? I can't seem to find anything HTML wise, the only stuff in there is the <> tag at the start, <> and < /li> throughout, and the < /ul > tag at the end.