f13.net

Just curious since I prefer PvP to PvE, what is the current PvP state in WOW?  When I quit WOW before WOTLK it was basically Arenas gave the best gear(not an arena fan) and then that gear was basically handed down to the BG's after a while but the best gear was always arena...is that still the case?  Class wise, what are the strong PvP classes currently and what classes are needed more often then not(Ill assume healers)?  I played a rogue and druid prior to quitting but Im not against making a new class from scratch.  Is Cataclysm bringing anything to the PvP scene?  I havent kept up on WOW changes and plan to read up on what Cataclysm has with it but haven't yet so any input is appreciated. 

Arenas will still be around but the emphasis will be back on Battlegrounds. They're adding in ranked BGs with good gear from them. What, exactly, this system is going to entail hasn't been elaborated on too much yet.

Arenas are still necessary to get the high level pvp gear that owns. However, you can get arena points through various dailies and eventually buy the next step down stuff without having to worry about ratings.

Cataclysm pvp will bring in rated BGs supposedly, but I don't know about ratings in terms of the gear. I'd expect that they will bring in more requirements to wear pvp gear to make it a distinct progression path, not less.

Right now you can also uses badges from heroics to buy a full set of PvP gear, though you'd still need rings, trinkets, etc.  Makes the barrier of entry to casual PvP a little less painful because at least you aren't totally in a wrong set of gear.  Frankly I haven't done any PvP in Wrath of the Lich King except for each of the new battlegrounds once just to see them.

I think tree druids are good in PvP.  Frankly, if you want PvP, the MMO genre isn't the best place to do it, WoW is alright, but meh.  The others already said what the changes will be, so there you go.

Arenas and Rated Battlegrounds will give the same kind of points, and supposedly there will only be rating requirements on a very few top-end things.

The PvP in WoW really only shines when everyone is on an equal gear plane.  Even then, the class balance issues can be problematic.  I imagine that the arenas would be enjoyable if you have a set team that plays well together.  The BG's and WG are largely a waste of time but you can get some low key fun in WG for a month or so if you haven't tried it already.  

I enjoyed the PvP for a month just by learning the different class strategies and dabbling with the BG's and WG.  By the time I had equipped my toon with pvp gear I got bored.  YMMV

I much preferred Aion, WAR, and DAoC for my MMO PvP fixes. 

I still play Aion casually and am just waiting for 1.9 to see the changes but Im likely going to drop it soon if I dont like it.  WAR I just started back recently as well but its still lacking in many areas but it got me back to enjoying battlegrounds(scenarios) for quick pvp which is why Im looking again at WOW, at least just for PvP.  Im just trying to decide if I should continue to level and pvp with my druid or rogue or should I look at a different class cause I dont have any idea how good either are anymore. 

WoW is just not a great PVP game, especially if you're on a PVE server  :awesome_for_real:.  Only thing I really enjoyed lately was Wintergrasp because it incorporates a lot of elements you'll see scattered all over different battlegrounds. Wintergrasp, when it's not lagging to hell, is quite enjoyable.

I don't care for arenas.  I only like a few battlegrounds.  World PVP is dead on a PVE server, but that's expected (and welcome).   Like Nebu said, gear just matters too much, but it's not really hard to get a decent baseline.  You'll just have a window of time where you're a punching bag.

I'm looking forward to seeing what's in store with Cat.  I just hope it's not yet ANOTHER battleground.  Two+ WG like areas with staggered timers would be a lot of fun for me at max level.  Keep adding those and you've got imitation Mythic RVR.  Well, except for any type of zone fluidity and without a clueless dev team flailing their arms wildly like this is their first attempt at a PVP game.   

This pretty much.

There's fun to be had, and with the boosts to honour gains and the daily BG feature gaining honour and arena points is easier than previously. The barrier to entry is lower, however we're at the end of an expansion and starting out you will feel weak, especially when facing arms warriors, rets and DKs with 40K HP who can tear you apart as if you were paper. You can get up to a competitive level easier than before which is nice, but expect to spend a while being a punching bag for pretty much everyone.

I think it's even worse on the pvp servers.  Not only are you a punching bag, but now you're also subject to being a target for some 7 year old with a level 80 toon.  After doing the trip to level 80 a few times already, the last thing I want to happen is for the grind to be longer just because someone with a high level toon wants to inconvenience me.  The entire pvp server concept is wasted on a game where virtually noone is interested in a fair fight... or even fighting in the open world for that matter. 

Play on my server when Cat hits.  You know you want to.  :awesome_for_real:

I hit 80 with my ret paladin maybe 2 weeks ago and I'm already sitting at 806 resilience, 4 piece furious, and able to contribute pretty effectively in WG and BGs. Honor adds up pretty fast if you do the random BGs and make sure you hit the WG weekly quests when available (helps if your side can actually win it from time to time of course.) Turn all your keeper shards into more honor, etc.

The one thing is you'll have to PVE for a weapon (and for a shield should you be a shield user), I was lucky enough to get that 232 axe from Pit of Saron on my first try, if that hadn't happened I would be in worse shape for sure.

I recently played with Tairnyn and friends and quickly learned that WoW demands a dedicated group to be enjoyable.  If I can't log on and have a solid group to run dungeons, etc. with then there's really nothing that the game offers beyond the 1-80 grind, a few faction grinds, and playing several minigames.  I guess I'm not enough of a PvE or gear grind fan to play much without people to shoot-the-shit with.  

I miss my DAoC days... it was great to log on, PvP for 4 hours with a great group, and call it a night.  

How was that different?

Short answer: DAoC was far less gear and group dependent while also being more pvp focused.  You're right about there being a lot to do in WoW solo.  It's just PuG and PvE based.  I'm not interested in gear progression.  I learned that VERY quickly in EQ. 

All MMO's are more fun with a regular group.  That's very true. 

My experience in DAOC was that there was actually far less you could do without a group - verging on almost nothing actually, unless you were playing the stealther game-within-a-game - and for a game that was allegedly less gear dependent I spent an awful lot of time leveling my artifacts and farming for scrolls. I do agree that pre-TOA it was less gear dependent, thanks to stat caps. (Said stat caps also created a situation that basically fucked over self-buffing hybrids, but that's a complaint from another decade...)

That said, though, I think given the choice between WoW's gear dependence and DAOC's utterly wretched class and population balance, I'll take the first one every time. As a player I can actually do something to help myself out with the first problem - farm more gear, and population issues don't manifest themselves in WoW PVP except in Wintergrasp. With DAOC all you could do was reroll and hope your new class stayed on top of the pack, or your new realm didn't go down the tubes.

Other than fragging newbies or maybe catching someone on the ground and ganking them while they're trying to do their dailies, there's really no point to PVP servers anymore. (And if you just want to do the latter, Wintergrasp on a PVE server is as good as anywhere else.) Everyone is just in Dalaran watching a queue tick down anyway.

If you want fun, flag on a PVE server. So many wannabe gankers in PVE gear getting stomped. Mostly it was my friend on her priest getting flagged in various ways, and me dropping out of the sky directly on top of the would-be ganker and unloading before they knew WTF hit them. Good times.

Well, I imagine we'll be pretty active when Cat hits, which means there may be 4 of us (me, Dan & Tom, Muu) on at night.  :awesome_for_real:  Although Tom moving to Virginia may complicate things.  Still, when all us were active, PVP was pretty nifty and having to only carry one random idiot in a 5 man wasn't a problem (plus being out-voted 4-1 means kicks are easy  :grin:).

Hey... I could be your non-random idiot!  :awesome_for_real:

This link (http://www.wowarmory.com/arena-ladder.xml?ts=3&b=Coliseum+1) is to the Armory for the new 2010 Arena Tournament coming up in WoW. You should be able to browse the different teams and, based off their records and gear levels, get an idea of where you want to be and what class you want to play. Oddly enough, Hunter-Shaman-Pally seems like the new 3v3 hotness.

The horde teams in those groupings heavily favor pallies. The alliance teams favor priests.

Both like shamans.

