Seife, what is the macro you use for spell reflect? Seems much snappier than the one I am used to. Maybe just a perception, server lag type of thing. What is your usual latency in WoW?

Is gnome the best alliance race if not the best warcraft race for warrior PVP? Does this differ between arena and regular battleground?

Gnomes are hands down the best Alliance PvP race.

A question re: stance sets (from titan panel) vs. weapon equipping macros..

For those who have tried both (or maybe pure knowledgeable speculation) is there any advantage/disadvantage to using stance sets in titan panel (when I switch to defensive it automatically equips sword/board and back to my 2h when i go to battle/zerker by only switching stances) vs. a macro that I would spam to do it for me? As a relative beginner to higher end pvp I need all the advantages I can get. Thanks in advance...

You don't really always want to switch weapons when you switch stances. One example is intervening your healer offensively to start hitting whoever is on him.

Just make separate macros for each. Warriors have it pretty easy with bar/bind space.

I've tried stance sets, item rack, rswapper and outfitter and I found the latter to work best so you should give it a shot.

I used a special castsequence Mortal Strike + stance/weapon switch reflect macro for the movie so that I just had to spam one button. My usual macro is a standard equip sword and board stance switch spell reflect macro. Watch out that you just have to spam one button to spell reflect and you should be fine. My latency is usually around 50-100ms I think.

Also, I agree with Maligne. Learn it the hard way: stance switches have to be independent of weapon switches. You absolutely need three stance buttons and one weapon swap button (although your emergency spell reflect macro should include a weapon switch, but that is because spell reflect is one of the few abilites which is not affected by the weapon swapping induced GCD). In the long run, you will be thankful.

After watching Seife's video (thanks for posting that btw) I realized that there was something obviously wrong on my end. I re-tested using my existing "spam one button" macro and confirmed this. There's always a very noticable delay between equipping my sword/board and the stance switch.

Here's the macro I was using (taken from arena junkies):
I tried this macro and it seemed to be a little faster:
Lastly, I tried a macro that only performed the sword/board equip and spell reflect and it was by far the fastest. This requires that you independently switch to battle or defensive if you're in berserker, but, it's the fastest route to spell reflect for me. It's almost instant.

I'm not sure what exactly causes the delay on my end with the arena junkies macro. I started thinking that the wow client has some sort of input buffer but that doesn't make sense since most people use "spam one button" macros for spell reflect and don't have the same problem. It's possible that an addon I have installed could be somehow slowing down the equip/switch/reflect chain. Maybe it's something on the OS end. That's all just speculation though. I haven't tested any of this. I'll post again if I get around to doing some more testing and find a cause.

Anyhow, hope this is of use to someone. YMMV.

I've been reading the past several pages, specifically those on ideal meta gems, and am looking for feedback based on my specific situation.

I noticed that there wasn't an absolute answer to which meta/boot enchant is ideal for pvp, but I also noticed that most of the debate was in a general scenario and not on a specific situation. For example, I do not run a 3v3 or 5v5 team currently, and my 2v2 partner is a paladin, so what war/druid teams may want can differ from what a war/pally may want. So I try to keep my spec, gems, and enchants ideal to my team. I'm also a 35/23/3 spec.

So, now that I've stated my specific situation, I am considering on getting a RED meta with a boars speed enchant and (aside from two str/sta gems) am thinking about going from 10 str to 5 crit/5str in my red slots. I base this on that even when I do get rooted, my pally can usually get off a cleanse. I know that a surefooted proc can help my pally by saving mana and a GCD, plus she may be stunned or have a LOS issue. But it does reduce the overall effectiveness on a surefooted proc.

In a raid setting, I would understand how going for pure +10 str gems would be ideal for partnering with a pally, but BoK rarely stays on me for long. I usually get a BoF or BoS that makes the whole point moot (not counting dispells and spell steal). But with a more balanced crit/ap set up, I'm thinking to take advantage of the meta gem bonus as well as blood frenzy for the extra 4% damage. I think this would be ideal against dps/healer teams, giving me more burst dps and placing greater pressure on them. The 2 stamina gems don't bother me as they assist on when I face a double dps team.

