Warrior PvP Thread - Page 49

• Morsexy · 03/07/08, 6:37 PM

Originally Posted by Zackbumm

Sweeping Strikes is a PvE Talent for me, useful against stationary or slow moving trashmobs. From my standpoint, it costs too much rage AND you need too much rage to make good use of it once it is activated.

The key points of SS are

1. Can throw around so much damage for 55 total rage, that the team is always playing catch up from then on, or ready for a nice assist switch.
2. Doesn't have to be used immediately, wait for the opportune moment to whirlwind 2-3 people. I will say spec does matter as sword spec would benefit most from this ( sword spec proc giving you 50-70 rage ).

What I dont understand is only 2 points in enrage. What do you do with the extra rage from endless rage?

Zure · 03/07/08, 6:59 PM

Regarding warrior/shaman as warrior/druid, the issue is not who to attack, but how to position yourself in my opinion.

If you watch the above referenced hoodrych/sacapuntas+GC video, you'll see that their warrior/druid opponents are almost universally on the shaman. This is of course, not a bad strat at all, since a shaman cannot get free of a warrior for very long, and cannot reliably prevent CC on his partner when hamstrung (cyclone/roots range is longer than earth shock, even without talents and with gloves and GT can be spammed through).

The reason GC/Hoodrych win is mainly because of superior positioning. In the first clip in RoL, GC keeps the warrior out of his healer's line of sight for almost the entire match. Accompanying that, Hoodrych can dps the warrior without having to worry about CC from the druid. This forces the druid to run pretty much directly into melee range to heal. If the druid/warrior had instead refused to play this game, with their warrior playing less aggressively, they might have won.

In the second video, Hoodrych pretty much destroys the druid with windfury procs (not starting with much rage after intercepting to him) in a matter of seconds. But the warrior, Xhalior, plays it pretty much the way you should, going sword and board while his druid is out of LoS of him, and making sure to maintain line of sight of his healer while still dpsing GC.

In the end, I think it comes down to this: at lower levels of play, you can easily go warrior to warrior and have your druid prevent their shaman from healing with feral charge, cyclonex3, bash, maim, feral charge, warstomp, cyclone x 3 or some other exotic lock down combo. If their warrior goes on the druid, your warrior then switches to the shaman to deny heals while the druid gains control of the (hamstrung) warrior. This is a pretty simple way to play it, and is very effective given the limited amount of coordination required (If warrior intercepts druid, I intercept shaman, if shaman becomes CC'd, I move back to warrior).

At higher levels of play, staying on the shaman is the safer bet, as an excellent shaman will play hell with your druid's ability to CC them and will drink at every available moment.

Hidden · 03/07/08, 7:45 PM

Originally Posted by Karoo

After the second loss yes, I armory'd him.

Both teams did target switch a bit but the two warriors were on each other most of the time, it was easy enough for me to get away from the warrior. These were long fights, 7+ minutes each and I would expect the longer the fight lasted that the more my warrior would outdamage theirs. And my warrior was definitely on their druid more than theirs was on mine. And we were winning the mana battle despite taking more damage.

The second game we lost because I got careless and died to an unlucky string of mace stun procs stuck in caster form with barkskin down. I'm hesitant to say he's not utilizing his rage well but it seems like he's constantly letting MS fall off his targets for extended periods allowing them to be healed easily and also he seems to have a hard time keeping people hamstrung to stay close.

Though he does complain that he's right on top of his targets a lot of the time and it still gives him out of range errors when he tries to hamstring so it could be lag.

I'm not the greatest resto druid but I believe I'm decent enough to get a warrior to 1750+, however, we are struggling. Some of our losses have just been plain my fault but some of the games seem to come down to not being able to finish off a target.

He's definitely not a bad player so I'm not sure why, for instance, it takes so long to kill a pet when I'm locking down their healer for 15+ seconds. And he (at least to me) doesn't have bad gear.

