f13.net

I don't know if its my talent spec or what. I've tried several and I can't seem to win a 1 on 1 contest with most classes. Some much worse than others of course hunters/warlocks. Any suggestions as to how to spec and how to fight these guys solo would be great. Thanks!

All the mages I've seen do PvP do it very differently than PvE.  You can't rely upon your non-instant spells unless you have significant distance, and getting that distance can be difficult. 

Sheeping for the initial setup is usual, and using something like Pyroblast to lead when the opponent is sheeped.  Blink is essential either to close range (in the case of hunters) or gain it. 

But then again, I've only got a 30 mage on a PvP server, so..

Posting your armory profile would be helpful, and maybe what you know or have tried so far.

I too am terrible at it but getting better.  Maybe I'll have something to offer you, but maybe you already know what I know...

PvP with a mage is a lot like PvP by a rogue who sacrifices stealth for range. In a long fight, you lose.

Try to find people who are already mostly dead and finish them off before they see you. The longer the fight lasts, the more likely you are to lose. If they survive your burst damage, it's probably time to ice them up and run. In fact, if you see a losing fight anywhere nearby, run. Mages can run away almost as well as rogues. You probably won't win a fair 1v1 against a capable, prepared opponent.

Where mages really excel, however, is as a team player. If you've got a capable PvP group think of yourself like the main tank. You can't take hits, but you can escape if they start paying too much attention to you... and if they don't you can "taunt" by distracting and disabling anybody who's causing trouble. Freeze, polymorph, counterspell... whatever it takes to isolate and frustrate the enemy so that the DPS on your team can do some real damage..

I have a low 30s horde mage, and I've found I'm far, FAR more effective if I stay in a group and sheep the biggest 'problem' at whatever fight I find myself in.   It's also great for defense, so long as your team actually y'know, pays attention.  I've protected nodes and flags for a good minute just sheeping, iceing and keeping folks otherwise occupied.

All my spells just take too damn long to cast.  If I can't arcane explosion or scorch you to death, you get sheeped.

But that's just me.. I suppose now some ubar mage will come in and explain in detail why the rest of us suck and they can pwn faces.

I always had a problem 1v1 with my Fire Mage unless the fight was over quick (like a few crits). But in Battlegrounds, when traveling with a team, things were different.

I'd never beat down one target completely. I'd always distribute the death. Back when I was BG (pre-BC), most times if a class was down to 50% health, I could end them. After a while I took the philosophy of ending a fight with my biggest trinked/Talent-amp'd insta-casts rather than starting with them.

So as has been mentioned: instas are the only way to go and/or fast casting spells, and you don't want fights to last forever because we're so timer dependent.

I don't know if things have changed a bunch since I played two summers ago, but my priest that was disc/shadow, a mage, a rogue in stealth, and a hunter all used to band together and slay people as fast as we could. The hunter would hang out in the back, the mage would neutralize problems using CC, I would fear, and the rogue would pick them apart one by one.


Group pvp is much nicer than solo, especially as a mage. I know for a fact that I never lost a one on one against a mage as a priest simply because I could outlast him.

The only principles I know are this (I'm deep frost, btw):

- Almost too elementary to mention - start with sheep if you can, so that you gain the initiative.

- One trick: if jumped, summon your water elemental and iceblock.  That gives them the choice of switching to the WE, distracting themselves from you, or just eating its damage.  Root them with the elemental's frost nova, de-ice, blink away and start nuking.  Optionally you can then use cold snap to allow yourself another iceblock (30 sec later) and elemental, should they kill the first one.

- Iceblock also breaks fear and other effects that cause you to lose control of your character.

- Another iceblock trick is to wait until they have cast 90% of a heavy spell, like pyroblast or soul fire, then iceblock.  If they aren't quick to notice and cancel it, they waste it.

- Did I mention iceblock is useful?

- ALWAYS use your elemental.

- ALWAYS use ice barrier as much as possible.  Also don't forget about frost/fire ward if the incoming damage is appropriate.  You can expect frost vs a shaman, so just do it.  Wait to see what mages use on you.  Use fire ward against a warlock.

- Don't bother with ice barrier against a good priest.  They'll just dispel it.  Try it once and if they dispel it, give up.

- Don't allow warriors or paladins to approach you.  Don't forget you can blink out of stuns.

- Don't forget about ice lance, particularly if you have shatter.  Even if you don't, 200 damage at a time adds up, and you can cast it while moving.

- Try to find a hunter's deadzone.  Caveat: I have fared very poorly at this.  Also they have a lot of tricks that cause us problems, like scatter shot and silencing shot, not to mention the spell pushback (interruption) from the pet.  Try to keep the pet sheeped or nova'd.

Double post  :x

In addition to the above, for hunters, frost nova or whatever it's called to trap the hunter, then stay inside dead zone but just outside melee reach and most importantly, keep moving around.  Hunters have to face their targets.

My marksman hunter has a little trouble with mages, because I don't have a super uber pet that can munch down and interrupt.  When I was beastmaster spec, I had little to no trouble with mages.  I felt like the hammer to their nail. 

I don't know much about mages in pvp, although I do keep a little high 20s mage for attacking horde in Hillsbrad when I want to be annoying to questers.

Beastmaster Hunters are the bane of Mages. At least, I was -- pet specced for high ice, arcane, and shadow resistance, the ability to be immune to all CC for 18 seconds, and a nice stun there too. Plus frenzy and serpent's swiftness means you had instants and nothing else.