Again, I am just considering doing this. I may just stay with runspeed/surefooted. What I'm really looking for is feedback and opinions.

I haven't seen this discussed before in the thread or elsewhere on the board, so here I come:
Is there a general consensus on the usefulness of expertise for warrior PvP ?
What this boils down to, for me: is the [Shard of Contempt] a good choice for a second PvP trinket (the first one being obviously the Medallion of the horde) ?

My take is the following:
- against non-dodging, non-parrying classes, expertise has about the same effect as hit rating through dodge reduction, up to a cap of 5% dodge reduction, or 3% with weapon mastery. This means a cap of 20 or 12 expertise, i.e. around 80 or 48 expertise rating. Point-for-point efficiency is the same as hit rating.
- against classes that have significantly higher dodge ratios (rogues, feral druids, hunters ?) the cap is much higher, therefore reducing the relative effect of expertise
- against classes that can parry (rogues, warriors ?), expertise is slightly more efficient through parry reduction when attacking frontally.

So basically, expertise rating has an effect on PvP that's about on a par with that of hit rating (not missing your Hamstrings / Mortal Strikes).
Therefore, capping it should be a priority, as is getting a hit rating of at least 80. With 2/2 Weapon Mastery and no other expertise-giving item on, the shard of contempt allows you to nearly reach that cap.
Therefore, not having any other PvP-suitable expertise-giving items to equip, I should use the shard as second trinket instead of another more classical offensive trinket such as the [Berserker's Call] or some critical rating trinket.

Am I missing anything here ?


Another question:

I play in a druid-warrior 2v2, at scrub ratings, having only recently started trying to do serious arena after my small PvE-oriented guild went in a content-lack-induced slumber. I have been specced 33 / 25 / 3, for a few weeks, Mace-specced with Stormherald for a few days after noticing we hurt from lack of control ; the spec includes Sweeping Strikes, Weapon Mastery, Improved Slam, Second Wind...
I see a lot of people advocating 35 / 23 / 3 specs. So while I see the advantage of having Blood Frenzy for more DPS, is dropping improved Slam really worth it ? in my very limited and pretty much unsuccessful experience, Improved Slam is a good way to keep the burst going after having used WW and MS if my target is low-life. I can certainly say it has saved me a few games. I would like to hear what experienced PvPers think about this trade-off in the context of a 2v2, or similar tradeoffs involving improved slam, weapon mastery, second wind, improved hamstring, blood frenzy.


Thanks in advance

Expertise isn't as great a pvp stat because
a) You can't dodge or parry attacks from behind in pvp.
b) You can't dodge or parry while stunned or feared or otherwise CCed.

Some people like to slam in PvP. Most don't. I know I'm not a big fan. I have enough to keep track of without staring at a swing timer bar, and I don't usually have a lot of rage to spare anyway between keeping hamstring, MS and sunders up and saving rage for pummels.

I use 2 macros for stance swapping. With these macros I can "scroll" through stances, either going more offensive, or more defensive.
This way I can reach any stance with one button hit, with only 2 binds.

Bound to: D - To go offensive (Defensive Stance -> Battle Stance -> Berserker Stance -> Defensive Stance):

Bound to: A - To go more defensive (Berserker Stance -> Battle Stance -> Defensive Stance -> Berserker Stance)

Since you always reside one stance, there are only two other stances you could switch to. Using just two buttons for stances is therefore sufficient (Nefarian warrior call and C'thun ports are the exception). But I don't think doing it that way is very intuitive, especially if you are trying to learn stance-switching.

Furthermore, three stance buttons are not necessarily a waste of keybinds, as you can doublebind those buttons for stance-specific actions such as Defensive Stance -> Disarm, Berserker Stance -> Berserker Rage, Battle Stance -> Overpower, just to name a few.