Unless of course, he doesn't want to arena - what does well in arenas does not have a strong correlation with what is successful in BGs. A *lot* more things are viable or effective in BGs than in arena.

I find my prot warrior is very effective in bgs. There are many more goals I can contribute towards like running flags, or guarding nodes without dying while tapping flag cappers.

In arenas I'm laughable.

I never personally found Arena to be terribly fun.  It mostly seemed to be going up against cookie cutter teams with matches that lasted 30s or 30 minutes, without a whole lot of space in between.

The smaller scale BGs (Warsong and Arathi) were my favorites, mostly because it was easier to have a direct impact on the game.  It certainly is possible to have impacts even as a single player in AV, but it's harder to do so, particularly if the other team is even halfway smart.

World PvP is rarely interesting.  It was mostly melee or stealthing melee trying to whack people in the middle of mob fights, or running around zones with level 20-30 opposition to gank while they haplessly flailed about.

Sadly, WoW PvP seems to be an afterthought.  It might be better in Cata, with the push for rated BGs.

Pretty much this exactly with the exception that I did have some good times in the 2v2 and 3v3 brackets.  You have to go into it with the expectation that somewhere between 1800 and about 2100 rating you are going to hit a wall based on your class comp.  Very few comps are viable up that high and the ones that do tend to fall into a rock/paper/scissors with each other.  BORING! Climbing to that point can be fun though.

 Not interested in Arenas, been there did that.  I just want to pvp for fun when I have time so Ill be sticking to stritcly BG's.  My 2 level 70's are a druid and rogue so if I level one of them to 80 which is the best choice for pvp?  I was also debating leveling my 35 mage possibly for the same purpose. 

Sorry, I just have to nitpick on this because it's something I hear a lot. Not from you, just from players that came into the game later on. They say it "seems" like an afterthought.

There is no doubt WoW pvp was an afterthought. The pvp we have now was never intended to be part of the game. They simply forced it in there based on player demand. In the beginning, all you could basically do was duel people or play on a pvp server for gankage. They didn't even institute a system or the first battleground until 8 months after release.

Simply put, WoW will never do well at pvp because it was never designed to be a pvp game. They are trying to bolt wings onto a car and make it an airplane.

WoW endgame was also an afterthought, though that's where they prioritized.

Yes and no. In terms of what we know as endgame currently, absolutely. Still, the game was defined as having the top end be raids/dungeons. It shipped with Molten Core and Onyxia's Lair, a gigantic rep grind, and a set of epic level armor for each class, and a set of blue class armor from the 5 mans. They've really haven't repeated the class set armor from specifically from 5 mans since then. They just went to "token fever".

I'm not saying it's a bad thing that WoW PvP is an afterthought.  WoW PvP works very well for the game, given that it's mostly there as "something else to do" when you're tired of grinding dailies, or resource collection, or etc.  Where it breaks down is if it's something a player intends to do as their focus.  That's all I was trying to convey, although I realize that I probably could have better done so by saying it directly.

No, I totally agree. The pvp game is good for a distraction, but not as a real end-game focus. I just think if people go whole-hog and talk about pvp as a fully tacked on afterthought in WoW, it would lessen some of the crazy you get from people that scream for balance.

You can't balance an afterthought.

The hard part about going full on PVP is that if you're only doing it casually, it's incredibly difficult to get a decent weapon.  It's hard enough getting a weapon without raiding, but in WOLK (I don't know about Cat) it was impossible to get weapons above ilvl 200 without an arena rating or raiding until the Icecrown 5 mans.

It was nice when you could buy weapons for honor in TBC.

Just buy a battered hilt and have at it. Kinda painful (8-9k on Whisperwind), but it's way better than any of the alternatives, unless you have ready access to ICC25.

 :awesome_for_real:

There are 219s in HToC too, but yeah. 219 isn't really setting the world on fire now PVP wise either. The stuff out of the ICC 5s is now the baseline really.

You'll be able to get weapons in Cata again at least. They'll probably be one tier behind the 'max' still, but that's manageable. My current weapon is like, what 6 tiers behind now?  :oh_i_see:


Might even have access to the best tier of weapon again with rated BGs, but I'm not holding my breath on that either.

Go with the druid. You can play the stealth gank game if thats what you want, but will have the option to tree tank or play pocket healer. I have even heard that moonkin doesn't do too poorly either. One of the greatest advantages of 4 of the classes in WoW in pvp is healing. DPS only classes have to either cc you or outdps your heals. Meanwhile, you are dropping damage on them and keeping yourself up. In BG's, this usually means you will live longer than anyone else because if they attack your heal target, they can't kill him. If they attack you, and you heal yourself, your heal target should be killing them. Caveat: every class can be beaten by every class, but healers are more capable of survival and druid and pally in particular have been made viable in nearly every spec.

I honestly think that making pvp specific sets was a bad decision, with the caveat that instagibs sucked.

Blizzard still has a hard on for trying to equate a PvE item progression to PvP, I blame The Evil Kalgan myself.

I don't think any of those head guys have too much experience with PvP MMOs.  They've played them, of course.  But they're all EQ guys.  As such, WoW is a PvE game. 

The PvP doesn't suck.  Also, I'm pretty comfortable saying that I think they've worked hard enough on PvP so that the 'It's tacked on' moniker is at this point pretty inapplicable.  The e-sport deal just never really appealed to that many people.  But, as always, there are those who enjoy it. 

I think they've gone in a wrong direction for far too long to make the kind of changes that would make it more universally appealing (or at least less frustrating).  It is what it was, and it will continue to be so.  Personally, I've never enjoyed it.  But for what it's worth, I like more guild v guild kind of stuff.  I had more fun fighting dudes before raids in BRM in Vanilla than I ever did in Battlegrounds or Arenas.  And those days are never coming back.

I loved my feral druid during the sunwell lead up with all the dailies on the pvp+ server I played on.

It was singularly the most fun I ever had in wow.

Most of the time I just waited around for some arrogant rogue to pop out and *rawr* *pounce* *ravage* *farie fire* *ravage* *ravage* *finishing move*.

The best part was that I could end up with half the island chasing me (usually after killing someone in a group of people).  Having five people in the water looking for you while sitting on the shore looking at them is classic.

Like, it's been 5 years and they still haven't managed to create a piece of architecture with PvP in mind. The nearest they've gotten to proper PvP buildings is in Wintergrasp, but even then, it was theory-craft architecture, not practical player vs player violence tested.

Separate but equal is ostensibly what they aim for.  Which would be cool if your design intention was that raiders not PvP and PvP'ers not raid.  You can grind your way past that barrier, but it fucking sucks if all you want to do is try something different without being totally outclassed by everyone around you.

When the new Onyxia encounter was still, well, new, our guild got into it with a couple of horde guilds periodically when waiting for the raid to form at the summoning stone. It invariably started the same way. Someone would be flagged, someone couldn't resist, and a complete riot resulted (and the raid was an hour late...or more). It was kinda fun--except I had to play my shaman and not my DK.

On a PvP server that was every Ony run.  I made my guild stop before we got into clip range, and scouted to increase our chances of ambush.  It is pretty frustrating on nights when you'd rather just zone in.  But looking back, I don't remember the raid.  I do remember the fight.

Southshore vs Tarren Mill on Blackrock PvP server. Now THAT was PvP

That and ambushing other guilds at MC and BWL was fun

Ill conceived pvp.  Alliance heads there in their 30's and Horde heads to the Mill in their low 20's.  Not sure what Blizzard was thinking, but it certainly wasn't about pvp. 

We as players picked that as our random pvp zerg area of choice even on PVE servers. I don't think it was really planned that way by Blizzard at all, and levels didn't really enter into it - it was mostly huge packs of level 60s chasing each other back and forth between the two towns.

Hillsbrad just happened to be the most convenient zone where both sides had flight points and a short trip to get there. (Horde has an easier time getting to Undercity than Alliance does to Darnassus, otherwise I bet you'd have seen Ashenvale as the zerg PVP zone instead.)

I think I'm just pissy about it because it's a hell hole for leveling on PvP servers.  Level 80's run around that area making life hell for people trying to run quests.  The pve leveling grind gets old after the first couple of trips through it that I got easily annoyed by delays when working through it a third and fourth time. 

