• LodeRunner

Impale only affects yellow damage. While I've never run recount or WWS to break down my arena damage, I would assume the ratio of white to yellow damage is much higher in pvp than in pve because of the large amount of rage we spend on hamstring, shouts, intercepts, intervenes, disarms, etc. Therefore impale is not only hard to calculate, but probably not doing very much anyway.

edit- It's still definitely worth it in my eyes; I'm not advocating skipping it in the talent tree.

Can't you see what I'm doing here? I'm holding my own urine in a cup because I have responsibilities. Won't you help?

 

RootBreaker

Of course, impale only works on yellow hits, so that complicates the math a bit.

 

Lithose

You don't have to go a pure lionseye route to get that high, 38% Crit is easily achievable with 2-3 PvE pieces (Gurtogg ring/RBB is what I use) with 1800ish AP and 350 resil to go with it. Reds just need 5 str/5 crit instead of 10 str and yellows need 10 crit. Since I am either a 35/23/3 or a 41/17/3 (Depending on what bracket/team comp) me not scoring a crit at least every 10 or so seconds is a 4% loss in DPS from blood frenzy. Even with 2 ham strings, 1 MS, 1 WW and 2 white attacks, the difference in up time from 20% Post resil crit, to 25% is extremely large.

 

rayijin

Hm, I'd never considered the blood frenzy aspect, that's a very interesting point.

I think we should collect data on arena matches to figure out typical damage breakdown for a pvp warrior, then use those numbers to do some DPS calculations.

 

K4ge

Ok, as soon as I reactivate my account (got finals going on right now) I'll activate recount in arena and keep track of my scores.

Also seems I never read what impale does. Thought it also works on whitehits

 

Lavington

A Warrior's standard loadout for S3 had less Hit Rating than was needed to cap at 5% (or 81-ish rating). During S3 I think the most common Arena Meta gem & Boot enchants were 24AP+Run speed and Surefooted, to accommodate the need for both increased movement speed in pvp and the +hit & snare resistance. The S4 warrior gear sports plenty of Hit Rating - enough to cap without Gems or Surefooted (provided you use the Glyph of Ferocity).

This raises a question of Meta gem & Boot enchant pairing for S4. What is everyone using & why? Arenajunkies.com has a poll going right now. Does anyone know of any EJ theorycrafting from a PvP perspective?

 

whysoez

I've been following the Warrior PVP thread for a month or so pretty adamantly (I have a lot of downtime at work) and I haven't really seen this topic fully addressed, so I'm not sure why posts like these are being flagged. I'd like to see it discussed. And if it's already been thoroughly discussed, will someone please point me to the post(s)?

 

Morsexy

Because it was addressed, someone even started calling one set up "RED" and one "BLUE". You can refer to post #1555 for the quick summary.



I am wondering what people's thoughts are about the mage armor change. As it is, a good mage can if he so chooses, completely control me no matter what I do. I am always for class changes, and frankly I wish it was a nerf to offensive dispell more than this, so for instance a shaman could use 1200 mana ( read obscene amount ) to get rid of a 250 mana buff for that crucial 5 seconds, but no matter.

Typically my arena experience has been "deal with the mage", but I wonder how much this hurts Shaman\Druid\War 2 healer combo as that is the one I enjoy the most.

 

• Maligne

Good (and needed) for mages, bad for warriors. A good mage should have been able to completely control warriors before the change so not really much is different there. Rogues are the class to stick to mages.

What better cc is there for a druid than polymorph?

 

Crimsonstorm

Which of these would be better for me to use, in 2v2s Arena with a Druid partner:

Hard Khorium Battleplate vs S4 Chest
T6 Bracers vs Guardian Bracers
Dreadboots of the Legion vs S4 Boots

Basically, more damage vs more stam and resilience? Generally the stam/resil is better vs 2 dps teams and the damage better vs dps+healer teams. But which is better overall? And are any of those PvE pieces just so good that you'd definitely use them?

 

K4ge

In general I'd say: For 2on2 always PvP gear, for 5on5 gladiator stuff for 4 set bonus, rest depending on team. 3on3 You could take some PvE stuff, but I'd still stay above 300 resilience.

 

ceasefire

It's amazing how you have access to these items and have to ask. This is the Warrior PvP Thread, not the "spoonfeed my Sunwell geared Warrior with blatantly obvious strats rehashed endlessly since the beginning of time" one.

 

mdokane

I don't understand why warriors who stack crit don't automatically go for a 33/28 build. This seems to be ignoring quite a bit of synergy with flurry, especially in 5v5 where rage starvation is the name of the game. I understand endless rage builds counter this somewhat, which you mentioned, but why not just balance crit and ap if you don't get anything else out of crit?

 

K4ge

I think, it's because endless rage is constant, whereas flurry is not. If worst comes to worst you can still rend to get 4% damage.

