Tarrek, i think prot pvp died when they nerfed silences, i tried playing it after that nerf, does not work at all. It is ok in battlegrounds, but useless in arena. But thats just my experience with it.
The hidden matchmaking Rating has been implemented.
3.1 Announced Warrior Changes:
Blood Frenzy now causes 2/4% physical damage done.
Changing stances now has a much reduced cost: you lose a maximum of 20 rage (10 with Tactical Mastery). For example, if you have 100 rage and change stances, you will have 80 rage remaining. If you have 10 rage and change stances, all of your rage is lost. In addition, we may change the penalties associated with some stances.
Sunder Armor (and similar debuffs) now reduces armor by 4% per application, and is now a single rank. Creature armor has been globally reduced so that debuffed targets should take about the same damage from physical attacks that they did before this change. The net effect should be that this debuff is slightly less mandatory in PvE and is not disproportionately more powerful against cloth targets in PvP.
You now gain rage when damage done to you is absorbed, such as through a Power Word: Shield.
We are also adding increased damage to Arms, possibly through Overpower or Slam.
We are also looking at granting rage when the warrior blocks, dodges or parries.
[/blizzard]
Updated for:
Date: 2/8/09 Patch: 3.0.8 Season: 5
Contents Of This Guide:
General Advice
Specs
Arms Weapon Specs
Most Common Teams
Less Common Teams
Gear to aim for
Stats
Enchants
Gems
Glyphs
Choosing your Race
Choosing your Professions
Macros
Interface
Keybinds
Useful Links
If you see any missing info, let me know and I'll look into it. If you have anything that you think will improve the guide ( links etc.) please let me know. This guide is aimed toward new warriors or players that are just switching to PvP. This is not meant to be a guide for gladiators.
General Advice
In this section I'm going to quote a few TBC Guide Authors. While their guides have gone out of date, their philosophies have not.
The single most important aspect of arena play is your teammates. You must always be aware of what is happening to them while you are dpsing. You must constantly watch everything that is happening; your head must be on a swivel so to speak. Protecting your teammates is your job in arena. This can mean hamstringing the rogue on your teammate, intercepting at a key time to allow a teammate to escape, or a well timed fear to save your allies. You also must make sure that you do not go out of line of sight of your healer.
Many say that Warriors are not balanced in PvP as it currently stands, while others are trying to prove them wrong with statistics ; the top-ranked Arena Teams with Warriors, and things like that. Personally I find it hard to comment such a thing, because every single thing is limited to you, to the way you think about things - just as in the real life, you might find a piece of paper useless, but there are some people who could use that to kill someone. As a fact, there are some features in World of Warcraft that I call "game mechanics" what create limits to things, involving classes and their relationship to each other, but I pretend that there isn't any of these mechanics that ruins the PvP for any class. Everything depends on you, there for if you are not satisfied with any kind of performance you provide ingame, search the reasons in yourself.
Practice, Think, Learn. It's true of anything; if you pay attention to something, if you try to use your mind, if you try to understand it you'll have far better results than if you would do it brainless, without considering the circumstances. If you are about to maximize the performance-possibilities of your Warrior, it's not even close to enough if you play twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, because it will only pay itself if you think about the thing you do. Simple as that, you must know the reasons of every thing happens to you while you do PvP, if you invest the time and energy in summarizing, you have the chance to learn from it, and be better, find a way you can solve the problems you meet.
Some people are not capable of it, they are playing the game since beta, they are managed to get PvP Rank14 and they still lose to most opponents, and without the right attitude and self-criticism, they start to look for the excuses and problems in the other classes and the game. What I'm pointing out: you must force yourself (if it doesn't go by itself) to think over everything. Pay attention to all the fights you play in, to what your enemies do, when, why.
That's the key, and If you get that, the next step is the time. The more you invest, the better results you get. Be objective.
People use this word (balance) many times on forums, most of these times they claim that something is not matching that word. Also, a lot of players like to talk around about the World of Warcraft's "Rock-Paper-Scissor" mechanism, like "Mage beats Warrior, Warrior beats Rogue, Rogue beats Mage". I hardly pretend that both of these are false.
It's not even possible to ask for some kind of a perfect harmony between the classes, hopefully I don't have to point the reasons. It been a very long time since something crossed the line so much that it made some aspects of the game unenjoyable. Today we have more matterful factors that classify the balance (like we have more abilities, new stat system, the Resilience, and so on) of the game, and in my view there's nothing that would need a radical change, otherwise it will continue ruining the game. Naturally there are some things that would require little changes. I've seen many good ideas that would bring some new colors to the gameplay (or into the Warrior class), some that would fix the current issues, and probably a few of them will have a place in the game in the future.
