• Arawethion

So, as you all probably know, my main interest is raiding, but I've been recently looking for ways to fill in some spare time with Arena for fun. Mostly with similarly-minded guildmates who try to assemble teams that have people who will play often, but aren't really competitive about it yet.

My main question is how to improve my gear so I can participate more without getting blown up so easily. To be honest, I probably won't be interested in huge grinds, but if I get into this more, might put a bit of effort into it. For reference, my current PvP suit is in my Armory link (click name on left). Yes, it's basically a high-Stamina PvE set. So, first question: what gear upgrades should I be looking for, preferably arranged in order of ease of acquisition.

Second question: what to do with my Arena points? I have about 3000 saved up. Since I just got into all this, I don't really know the current information on possible new Arena upgrades or sets. Should I spend my points or save them?

Third question, for Mages: A bit of spec advice would be nice. Not what to spec, but what to do with the one I have. Any tips on handling 10/48/3 in the Arena?

Carrot Cake Soup is like the taste of watching girls make out.

 

Keline

You should spend your points when you run into the risk of going above the 5k point limit.

 

◊ blindworld

You can get a high stam helm with some resilience relatively easily. http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28760 can be purchased from a vendor in Allerian Stronghold for some spirit shards (http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=19773). There's another version with a bit more resiliance but it's lacking spell crit as well.

But there's no sense crying over every mistake, you just keep on trying 'till you run out of cake, and the science gets done and you'll make a neat gun for the people who are still alive.

 

• frmorrison

If you can get the Honor 70 epics that would be a nice, their price is going down with 2.1 and they are itemized well and will be getting buffed.

I would get two pieces of the Arena gear (to get 35 resilience bonus), likely the shoulders + chest or whatever are your weaker pieces for the Arena slots (socket solid stars) and then save the rest of the points for Season 2.

For your spec, I would rush one target and hope you get big crits.

 

• Arawethion

I was thinking Robe first, since I have such a weak item there. Not sure which other one, though. Hat/legs will be full of blues from Spirit Shards/Halaa, and Shoulders/Gloves make up my 2-piece Aldor bonus (how important is that to keep?).

Say I have the Spirit Shards for one of the ring or hat, which is better?


Finally, what's the best way to get honor (and how many hours would I be looking at for an item?)

Carrot Cake Soup is like the taste of watching girls make out.

 

Maynard

Unyielding Girdles are not too expensive to craft, especially given PE is the main component.

Otherwise, if you have any leftover honour from pre-BC, picking up 2/5 of the blue arena set is a good way to quickly stack up on resilience. AV weekends are very good for ranged classes to quickly stack up on lots of honour. Similarly, 3k arena points can get gloves + any other piece of gear for a further 35 resilience. That's 70 resilience right there, which puts you in a good stead initially. You could also hold on to your points of course.

The Halaa legs with a +30 sta l/w enchant are good too.

Finally, don't underestimate PvE gear at a lower level. Particularly in 2v2/3v3, a pure-burst team can be pefectly viable against blue geared teams with < 100 resilience.

 

• Snowy

I'd probably hold onto your arena points until the 5k limit, since it's unclear on when the next season is going to start. But if you hit that, I'd probably buy an armor piece -- the shoulders or robe socketed with solid stars just offers an amazing amount of stamina. Looking at your gear I'd get the robe to replace Enigma. Short story is yes, you will definitely have to focus on stam/resil moreso than the average mage -- when I played mine I had 2 ice blocks so even if I had a bad blink I had more get out of jail free cards to play.

You can slowly improve some of your gear from regular BGs, often I try to just get 1-2k honor per night when I do BG and it adds up over time. I'd probably get the PvP cloak first -- it's only 13k honor IIRC, and 30 stam and 23 resilience is awfully nice over your current one. I started noticing my increased survivability once I hit 8k+ hp unbuffed and over 100 resilience. Molten armor helps a lot with that of course.

Benefactors' Bar, where you get free English lessons:

 

◊ Shadowed

Theres a couple of PvP type items you can get relatively easly, Halaa items can be done in a couple of hours depending on your server and Spirit Shards take a bit more time, but you don't have to PvP for them much since the towers usually get assaulted the instant they drop (for Icecrown at least).

AV Holiday the best time to PvP if you want items since you can get around 300 - 500 honor per a game every 20-30 minutes depending on how pugs do in your btatlegroup.

Honestly, spend the points and don't bother saving for S2 we still have no idea when it's coming out and even when they announce it we're at least a month away from the end, since it looks like you don't have much in terms of PvP gear right now, you'll probably be better off getting the pieces that are the biggest in terms of STA/Resil upgrades from Gladiator.


edit: Took too long to post apparently, everyone else mentioned spirit shards and such.

 

• Snowy

Outside of bonus honor weekends, AV is the best choice hands down. If you get stuck in a dead-end game for whatever reason don't be shy about AFK'ing out and taking the 15 min deserter.

Otherwise I tend to play EoTS when it's that bonus weekend, but we win most of them. I avoid WSG because it's too easy to either run into a pre-made or run into a long game -- both which net you little honor even on bonus weekends.

TLDR, join AV. Expect maybe 10-15 hours to get a 13k honor priced item, more along the lines of 20-25 hours to get a 23k priced one. Generally I can net around 1k honor per hour in there. Doing that every other day for a few hours adds up fast.