 

• LodeRunner

They probably don't because of just how important Tactical Mastery is. The value of swapping stances and retaining enough rage for a reflect is something that cannot be calculated by spreadsheets.

Can't you see what I'm doing here? I'm holding my own urine in a cup because I have responsibilities. Won't you help?

 

mdokane

Tactical mastery is more important to some than it is to others, and I won't argue its merits as I frequently find myself wanting to have it, but I'm also notoriously lazy about reflecting and disarming. However that doesn't really answer my initial question which was IF you go the tactical mastery route, that is to say that a crit only gives you more damage (not counting blood frenzy here because as was mentioned, a rend could do the same trick) then why stack crit? The only reason I am full lionseyes is because of flurry, pure and simple having it up more gives me more output than the corresponding attack power in my opinion. But if not for that, I wouldn't bother with crit, RNG is a cruel mistress.

 

Bula

Well for starters when did more damage become a bad thing? Secondarily, more damage equals more rage which equals more specials which means more damage. You are aware of how the warrior rage mechanic works aren't you?

 

mdokane

You are familiar with how the resilience mechanic works aren't you? This is a pointless discussion; gem how you want and spec how you want, this is me caring.

 

Bula

I love how everything's important until someone gets challenged and then suddenly it's a non-issue they're just sharing their opinion. You're also counteracting your own statement (gem for crit with flurry) with your rebuttal (resilience negates crits).

Critting has a tangible effect, bleeds proc, more rage is generated, resulting in more damage output, I can't imagine why you would argue against that.

 

mdokane

I love how you are insistent on being in oblivious competitive agreement. Did you armory me? I have 36% crit unbuffed in battle stance. You don't need to tell me twice that crit has extreme advantages. Games are decided on burst. I'm not saying don't gem around a great stat like crit, I'm saying don't waste it on poor synergy with an energizer bunny spec like endless rage. You insist on insulting me because you are defending what I consider to be a lackluster gem/spec combo that you don't even use on your warrior (hey, I actually did bother to look up your armory).

I also don't believe I counteracted my own statement with my rebutal. I said I wouldn't bother gemming for crit if not for flurry, therefore I think gemming for crit without flurry is not worth the sockets because of resilience negation; without the additional rage/white damage that comes from flurry, the build weakens.

Again, you seem to think I disagree with crit, this is false. I just find it odd that people gem for a highly negateable stat without pursuing some kind of synergy.

Edit: When I say "gem for" I mean excessivley like lionseyes in every yellow and pyrestones in every red, not anyone who strives to achieve a balance of crit and strength which is extremely reasonable.

 

• LodeRunner

You two play nice back there or I'll turn this thread around I swear. Bula, I'm looking at you.

Can't you see what I'm doing here? I'm holding my own urine in a cup because I have responsibilities. Won't you help?

 

Morsexy

Is there a class you WOULDNT stick a rogue on?

 

Lithose

Because doing 30 more damage on your swing won't get you through a power word shield..Getting a critical strike, will. So, you can either wait 7.2 seconds to chew through a shield and feel good about doing more damage over time or you can increase your chance of popping that shield and starting to actually gain rage again which later increases your damage because you can use more abilities.

As for rend..I really would rather not spend 10 more rage when I can get a stat that increases my damage and maintains the debuff for me.

Also..Nothing, nothing wins games more than being able to put your opponents on the defensive due to a scare of low health. Critical strikes provide that, they frighten people into compensating for their team mate. Everytime a warrior intervenes-->disarms me, I know I have taken him off my support (And I can subsequently debuff him while he is there). You talk about wanting stabilitiy....well, your opponents want stability to, don't forget, if your damage isn't spikey at all, they can fall into a pattern and work their game..Thats not a good thing for you. You want them to burn mana on a flash heal, or a mend or use their NS.

I'm not going to sit here and profess that "spike damage wins games!!!!!" because, lets face it, your chance at "gibbing" someone with heavy crits is low..However, thats not the way spike helps..Spike forces your opponents to use their tricks before you do, and that lets you set up for a kill.

Now, I'm not advocating complete stupid gemming. But the small trade off is worth it to me, again though, its still a balance.

 

Lithose

ER, for me, will put out more damage than any other spec that contains TM (Sorry, Don't know how people do it without TM, spell reflecting cyclones and intervening/disarming has saved waaayyy too many games for me.). I do take 4/5 Imp MS, the cool down difference is extremely noticeable and allows me to put out much more damage over a fight that I am ignored in.

Again, though, this spec is for a specific double healer comp. I never advocated it as a great spec for everything and that gemming for crit *with this* spec was optimal.

Also, its very possible to achieve a balance with Pyre/Lions, especially if my non-PvP pieces are heavily AP based (bloodboils ring)...You assume way too much from a simple statement, your gems should be a product of the entirety of your gear, not some set in stone thing.