With this I meant that Warriors are balanced currently. The following thing I write doesn't shade my opinion of the "Rock-Paper-Scissor" theory either. The whole thing is truly subjective, because even if I say that I do have a chance against any kind of enemies, you might say that I haven't faced opponents that were good enough - and to continue the line, I could ask something similar from you when you say you can't win against anyone. But just because there's someone who is satisfied with something, but the other 99.99% of the people not, it's not wise to make the decisions according to the first one. And that's what makes World Of Warcraft a great game in my eye, like all the time, with minor problematics, Blizzard could manage to keep things at the right side of the edge, everyone has their own chance to find the levels they enjoy the game on. What causing the problems then?
Many countless people don't have any idea about what level they play on. You can name these levels by any details of the game and the players; how well they can play ; how good their gear is ; talent specializations; dedication ; and the list goes on. Now, if you are playing PvP casually, you have only average gear for it, why would you want to win against someone that has the full gear, and far more experience than you in PvP? There are numberless opponents that would match your criteria better, therefor if you don't put the maximal effort in the thing you do, don't expect sucess without problems.
Why all of these things are important? Because apart from subjectivity, Warriors do stand a chance against any kind of opponents. Other opinions are based on skill-difference, gear-difference, and other things that builds PvP on the surface. Also, don't forget there are many differences between an average and average player, between good and good, also between the insane and insane. And that's the reason why the "Rock-Paper-Scissor" fails in my mind, there are some classes that have minor (or not only minor) advantages against another, but the way these two players play the game is far more important in most cases. Basically we can stand proudly in every Arena team-bracket, though we have some limitations to what our partner has to be.
So what do we have to do to be viable in solo situations? What do we have to do to be useful in team fights? It's very simple, and insanely complicated at the same time - just as with other classes.
First of all, every class has their own feat to play defensively, to survive, to outlast the enemy, to delay time. A noticable difference with Warriors is that their survivality possibilities against spell casters aren't that strong. Defensive Stance's reduction to the incoming damage is an important bonus here, also wielding a shield to be able to use Spell Reflection as the Cooldown lets you, and interrupt the opponent's spell with Shield Bash instead of Pummel just to win minimal time. That's about it against casters. Against other melees, more advantages come from using a shield, like the higher armor, the chance to block (and Shield Block ability) and using the damage-decreasing debuffs upon them repeatedly. These are very shortly our feats to play in a defensive style.
So we are flexible to change playstyles quickly on the battlefield. Apart from the defensiveness, our main role in PvP is to deal damage. We are there because our damage output is constant, we aren't depending on long Cooldowns. Truly in group situations our power shows off far better if we have someone to assist us (with dispells, heals, and so on). Our job is to keep the pressure upon the opponents, keep up the important debuffs, sometimes on more targets. For sure, Mortal Strike is the most important of them, it's not only one of our best damaging abilities, but it reduces the heal effects upon the enemy by 50%, and it's possible to have this debuff up all the time - true, you need to manage your Rage wisely to be able to do that while also taking care of your other roles.
The way a Warrior controls his Rage shows how good he is (at some points), we are the only class that has to act depending on that all the time interactively - it's also makes our job harder and easier at the same time. It's harder, because when we need to make decisions quickly, a committed mistake with Rage control can mean an important debuff's wearing off, the missing and required damage what we could put on with the right Rage management. Other classes with Mana / Energy at situations they need to decide fast have the advantage if they want to do something, they can. Possibly in an overall look it wasn't Mana-efficient, but in the moment they needed to do something, they had the possibility - while we, Warriors have to always be prepared and control our power according to that, to be able to act when needed. Very simply, it's easier for us is the fact we never run out of Rage (just as Rogues' Energy), so we have to be thoughtful for the current and the close following actions, while Mana users have to watch and work with their Mana counting with long fights.
You can often hear that we, Warriors are the most gear-depending class in the game. Therefor, achieving and managing your gear is the part of being competetive in PvP.
The fact is, you can learn to play with a Warrior quite fast, but that's only enough to have some fun for the same level you play on. But if you provide some dedication, and start to work on getting better, you'll see that Warriors do have abilities that can be used in wrong and good ways, even if the difference is hardly noticable, it's there, and it's important.
Specs
Fury- Fury represents 3/4 of the high rated warriors right now. It's high damage and scaling with PvE gear is what makes this a strong spec. The main spec right now is 18/53/0. All three are equally represented among fury warriors. There are three main variations of this spec:
Some warriors add in other items from PvE (At higher gear levels), but this is generally what you should be aiming for. With the current state of arenas, having as much raiding epics as possible is a good thing.