We Usually fluctuate between 1580 to 1670 rating and can't really break that 1700 barrier. We aren't really getting frustrated and we plan to keep plugging away. We get noticably better each week and our gear has gotten A LOT better since we first started playing 3 weeks ago (I only had around 980+ healing and 120ish resil and was still wearing some feral gear). And it looked like when he got his s3 mace on tuesday we were gonna be on a roll. We went 5-0 our first five games against a few comps that normally give us trouble (like spriest/rogue) but then ended up 6-4 for the week.

Here is his armory profile: The World of Warcraft Armory

Is it normal for a warrior with this level of gear to have trouble killing pets in less than 15-20 seconds? How long would you expect a pet only getting a hunter's or warlock's heal to survive?

May I ask if your Warrior partner wintrades 3on3 and 5on5? It really looks like the teams are used for either wintrading or they're bought, more likely the first. 'Why?' you may ask, there are many reasons. First being that no one in the teams has played even nearly all the games, also half the teams' players that have played at 1,8k+(3on3) or 2k+(5on5) have crappy gear and crappy other arena teams and there are quite some other, probably twinks as they have mostly totally bad gear, in the guild that were in those teams as well as you can still see in their armory profiles.

I'd tell him to practice instead of cheating to get the gear first. And if you insist on playing with him, tell him to put some effort in his gear as well. His cheated gear doesn't help him at all if he's missing half of the enchants and gems.

Zackbumm · 03/07/08, 8:54 PM

Originally Posted by Dayone

You guys speak as if endless rage currently gives 25% more rage like the tooltip says. I was under the impression that it did not and would not be fixed until 2.4?! SK Gaming | World of Warcraft Arena Ranking shows a few warriors who play 41/20 competitively. Can those of you who have tried it share your experiences? I'm curious if 41/20 would let me do more damage than 33/28 in 3s with priest + pally (2/2 BF + 3/5 2h spec + ER vs 3/5 flurry). Judging by the number of users, 41/20 must have its merits even with a bugged ER right?

I can't complain about rage. It's probably because of Endless Rage and Mace spec plus not wasting rage.

Zackbumm · 03/07/08, 8:59 PM

Originally Posted by Morsexy

The key points of SS are

1. Can throw around so much damage for 55 total rage, that the team is always playing catch up from then on, or ready for a nice assist switch.
2. Doesn't have to be used immediately, wait for the opportune moment to whirlwind 2-3 people. I will say spec does matter as sword spec would benefit most from this ( sword spec proc giving you 50-70 rage ).

What I dont understand is only 2 points in enrage. What do you do with the extra rage from endless rage?

I know the keypoints. I had SS for quite a while when I was 33/25/3, but I just don't like playing like this. For some warriors, 33/28 is perfect. For others, they need to have SS to really go bezerk. for me and the way i play my warrior, SS is a waste. and as I said before, there are many paths to 2k and beyond, not just "the one" =)

But you are absolutely right in terms of how & when to use SS. As a matter of fact i dont play a lot of 5s (just 10 games per week with some friends) this season with my focus set on 3s and 2s. And because of everything you said SS is not a big help for me in those matches. On the other side I rarely get focussed in 3s and in 2s so I don't see why I should go for enrage. those were the two main reasons for me to give endless rage a chance and it somehow really suprised me how good it is. It also changed my talents yesterday to give improved MS a chance. Will see if it works out for me too - so far, it's ok and I´m not missing something. If it sucks, I'll put the 3 points back in fury.

Angeron · 03/07/08, 9:27 PM

Originally Posted by Zure

Regarding warrior/shaman as warrior/druid, the issue is not who to attack, but how to position yourself in my opinion.

[stuff about hoodrych]

In the end, I think it comes down to this: at lower levels of play, you can easily go warrior to warrior and have your druid prevent their shaman from healing with feral charge, cyclonex3, bash, maim, feral charge, warstomp, cyclone x 3 or some other exotic lock down combo. If their warrior goes on the druid, your warrior then switches to the shaman to deny heals while the druid gains control of the (hamstrung) warrior. This is a pretty simple way to play it, and is very effective given the limited amount of coordination required (If warrior intercepts druid, I intercept shaman, if shaman becomes CC'd, I move back to warrior).

At higher levels of play, staying on the shaman is the safer bet, as an excellent shaman will play hell with your druid's ability to CC them and will drink at every available moment.