Expertise is not universally useful in PvP or else you would see it on some PvP gear the way casters can get haste. Like Rootbreaker said, the most important is to always try to hit your target from behind so they can't dodge/parry at all. Also there's C) Players cannot dodge/parry while performing the spell cast animation. The occasional dodge is ok because you spec for improved overpower. Do not use [Shard of Contempt] for PvP.

Imp slam is nice vs warlock/healer teams because you'll have the extra rage to slam and it helps nuke pets. However, for those 2 points you could get extra 5% on imp hamstring and 2% dmg from BF. 2/2 imp hamstring and 2/2 BF is fine too if you play with other melee in a different bracket. If you feel like you always need slam as a rage dump, perhaps you should look into using hamstring and sunder armor more. One hamstring with a mace is 9% stun chance + 15% root chance + whatever the % for stormherald is. Sunders are also often overlooked because ppl think that you have to spend 75 rage and 5 GCDs right away to stack it up to max. If you just remembered to refresh it once every 30s just so that the debuff doesn't fall off completely, even a 2-3 stack would be effective vs someone getting healed.

Most people would say that 2nd wind > weapon mastery > improved hamstring > blood frenzy > improved slam. Mileage on tactical mastery and sweeping strikes may vary but if you add all of those together you'll arrive at the standard 35/23/3 build.

I'm using RED this season but kept my old gem scheme of reds. However, I did get [Battlemaster's Cruelty] in addition to my old AP one because it costs a lot fewer badges to get a 2nd trinket rather than to regem all my sockets. The s4 helm/chest/legs are designed so that warriors will no longer be forced to do the runspeed/surefooted combo. Each has 6 more hit compared to the older counter parts so that as you upgrade 2 out of those 3, you will be able to make the PvP hit cap of 79 rating w/out surefooted or gems. The s4 weapon also adds more hit.

You're already sitting at 88 hit rating so that 9 out of the 10 hit rating you're getting from your boots enchant are going to waste (except against mages). You don't need to rely on the 5% snare resist from surefooted because your paladin should be casting blessing of freedom right before you leave LOS.

I'm not sure if this is the right thread, I apologize if not..But using the search funtion hasn't turned up any results, so I figured I would ask here.

Does anyone know what the proper spell name for Nature's grasp is in afflicted? I want to see more clearly when its up and when the cool down is up so I can spell reflect it. There isn't a cast animation so right now I'm relying on "feeling" it out when its going to be cast, or hoping to catch it on witch hunt, but I would much rather have an afflicted timer for it. If anyone knows the proper input, I would apreciate it..Obviously, for me, reflecting a nature's grasp can win games, so, I figured it would go best here.

Mine is just called "Nature's Grasp" and it has worked fine.

show inside anchor: Buffs
icon path: Interface\Icons\Spell_Nature_NaturesWrath
duration: 45
check Enemy, successfully casts
check Enable cooldown
duration: 60
show inside anchor: Cooldowns

You may need to turn your spell details higher but a druid popping grasp looks just like him casting MotW on himself. Listening for the buff sound also works.

Try:

/cast [nostance:2] Defensive Stance
/cast [stance:2] Intervene

Also, you have to spam that macro.

You're likely better off not relying on target switch calls through your macro. I find a simple macro like the following works wonders:
/cast [target=arenapartnername] Intervene

For improved quickness (and lazyness); /cast [stance:2, target=hankwilliams]Intervene; Defensive Stance

Thanks for the help. For anybody else trying to use this macro, you can't have it on a bar that changes when you switch stances, you have to put it on another bar and spam the crap out of it.

True and untrue. The only 'thing' it requires, is that the macro is bound to the same key in all stances, otherwise you'd have to switch key once the macro switches to Defensive Stance.

Personally, I would just bind the macro to a key and then just have the Intervene button on the bar in Def Stance as usual for cooldown display. The macro itself does not need a bar slot.

How would it look if you wanted it to place you in Berserker Stance with one more press of the button? Thanks.