Stats
This is what your stats will be like with full PvP gear fully enchanted/socketed.
Health-
Attack Power-
Hit Rating- You will need to get 164(5%) hit rating to be capped for Arms PvP. To achieve this you will probably have to get the "Victory" items instead of the "Triumph" items. You can also substitute PvE gear or hit gems to reach the cap if you have to. For Fury you need 5% hit subtract precision (1/2/3%) according to how many points you put into it. So if you have 3 points in precision, you only need 2% hit. You probably won't need to get "Victory" items to achieve this.
Armor Penetration-
Critical Strike-
Expertise-
Resilience-
Enchants
Helm: Arcanum of Torment/ Arcanum of Triumph Shoudlers: Greater Inscription of the Axe/ Inscription of Triumph Cloak: Major Agility Chest: Powerful Stats/ Exceptional Resilience Wrist: Greater Assault Hands: Crusher Waist: Eternal Belt Buckle Legs: Icescale Leg Armor Feet: Tuskarr's Vitality (if no run speed in meta)/ Icewalker Rings: Assault 2 Hander: Titanium Weapon Chain/ Massacre
I'll try to list the warrior benefits for each race.
Alliance
Dwarf- Stoneform, Frost Resistance, and Mace Specialization.
Gnome- Escape Artist and Arcane Resistance.
Human- Sword Specialization, Mace Specialization, Perception, and Every Man For Himself.
Night Elf- Shadow Meld, Nature Resistance, and Quickness.
Draenei- Heroic Presence, Shadow Resistance, and Gift of the Naruu.
Horde
Orc- Hardiness, Blood Fury, and Axe Specialization.
Tauren- War Stomp, Nature Resistance, and Endurance.
Troll- Regeneration, Da Voodoo Shuffle, and Berserking.
Undead- Will of the Forsaken, Shadow Resistance, and Cannibalize.
Choosing Your Professions
I'm going to list the direct benefits from using each profession.
Blacksmithing- Allows you to add sockets to your bracers and gloves. This can only be used by blacksmiths and cannot be done to other player's armor. You can also make a belt buckle that adds a socket to your belt. This is purchasable by other players, much like leatherwork leg enchants. You can also craft the entry level PvP gear(BoE non-set blues).
Enchanting- As in TBC, enchanting allows you to enchant your own rings with special enchants. You can add 32 attack power or 24 stamina to each of your rings.
Engineering- You can craft the epic craftable helm if you didn't get a better PvP or PvE helm. You can make a BoP trinket and put a nice enchant on your gloves.
Jewelcrafting- You can craft epic quality BOP gems for use in your gear sets. These gems are slightly better than their BOE counterparts. You can also craft BOP trinkets with unique uses.
Leatherworking- Allows you to use fur lining on your bracers, enchanting them with very power bonuses.
Tailoring- Ability to enchant your own cloak with a powerful enchant.
Herbalism- Gives you a heal over time effect.
Inscription- Ability to craft BoP shoulder enchants that are better than the normal ones.
Mining- Increases your maximum health.
Skinning- Increases your critical strike rating.
Macros
Spell Reflect:
#showtooltip Spell Reflection
/cast [stance:1/2,equipped:Shields] Spell Reflection; [stance:3] Defensive Stance
/equip [modifier:ctrl] De-raged Waraxe
/equip Bulwark of the tormented god
/equipslot 16 crescent of brooding fury
Just replace the weapon/shield names with the ones you use and it should be good to go.
You should be using focus target. This intercepts your focus target when you need to interrupt a cast.
Rend:
#showtooltip Rend
/cast [stance:1/2] Rend; [stance:3] Battle Stance
This will perform rend if you are in battle or defensive stance and will switch you to battle stance if you are in berserker stance.
Shield Wall:
#showtooltip Shield Wall
/cast [stance:2,equipped:Shields] Shield Wall; [stance:1/3] Defensive Stance
/equip [modifier:ctrl] De-raged Waraxe
/equip Bulwark of the tormented god
/equipslot 16 crescent of brooding fury
This will equip your shield and cast shield wall. Replace the weapon/shield names with your own.
Shield Slam:
#showtooltip Shield Slam
/cast [equipped:Shields] Shield Slam
/equip [modifier:ctrl] De-raged Waraxe
/equip Bulwark of the tormented god
/equipslot 16 crescent of brooding fury
This will equip your 1 hander and shield and cast shield slam. Replace the weapon/shield names with your own.
This helps saving keybind space as well as time. If you're in the stance it works just like your spell, but if you're not in that stance it functions as your stance button. With "#showtooltip" macros make sure you select the "?" as your icon.