I still wonder why you subject yourself to PvP servers.  The only worthwhile pvp happens in Wintergrasp or Battlegrounds, 'world' pvp died as soon as characters were able to two-shot level 50 characters.

:awesome_for_real:

It was the only way to play with people I've gamed with in the past.  Believe me when I say that it wasn't my choice. 

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1143749/Sucks%20to%20be%20you.png)

...and?

No and then.

More an indictment of the state of world pvp in wow than an endorsement of Wintergrasp.  Plus, I didn't mean the every-two-hour battle.

Heh, you know you've been playing this game too long when you get the urge to mouse-over screenshots to see what the other--especially flagged--players look like.

I prefer highly stylized forms of griefing.

That paladin didn't have a clue as to what the hell was happening.  He didn't bubble hearth or run to the guards, he just stood there trying to trade blows with my succubus after it dropped out of invisibility and started beating his ass down.

My latest escapade on my T9 mage had me popping Icy Veins, Arcane Power, and Trinkets, after which I pelted the level 50 with rank 1 Frostbolts for about twenty seconds, sheeped him, hit slowfall and jumped off a cliff, and hit Invisibility on the way down.

I had a mage in my guild in vanilla who could beat my warrior with level 1 frostbolts.  I'm man enough to admit it.  I only ever beat him once, and I kind of think he just felt sorry for me and let me have it.  The only thing I can offer up in my defense is that he was just that good.

In vanilla, that wasnt really skill.  That was a class perk.  Warrior vs Mage?  Yeah, you were fucked if he got the drop on you.  As a mage, you could kite warriors forever with 1 spell, and unless you fucked up something major, they would never touch you.

I could almost always get in a couple shots on a Mage with a PvP trinket - more than a couple if they fucked up.  And we like, had stuff.  So a couple of shots was all she wrote.  Basically he saved his PoM for sheep when I used my trinket out of his Nova.  Other than that, yea, he just never fucked up.  I knew I didn't have good odds vs Mages.  But thanks for trying to appease my still bruised ego.

Never faced them much in vanilla on my warrior. What little PvP I did back then was with the guild and generally involved horde screwing around with us when we were doing guild stuff on the lords out in Silithus (didn't tend to end well for the hordies).

What I do recall--and remains true to this day--is free action potion > magelings. And it's so, so, soooooo sweet when their friggin'  frost nova/shield/whatthehellever doesn't save them from that juggernaut/MS crit that drops their sorry, silk-drawer wearing ass where they stand.

They changed how the spellpower coefficient scales with level.  A rank 1 Frostbolt used to gain the same amount of damage from spell power as the last rank, now it gains almost nothing and thus hits for like 100 damage.

RIP downranking, you're missed.  Oh the days of spamming rank 4 healing touch!

Speaking as somebody playing a freshly solo levelled 80 with a 3k gear score, I can assure you that two-shotting is alive and well in Wintergrasp and that's between level 80s.

No you're not.

I'll agree with this and add:  when the numbers aren't horribly imbalanced.  15 stacks of tenacity can be fun if you catch a group of 5 people or less, but generally it just serves to add an extra .02 seconds to your life as you are mobbed by 80 people.

Upcoming change, from what I've heard, is that there will be a 1 to 1 H/A ratio cap.  If so, WG will go back to being fun.

I thought that they were going with a minimum number to start a game, but would prevent it from going over a certain ratio.

Something along the lines of: you need at least 20 people on one side to start a game, with a minimum of 10 on the other side.  So if 40 horde and 10 alliance queue, the game will start as a 20 vs 10, but no more horde will be allowed to join untill the numbers balance themselves out more evenly (to prevent 100 vs 20 matches kind of thing)

If they limit Wintergrasp battles by numbers on teams, they better take the timer off then.  I'm already having a hard time timing my playtime right to get in on at least one battle a session.  It will be nearly impossible to predict the battles if the matches only happen when the numbers add up right along with a 2 hour break between them.

I'd love to see them just start the battles everytime there are enough players willing to get it going.  Once a battle ends with a decision, the queue opens up and starts racking people up on both sides.  Once the requirements are met, the battle timer starts again...game on. 

There will probably always be enough people for the battles to happen. A far more likely scenario, if you're on the overpopulated side of a server, is that the battle will happen, you just won't make the cut.

This would work if there wasn't a raid encounter tied to control of WG. As it stands, there needs to be some downtime for people to form and do VoA before the battle starts again.

Wintergrasp is just lame with only 40 or less.

It's retarded that WG and WG2.0 aren't just battlegrounds.  As an attempt to force world PvP, WG's an utter failure.  It's just a battleground that you have to wait 2 hours to get, and is boring a fuck to play because the sides aren't even.  The new one will be a battleground that you have to wait 2 hours to get if you are on the underpopulated side and 10+ hours to get if you're on the overpopulated side.

Best WoW design decision since meeting stones.

Blame all the people bitching about there being no world PVP any more.

Population issues aren't a fault of the zone design.


The Downtime issue is though. They were banking on people wanting to farm Eternal Elementals like they did in TBC, but blizzard forgot they made them near useless when they limited the crafted recipes so drastically.

The WG dailies (and later weeklies) didn't provide a large enough window of opportunity. You basically have that little window before or after the round begins, as people want to turn in or finished off their quest.


There should have been some soft objectives during the downtime. Things that will run on just NPCs if no opposition shows up, but will escalate if/when they do.

Escort a courier from the keep to a southern base.
Find the enemy sniper picking off your guards.
Steal the vital war supplies from the enemy base.
Capture/Defend this staging point.

Blizzard has shown they can make NPC's "good enough" pvp'ers. They should use them in their world pvp zone, just to fill the gaps when you can't have perfect participation from the actual players.

That's probably why Tol Barad is going to be a PvE daily quests zone outside of battles.

The fact that urine conducts electricity isn't a fault of zone design either.  However, designing a zone that requires players to piss into electrical sockets would still be shittastic zone design.

Aren't the dailies only going to be doable by the faction that won Tol Barad? Or did they change that, because if you're on a faction that tends to blow at PvP on your realm then you're just straight-up fucked. That is, if they do the hard player caps for TB that they're doing for WG 2.0.

 :drill:

I'm in favor of this.  It might give me a bit more variety to my BG experiences.  Right now, I get predictable 80% loss, 20% win.  If things could even out closer to 50/50, I'd be a happy camper.

I'm already at 50/50 in my BattleGroup, so I am pessimistic! I don't want your shitty Alliance ruining my awesome Alliance dammit!  :why_so_serious:

I'm psyched for that change on grounds of queue times alone. Just looking at warcraftrealms.com shows a Alliance to Horde ratio of 1.1 : 1, while my server is 1 : 1.8.

Plus they're going to cap the world PvP zones to something close to parity.

Ditto.. my battlegroup, Rampage, is rough for Alliance because we've got 3 of the oldschool, high-rated Horde-side PVP servers in it.

The world cap, not so much. We're 4.2:1 at cap and 5.2:1 10-80.  Our last Horde-side Raiding/ PVP guild just gave up the ghost due to population issues. Given the problems they had fielding a group, Alleria can only expect more Horde to leave the server.  WG already suffers from having maybe 10-15 Horde in the BG.  Capping the pop just means the next one will be a useless zone that never spawns.

We are on our way to water down your PvP experience!  We just have too many people hitting BG's to get gems for their PvE equipment I think.  Plus I'm still getting into BG's that have sub 3000 GS people in it.  Like several of them.  I once had a sub 2000 lvl 80 warlock that didn't have boots.  Zero boots, let alone crappy boots.  He was bare-footed.

Right now I get 20% outright wins.  20% are even matched, which could go either way (these are actually my favorite.)  60% are just outright losses from start to finish.  Sure some of those last 15-20 minutes but that's just because we start going for HK's, which just slows down the obvious Horde win.  There is a good part of that 60% that are blow outs from premades.

