Viability of PvP Specs in PvE.

cynful · 04/25/07, 6:22 PM

I apologize in advance if this is the incorrect forum, I wasn't sure exactly where this goes. Our guild in general has had a dual focus, arena pvp and Karazhan raiding. We used to re-spec back and forth from PvE to PvP when switching, but decided to raid in a PvP spec. It seems that as long as skill is present, this is very doable, but leaves a very small buffer for mistakes. How viable do you guys think this is? And does anyone else out there do this successfully? We have managed to clear through Shade of Aran in full PvP spec, as outlined in the raid makeup below:

Raid:
Arms/Fury Warrior (33/28/0)
Arms/Fury Warrior (33/28/0)
PvP Holy Paladin (41/20) No Imp BoW
PvP Resto Druid (8/11/42)
Demo Warlock (6/44/11)
Destruction Warlock (5/7/49) Shadowfury
Shadow Priest (20/0/41) No Shadow Affinity
Elemental/Resto Shaman (39/0/22) No Mana Tide
Mutilate Rogue (41/7/13)
Arcane Mage (42/19/0)

Now with this raid makeup instead of a fully PvE spec'd raid, we've run into a few issues on Maiden that have caused a few wipes, detailed below.

Maiden of Virtue:
Here are our healing assignments on maiden:

Paladin: Main Heal on MT, Cleanse Holy Fire on one side of room, keep BoS up/repentance heal

Druid: Main heal on MT, go in for repentance to help with repentance heal, top off raid with HoTs

Shaman: Top off raid, top off MT pre-repentance

What has been going wrong:
MT dying on repentance as it's hard to top off pre-repentance.
DPS taking longer to down her than if we were PvE spec'd, causing healer mana issues.
Minor threat issues, but still enough to kill dps/screw up aggro/cause wipe.

Based on this information, I want to know what our viability is as a PvE raid in Karazhan with these talent specs. Are these problems on Maiden spec-related? If so, to what degree? How viable is raiding full Karazhan with these specs? Does anyone else out there do this? How much of a headache will we save if any by going to full PvE spec? How viable is the rest of Karazhan in these specs (Netherspite --> Nightbane)?

It is my personal opinion as we cleared through Shade of Aran/Chess Event last week with these specs that while possible, it leaves very little room for mistakes and makes everyone's job quite a bit harder, but is doable. I would love to hear other perspectives on this matter. Thanks.

Edit: Quick question a guildmate asked me to add, if only 1-2 people were to respec, who should it be and who would benefit the most from it?

Thelyna · 04/25/07, 6:38 PM

IMO the biggest single difference you could make is in the single point of failure - that being your MT. Throw 100g at him to respec (better if your K raid days are clustered together and you arena the other days of the week) 8/5/48. 10g per person and it'll make your raids much smoother.

Second best respec might be your destro warlock to affliction, but that's a pretty marginal gain (especially if he's all +crit gear).

Maiden is just a pain in the ass no matter which way you cut it. By BoS you mean BoSacrifice right? I've never had a problem (except when I let BoSac fade >.>) solohealing a MT through the repentance (as long as HoT's are kept on him) ... is your MT at 490 def and 11k unbuffed?

Also you didn't mention it, is your shadow priest cleansing the other half of the room? Uncleansed holy fire *will* kill anyone (except maybe a SL lock).

Also, you need to keep people north of 6k hp (pref 8k, shouldn't be hard if you're a pvp guild) at all times, holy fire initial hit is ~4k, 1.5k ticks, and repentance hits for ~2k.

edit: we sometimes had issues with holy fire and LoS, we solved that by everyone moving inside the pillars. I can't help you with the deeper-into-Karazhan questions, I've only seen up to Aran myself.

• zeidrich · 04/25/07, 6:38 PM

Your problems aren't spec related IMO. If I had to venture a guess it would be gearing. I am protection, 0 in Holy, and have no issues keeping our tank up during repentance. The fact that your warrior is arms/fury shouldn't change this at all.

Ensure you're not wearing PvP gear while trying to PvE raid. Maximize your DPS, even if you're not optimal. Maiden in particular isn't a race. Ensure cleansing is happening quickly. A 41/20 paladin should not be having trouble with healing. Ensure you have timers to tell you when repentance is soon and have the repentance healer ensure he's topped off as it's coming. Ensure that it's not your healers that are causing their own mana issues. Your healers are all heal spec, even the shaman to an extent, so they should be able to keep up your tank through even the most dismal DPS. The druid shouldn't have to help during repentance.