I could not agree more, while it does simplify things somewhat, the essence of your post nails d/w vs. rs/w pretty much dead on.

Anytime their warrior gets on me I simply go to town on them, Windfury pretty much guarantees that I'm doing 30-40% more damage than the other warrior, and my burst capability is simply too high for a druid to outheal without cycloning me (fat chance with shocks+grounding). If the warrior is on me, my shaman can literally casually heal me and refresh earthshield until the druid goes oom and the warrior dies, and if he swaps off of me, I'm dropping 5-7000 damage with a full rage bar on his druid the minute I get into intercept range. It's really *not* a good idea to get on the warrior first unless you've fucked up your positioning so poorly that you cannot avoid it (i.e. warrior gets you hamstrung midfield in nagrand and his shaman grounds the 1st cyclone) as you're just contributing to further pain for yourself in the near future.

• Morsexy · 03/07/08, 9:28 PM

I am not disagreeing at all, I personally think Mace spec is annoying and far to often I waste pummel on a mace stunned healer\caster. That being said I do know how powerful it is, especially in 2's.

I am just interested in what you do with all your extra rage, sunder? I find that when I do sunder sometimes I switch targets for disarm\intercepts whatever and occasionally let it drop.

Zackbumm · 03/07/08, 9:41 PM

Originally Posted by Morsexy

I am not disagreeing at all, I personally think Mace spec is annoying and far to often I waste pummel on a mace stunned healer\caster. That being said I do know how powerful it is, especially in 2's.

I am just interested in what you do with all your extra rage, sunder? I find that when I do sunder sometimes I switch targets for disarm\intercepts whatever and occasionally let it drop.

I sunder my target accept for plate, and HS when I´m really over the top with rage (60+). I'm also a spamstring junkie since endless rage and I probably should put it on a different button not next to ms =)

• Morsexy · 03/08/08, 5:09 AM

How easy is it to sunder your target? I know this is clearly not a scientific point I am about to make, but I would say keeping MS up and sundering to 5 with no one hitting you is maybe a 4-7 in difficulty out of 10. 1 easy and 10 being tough.

I ask because I've generally not strayed too far from ( 36-34 )\ rest in fury\3 in prot and when I have I did not think it was as effective.

I am interested because I play a two healer 3v3, and could see how the ER build could potentially be more effective there.

Zackbumm · 03/08/08, 1:12 PM

Originally Posted by Morsexy

How easy is it to sunder your target? I know this is clearly not a scientific point I am about to make, but I would say keeping MS up and sundering to 5 with no one hitting you is maybe a 4-7 in difficulty out of 10. 1 easy and 10 being tough.

I ask because I've generally not strayed too far from ( 36-34 )\ rest in fury\3 in prot and when I have I did not think it was as effective.

I am interested because I play a two healer 3v3, and could see how the ER build could potentially be more effective there.

what kind of team? if you have a shaman then you really can go beserk with mace & enrage. you normally will have enough rage to sunder your first target within in the first 30-40 seks. As I said before, I don't even start to pummel and MS before I my target has 5 sunders. The only thing that I dont is know how much rage I get from mace spec - if you take a sword, you might not have as much rage as I do. So to answer your question, I would say it's a 3 with my setup.

LCN · 03/10/08, 4:07 AM

I'm still amidst gearing my alt warrior, but she has decent'ish gear already. Full S1, S1 mace, pvp trinket, belt, bracers mainly. So missing roughly 40% of PvP gear. Anyway, the question being:

How do you chew through a disc priest's shield in time to actually do some damage? Is it just the gear difference why I'm having trouble or is it a l2p issue? I'm specced a little funnily in some of your eyes perhaps, but I find it that my 37/21/3 spec suits me. I find myself rage starved against disc priests, and I can barely amass the rage to MS or WW once to each shield, sometimes risking the ability to pummel a heal due to running out of rage. I'm trying to grab every heal below 60% health off with pummel / intercept if I have the rage, and pop DW and trinket at around 50% to try to achieve enough damage to burst them down, but it almost never works. What on earth should I do?