For some reason it seems like premades are on the rise again.  Normally I'm on the barrel end of them, but got into one by accident over the weekend.  4 capped EotS almost immediately and held it.  Got the achievement for like under 6 minute win.  While it got me the arena points I wanted for the daily, I felt dirty.  Premades in open BG's are just plain weak.  I really wish they'd do two kinds of BG's.  One allows grouping.  The other has absolutely zero.  I'm not a fan of letting groups steamroll over generic random BG's.

As for WG:  Our server has the same problem of too little Horde.  They'll grab WG sometimes, but very rarely.  I'm also one that would hate a cap.  If they do, our server might have 1-2 fights a day.  It would all but become useless to me.

We are talking about the same battlegroup.  :oh_i_see:

I'm wondering. I'm on Whisperwind and Rampage BGs I'm normally in are usually Alliance dominated. Of course, I won't set foot in Strand or the other newish one, so maybe there's the difference...  :grin:

I'm Whisperwind Alliance also.

I should start keeping track of my win/loss record in more detail.  I could maybe predict a pattern.

I've come to notice that time of day makes a difference.  Alliance seems to do much better the later you play.  If I only played from 10-12 p.m. each night, my perception would be much different.  I have to play earlier than that due to being on EST and getting up early for work.  So, I'm forced to get stomped most times and I beleive it is a large number of premades.  Perhaps the PvP Horde guilds are all active during that time?

I do randoms for all my BGs and get Strand more times than anything else for some reason.  I really do not like that BG and Alliance can't seem to figure out that you have to do pretty much everything BUT kill the other players.  CC them, but killing demos and gates takes highest priority.  Most stay at the beach and play whack-a-mole and wonder why we lost.  This stinks, but I get a guaranteed 2k honor at the finish with the bonus of random + hks.  Wins reap closer to 5k.  After the first win it is 1.2k loss and 2k wins. (approx.)  Plus I build up arena points for better upgrades down the line slooooooowly.

Your BG record since WotLK started is kept on your achievements statistics tab.


http://www.wowarmory.com/character-statistics.xml?r=Doomhammer&cn=Sturmvogel&gn=Slap+in+the+Face

I think the only one where I am actually sub 50% is WSG, but like 3%.

I'm apparently about 50-50 as well, which is quite shocking. Hell I'm 7/8 in WSG, and I hate the place.

My alliance pvp character (http://www.wowarmory.com/character-statistics.xml?r=crushridge&cn=Ranagol) is apparently very, very lucky.  :awesome_for_real:

(though to be fair I duo-queued with a feral druid guildie for quite a few of those BGs)

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-statistics.xml?r=Doomhammer&cn=Sofi&gn=Slap+in+the+Face

My DK is a PvP powerhouse. :o

You can't really trust those stats, sadly.  They're not entirely accurate, at least in my experience.

The Individual BG stats are accurate, but the overall total isn't, the overall doesn't even factor in the Isle of Conquest. No one thought to update and include that into the overall tally.  :awesome_for_real:

At one point they were wildly incorrect - I used to list more victories in some BGs than I had matches played. They cleaned it up at some point though.

Yeah, I remember that.  I had won/lost some BG more times than I had even played it, according to the stats.  Good to hear they've cleaned it up.

Mine showed me as having arena kills while (correctly) showing that I had never done any arenas.

Thanks for that tip.  Did some spreadsheet magic with the numbers I found on my top 5 BG chars (lvl80.)  Across all 5 my percentage is 45% wins.  That is much better than I perceived, which I suspected since losing always has a much stronger "feeling" to it than winning.  There really wasn't much differene in this percentage across the five by more than 5% one way or the other. 

I always felt my healing chars did better, but that doesn't seem to be the case.  Of course, it is silly to think that one player in a BG will make any difference over the long haul.  This just shoves it in my face.

I need to find a character from one of the pvp horde guilds on our battle server and see how it compares to my experience.  My whole outlook on BG's is going to be turned on its head if they come out to 55%.

I did think of a reason why my numbers are sub-50%.  The way I play, I hit the daily random BG until I get a win and then switch to another char.  So if I'm losing a lot, I keep losing.  If I win, I rack up that one win and stop.  I'm thinking that could be leading me towards more losses overall.

I've never really been that concerned about winning particular BGs. It's nice, sure, but if I feel my character is performing well--namedly killing horde on job lots and still topping honor earned (or close) even if we lose--then I'm pretty happy with the outcome. Games where we win (AB, I"m looking at you), but I spend 80% of my time sitting on a flag watching distant fights (or rocks at the GM), those I feel a lot less satisfied with.

My bracket characters usually have very lopside win/loss ratios, but they're twinks and they do make a difference in individual BGs (especially the 79 bracket). My 80s are usually around 50%.

That's pretty much exactly why.



If you are only playing for the daily win, then you only get maximum 1 win per day, but any number of losses.

No.

If each battleground is a 50/50 affair, your chance of winning each one you participate in will be 50% regardless of when you decide to stop for the day. Occasions upon which you have to suck up a loss or two to get your daily win will be compensated for by periods during which you receive a win in your first and only game several days in a row.

Flip a coin. It has a 50/50 chance of coming up heads/tails each time regardless of when you tell it you plan to stop flipping.

It would, however, take a much longer time to reach that statistical average if you only play up to 1 winning game per day than if you play 10 games per day, win or lose.

Incidentally, I like how joining a trade pug for a rated BG is acceptable, but random queueing into them would not be. Idiots.

Well even a Trade PUG will have an established leader and a willingness to follow a plan. Probably a better class/spec spread as well. You have a lot more options to keep everyone on the same page.


A random queue is far more limited in that regard.

They need to just award points for doing stuff and none for just being there and piss off already.

Well one of the problems is they can't figure out with any certainty who is actually doing stuff, who is not doing stuff and who is just doing stuff very badly. They can't even stop all the rampant botting that goes on in BGs.

Just give points for kills, more points for kills near objectives, shitloads of points for capturing flags and stuff, and a big-ass multiplier if you win the game. Zero times zero is still zero, so fuck that guy in the cave. Throw in a little captcha popup before the start of each match if you absolutely can't do anything more elegant about botters, but quit fagging up the game for everyone else because you're worried about them.

There, bam, done.

The only reason BG PVP is such a pain in the ass that requires extra hoops to jump through if us peons expect to get cool shit anyway is because they're afraid that if they put in a path to nice gear that isn't a big cockstab, nobody will do their precious raids. Everyone would just shrug, BG to leetness, and spam /spit and /duel at the odd poopsock insulting their welfare ubergear.

You just fucked the spotter at LM in Arathi Basin. You know, the guy who actually wins the battle for everyone by calling incoming.  :-P

EDIT: Point being, a lot of important, contributing-to-game-win stuff in BGs is going to be completely unreflected by actual stat keeping.

The Botters don't actually stay in the cave anymore, they're pretty darn good at blending in with the regular retards. There are also plenty of legitimate reasons for someone to have little to no kills in most BGs. Even the captcha thing isn't going to stop the assholes that join, stand in the middle of the BG and shit up the BG chat instead of actually playing the game.



I agree that they fuck over the PvP reward scheme constantly, trying to maintain their PvE progression ideal.

That's why you give them a captcha. At least if you can't think of anything better. I don't know what sort of anti-bot tools they may or may not have.


I know everyone likes to think that they were providing an important defensive contribution by picking their nose at some back tower in AV for 20 minutes, or whatever, but if they didn't kill anyone and didn't capture any objectives then I'll bet they were a lot less helpful than they think they were.


Shitting up chat isn't worth any points in my scheme.

It's not that you get no kills on defense, it's that over 4-5 minutes at the tower you get maybe 3 and those were really important to the team compared to 30-something someone else got zerging at the front.

How do you decide who captured an objective? Is it just the guy who clicked the flag first? Anyone in range when it was clicked? Anyone who is in range when it turns over? Does it poop out points at X second intervals to anyone in range?



How do you decide who gets a kill even? You basing this off KBs or HKs? Base it off KB's and you fuck over a shit load of specs, notably all the healing ones. Base it off HK's and you are just back to people gaming the system instead of playing the battleground.