I would say your first really difficulty would be trying to kill prince without improved shield block. Everything else should not give you trouble once you learn it.

Tempestra · 04/25/07, 6:40 PM

Karazhan is very doable regardless of spec, although I think it'd be nice to have a prot warrior for Prince and Nightbane. The DPS requirements are quite low on most fights, so your DPS can afford to stay PvP spec'ed.

Honestly though, see if you guys can crack Prince, as he's the only one that drops loot you will want to come back for over and over again.

If you're interested in going past Karazhan with any seriousness, I'd reconsider the decision to raid in PvP specs. It's not as bad as trying to PvP with PvE specs, but it's close.

Cathela · 04/25/07, 6:44 PM

Originally Posted by zeidrich

Your problems aren't spec related IMO. If I had to venture a guess it would be gearing. I am protection, 0 in Holy, and have no issues keeping our tank up during repentance. The fact that your warrior is arms/fury shouldn't change this at all.

Crushing blows, actually. A warrior just can't reliably push them off without 11 points in Prot.

I second the suggestion made above to take up a collection for your MT to respec every week. If having a Prot warrior MT saves you even one wipe, that's easily worth 10g per person in repair costs and time lost.

Vontre · 04/25/07, 6:44 PM

Aside from the warriors, a lot of you are actually specced pvp/pve hybrid. Mutilate rogue will perform admirably in pve and arcane mages are extremely good at dishing out raid dps. For your mage, if he skipped arcane focus then this will help a lot with raid dps, any other tweak torward raid dps is pretty minor as he is already sporting one of the best builds for Karazhan raiding. Your rogue could do 41/20, combat mutilate, for some dps gain, but it looks like he already picked up Imp SnD with that point arrangement which I think qualifies as "good enough".

In short, I do not believe your problems on Maiden are spec related, unless you are using a mortal strike warrior as MT. In which case I would say someone needs to step up to the plate, be it warrior or druid, and spec for tanking.

cynful · 04/25/07, 6:50 PM

To answer some questions and ask more:

Thelyna- Yes, the shadowpriest is getting the other half of the room. We had some minor LoS issues but are mostly keeping the raid dispelled without damage ticking from holy fire. BoS = Sacrifice. I'll get back to you on the exact unbuffed stats of the warrior.

Ziedrich- I have a question about how you repentance heal. The times that our MT dies is when he is at half hp or lower when repentance hits, I immediately start HL11 when sacrifice breaks my stun, with light's grace up, and he dies regardless in the 2 seconds it takes to cast the heal. How can I keep him up in this situation? Only faster heals I have are FoL and, holy shock. We're discussing putting all HoTs are up on the tank pre-repentance, as well as a PW: Shield. I think that will solve the issue, maybe.

Vonte- Yes, the mortal strike (33/28/0) warrior is tanking Maiden.

TheSilverHand · 04/25/07, 6:57 PM

All I want to point out is that when it comes to Warlocks, a Destruction spec was actually one of the better raiding specs (for damage) pre-2.0. The other candidate was SM/Ruin (for its reliability) and even that spec had half of its points in Destruction. Post 2.0 and TBC has shown Affliction some major love, but don't rule out other specs for DPS classes when all three trees are meant for damage, ala Mages, Rogues, Warlocks, et al.

Thelyna · 04/25/07, 7:04 PM

Cynful - if your tank is critical, pop LoH on him ... yes it sucks for mana, but it'll stop you wiping. If it's happening every other repentance, maybe look at why he's not being consistently topped off (i.e. what else are your healers doing? Are all three of you trying to heal holy fire targets? are your healers standing around trusting someone else to take care of business?). Also, if your tank is dying from half health in the space of a heal, it's entirely possible you need better gear on him (spec can compensate to a degree).

As far as hots/shield go, you can't really pre-shield the repentance (variable timer), but your druid should be keeping Rejuv on the tank at the very least.

cynful · 04/25/07, 7:13 PM

Thelyna- I don't know how we could recover from using LoH early, even with mana pots. One time we had maiden at 30% and I was completely OOM, we simply died. I can't imagine if I'm OOM at the beginning. The shadowpriest dispels half the room. The other healers are the druid and the shaman, and the shaman I believe also contributes to dps, while topping off the raid. The druid being PvP resto also I believe ends up having mana issues, even with mana pots, and while talking to him he mentioned that the reason he wasn't putting all HoTs on before repentance was due to heavy mana cost. Also another issue, sometimes repentance hits late, so the healers are off in topping the tank off. Our shaman once remarked that he saw the tank at -2k hp, popped off a heal, it went off right as repentance hit, but Maiden had gotten another hit in and the tank was -6k with repentance on the raid. Even with perfectly timed heals I believe that making sure the tank is 100% pre-repentance is difficult.