Fury Specific
Since Fury uses 2 two handers, the shield related macros are different.
Spell Reflection:
#showtooltip Spell Reflection
/cast [stance:1/2,equipped:Shields] Spell Reflection; [stance:3] Defensive Stance
/equipslot [modifier:ctrl] 17 Your Offhand Weapon
/equip Bulwark of the tormented god
Shield Wall:
#showtooltip Shield Wall
/cast [stance:2,equipped:Shields] Shield Wall; [stance:1/3] Defensive Stance
/equipslot [modifier:ctrl] 17 Your Offhand Weapon
/equip Bulwark of the tormented god
Shield Slam:
#showtooltip Shield Slam
/cast [equipped:Shields] Shield Slam
/equipslot [modifier:ctrl] 17 Your Offhand Weapon
/equip Bulwark of the tormented god
Interface
Everyone's is different. This is what my UI looks like:
This is running the test function of the addons so you can see where everything would be in an arena situation.
I've uploaded my UI to Wowinterface for anyone who is interested:
Home | pvptutorial.com - This guide explains how to create a PvP UI through video tutorials.
When you download addons, make sure they are up to date(with the current patch), because if they aren't you will run into too many errors.
To quote Pharaunmizz:
Never underestimate the power of having more space and less clutter. PvP is pretty dynamic, so being able to see clearly can seriously help you out. Don't bother using Addons if they aren't doing anything for you. Periodically evaluate each of your addons and see if they're actually worth their screen space.
You should design your UI using a minimalist design. Basically just show what you need to see and scale it down. A good way to save space in your UI is to go into your video options and click use UI scale. Tune it up and down until you think everything is just the right size.
There are a few basic things that you can do to immediately improve your play. First key bind everything. You must be able to use all of your abilities while watching what is happening in the battle. A clicker cannot do this effectively. You may be a good players as a clicker, but key binding will transform you into a pvp monster. You should also get familiar with turning using your mouse. This allows you to spin, run out and jump intercept, and all around be far more effective then wasd.
Everyone does what is comfortable to them, but this is the general idea:
W is forward
A is strafe Left
S is backwards
D is strafe right
Turn by holding down your right mouse button. It is far more efficient than keyboard turning.
Keybind abilities with similar functions close by.
Keybind abilities you use in succession to rows of keys.
For things used in combat make them close the WASD.
Instant and while moving, even closer to WASD.
Not so critical spells can be farther away.
Use shift/control/Alt as modifiers for keybinds to keep them near your movement base.
Leave nothing as a clicking ability.
Common keys are 1-5 QER`FT and then branch out from those .
I personally wouldn't use mouse wheel although some people do.
Some players have gaming mouses/ speed pads with extra keys on them, they usually bind things to those too.
I cannot stress how much using keybinds will improve your play. Even if you think you're a great clicker, you should make the switch.
These are my keybinds (to give you a general idea):
Some good parts, some redundant. The "gear list" is fairly useless, I don't think anyone doubts that for a fury/arms warrior getting as much pvp gear as possible is the way to go.. But it's incorrect in stating that the Deadly Decapitator is the best 2h weapon. Betrayer of Humanity has both higher top and average damage and better stats, thanks to being ilvl226 - Item Comparison Tool - World of Warcraft
For keybindings, I don't agree with binding abilities to Modifier+Movement key, because it prevents you from moving at the same time as you use the ability, and if you're moving you have to release the key and then re-press it, which takes longer than just pressing another key.
There are a lot of mutually exclusive abilities that can share a key, a good example is Charge and Overpower. Charge can only be used out of combat, there's extremely few times where you could use Overpower without being in combat. Intercept and Intervene can also share a key based on if your target is hostile or friendly.
I'm also questioning the long quote by Dreasus. His guide is about warrior pvp in TBC, where the playing field was a whole lot different than it is in Wrath. Teamed with a healer, warriors were good in TBC. In Wrath however, healers are downplayed by powerful double/triple burst teams who can silence/cc/stun your healer and kill you before the cc wears off. You simply can't apply the same logic and mechanics from S4 to S5.
I've been playing around with an Arms/Prot spec for a while now, especially since in 3v3's I, as a warrior, see myself getting blown up in the duration of a stun I can't trinket, even with over close to 800 resilience and 25k HP.
What I came up with was the following (44/4/23), which makes you lose the Enrage, Bladestorm, some AP, 1% crit and Piercing Howl. But you gain so much more survivability, CC (2 stuns and 2 silences) and most importantly the DPS you dish out when using sword and board in defensive stance is pretty insane. Also the silence on Heroic Throw, usability of Conc. Blow in any stance and -30% duration on CC helps a lot when you're playing offensive.
