I see a lot of people talk about stacking stamina and resilience for arenas and this naturally makes sense, since the normal strategy is to get arena gear and go nuts with elunes, but I don't see much talk about using high armor gear in arenas, nor do I see many people using resist enchants on their shoulders or cloak.

As a healing druid the options I'm looking at specifically are Violet signet of the grand protector (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29279). I originally took this for pve tanking but I'm very rarely feral these days.

With the next patch I saw they're giving the option to switch this for the healing version, but the tank version is also being increased to 350 armor instead of 250, making it even better for pvp survivability.

I'm also considering the resolute cape (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=24258) as it's being increased to nearly 400 armor with the patch and includes a hefty amount of stamina and resilience. Despite the high materials costs, I'd rather aim for this than the sargeants heavy cape since it's dmg/heal instead of pure heal.

The other thing is resist enchants. I'm not talking about stacking 400 shadow resist whenever I see a warlock, but things like the 7 resist all enchant on shoulders versus the honored aldor +29 heal enchant (not exalted yet), and 7 resist all on cloak versus 120 armor.

Anyone have experience or math with these?

Magic resist scares the ever-living shit out of me. That being said, I actually enchanted 20 spell penetration to my cloak just to be on the safe side, I think the rare occurence of facing 2-pally teams with frost resist aura or motw, or whatever else I might come across outweighs the minor benefit of 120 armor... which is I'd guess 1% less damage from physical dps. It's not like anyone targets me in 5v5 at my level anyway (1900+).

You, however, will definitely be focused on... I'd go for 120 armor, since it's multiplied by bear form, right? As for magic resist, I don't know how many other dps casters carry around spell penetration for pvp, personally I'm sitting at -25 to enemy resist so your enchant wouldn't do much of anything. As a shadow-caster I would actually stack it, +70 shadow resist from priest buff or paladin aura is fairly nasty.

I definitely carry my Sapphiron gear to every 2v2 arena. Nothing worse for a Rogue + Shaman team than to see a Paladin Frost Mage come out the other side. Bubble, BoP, 2 Ice Blocks and one sad rogue. Putting on my frost gear lets me focus on the paladin for a long period of time and not worry if my shaman gets sheeped or counterspelled.

I plan to carry more resist gear when I get around to it as it's usefulness in the smaller brackets is incredible.

Resilience or stamina can cover you on everything while using armor or resists don't, if you're only getting an extra 15-20 resists i'd still rather go for something else...but everything adds up in the end I guess.

Could you clarify what bracket you mean? In 5vs5 I tend to consider armor and resist to be less effective since what can be attacking you changes.

pretty sure enchants are not multiplied, and thats why bears usualy go for 12 agi enchant

was this changed at some point?

Every serious Arena caster has 20 spell pen on their cloak, so having a little bit of resist on shoulders or cloak doesn't seem worth it. 120 armor seems better for a druid, but it should not help bear form so maybe 12 agility is better.

Like was said, if you like 2v2s, it seems handy to have a frost resist and shadow resist set, but for 3v3 and 5v5 I think it is not worth it, stam/resilience is king.

I definitely like the +stealth enchant... I do Arenas in a raid spec so I can't have 5/5 MoD, so I use my boots off Gothik for +8 stealth, my cloak for +5 stealth, and my NE Racial for another +5... anything I can manage, really. That totals out to 18 stealth which is more stealth than 5/5 MoD can produce by itself, 15.

I think one thing that hasn't been said yet Beefy, is that the most serious Arena teams go for all around viability instead of gimmicks. And stamina and resilience are good in all situations where you'd like to extend your survivability.

In the really high rated games, where you know what you're going up against, you can start to build on the advantages of alternate gear sets - ie, I was close friends with a shadow-priest/warlock team who very consistently went up against a Warrior/Paladin team. Once that W/P team started to collect shadow gear that matchup became very, very difficult.

Let me assume that you aim to play the role of a healer/ccer. I've seen some really great play by resto druids, and their strength is surely in their powerful heals, and the surgical precision that cyclone can afford in taking someone down.

And I'll say to you, to stick with the Gladiator healing set if that's your focus in arenas, if you want to focus on all-around ability. Bearform is a heavy deterrent to melee almost intrisically, but it's not to casters - thus I don't think slotting armor stuff as your default gear is worth it, but keeping it around just in case is. So that is to say - I'd take armor where I can find it, but I'd certainly not prioritize it.

And as far as resists go, it's more or less generally agreed upon that shadow is the most powerful class of resist you can get.

I picked up a Gilded Thorium Cloak that I've been using to PVP until prices drop and I can pick up the Sgt's Cape. I don't think I've seen a dodge yet, but the extra armor and possibility of negating +weaponskill crit makes it useful if I'm acting the sponge.

Saph gear is the bane of frost mages atm and I know the lock/(pally/spriest) teams will be hurting when the BT gear is common. thankfully, though, we have up to -108 with curses. I really don't want to have to put spell pen gems in my dungeon set.

Don't forget that +weaponskill doesn't add crit for targets that are your level.

I'm specifically looking for what's best when stam/resilience isn't available.

As a druid I always run with mark of the wild. Sometimes this is purged/stolen, but by default I have 34 to all resists. I'd have 41 with a shoulder enchant, and 48 if I also put it on cloak. Against most casters with the cloak enchant I'd be at 28 to all (38 to nature due to racial).

Is this enough to make a dent against incoming spells? Would I be better off with 120 armor and +29 healing?


For the rings, I'd be trading 350 armor, 12 stamina, and 16 defense rating (which doesn't mean much, granted), for 21 intellect, 14 spirit, and 48 healing.

That's a tough choice when it's usually rogues/warriors that are the end of me.

A related question. For a PvP healer, I consider the 3 main stats to be STA, resilience and +heal, in that order. What do you consider a good amount of each that one should strive for? And at what point do other stats become more important?

Personally I think you should have roughly 9,000 health minimum unbuffed, and around 175-200 resilience as a basic goal.

Would you start looking into other stats after that if they are easier to get than more HP/resilience, or is it HP/resilience above all, under all circumstances?

I would say don't go nuts with STM... 9k would be great, but trading 100+heal for 5stm is not a good idea, nor is he suggesting you do so.

Personally I rarely run out of mana before I run out of health. Get a bangle of endless blessings (god I sound like a broken record on this one) and innervate yourself and you'll be pretty good for mana in most situations. Just beware priests that love to mana burn and dispel.

Bigger heals are always better though so it's hard to argue against items with +healing.

So the consensus seems to be 200 resilience and 9000 HP as baseline. Looking at top resto druid profiles the +healing seems to be between 900 and 1000. After that then what?

I'd try to get 3% spell hit also, as most resto druids tend to play pretty offensively with Cyclone.