Even if nobody comes to take that objective in this particular game, it may still be an important objective that needs to be defended.  If nobody's there it can be taken without contest or warning to the rest of the team.  If you don't reward defending it even if nobody attacks, then nobody wants to defend it, even when it does get attacked.

And the point of the guy on offense getting more kills, but those kills being of considerably less individual importance than the defender's 3-5 kills is also a good one.  You might just weight the multiplier for defending to something crazy I suppose, so that one kill on defense is worth like 30 on offense.

A long time ago I came up with some ideas that would work with that, such as allowing players to 'attach' themselves to defensible points and such, which would give them a certain number of honor per second, possibly determined by the average honor your entire side is earning at the moment, as long as they're attached and in range, and would make it more difficult to capture the flag (either impossible to capture while someone is attached, or takes 2-3x the time to capture while someone is attached).  Something like that might make make it possible to more fairly reward defense, but even then there's going to be jobs come up that could be strategically important for victory, but give no rewards.

Bottom line, getting the computer to judge who actually contributed and who did nothing is pretty hard, and will need a lot of complex systems depending on the battleground's objectives.  You might be able to come up with something that is fair enough to only skip rewarding 1% of useful activity, but even that much is going to be quite challenging.

You reward defending by giving honor to everyone in range every so often. You give honor for flag caps similarly: anyone in range of the cap gets honor (which rewards defenders since they're in your base, and healers since they were escorting the flag carrier.

This still discourages some currently good behavior - positioning yourself for an instant grab after the flag resets, for example.

Worse, these sorts of reward schemes force people to a certain strategy in order to maximize honor gain, and thus they discourage any kind of strategic innovation. AV is the big example of 'this is the best way to win based on how much bonus honor the objectives give'.

IMO they just need to reward winning a rated BG amply rather than trying to reward the individual steps that make people win. That way players can find their own strategies rather than feeling like they have to do it this One Particular Way or they're costing themselves points. If they want to focus their work on improving some aspect of BGs it should be working on the time it takes to play a match and trying to get that to a more consistent level - again, if we look at AV, strategies that can work for winning the game are discouraged because they can lengthen the game. If honor/minute was more or less static no matter the strategy used then more options are opened up and the metagame in rated BGs will be more interesting.

Depends on the BG, but let's see...

AB: Being near a base you own spews out points for you. But that spew is multiplied by the total number of bases you hold, and being at an enemy base when it's capped gives you a large bonus. Double points if you win.

AV: An enemy tower that you've captured gives you a big lump of points when it finally burns. Recapping a tower that the enemy was trying to burn gives you a big lump of points. Generals nigh-invincible until all towers are down. Double points if you win.

You could remove points for kills entirely and these schemes should still produce nice fights. Above all, just relax. So someone not as awesome as you got just about as many points. Big deal, sometimes people doing 800 DPS win rolls in a dungeon. Life ain't fair.

Is anyone else as nervous about rated BGs as I am? The whole thing feels like some asshole at Blizzard saying: 'Hey guys, remember the roaring success that we made out of the Arena? Who's up for trying to extend it over all of PvP?'

Not really nervous about it. PvP doesn't mean all that much to me. Personally, I think the whole concept should be shitcanned yesterday. However there is some fun to be had in it--in small doses.

In my opinion, the whole thing is an unholy mess and they can hardly fuck it up worse than it is. So...we'll see. We as a community will either adjust or not. What PvP I do now is mostly bracket twinks and some world griefing on the side. If all that were to go away it wouldn't effect me much--maybe even save me some time in game.

I'm not nervous about them. I don't think they'll kill the regular random BG queuing or anything.

I *do* think they will be a bit more underused than Blizzard hopes just because you have to set up actual same-server PUGs to do it. They'll probably need to extend the LFG interface to cover building rated BG groups in some way or another to get what they want out of it, especially for the larger BGs. The other issue is that on some underpopulated realm/sides you may just be SOL in terms of ever even getting into a rated BG because there just won't be enough interested people putting groups together.

Some of these points are good, but I didn't see much for the few healers in BG's out there.  My priest typically goes through an entire BG without getting a single kill.  Of course, you could go by the amount of healing I did and my proximity to all the killing.  I get plenty of that.

My biggest beef the last two weeks has been with multi-boxers.  3 elem shaman all blasting the same thing at the same time with a sea of 12 totems all at once?  That is just painful and nearly impossible to overcome without *extreme* coordination.  As we know, random BG's have very little of that most of the time.

I've got a guy in my guild who 4 Boxes elemental shaman; are you in the Stormstrike battlegroup?

We had some of them in our battlegroup for a while.  If you have any fear abilities at all, it really seemed to screw them up, since they had to have all their guys refollow or whatever since they are now scattered all over.  

I haven't seen them in a while for some reason.  Maybe they moved to your battlegroup.   :grin:

Whirlwind is fucking hopeless. Resubbed earlier, 1-5 in battlegrounds so far. I'd focus more on PVE, but half hour queues to do anything as DPS is bullshit.

Looks like Rated Battlegrounds are going to be premade-only. You can pug 'em with people on your server, but good fucking luck with that.

Also, I'm sure everyone on the overpopulated side of an imbalanced server will just LOVE Blizzard's new solution for their "world PVP" battlegrounds. Hey Horde on Cho'gall (or whatever), 90% of you aren't allowed to do Wintergrasp anymore because no Alliance play your server. Sorry.

But hey, don't worry, Blizzard has finally figured out how to keep bots out of battlegrounds so that they can actually give out some nice rewards: Make you join a Trade PUG to do them. Oh fucking boy.

[2. Trade]Pwnius: LF heals for rated wsg, min 1500 resil or gtfo

Gee I can't wait.

And then that WSG group will proceed to get curbstomped by a premade consisting of nothing but Druids.

Nah, 9 druids, and a pally for freedom. Balance, yo!  :awesome_for_real:

Someone asked for pew pew?

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1143749/Popular.png)

Relevant to the Discussion:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25482320318&sid=1

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/25482320318/rated-battlgrounds-why-premades/


Same thread/posts, second link just filters the Blizzard responses quickly.




My best guess currently, is the logistics of trying to make a BG squad will quickly burn out everyone but the most dedicated and we'll actually get a big surge of fresh Arena Teams that just want to 10 games for free points.

I also don't know how they intend to match make rated BGs, if at all.

It's all wank anyway. The only reason they won't let us auto-queue for rated BG is because they want someone to be able to kick botters if they're going to be handing out top-notch gear. Otherwise there's no functional difference. Premades could still queue together, and random puggers could be auto-grouped.

I figure there will be a couple months of casual players flooding rated BGs, but then it'll simply turn into Arenas where the only people who need apply are those who view PvP as their serious end-game and those poor schlubs who struggle for a month to get and maintain an 1800 rating for some weapons that are optimized for their non-rated BGing.

0-3 trying to win a random BG daily. If you're running around battlegrounds in PVE gear and it's NOT because you're literally just starting out at PVP, I want to blow your brains out in front of your children.

Meh.  I lost 6 AV's in a row Sunday.  2 1/2 hours of failures not defending towers until we finally managed to squeak out a win.

0-5. Will WUA get any arena points today? Sources say no!

Guaranteed to induce mail, gun and DPS dagger drops.

I'm sick of all the mail drops. I very very very much want a feature where you could turn off types of drops from the raid. That would bring the awesome up a notch. Cloth and plate wearers rejoice.

Well they've already gone to tokens for set pieces, so I can't imagine its impossible to think they'd go further from random loot.  Hell, maybe eventually you'll just a steady stream of badges just for logging in and not being AFK.

We essentially have that now with normal raids.

Forward that mail my way. When I'm on my shaman, mail never seems to drop. When it--rarely--does, it's almost invariably spellcaster trash. If it weren't for tokens, my draenei would be running around in twill. It's even worse with 1h axes and maces.

It's inevitably the items that no one can use which drop.  I was on my DK last night and the dagger I never saw on my Druid finally did and got vendored.