Thanks to Unrelenting Assault and Revenge Glyph, you use shield block when you are forced in defensive stance and you can pretty much spam revenge (one second cooldown; less than GCD) and HS (no rage cost after revenge). When playing DK/War/Pal vs. RMP, I mostly have both DPS on me with my DK sitting on their priest. Most of the time I'm able to solo the rogue before my DK gets their priest down, even though I'm mainly focussing on defensive abilities. The damage you dish out in defensive stance with this spec is just amazing.
Terrified. Mortified. Petrified. Stupefied... by you!
"just as in the real life, you might find a piece of paper useless, but there are some people who could use that to kill someone."
Rofl. That illustrates warriors in pvp PERFECTLY. Consider survival hunters the... wait, I refuse to continue that... analogy? I'm not even sure. Just know that survival hunters are a better substitute for warriors in every conceivable way right now in arenas. Could anyone have expected to be able to say that... ever? Blizzard consistently amazes me.
Some useful info in that post though =)
Also curious I went from season 3 of pvp to now, and I'm wondering if they changed the resilience effect on crit based procs since then. Basically proccing Blood Craze off of normal hits because w/o resil they WOULD have crit, and flurry procs off of normal hits, etc.
Does that work the same way that it did way back in S3? I'll test it as soon as my buddy with arena gear logs on but I figured some people might know about many different powers that won't be so easy for me to test, exceptions, etc. for anyone that feels the need to post with "TEST IT YOURSELF" enlightenment.
Thanks
Smooglab how have matches gone where you have been left completely alone? That spec seems effective and very dangerous against melee that are convinced they must focus you, but what if they go for the pally? I mean a warrior with your spec and 800 resilience has effectively made himself my last target in just about every conceivable match, and it doesn't take much more than seeing last stand or a concussive blow to clue the other team in that you aren't a conventional DPS build.
I can't imagine you being able to solo a decently geared priest with that build, which is an incredible drawback. But jeez I bet you murder rogues that punch you for any length of time.
This may be a bit off topic, but since a few weeks before BC came out, I have raided, pvp-ed, and brushed my teeth as prot (spent most of pre-bc as fury). I have been working on refining my prot pvp forever, and I believe I have come up w/ a finalized package. I don't even have my full set yet, but so far my highest crit has been 12.5k on a mage. The key to this pvp is mobility as many classes love to kite. For it to work, your devastate not only has to be self sustaining, but generating at least 7 rage on the side.
Any suggestions? Or if you'd want me to explain certain point choices, feel free to ask. I'm a Smitty too so add 3 sockets as well.
Note: Lavanthor's Talisman is effected by ALL of my block value buffs, including Shield Mastery, Shield Block, Glyph of Blocking and the 5% BV meta gem (the eternal cut)...when all of these are running, that trinket is pumping out over 1500 block value for the duration of shield block, and over 750 with it running w/ out shield block.
Last edited by Jrk : 03/25/09 at 1:57 AM.
Reason: Change of Spec for 3.1
The key to this pvp is mobility as many classes love to kite. For it to work, your devastate not only has to be self sustaining, but generating at least 7 rage on the side.
I don't see what devastate has to do with mobility. And your spec confuses me. You take Vigilance and Shield Spec but not the near-mandatory survivability talents Toughness, Anticipation and Deflection. You take Puncture to reduce the rage cost, but not Anger Management which gives you free rage?
Also, I really advice against wasting points in Cruelty. You have 15% crit from talents on most of your abilities. Even in full tanking gear I have roughly 10% crit. That 25% crit is well enough for your purpose (survive, control, harass), especially when you have so many better talents to spend the points in.
The gear list is pretty much what I'm aiming for, except I've gone full out on shield block value so I'm using [Unsmashable Heavy Band] as one of my rings. I do find I'm getting an annoying amount of dodge and misses in pvp, so I might try giving up a little bit of BV for more expertise and hit.
I'm assuming you don't mean this to be best-in-slot gear for the purpose, but what you currently have. Otherwise I'd much rather have [Shoulderguards of the Undaunted] for my shoulders. I also prefer a slow weapon as "contact time" in pvp is usually pretty low, so you want to get as much damage in as possible in per hit. I'm currently running with [Kel'Thuzad's Reach] for lack of better. Of course, [Calamity's Grasp] or even [Broken Promise] is where I'm looking next.
I should have worded that better. But first, the spec..
---Vigilance is for arenas, bg's, world pvp to give one person 3% reduced damage..If you have heals, they will be a prime target for the opposition, works well with DK's as well, especially blood. Edit: 2 in safeguard prevails over vigilance.
