This article discusses how class selection affects the skills and abilities of characters in World of Warcraft and some of the best team compositions for players competing in arena 2×2 matches.
What is WOW?
World of Warcraft is a massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Blizzard and first released in 2004. It has been hugely popular and World of Warcraft is one of the most popular MMORPGs of all time having had over 100 million registered accounts by 2014 and grossing well over $9 billion by 2017. The game remains popular today with its latest expansion being one of the most anticipated games of 2020. World of Warcraft can only be played on Windows and macOS operating systems so you won’t find it among the top iPhone games or on systems like Playstation.
Much like in other MMORPGs, World of Warcraft players create a character and explore the world of Azeroth while fighting loads of different monsters, completing quests and interacting with both non-player characters and player characters. Although the game can be played solo, players are encouraged to team up when completing quests and dungeons. They can also compete against each other in player versus player combat. A big part of the game involves the development of a player’s character. There are two factions in World of Warcraft, the Alliance and the Horde, each made up of a number of different races. Players begin by choosing the race of their character:
- Alliance Races: Dwarves, gnomes, humans, night elves, draenei, worgen, lightforged draenei, void elf, Dark Iron Dwarf, Kul Tiran and pandaren
- Horde Races: Orcs, tauren, trolls, undead, blood elves, goblins, Highmountain tauren, nightborne, Mag’har Orc, Zandalari Troll and pandaren
After choosing a race players will select one of 12 character classes. Not every race can play every class. The 12 classes are: Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, Warrior, Death knight, Monk and Demon hunter. Class selection is maybe the most important decision a player makes in the game. It determines what powers, skills, and spells a character can gain, the types of weapons and armor they can use, attributes they value and the combat roles they are suited for. Further complicating things, each class will choose from 3 specializations that offer different abilities so there are several variations of each class, with their own special skill-set and playing style. Advancing your characters ranking and obtaining the best weapons and armor are a big part of the game and some players will employ WOW Mythic Dungeon Carry & Boosting services to help them gain rank and special items.
WOW Shadowlands Top 5 2×2 Team Compositions
A very popular feature of World of Warcraft is the player versus player arena matches. In these matches there are no objectives other than trying to wipe out your opponent. Arena matches may be either 2 versus 2 or 3 versus 3. The class of characters that make up a team is referred to as the team composition and has a huge influence on the outcome of matches. Shadowlands is the eighth and latest expansion of World of Warcraft and was released in November of 2020. As with every expansion there were a lot of changes some of which affect how players approach player versus player arena matches. The best team compositions have changed. The expansion is still relatively new but here are some of the best arena 2 versus 2 set ups for Shadowlands:
- Windwalker and Holy Paladin: The Windwalker and Holy Paladin are a strong composition because both have a lot of defensive cooldowns. The Windwalker’s weakness on lockdown can be countered with stun from the Hammer of Justice. The Paladin also has Blessing of Freedom and Blessing of Protection which make the Windwalker hard to kill. It is an easy to play composition that doesn’t require crowd control or complex setups. Rotate the cooldowns, pour on the damage and don’t die and you will win some matchups.
- Arms Warrior and Restoration Druid: Arms Warriors tend to be a good class for 2v2 matches. They can put out a lot of damage and are also able to take a lot. Restoration Druids are excellent at self-survival and the Arms Warrior benefits from having a healer that can survive on its own while healing the Warrior. Restoration Druids can assist using Feral Affinity and Mighty Bash to apply pressure and help land kills. The can also crowd control enemy healers.
- Fury Warrior and Holy Paladin: Holy Paladins are capable of dealing a lot of damage and they also have a big defensive cooldown arsenal such as Divine Shield, Blessing of Protection and Blessing of Sacrifice to call on to help the Fury Warrior survive and these aren’t affected by dampening. Furys will have increased healing from bloodthirst and enraged regeneration. Fury Warrior’s weakness is the lack of a mortal strike.
- Mistweaver Monk and Arms Warrior: Mistweavers are able to kite (keeping an opponent at a certain distance) most melee DPS (Damage per Second) and they also have fairly decent healing. They can also use their Paralysis and Leg Sweep to stun multiple targets or healers so they do have some offensive plays. Mistweavers require a melee partner that can maximize pressure solo and that doesn’t require a lot of assistance and the Arms Warrior fits the bill.
- Holy Paladin and Arms Warrior: Holy Paladin has strong defensive cooldowns against melee and players face melee damage often in two versus two matches. It also has excellent mana regeneration. On the offensive side Paladins can use Hammer of Justice and chain it with Repentance to good effect. However Paladins are susceptible to CC so you will want to look out for team compositions with a lot of CC.
These compositions have the potential to be good and are also relatively easy to play. There are other good compositions but they do require more advanced skills and less experienced players may run into difficulties using them. Also the next update to World of Warcraft Shadowlands, Chains of Domination, has been announced which could bring changes that would affect 2 x 2 Arena team compositions.