Random loot sucks, news at 11?  :why_so_serious:

I think random loot sucking is coded into the system to keep retention. But that's always been my  :tinfoil:

There were three or four guys who did this on Hellscream. One of them was actually pretty good. The other two guys had no idea what they were doing.

No, but I see it from several people, so it isn't as rare as one might think.  I've seen it on alliance too and had them in my raid.  It is nice from a "we win!" scenario, but it just feels dirty and wrong. 

Just in the last few months, or even weeks, my server has gone from having a slightly outnumbered but vigorous Horde that put up a good struggle in Wintergrasp and won often enough, to being one of "those servers" where Wintergrasp consists of the majority side curbstomping a few scattered enemies during anything but the wee hours of the morning. I don't know what happened.

That's where Doomhammer is now too. I suspect that the pre-expansion doldrums have a tendency to hit outnumbered sides a little harder.

Been that way on WW lately. Nice from the aspect of gathering and turning in shards for my various twinks (DK hasn't killed any lamers lately camping the vendors--kinda miss that). Not so much fun in the BG itself, though the horde occasionally does get it together and put up a fight.

Recently started playing again (some friends talked me into it).

I think the part that pisses me off the most about this games PvP has got to be that you can pass threw each other.

"W" (aoe) "S" (aoe) "W" (aoe) "S" (aoe) "W" (aoe) "S" (aoe) "W" (aoe) "S" (aoe). Seems to be all you need. Currently playing a warrior, and man, I think someone that called the "rage" bar an "Anti-fun bar". I think it was quite apt. I now know why there are so many paladins.

I have a real hard time with this targeting system, by the time I have someone targeted, have enough rage, I have to wait forever for my toon to swing (Someone said wow combat was speedy, its not, movement is though), and by the time he does, they passed threw me and seem to have done an instant 180, and of course are subsequently out of my attack cone (that seems tiny, just like targeting with TAB is). Not to mention, Can I PLEASE have a larger render distance, that shit it retarded short (all setting maxed) in the world PvP, that, or call it a invisibility skill. :oh_i_see:  I really wish they would require you to have a minimum Ping, that, or its just simply that all gnomes warp all over the dam place. GNOMES. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.

I enjoy a lot of PvP in various games, but I have to say, this stuff is infuriating. I have never had to deal with much of it before due to mostly playing casters in this title. Its seems the only appeal I can imagine for this kind of PvP is the large possibility that you can get some gear, and hit someone for more damage than they have hit points. I can't really say PvP in this game is appealing, or well done.

Some of it is me stumbling with melee after being a caster so long, I can accept that. But god dam. Also, I think out of ever 10 open world fights, only one has even been even close to a match.

Ill take WAR/DAOC PvP + Wow PvE now please, thanks.

/nub rant

As a warrior, if you haven't hamstrung your target, you've failed in pvp. That cuts down on a lot of the running through you shit.

I noticed. Thing is, and I'm no expert, hamstring is at least a #2 key press in most cases. I need to ether rage out, or charge beforehand, or im dead. I feel its an extremely shallow number of options for opening moves.

My next complaint (and again, never had to deal with this as a caster, poor opponents) is being shot threw walls and terrain, does this game even do LOS checks at all after the initial key press?

My instinct is to break line of sight, seems this is a pointless instinct to have.

(Again, im just venting, going from caster to melee I have not had to deal with this stuff, so this is one part frustration and one part cry for help)

Charge is your opening move. Hamstring is next while they are stunned. Then SMASH!

Also, intercept if you are fighting mages.

PS - LOS issues are bad for warriors, and if you play in places that have a lot of them, you will lose. That bridge arena level always makes me stabby with ppl jumping on and off it.

I don't have intercept yet, but I could see how it would change things. Right now, charge, hammy and im spent.

For your viewing and laughing pleasure: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=The+Venture+Co&cn=Grimst

Well for starters, you are twink pvping, which wasn't clear.
Second, you're pvping in prot, which is only a good idea when you have actual prot abilities, and you don't at that stage.
Third, if you like pvping your way up, go into the arms tree and grab Improved Charge, Iron Will, and Improved Overpower. Improved Charge gives you more rage to work with off a charge (always good), and Iron Will cuts down on charms and stuns.
Fourth, get a 2Her and use overpower whenever it's up for instant awesome.
Fifth, Hamstring and RAWR!!!

However, expect to suck at that level b/c warriors usually don't get awesome until later when you get more cool insta-shit to do with 2H weapons.

Hahaha.  This should be good.

Dude.  Don't level prot.  For the love of god.  Arms or Fury.  Also, don't PvP as prot.  I know there are people who will say it's possible, but it's not really.  When you get better and have more stuff, you can try being a damage soak for your friends, but for now you need some instant damage both for leveling and killin' dudes.

Also.  Through! 

Don't roll as protection in the lower brackets. It's an exercise in futility. My own twink warrior is in the 59 bracket and I've eaten prot types for lunch up until now. In this bracket they're actually annoying, but I still usually beat them (bleed effects and OP eat them up).

The arms tree enjoys all sorts of rage enhancing abilities and glyphs. My own warrior is rarely rage starved. If she's fighting, she has (a lot) of red in the bar. The only real issue is getting caught flat...hoofed...somewhere, but talented/glyphed berzerker rage and/or second wind can usually get me rolling in high style.

Your fights should be charge, hamstring, rend, OP (usually over at this point), then MS or maybe sudden death-pumped executes depending on the situation. The main killers are the bleed effects and talented/glyphed OP. This just crushes most opponents. MS is great, but generally it's for the heal debuff on annoying assholes like priests and paladins. OP is simply the heat.

If you're twinking, get a bloodied arcanite reaper, put crusader on it, and then enjoy the mayhem. Get some hit points, too. Most of the horde warriors I beat the hell out of are usually half my hit point total.

Well, to be fair, I only have one more point in protection than the others (and I think I have some points to spend, ill most likely dump in arms) I do have a rather awesome 2-handier at my disposal. Twink? I got all that gear from my normal play if thats what you mean, though that glyph is high level I think? I do however roll with two friends that are twinked.

I recently changed all my gear last night, so all my enchants are missing as well. (working on that warrior armor quest line)

Thanks for the tips everyone. However, the acronyms, I'm not sure what some of them mean.

EDIT:  arms.

Yeah.. first I was going to say that low-level pvp is a huge pain when going up against twinks in full BOA gear (especially as a warrior, which is the most gear-reliant class in the game), but your gear is not bad at all. I'd prob go a different spec (if you really wanna stay prot, pour everything into prot to get improved revenge and last stand), but eh, it's no big deal until you get to level 30 for your 21-point skill; concussion blow is huge.

Some stuff off the top of my head:
- Rage... sucks, yeah. You need a big stick to get more rage, and the more rage you have, the more pain you can dish out. Berserker rage (at level 30?) is huge for rage gain unless you need to save it for a fear when fighting a priest, a warlock or even another warrior.
- LOS: if you're in warsong gulch, the tree stumps in the middle part look like they block LOS but they don't. Most other stuff (except for thin fences) blocks LOS as it should. SOME channeled spells go through los (drain life/soul and arcane missiles) as long as you were in LOS when it was originally cast on you (tradeoff: standing still and channeling a spell in pvp is a pretty big bullseye in many cases)
- Even if you aren't doing omg insane damage, you can help your team a lot by hamstringing flag carrier / healers of the flag carrier / using intimidating shout on an enemy zerg at a pivotal time. Damage wins the epeen charts, CC skills win games. Same with interrupting casts of enemy healers / casters..
- Prot warriors really blossom at higher levels with spell reflect, in-combat charge in defensive stance, aoe frontal stun and so many silences/stuns that you're worse to peel than a rogue. :p At lower levels... dunno, like others said, go arms or fury. Don't split your points 3-way across all trees, focus on one at least until level 60!
- Open world pvp: it sucks, just like any diku pvp really. Sometimes you can get grudge matches going vs other leveled people, but most people are bad losers and fetch a 80 to camp you to heal their bruised ego.
- warping: was the gnome a rogue? Sprint always has that effect, but a nice stun breaks them up.
- people running through you: this is sometimes a problem, but less for a warrior than a caster. I cranked my mouse sensitivity up so I'd keep up (you can 180' swivel your camera in a split second), but it still doesn't always work since I play with 700 ping. The runthrough-aoe thing isn't effective at all: only two classes that come to mind that can do that are mage and priest, and both of them run out of mana/hp while dealing very little damage if they do that.
- Tangent, but I massively prefer WOW pvp to any other diku pvp on the market (guild wars is better, but that's also not diku) below the level cap. It's fast paced and has a fair amount of finesse (spell interrupts, cc, juking, kiting) and honestly, it flows way better than something like WAR did (blah). At level 80 it just becomes a "who has the better gear" game, sadly.