Benefactors' Bar, where you get free English lessons:

 

Leto

I'd probably drop a point from playing with fire and put it into blazing speed. It helps a bit with survivability, and losing 1% dmg done and 1% dmg taken doesn't seem like a large sacrifice to me.

As for strategy, I would highly recommend using a focus-counterspell macro so that you can easily dps an assist target and cs their healer. I would also try to use combustion/trinket and focused assisting to burst a target down at the start, then go for survivability if that doesn't work. The tricky thing to work out though is when to burst, ie don't burst a rogue before he uses CloS, etc. Dragonsbreath should help with the control aspect as an additional interrupt.

Rogue at heart.

 

Keline

Actually they've pulled back from that, their announcement will now be 2 weeks prior to the season End

 

◊ Shadowed

Do you have a link?

 

• frmorrison

Robe is the best piece, it is item level 115 (rest are 110, but will be buffed). I assume you have burning soul (70% interruption), so 2 Aldor is still somewhat good.

I would get the Arena Helm + Chest.

I would get the Spirit Shard ring and then the Halaa pants; Unyielding girdle is pretty cheap.

The best way to get solo get honor is to do AV any day out of the week. I would say in AV 500 honor/30 minutes plus 30 minute wait time, so boots will soon cost 16,800, so about 16 hours of BG playing (plus some wait time) for an epic item.

 

Vazu

It's a little late in the season to be spending points on gear right now. I'd just collect the purple honor-based epics from BGs right now and then slowly collect the blue 2 PC. Wait for season 2 and spend 5k pts. on gear. But like someone else said, maybe pickup a 2 PC Gladiator set if you risk going over 5k some week.

 

Drully

+30 Sta enchant? l/w? öhm? I missed something, I guess.

I guess this signature will remind me of...

 

Keline

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread....86629772&sid=3

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29534

 

divulse

I've been running this as well, and it ain't easy. However, I still think there's alot of promise in it - the control DB and blastwave give your are really nice, as long as you know exactly what you want to do once you've landed it. I've found that a large amount of my arena damage comes from DB, which can be super helpful to get a little breathing room when you're getting focused by melee, or for a drive-by to make sure that healer doesn't land that heal on the groups target. Lag is killer on the DB accuracy, especially at the speeds everyone is moving. =/

I'll be honest, though, I ended up dropping a most of my of points from arcane to pick up the shorter fireblast CD and impact/blazing speed, and it does help alot when you've got a warrior, rogue or hunter whaling on you. I havn't really missed them all that much in PVE, while I do tend to drop a few more pots than usual, it's a worthwhile price to pay for a nice boost to pvp viability in a heavy raid spec. You may not be able to rely on it, but it's saved a number of fights for me. Also, the short fireblast cooldown is great since I tend to be on the run alot, if you time it right you can pop a fireblast/DB/scorch/blastwave/fireblast without taking too much damage. I'm determined to prove that this can be a reliable pvp spec in the right hands. However, I'm terrible, so I'd love it if someone could prove it for me. ; )

 

• KinetiK

I would argue 3000 arena points is hardly casual! I have a 3v3 team with my wife and friend and we play incessantly and lose a lot because we screw around trying different things. I am looking at the healing shoulders as my first Gladiator item but I likely have 3-4 more weeks before I can get that item because I'm only collecting 300 or so points a week.

I believe this defines both casual and poorly skilled.

Things are more like they are now than they ever were before. - Dwight Eisenhower

 

• Arawethion

The 3000 came from many weeks of a sub-1500 5v5 team that plays 10 games a week with whomever we can find. I'd have more if I'd actually started claiming my "free points" at the beginning of the season (which I wish I had). So yeah, 3000 points total by this point in the season represents quite a casual Arena commitment.

Carrot Cake Soup is like the taste of watching girls make out.

 

Keline

I really don't see what this has to do with casual and hardcore. I have 10k AP with only 188 games played. The season is 10 weeks now, that's 20 games per week including the warmup nonrated match. One can certainly arrange one day in a week and play these 20 games, that would take 2 hours. Per week - that's very casual imho.

On the other hand I know of a guy who played 250 games in the FIRST week and only got 250 points because they kept hovering ~1500 rating. They're certainly not casual, but they're pretty close to your 3k figure.

 

Leto

I believe casual and hardcore with respect to the arena would be how much preparation you put into it.

Casual would be no prep outside the arenas, very little bgs to get the honor gear, using a pve spec, and playing 10-20 games a week.

Hardcore would involve farming gear extensively to help with arenas, speccing purely for arenas, practicing, and playing frequently.

Sure there are gradients, but you can't ignore the time spent outside of arenas in preparation for arenas.

Rogue at heart.

 

Keline

Why would a casual PVP player use a PVE spec? Heck, I'm using a PVP spec and I'm doing a lot of PVE as well. I really don't see how the difference between casual and hardcore is the "right" spec.

 

Cel

It's a matter of focus. People spec for what they want to be best at, and in this case, the focus is PvE. I don't understand why it's difficult to understand. o_O

"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell

Alpha is recruiting... go go.

 

Leto

Spec is just one facet... I used that as an example in this situation since Hamlet said he focuses on pve and pvps casually.

Pretty much across the board, the difference between casual and hardcore is time spent. I was merely trying to say that one can spend a small amount of time actually playing arenas, but a large amount of time preparing for arenas.

Rogue at heart.