---I dont spec into deflection and anticipation for two reasons. 1) With the gear I'm stacking, I'm backing the Block Value I have with more than enough block rating, should have around 35-38% chance to block. There is I believe only one piece in my set that even has any dodge/parry. I am not aiming to just to have an advantage against melee, in doing so, block becomes my biggest defense and offense. Other melee may be stacking expertise to get thru my dodge and parry...while my block rating stays the same, unaffected by expertise. 2) Dodge does not give rage, 3 blocks in a row does. By using demo shout (even without), I am more than capable of blocking full attacks, thus changing that 35-38% mitigation into avoidance. Avoidance that not only generates 2 rage per block, but also deals damage with damage shield, which is then doubled by either critical block (which is ALL THE time) or shield block.
*-*For avoidance against casters, I have ~5% chance to miss from defense, 4% chance to miss with Imp Spell Reflect, being undead: 2% miss for shadow spells, and the imp defensive stance to reduce all spell damage by 6%*-*
---Toughness: with warbringer removing any and all immobilizations, and me charging/intercepting/intervening all the time, toughness just seems like a redundant over kill for movement impairments. As for the 10% armor (complementing armored to the teeth)...without the little extra physical damage reduction % from that armor, you are still capable of fully blocking physical attacks, thus it is unneeded, letting us put points in other utilities..like Imp disarm that works against everyone. Melee are limited without their weapon, casters lose the stats from that staff, temporarily lowering their spell power and other stats..both casters and melee take the 10% increase to damage (which your entire team can take advantage of and blitz the target)
---Anger management: Sorry, meant to have 1 point from armored to the teeth on AM. Thank you for pointing that out.
--work is ending, I will be back to continue this when i get home.. ::pause::
Devastate & mobility..The connection between those 2 thoughts is at any time I need to change stances and intercept, with the 1 point I have in TM, and with my attacks generating sufficient rage (using devastate (non-crit) rage generation as an example of other attacks rage generation), I will have just enough rage to do so, and get a hamstring off right before the quick switch back to defensive stance.
I'd change 1 Point in Vigilance into Safeguard. 3% is almost nothing, but an additional 15% is an additional 18% less dmg,
(0.7/0.85) and it is then when it is needed. (its 18%*6/30 > 3% for overall) And if your Partner gets longer than 15 Sec per 30 Sec attacked talk him to kite/ run out of LoS.
Glyph Rapid Charge is nice to generate Rage, and to drop slow effects, but it gets annoying when your targets get really fast stun immune. Better take Glyph of Intervene and you strengthen your intervene even more.
For Raid tps/dps AttT is always worth more than those crit% Cruelty gives.
I have the 1 point in safeguard, and one in vigilance, 18% for a blitz attack, 3% all the time, changeable to any party member, at any time.
-With rapid charge they do develop immunities. If they are consistently trying to kite you from the get go, hamstring them. I've played with the intervene glyph, and it hasn't given me the productive results rapid charge has. Some players will burn thru mana as they are reapplying movement impairments in efforts to kite you. They may be getting immune to charge stuns thru diminishing returns, but at the same time, you are becomming immune to movement impairments..as their mana dwindles.
-Crit: Tarrek, I see what you mean about only stacking 10, but my aim is for 16%. If I go against someone with no resilience, my attacks like concussion blow, shockwave, heroic throw, revenge..keep the 16% crit while SS, Devastate, HS all are at 31%..and they go down FAST 3.5-5k concussion blows. But in reality most pvpers carry resilience. If my opponent is stacking 480 resil, thats about a 6% crit reduction, bringing my side attacks to 10% and my main attacks to 25%. With your setup, the crit would be 4% & 19% and that just doesn't get me goin on a lonely saturday night. =p
Gear: I go with the 1.5 speed to be able to throw whatever I need at them as quick as possible (a not so sneaky rogue on roids). It also is running at the minimum speed without haste. Attacks which are more based on weapon damage (which blizz is shifting away from) will be a bit weaker, but mainly picking hailstorm for the dps given w/ the swing speed, and the stats it has to offer. With a slower weapon, white hit attacks develop more rage, but that rage comes to you at a slower interval. I spec for several abilities to have the bare minimum rage requirement (besides TC, but that can be easily swapped without comprimising the climb down the tree.)