Only two mean much to warrors: OP = overpower (yum). MS = mortal strike (die, pally!).

BOA stuff is fine, but when you hit 57, get the TBC plate. Man that stuff...it's just sick. Most importantly, if you're twinking, do it right and enchant the piss out of everything. Blow the bank. It's worth it for the coming giggles in the BGs.

Glyphs can be a big deal. Just use what you can, when you can. Early on you don't have a whole lot of options, but glyphed OP is a hoot (goodbye rogue rat-bastard!). What you're aiming for is stuff than enhances rage generation and pumps your core abilities (things that make you hit like a truck, in other words). I've played with glyphed sweeping strikes some. It's fun early on (and has resulted in the demise of more than a few opportunisitc rogue bastards), but probably not a great one. Zerk rage, MS, OP, maybe hamstring (if talented, too)...stuff like that.

Edit: Runthrough. Use this to your advantage. I always charge (love juggernaught) then run through my opponent while applying hamstring. Then whip around (laser mouse for the win), rend, and beat the shit of your hapless keyboard-turning opponent. This happens very frequently. Very frequently...

You're not the twink.  You are playing against twinks.

Don't take this at face value. At your level, Bloodworth, prot is a bad PVP spec. It is NOT a bad leveling spec though and hasn't been for years, and it can be extremely powerful in pvp at higher levels.

My main question is are you doing BG pvp with /level turned off? Because if you are you need to get the hell out of there, people with leveling turned off only play against other people with leveling turned off and that means you are in twink vs. twink hell as a non-twink. Get the hell out of there if so, you will not have any fun anytime soon.

I'm simply attempting to enjoy PvP. Breaks up the questing/instancing. I had no idea there was a way to stop gaining XP. Keep in mind, I'm coming back from a 2 year break.

OK good, you're doing it the 'right' way for a non-twink then. The no-level BGs are ridiculous.

I've been doing low level non-twink pvp and it is a great way to break up standard questing.  The exp gain is very very nice and can pump you up in levels so when you do go questing again, you can do it quicker/easier.  You just have to remember your weapon skills will be behind.  Only takes 5 mins to catch up though.

Everyone in the non-twink BG's are just in there to throw down like you.  Don't need special equipment, just a good sense for pvp in general.

Don't go /level unless you plan to make a career of staying at that level and twink yourself out min/max style.

Yeah... I had a rogue at 19 for awhile with excellent gear, I thought. I didn't have the arena master though, or the fishing hat. I actually got made fun of in BGs for not having 1k hp... it wasn't like I was bad, but almost everyone with xp turned off is insane.

On top of all the other advice, this should tell you where your biggest problem is, particularly since you're playing against folks who haven't been on that break.   Frustrating, yes.  Maddening as they pull out tricks you haven't seen, yes.  Just power through and learn, taking your lumps of initiation and you'll be great in short order.

Yep.

Thanks guys, ill let you know how it goes  :grin:

Come on man.  I'll give you that it is now possible to level prot.  But it's not really a good idea.  I leveled my third warrior like four months ago.  I went arms, and I made a prot spec as soon as I could in case I got a wild hair up my ass and decided to do an instance.  So I'll own up to having no idea at lowbie levels.  But there's no comparison post 40.  None.  Arms kills twice as fast.  I'm going to say fury is similar.  I hardly even had to eat and I was just raping the shit out of everything.  Granted I had an Arcanite Reaper and both the shoulders and chest.  But everything else was green quest reward crap, and of course I was wearing the shoulders and chest in both specs.  If you like prot, cool.  But it's not a good leveling spec.  It's just better than it used to be.  And that's not good, it's sad.

Much better now (Talent changes + armor), other then the pass through, and bliping gnomes, and the lack of LOS on spells hurled at me.  :oh_i_see: I had a bunch of points I had not used yet.

A spell should only hit you when you're out of LOS if the spell was cast before you got there. Unless what you thought was a real obstacle was not. Trees, for instance, do not block LOS for some reason. I cast through trees all the time.

What did you have for your 1h/shield weapon? My warrior has done 1-50+ now as prot and its just as fast as either arms or fury and three times as survivable. He has an BoA 1h'er though, and any heirloom weapon makes a warrior OP as shit while leveling.

Also, what is this 'eating' you speak of  :oh_i_see:

Arms *might* be faster 40-50, but once prot gets shockwave there's no comparison, it kills nearly as fast on single targets, much faster on multiple targets, has far less downtime, and can easily take on many group quests by itself where the other specs just die. I'd never recommend anyone level as anything BUT protection after shockwave becomes available, and that's not even counting how much faster your dungeon queues are.

"Far less downtime" cannot be stressed enough for the higher level protection warrior. I never, ever, ever, ever had to stop killing to eat or bandage when I leveled my protection warrior from 70 to 80.

70 to 80 as a prot warrior is a whole 'nother animal. It's sick. My night elf warrior went from 63 to 80 strictly as prot and it was very easy. I'd venture so far as to say it's optimal for leveling in Northrend. Almost no downtime, crushed elites with no trouble, and insta-queue dungeons. What's not to like?

Well, for some, the act of actually tanking.  :grin:

I dunno what this prot warrior in PVP bullshit is. Whenever a bunch of people are fighting over a flag in AB or something and I see one, I just make them the lowest priority target. Have fun wailing on my plate armor and sacred shield with your one-hander, champ, we'll just pile four guys onto you after we've finished killing your friends.

I'm not sure I know what any of you are going on about. I had one, single talent point more in protection. Now I have mostly arms (Due to suggestions), so uh, ok.
Besides, if one whole tree of talents is useless, they may want to look into that. There is no plate armor and "sacred shield" at my current level BTW, is PvP really that messed up that any mention of PvP implys "at 80" and nothing else?  :ye_gods:

No, the plate and sacred shield are what I have, since I play a paladin.

What you need to do is go to a site like Elitist Jerks or something, and look up an optimized build. None of this "Hey I've been forgetting to spend my talent points lately, derpy derp guess I'll dump them into X!" business. Then make sure you're using your mouse to manuver and keybinds to attack. Suddenly you too will be able to make 180 turns on a dime.

For real, they're not pushing W and S to run through you. Anyone using their keyboard to manuver in PVP is just a big target with a fixed and very slow turning rate, doomed to wonder why everyone is able to magically stick to their back.

Well, you had a sword and board out, that usually implies playing like a prot warrior (arms warriors like 2-handers, fury warriors like dual wield). And uh, people are saying 'pvp at 80' because everyone's been 80 forever unless they're leveling their n-th alt. No idea what you mean by pvp being 'messed up' either.

Anyway, prot warriors aren't all that bad, and they can be downright nasty with an MS class (preferably hunter). They are also good at killing indirectly, ie. preventing a healer from getting any casts off while your teammates pound the flagcarrier into pulp.

edit2: most of the stuff below pertains to high-level prot warriors, I have nfi how lower levels work... mostly because by the time the talents were available, my warrior was already 70. :p
You can open on a healer with concussion blow (5sec stun), interrupt their next cast with shield bash (6-sec lockout, or 2-sec silence if they only use instants), use shockwave for an aoe stun (2 seconds on the healer due to DR, but you'd ideally catch a few others in the cone as well) after the lockout or silence is up, strafe away and charge just when the stun's about to end since it's not on any DR and gets you rage, use heroic throw for an extra silence at range or even in melee if necessary, and cycle through your stuns again. All this time your friends are wailing on the kill target who's getting no heals. Have spell reflect up between stuns so they can't NS+cyclone/hex or hammer of justice you without screwing themselves.