Stopokingme · 04/25/07, 7:14 PM

Apart from the already made have a prot warrior/bear tank comments, I think you might run into some trouble at some of the really healing intensive fights, 2 and a half healers is a bit short on Prince and Illhoof if you ask me, even with a Shadow Priest mana battery. This is me speaking from experience, healing with a 0/42/19 spec and most of the kara healing epics on a low healer show up night. We managed it, but only because we had a good feral druid who was also able to chip in on heals when needed. Prepare your shaman for a lot of pot spam nonetheless.

Other then that I think you should be able to run the rest of Kara with that set up.

Stent · 04/25/07, 7:17 PM

The problem definitely does not sound spec related, with the possible exception of the MT.

I usually do Karazhan with a 41/20 pvp build, and have no trouble holding my own. Certainly PVE specs will make up for some soft spots in your gear, but I'd look elsewhere first for the root of your problems.

Thelyna · 04/25/07, 7:23 PM

Originally Posted by cynful

Thelyna- I don't know how we could recover from using LoH early, even with mana pots. One time we had maiden at 30% and I was completely OOM, we simply died. I can't imagine if I'm OOM at the beginning. The shadowpriest dispels half the room. The other healers are the druid and the shaman, and the shaman I believe also contributes to dps, while topping off the raid. The druid being PvP resto also I believe ends up having mana issues, even with mana pots, and while talking to him he mentioned that the reason he wasn't putting all HoTs on before repentance was due to heavy mana cost. Also another issue, sometimes repentance hits late, so the healers are off in topping the tank off. Our shaman once remarked that he saw the tank at -2k hp, popped off a heal, it went off right as repentance hit, but Maiden had gotten another hit in and the tank was -6k with repentance on the raid. Even with perfectly timed heals I believe that making sure the tank is 100% pre-repentance is difficult.

Are your healers in your shadow priest group? Healer mana > caster mana/melee healing. Especially for you if you've had to pop LoH early, getting 8% of the shadowpriest's damage as mana back is huge.

Also, don't have the shaman dps if you're having mana issues. Druid shouldn't need to regrowth the tank, but rejuv should always always always be up.

and ... your tank is taking 4k+ regular melee hits from Maiden? I think that there is the problem, your tank is squishy (hell, in healing plate (10k armor) Maiden hits me for 4k or so. Now if he got crit, he needs 490 def, if he got crushed he needs Imp. Shield Block.

edit: if your healers are running oom with liberal abuse of SMP's, your DPS needs to step it up a little. get KTM, install it, and tell anyone who's slacking at 40% or less of the MT's threat to kick it up a notch. If everyone's sitting just under the MT's threat and your healers are running oom, the fight is taking too long, your tank needs to kick up the threat gen.

(on the topic of KTM, this is a fight where you don't want to sit in the 10% over-threat buffer, because when repentance breaks she completely re-evaluates her aggro list. MT should always be top of KTM for this fight)

cynful · 04/25/07, 7:25 PM

Stent- I'm not sure what I can do in the specific repentance situation, and I definitely feel that I am holding my own, for example--when we did Shade of Aran past two weeks, I solo-healed the entire fight, 1 healer, 9 dps, and we pulled that off remarkably well. My gear is not lacking really, I'm in fact very well geared with around 1200 healing. I do recall one mistake in that I was wearing PvP gear on 2-3 maiden attempts where I had my PvP trinket, Gladiator's Ornamented Headcover instead of Mask of Pennance, etc, and was down to something like 1050 healing. Other than that I'm not sure how I can handle the following situation solo:

Repentance goes off, tank is at half hp, I start HL11 with light's grace, tank dies in the 2 seconds it takes to cast the heal. The druid definitely tries to help, but he has to run out of the repentance before he can start a heal, and his healing touch is 3.0 and NS isn't necessarily up. That seems to be the issue, at least on the majority of the wipes.

Ghando · 04/25/07, 7:35 PM

Having a Protection Warrior makes a huge difference in terms of survivability particularly when everything's hitting for huge melee damage. 2 Shield Block charges is huge for not only mitigating more damage over time, but also for avoiding crushing blows. No amount of gear will prevent crushing blows, the only reliable solution is speccing far enough into Protection for Improved Shield Block. If you're doing that, might as well go all the way and just respec 2x a week.