Angeron · 03/10/08, 11:19 AM

Save up a decent amount of rage on a target that is not the priest first, then switch, use ms/ww to eat through the first shield so you can actually get rage after it drops, and just sunder/hamstring, when the second shield comes up, use ms/ww to eat through it again, and suddenly your white hits should be landing for 8-900, giving you plenty of rage. Feel free to pop dw/trinket early to keep your rage gain steady. Keep your sunders/hs/ms up and drop WW from your rotation if you're not getting enough rage. You should be totally fine.

Zackbumm · 03/10/08, 11:34 AM

Originally Posted by Angeron

Save up a decent amount of rage on a target that is not the priest first, then switch, use ms/ww to eat through the first shield so you can actually get rage after it drops, and just sunder/hamstring, when the second shield comes up, use ms/ww to eat through it again, and suddenly your white hits should be landing for 8-900, giving you plenty of rage. Feel free to pop dw/trinket early to keep your rage gain steady. Keep your sunders/hs/ms up and drop WW from your rotation if you're not getting enough rage. You should be totally fine.

don't pummel his heals before he has 5 sunders cause you wont be able to kill him so early anyway (depending on his gear)

• LodeRunner · 03/10/08, 1:25 PM

I tested out playing with a Shaman in 2s this weekend. It had been quite a while since I did 2s with a Shaman, and I've learned a great deal about arena play since the last time I ran with a Shaman in any sort of semblance of serious attempts. We went 2-7. Before you flip out and make judgment calls I would like to say that we faced this bullshit double warlock team 5 times. There is literally nothing a Warrior/Shaman team can do vs double SL/SL lock. I tried being exceedingly aggressive, exceedingly defensive, mass taunting the pets, mass fearing, etc. It's just not a winnable combo by any stretch of the imagination. We even stopped queueing for a while after the third time facing them and hit other teams for a while then they popped up for the last two.

If you take those 5 out of the argument we went 2-2. We won against Warrior/Paladin and Druid/BM Hunter. We lost against Druid/Marks Hunter and Druid/ShSRogue. Both of the wins were fairly easy. Both of the losses were exceedingly close. The Druid/Hunter match lasted 24 minutes. The Druid/Rogue one lasted long enough so the Rogue used 3 sets of timers. Here's what I observed:

When there's a Hunter involved, they usually have Scorpids. Whoever it was who said to "let the scorpid hit the shaman, water shield lol" is so very, very wrong. You cannot let a Scorpid build up poison stacks because the Hunter will just get a Serpent Sting off and drain the shit out of the Shaman's Mana. This is even with Poison Cleansing down. I killed that pet 3 or 4 times, and they were able to eventually trap, LoS, and res it before I could stop it. Hunters just have that capability to be exceedingly hard to stay on these days. We would have had a much harder time if we weren't playing on Blade's Edge in which pet patching can be exploited. We lost because we overextended. I had one point where the hunter was low and I just feared the Druid. I called out for burn on the hunter so my Shaman kept the druid shocked/cycloned and tried to hurl out a few lightning bolts. Meanwhile poisons stacked up on him as well as a Sting and goodbye Shaman mana. Couldn't kill the Hunter and we hung on for another 5 minutes or so but eventually ran out of steam.

The Druid/Rogue team, I spent my time on the Rogue so he was off my Shaman. I intercepted as often as I could, spamstrung, disarmed him 3 times with one parry while my Shaman shocked/grounded almost everything the Druid threw at me. I had the Rogue very low most of the time, but never low enough so that Cheat Death procced. I couldn't completely shake him off my Shaman and eventually mana ran dry. Maybe next patch with instant ghost wolf.

The Shaman/Warrior Dynamic is very different from the Paladin or Druid one because the Shaman is so much more aggressive. During those long games vs Druids I was cycloned only a handful of times through fanatic watchfulness of the Grounding timer and Earth Shocks. There were a couple times I had a sweet cyclone reflect all lined up only to see it interrupted by a shock. That's really going to be difficult for my to time, because quite often a reflect is a spur of the moment thing and it's going to be hard for me to see a spell start to cast and let my partner know I'm reflecting, so don't shock it. Calling out ahead of time with a, "Hey, I have the next cyclone, don't shock/reflect" can mean I've just condemned myself into waiting around in battle stance for a Druid who may decide not to cyclone for a while.

