Agree with Oren: it just doesn't seem plausible to aim for +armor in amounts for it to actually matter in the long run. I'm guessing that's also one of the reasons for all the new-found hatred towards warriors (and physical damage in general) from cloth-wearing classes.

I was in fact 2k+ rated for a while in my 2vs2, but my partner server transferred. We ran priest/shadow priest. The teams I'm in right now are merely 10 game teams so my tragically geared friends can get some arena points before I finish off my shaman and start up a 5vs5again.

I never said "don't gear for survivability", I said gear for your role.

When I was playing with my ex-partner, I did substitute certain items for higher survivability, but we won because of strong silence/fear timing and the huge nukes that follow. I found when I put on very heavy stam/res peices (unyielding set, couple peices of gladiators, few heroic drops), we certainly lasted longer, but we didn't have enough killing power either. In most cases it became mana bar vs mana bar, and generally we were fighting far more efficiant opponents. In my scenario it was always favourable to keep above the 1k+damage mark, and I generally could without much hiderance because I had a strong healer.

Obviously it's favourable to lose items like Bracers of Havok and Cloak of the Black Void for their marshal counterparts, you lose minimal damage and usually gain exceptional stam/res, but when it comes to itemising yourself with loot that is pure stam/def/armour, you've practically resigned to being a cloth tank.

I also agree with Oren, pre-BC I horded a good deal of armour from enchants/trinkets and such, but in BC cloth armour didn't scale well, and now with resilience it seems even more of a waste of item points.

The Marshal's/General's boots/bracers/belt/cloak all got a bit buffed with the latest PTR build, and I think those are the best for their slot.

Pre-buffs you could argue that Unyielding set and Resolute Cape were good choices, but not now with the new buffs to the PvP epics.

My former warlock class leader is in a 2k+ rating 2v2 team right now with my former guild leader, a rogue. He is Nightfall/Shadowfury (geared for damage), the rogue is 41/0/20 Mutilate, and the team composition and spec shocked me. Both are awesome PvPers, and I think the setup catches a lot of people offguard. I think they'll run into trouble against the "outlast" archetype, but it shows warlocks can conceivably reach 2k+ rating without speccing and gearing for survivability.

His name is Wisdikin if you want to look him up on Armory.

Sounds like a fun team to run against teams that heavily rely on its warrior anchor. I'd love to see a video of that team in action. It's possibly more gib-a-licious than Taco's 3 AP-Pyro mage 3v3 team.