Shoulders: WotLK came out with dick for shoulders when it comes to blockvalue/rating...if you want to find a decent pair, go kill the erdar twins in sunwell and turn them into the vendor w/ a sunmote Spaulders of the Thalassian Defender..I thought about going for them, but I figured I would waste time in naxx over going for lower item lvl items. Shoulderplates of Bloodshed Gives decent Str (all str becomes BV), takes care of some hit, so besides 1 or 2 enchants, I don't have to gem hit whatsoever. Also carries a large amount of crit. Once I reach an amount of hit/expertise I'm happy with, and hold 16% crit, all gems/chants/etc go to strength.
Edit: I swapped out the chestpiece to the Valorous Dreadnaught Battleplate and the shoulders to the Valorous Dreadnaught Paldrons to keep the 2 set bonus for SS, and to raise hit/crit to an appropriate percent.
Not only does WotlK lack good block shoulders, but try finding block value on a chestpiece a warrior can wear. You'll need 2 pieces of T7 anyways to get the +10% SS damage. Best to go with the Helm (DESIGNED for pvp) and the chestpiece. Everything else for the most part can be block gear. The Unsmashable band has a good deal of block, but you can do better with that item slot & what you can get out if it.
I wasn't so much aiming to pick the 'end game' pieces that will never be attainable...Ruthlessness will take a while to get, better to shoot for Circle of Death out of 10 man naxx. Most of the set is found within 10 man naxx, the cloak off trash in 25..and as soon as it drops, I know I'll get it as everyone else would see it as garbage =D.
The only stats that should be sought to stack are: Str, Stam, Defense, Block Value, Block Rating, Crit, and Hit/Exp (until capped.) With the +84 resil pvp trinket and the 1 +20 resil gem, that gives me ~1.3% crit reduction. The defense the block gear comes with should give ~5% crit, and hit reduction.. With Blizzard combining melee/spell hit into one with WotlK, defense's chance to miss appplies to both as well, making it very nice to have with the small bit of resil.
Note: For your insane amount of block value to be of any good defensive use, it is vital to stack block rating. Besides one shield enchant (15 Block rating does not compete with 40 BV), there is really nothing to help stack it but the stats from the gear itself. So choose your set wisely.
AttT- I have 2 points in, would have 3, but everything else in my spec is a must. 2 points in stun duration reduction gives you the full 7% reduction per point (the 3rd only giving 6%). With the str I'll be stacking, I should be good for AP.
This is in no way, shape, or form a setup I would suggest for pve. My motto...If you're not stunned, you're silenced (rotating both, keeping diminishing returns in mind) and if you have an opportunity to cast/attack, you will either A) use up your mana trying to heal yourself or B) have your attack reflected/blocked.
Edit: Per 3.1 EU Forum notes, Charge now has a 1.5 second stun, with no diminishing returns...there will be blood.
Last edited by Jrk : 03/09/09 at 2:11 PM.
Reason: Gear Composition
The hit cap for melee-specials in PvP is 5%, unless you're fighting players of a higher level.
At 80, 1% hit is 32.79 Hit-Rating, so 163.95 Hit-Rating is needed for 5% unless you're teamed with a Draenei, and/or unless you got points in Precision.
[e] Assuming you have max weapon skill of course.
Against players your weapon skill is considered at maximum level.
Will Mace Spec be more damage overall than Axe/Pole arm spec in the arms tree? If Arms is more viable, I'd think you'd be in battle stance a lot more and with the buff to armor penetration it seems that mace spec could be more damage.
Will Mace Spec be more damage overall than Axe/Pole arm spec in the arms tree? If Arms is more viable, I'd think you'd be in battle stance a lot more and with the buff to armor penetration it seems that mace spec could be more damage.
Battle spec isn't going to be viable because it doesn't have a spell interrupt.
Battle spec isn't going to be viable because it doesn't have a spell interrupt.
You can equip a shield and use Shield Bash. A macro can make this a quick switch, ending with your 2-hander equipped again (Edit: A macro may suffer from a fraction of a second in latency in pvp compared to the manual shuffle.) Battle also has the ability to spell reflect, unlike Zerker.
Knowledge works better when applied...like sunscreen.
You can equip a shield and use Shield Bash. A macro can make this a quick switch, ending with your 2-hander equipped again (Edit: A macro may suffer from a fraction of a second in latency in pvp compared to the manual shuffle.) Battle also has the ability to spell reflect, unlike Zerker.
It doesn't matter. Losing any time to interrupt means you lost your chance to interrupt. Without the ability to precisely interrupt a large portion of spells you will never be competitive in high level arena against good players. Spell reflect is a cheap gimmick at best, and still requires you to use macro and pre-empt the cast because of the GCD on weapon swaps. It also doesn't let you lock out heals or spells cast on your teammates.