Virtue · 03/10/08, 3:03 PM

The only thing that I dont is know how much rage I get from mace spec - if you take a sword, you might not have as much rage as I do.

eh? hows that making any sense?

• LodeRunner · 03/10/08, 3:31 PM

Mace spec stuns generate rage and they have amuch higher proc rate than sword spec. That's the point he's making. This does bring up a question in my mind though, one I haven't thought of before. If you get a mace stun immune message do you still generate the bonus rage?

TheCutlery · 03/10/08, 5:35 PM

My (limited) experience with a shaman partner is that it CAN work, it's just really, really rough, and there are so many matchups that put you on the uphill fight to begin with that it's simply not worth the stress. You need to play better than perfect for a lot of scenarios to make up for no defensive dispell/freedom/CC.

It is pretty nice to completely destroy War/Pal though.

Kasi · 03/10/08, 5:38 PM

Yes you do. If you've ever raided as mace spec you get that all the time. Of course I would prefer to have raided as sword spec, but when the weapons in contrast are Despair vs Stormherald you have to go with the better weapon.

• LodeRunner · 03/10/08, 6:22 PM

Originally Posted by Kasi

Yes you do. If you've ever raided as mace spec you get that all the time. Of course I would prefer to have raided as sword spec, but when the weapons in contrast are Despair vs Stormherald you have to go with the better weapon.

Pre TBC it was always unwritten code that Mace Spec was to be actively avoided like the plague, and you were instead encouraged to put points into two hand spec instead. The last time I raided with a two handed mace was when Magmadar dropped an Earthshaker, my very first purple.

Kasi · 03/10/08, 10:25 PM

I don't see why you would have to choose between them in a 33/28 pve spec. As long as you aren't taking imp hamstring, there really isn't anywhere to put the points (even with taking 2/2 imp intercept). Unless you really like imp disciplines (which I've gone with and having super long recklessnesses can be fun)

Angeron · 03/11/08, 1:22 AM

Originally Posted by LodeRunner

I tested out playing with a Shaman in 2s this weekend. It had been quite a while since I did 2s with a Shaman, and I've learned a great deal about arena play since the last time I ran with a Shaman in any sort of semblance of serious attempts. We went 2-7. Before you flip out and make judgment calls I would like to say that we faced this bullshit double warlock team 5 times. There is literally nothing a Warrior/Shaman team can do vs double SL/SL lock. I tried being exceedingly aggressive, exceedingly defensive, mass taunting the pets, mass fearing, etc. It's just not a winnable combo by any stretch of the imagination. We even stopped queueing for a while after the third time facing them and hit other teams for a while then they popped up for the last two.

If you take those 5 out of the argument we went 2-2. We won against Warrior/Paladin and Druid/BM Hunter. We lost against Druid/Marks Hunter and Druid/ShSRogue. Both of the wins were fairly easy. Both of the losses were exceedingly close. The Druid/Hunter match lasted 24 minutes. The Druid/Rogue one lasted long enough so the Rogue used 3 sets of timers. Here's what I observed:

When there's a Hunter involved, they usually have Scorpids. Whoever it was who said to "let the scorpid hit the shaman, water shield lol" is so very, very wrong. You cannot let a Scorpid build up poison stacks because the Hunter will just get a Serpent Sting off and drain the shit out of the Shaman's Mana. This is even with Poison Cleansing down. I killed that pet 3 or 4 times, and they were able to eventually trap, LoS, and res it before I could stop it. Hunters just have that capability to be exceedingly hard to stay on these days. We would have had a much harder time if we weren't playing on Blade's Edge in which pet patching can be exploited. We lost because we overextended. I had one point where the hunter was low and I just feared the Druid. I called out for burn on the hunter so my Shaman kept the druid shocked/cycloned and tried to hurl out a few lightning bolts. Meanwhile poisons stacked up on him as well as a Sting and goodbye Shaman mana. Couldn't kill the Hunter and we hung on for another 5 minutes or so but eventually ran out of steam.