If they trinket a stun at any point, intimidating shout them for an 8-second 'stun'. Weave in charge stuns whenever charge is up for an extra 2 seconds of non-diminishing return stunnage. If they make the mistake of trying to cast a spell with a cast time, shield bash will lock them out long enough that you can actually get a kill unless they're a holy paladin.

Caveat: 'effective' prot pvp needs really good gear to pull off, but even my blue-geared 3rd string prot warrior alt has won the day quite a few times in BGs.


edit: def. agree with WUA and others: if you aren't using your mouse to turn and keybinds to attack, you're at a severe disadvantage in pvp... in any mmog really, but especially in wow.

Solid suggestion.  Once I was able to jump, turn 180 and fire, turn back and run on my hunter, kills came much faster and easier.  Master mouse movement, strafing, and jump turns.  It will change your performance in pvp pretty significantly. 

I also notice that most players don't pan when they move.  I love taking advantage of this as well. 

I am using my mouse and keyboard keys, unless you are saying that I can go backwards and strafe with just the mouse, please do tell. I sat there and watched many many opponents simply dance forward and back, perhaps its the standard way to avoid a melee? Doesn't stop people from passing through. I don't really care that much to go for "optimized" builds, I use builds that fit my playstyle, its why I usually do not like trees. There are somethings about this "PvP" that I just simply dislike (Pass through, LOS namely). Doesn't mean I won't play some to break up my other activities. I was simply asking for advice to at least not just be fodder or kills food.

You bring up the stick to your back, is there some sort of "Stick to target" command?

Here is my updated load out: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=The+Venture+Co&cn=Grimst

I was about to use my fancy two hand last night, but noticed it has slipped behind and I need a new one.


This helped a good deal. I also have some pots on my G-keys that helps too, as it seems no one heals in PvP or something.  I do realize a lot of my issues are me fumbling with with keys or not knowing the tells of opponents, something ill improve with as I do more.

EDIT: hum, two hand is an intriguing proposition.

Three things are usually considered to be a huge handicap in pvp (any diku pvp really, not just wow):
- keyboard turning: A and D are set to 'turn left/right' by default (again, this is not a wow thing... I've seen the same default binds in coh and lotro at least), so new players use it. Keyboard turning is slooooooooow and allows anyone to circle-strafe or run through you. If you're a caster, this means you won't be able to get any spells off at them; if you're melee, you're exposing your back all the time. Huge disadvantage.
- clicking: Clicking your abilities in pvp combat is a *huge* no-no. Not only is it much slower than hitting a hotkey (especially if you need to react to something quickly), it forces you to take your mouse off turning, so all you can do is move/strafe and can't turn. Bind every ability you use in pvp to easily accessible hotkeys; don't need to bind long-cooldown out of combat abilities and other fluff.
- backpedaling: Arguably a smaller problem, but backpedaling (going backwards with 'S') is much slower than turning and running.

Alternatives to the 3 problems:
- You should be using WASD (or ESDF) like an FPS, ie. strafe with keys and turn by holding down the right mouse button. You're probably doing this already.
- Like Nebu said above: for instant turns and looking around you without turning (good if you're running / kiting, or just situational awareness), turn your camera by holding down the left mouse button and swing it behind you. This way you can do an instant 180' by depressing the left mouse button and hitting the right mouse button (which turns you in the direction the camera is facing immediately). Zoom your camera out as much as possible.
- If you're kiting, don't walk backwards with S; you need to side-step at full speed while occasionally turning towards the enemy or doing jump-shots (jump, turn towards enemy, cast in midair, turn back before you hit the ground). 'Elite pvpers' like to unbind S or bind some other ability there, but they're also wrong because backpedaling is useful for pve tanking (you want to keep the mobs ahead of you and running speed is not an issue).

fake edit: WAR had autoface and autostick and it was really annoying to play for me, the entire combat felt mushy (and I played an ironbreaker, so I was the one doing the bodyblocking in the first place!). Guild wars has auto-run-to-target, but I didn't mind it there for some reason.

Regarding los: most los items should actually work normally... really, the only exception I can think of are the tree stumps in WSG midfield (which is annoying as hell, I'll agree).

Once you get your KG and mouse movement down, you'll be shocked at how many actually don't. Pleasently shocked.

Friend of mine was totally opposed to PvP in this game until I hassled him enough to set up his blood DK for the 79 bracket. We got him a Steelseries KB with the left hand pad and a good laser mouse and suddently it's a new game for him. Now he sees why clicking and KB turning is such a disadvantage. Now he rapes faces in the BGs and is pretty bully on PvP (well, at least bracket PvP). Actualy, I"ve been seriously considering picking up a Logitech G13 just for the extra keys on my left hand and the hatswitch as an alternative to the ASDX movement keys that I use (yeah, I use X to backpedal).

As for your troll warrior: seriously, get a BoA reaper and the plate pieces, then rock the arms tree. You'll be really surprised what a difference this can make. When my draenei warrior was in the 29 bracket she had over 2k hps and literally one/two shotted about everything she ran into. Fun doesn't even begin to describe it. The best feeling was seeing hordies actualy run from you when they saw you coming (ah, god, not her again...). Good times.

Keyboard: http://www.steelseries.com/us/products/keyboards/merc_stealth/information

G13...thingum: http://www.logitech.com/en-us/keyboards/keyboard/devices/5123

Mouse: forget the Copperhead; check below.

Can you link me those items you are talking about?

Actually, if I were doing it today I'd go with a different mouse. The Copperhead is more than a few years old, but it's a good one. I have two laying about and they show no signs of wearing out, so I still run them.

This: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826153054 tempts me greatly.

This one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826105093 I've heard really good things about and I've seen it for around $40. Might be my next mouse, though my Copperheads just keep soldiering on...

lol, I was talking about the in game gear you mentioned.  :grin:

Lol, enemies who ran from me when they saw me made me play a rogue so they couldn't even see me coming to flee!  :drill:

You can't get them, he's talking about the heirloom plate pieces but you'd need an existing 80 on your account to get them.

Hah. Well, lemmee see if I can find my armory...

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Whisperwind&cn=Flounce

There's the shoulders I run and the 'reaper. I don't use the BP for PvP anymore, but it's still in her inventory for leveling. I also have the PvP shoulders...hmmm...ah, here:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Whisperwind&cn=Theodora

Yeah, no level 80 is going to be a bit of a problem.

Best solutions: get green stuff "of the beast/soldier". Best bets, especially on TBC itemized "soldier" stuff. Secondly, lock xp for LFD and run dungeons until your eyes bleed. The bag rewards can be quite good, though they're a crapshoot on what you get. Still, it's blue gear and in the 29/39/49 brackets it'd be great. Weapons are going to be an issue. Just run LFD for a dungeon where some good 2h drops. I'm thinking the axe from RFK would be good at 29, the others...Scarlet Monastary quest reward axe at 39, 49 not so sure, but probably something from Uldaman.

Or you can just gut it out to 80 on this character as best you can, get your BoA stuff and twink a pally coming up through the BGs for grins.

Oh, I don't have an 80, but I do have other higher toons. Mostly casters and ranged, hence most of my system shock.

The R.A.T. 9 is getting really good previews. It looks odd as fuck, but supposed to work great.

http://cyborggaming.com/prod/rat9.htm

While looking at the approximately elventy trillion knobs and buttons on that Inspector Gadget monstrosity, I totally misread "INTERNET FWD" as "INTERNET FLUID" and spent a good ten seconds trying to figure out what the hell internet fluid is and why I would want it in my mouse.

Next time somebody asks my what's wrong with their computer, I'm going to tell them their mouse is low on internet fluid. I don't care if the problem is that their printer won't install - they need more internet fluid.

Internet fluid! Finally, the mystery as to why my left clicker no longer works is unraveled!

"Well you see, the internet is made of a series of tubes and....."

It's all done with ball bearings these days.

One word.  Plastics.