Point taken. Let's say Blizzard decides switched Imp Thunderclap and Gag Order in the tree, allowing warriors of any spec to take advantage of the Herioc Throw silence (pvp-wise, quite possibly solving the issue GC dicusses on how heroic throw isn't being used enough.) Would you spend the 2 points into prot if such an option was available?
Knowledge works better when applied...like sunscreen.
Point taken. Let's say Blizzard decides switched Imp Thunderclap and Gag Order in the tree, allowing warriors of any spec to take advantage of the Herioc Throw silence (pvp-wise, quite possibly solving the issue GC dicusses on how heroic throw isn't being used enough.) Would you spend the 2 points into prot if such an option was available?
Uh yes? But it doesn't matter because you'd just spec fury and take gag order.
New patchnotes..
Unrelenting Assault: Now also increases the damage of Overpower and Revenge by 10/20%, and causes Overpower (when used to attack a casting target) to decrease the effectiveness of all the target’s non-physical damage and healing by 25/50% for 6 seconds. Tooltip and visual updated.
This looks very interesting tbh, with the change to Taste of Blood you *could* keep this up on a caster pretty much 100% unless dispellable, rendering him pretty damn useless. If this would also stack with MS, then it's just game over for any healer.
That's only if you overpower them while they're in the middle of a cast bar. I don't think that'll be quite as easy to do as you think, and basically won't apply to Druids at all. It's still a good change. I'm equally interested in the ability to do combat Charge. THIS is a practical reason to use Battle Stance, and represents a change in the right direction. Give us a Battle Stance interrupt that doesn't require shields and then we've really got something.
Give us a Battle Stance interrupt that doesn't require shields and then we've really got something.
Guess that's why they changed Overpower, since we can have it on a 6s cd basically, but instead of interrupting it just reduced the effect of heals/dmg by 50%
I doubt they will give in to our "demands" and give us a pummel in battle stance.. one way to do it would just make it like druid forms, so we can push pummel and automatically change stance to berserker and use it without delay
Guess that's why they changed Overpower, since we can have it on a 6s cd basically, but instead of interrupting it just reduced the effect of heals/dmg by 50%
I doubt they will give in to our "demands" and give us a pummel in battle stance.. one way to do it would just make it like druid forms, so we can push pummel and automatically change stance to berserker and use it without delay
You won't be able to reliably use Overpower when the target is casting, though. Also I'm not really sure what you mean about instant pummel. I mean it's not like the stance GCD is linked to anything else. If you switch from battle to berserker you can pummel instantly. The problem is all the rage lost from stance dancing.
Lode - I think you're misunderstanding the idea behind the talent - you don't have to "interrupt" the cast with the OP - it applies a 6 sec debuff - the CD is 6 secs, thus the dmg is always reduced by 50%. There shouldn't be any instance where you have to use OP when they're casting.
Lode - I think you're misunderstanding the idea behind the talent - you don't have to "interrupt" the cast with the OP - it applies a 6 sec debuff - the CD is 6 secs, thus the dmg is always reduced by 50%. There shouldn't be any instance where you have to use OP when they're casting.
He's saying that, for the debuff to go up, you do have to "interrupt" the cast with Overpower.
Are you claiming that the 50% debuff goes off even if you don't quasi-interrupt a cast with overpower?--because my understanding of the talent (and Lode's, from my impression of his statement...and Ghostcrawler's, from his explanation) is that Unrelenting Assault only applies that 50% debuff *if used to psuedo-interrupt*.
You won't be able to reliably use Overpower when the target is casting, though.
Yes you will, because they changed Taste for Blood so whenever rend does damage you have 100% chance to use overpower. There is a cooldown on this 'proc' so you can't spam overpower, but as long as you have rend on the target you'll be able to overpower them provided it isn't on cooldown.
e: Unfortunately I think even with this gimmick arms will be inferior to fury. I think so far the changes are going to at best provide gimmick comps for 5s, where you do things like sit your warrior on their paladin while you have a hunter or rogue MSing the assist target.
e: Unfortunately I think even with this gimmick arms will be inferior to fury. I think so far the changes are going to at best provide gimmick comps for 5s, where you do things like sit your warrior on their paladin while you have a hunter or rogue MSing the assist target.
Why do you say this? Provided the MS effects stack (50% lost on the target, 50% output lost from the caster), it sounds like an extremely powerful strat in threes to put a warrior on a caster and a rogue/hunter on the primary target. Other than hots cast prior to getting overpowered or inbetween overpower cooldowns, heals will land for 25% effectiveness. Sure, splitting dps reduces burst, but that sounds strong to me. It puts even more importance on being able to peel/cc one of the dpsers to limit the MS effect. What am I missing?
02/08/09, 4:26 PM
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