The Druid/Rogue team, I spent my time on the Rogue so he was off my Shaman. I intercepted as often as I could, spamstrung, disarmed him 3 times with one parry while my Shaman shocked/grounded almost everything the Druid threw at me. I had the Rogue very low most of the time, but never low enough so that Cheat Death procced. I couldn't completely shake him off my Shaman and eventually mana ran dry. Maybe next patch with instant ghost wolf.

The Shaman/Warrior Dynamic is very different from the Paladin or Druid one because the Shaman is so much more aggressive. During those long games vs Druids I was cycloned only a handful of times through fanatic watchfulness of the Grounding timer and Earth Shocks. There were a couple times I had a sweet cyclone reflect all lined up only to see it interrupted by a shock. That's really going to be difficult for my to time, because quite often a reflect is a spur of the moment thing and it's going to be hard for me to see a spell start to cast and let my partner know I'm reflecting, so don't shock it. Calling out ahead of time with a, "Hey, I have the next cyclone, don't shock/reflect" can mean I've just condemned myself into waiting around in battle stance for a Druid who may decide not to cyclone for a while.

Your observations seem to run similar to my experiences, druid/rogue is a lot tougher than it would seem at first, and warlock+anydps is like a cue to bend over. I've never had the problem with scorpid poisons stacking +VS with my shaman(s) for some reason, both of the ones I've played with (both gladiators from war/sham) always tell me to let the pet sit on them when I ask (they're always scorpids). Our games vs. hunter/druid generally last in the vicinity of what you described (if they're good), and always end when we time it so that both the hunter+druid are oom simultanouesly, innervate and NS are down, and my trinkets+cds are up. We usually pop the 2nd bloodlust right after an arcane shot fd/drink and I just go to town on the hunter (saving trinket for 1st cyclone that grounding/shock doesnt catch) and my shaman sits on top of me to eat the ice trap. We try not to overextend with NS CLs and shaman dps because if the hunter/druid is any good we simply get too far behind.

As for the reflect thing, I don't run with TM, or haven't so far, and every time I get polymorphed, or cyclowned, I feel like smashing my face into the desk for NOT having it, because I can always, always count on my partner getting the 1st two CC attempts, but the 3rd one is usually up to me to LOS, eat, or pummel.

I like to watch Hoodrych's video every time I'm about to do 2s with my shaman just to try and recreate the synergy and tactics that they use. And while that is generally just a vain hope, Hoodrych and Sacapuntas being *the* standards for 2v2 warriors in my opinion, adapting their playstyles and tricks into my repertoire helps me play loads better.

*edit*
PvE gear makes hunter/druid a snooze, crystal spire of karabor+tome of diabolic remedy allowed myself (with considerably less gear than I have now) and my shaman partner (who was wearing 3 piece s3 elemental gear, resto s3 chest, s3 elemental honor gear, t6 shoulders, tome, csok) to top 1900, with the vast majority of our wins in the last 100 points over hunter/druid.

Zackbumm · 03/11/08, 6:27 AM

Originally Posted by Virtue

eh? hows that making any sense?

Mace gives a chance to stun your target for 3 secs and generates 7 rage

Virtue · 03/11/08, 7:18 AM

And an average sword proc gives you 20+ rage, I still don't see hows that even comparable?

Moogul · 03/11/08, 7:26 AM

Originally Posted by Angeron

I like to watch Hoodrych's video every time I'm about to do 2s with my shaman just to try and recreate the synergy and tactics that they use. And while that is generally just a vain hope, Hoodrych and Sacapuntas being *the* standards for 2v2 warriors in my opinion, adapting their playstyles and tricks into my repertoire helps me play loads better.

Do you have a link to this video? I've been trying to find some good Warrior PvP videos for a while, but never found any that I found particularly great.

• LodeRunner · 03/11/08, 10:17 AM

Originally Posted by Moogul

Do you have a link to this video? I've been trying to find some good Warrior PvP videos for a while, but never found any that I found particularly great.

From the PvP video compilations thread. It is Shaman PoV, but still worth watching.
gc2.9.avi - FileFront.com