Best you could hope for was to ice-block and at least soak some of the damage, but I really could shred you in nothing flat, so it didn't matter. Your best hope is to sheep the hunter and kill the pet.

As for mage PvP -- I went pure ice-spec, and my goal was to slow down, harass, and irritate any groupings of more than two or three opponents. Blizzards, blink + FN, whatever I had to do. I kept them clustered and slow to aid AoE and to prevent them from focusing on a single target. I loved defending GY's and Flags.

My gnome mage was awesome in AB. Even in pre-BC blues I could rack up kills/assists without any danger to myself by casting from behind doodads that any other race would easily be spottable behind. :)

You were the asshole who used the bug and sat in your base and AM'd everyone on the map by assisting the suicidal warrior weren't you?

 :-P

On Argent Dawn, there was a notorious undead mage named "Millie" who had the amazing habit to hide from everyone (this was pre-TBC). She could -- and did -- solo cap SP graveyard, racked up tons of kills, and was the most annoying single player I have ever faced. She didn't exploit (that I saw, at least), but was just very good at positioning and using mage abilities.

I made it my job to track her down -- she couldn't hide from "Track Humanoid" -- and I spent several AV's playing single-man defense because of her ninja capping ability. Her plus a rogue was nasty.

Isn't there an elixir that does this now?

Probably. It wouldn't surprise me. Last I checked -- which was a good while back, lvl 70 hunters still sucked in PvP. Sort of second-rate at everything.

They don't suck, per se, they just don't bring enough to the group to place them in a 5-man over another, more specialized class.  Kind of like Shaman.  Though, at least shaman can heal, so they get picked-up more than hunters.

BM hunts still eat clothies alive for that 18s.  They can do a good job on pallies too (and I have) forcing them to blow bubbles or self-heal early on.  Too bad Viper sting sucks ass nowadays, or else we'd be really good at anti-pallydom.  Still can do a decent job between Ice Trap, etc, but it's usually too much effort.

How's Viper trap work out? I figure it'll just get obliterated by AoE, but I was hoping a well-placed one would annoy the crap out of people and get enough effects in before someone blew it away.

If you time it right it does exactly that.  But yeah, one AOE and the snakes are all dead, even a pally concecrate.   They're quick and seem to poison with every hit though, so you can get a good number of effects on one or two folks at a time.

Hunters are designed to work in clear spaces with good LoS and the ability to kite. Arena's remove all of that, so it's a small wonder Hunters are doing so poorly in them. Combine that with the trinket changes and PvP/Arena Gear, not much is going right for Hunters in the arena game. The difference between a PvP'd gear Mage and a PvE'd one is substantial.


Our 6k HP, 0 Resilience, Fire Mage is definitely dead meat to a Beast Hunter.

Our 9k HP, 150+ resilience, Frost Mage? He only notices the hunter when the pet stuns him.


As the gear goes up, the Hunter and his Pet go down in effectiveness.

When I took a break, I noticed that Hunter itemization just went...sideways. I geared up a bit as I went along, but there didn't seem to be a whole lot of really nice gear unless I was cutting edge raiding. Never did see the Arena awards (arena was after I left), but even now I get the impression that Hunter power just didn't scale with everyone else's.

Which to one extent, made sense -- 60 Hunters after 2.0 were lethal. It was insane. It's just by the time 70 hit, it wasn't that gear and progression had placed us back into the realm of sanity -- it was that we ended up "meh" in about everything. About all Hunters can do is steady, steady, steady moderate DPS for a very long time. Which is nice for big boss fights -- in PvP, however, we don't seem to have much of a role. Can't do burst DPS, our crowd control is minimal, our Pet isn't all that annoying (Even BM specced), we have no healing except for the pet -- and the fights are too short for our only strengths to ever show up.

Some classes just don't have a real role in the Arena's, their toolbox isn't equipped for it. Notably it is currently the classes that require mobility to function and lack effective means to survive focus fire while remaining effective. (Conversely the classes that can stand right in the muck of things while being being beat on are the ones doing the best).

A hunters survival is based around the idea of keeping things away from the hunter and being able to out maneuver bad guys. No where to move in the Arena's and the LoS games being played screw over a hunter readily. Druids have similar issues where they have no room to run and can't avoid being focused, so their only recourse is to go bear and turn into the teams Healing Sponge. Rogues to a lesser extent have the focus fire problems and the lack of sneak time once the initial stealth is busted out of. As classes obtain more survivability while remaining effective under focus, they become more prominent. Again, Small wonder Warriors and Paladins are required for any competitive 5v5 team  :|

Hunters fare so much better in the Battle Grounds for the most part. Their toolbox can be utilized then.

Yeah, I had a blast in WSG leaving my kitty on prowl by the flag and running to the roof (generally left an frost-trap behind). Pop Aspect of the Beast, wait for their idiot to grab the flag. They trigger the frost trap (big snare on everyone), kitty goes red and stuns them, and I blast the shit out of everything in the area. It's fun. Viper trap would be almost as nice (or paired with it). I used mithral frags to good effect (when they all cluster in the tunnel chasing a flag-carrier, a 3 second AoE stun is nice).

In AV, I just pew-pew-d away from the tops of towers and such. Multi-shots into people trying to flip the flag, generally used the pet to good effect. If it wasn't for that "pets rez dead/dying" bug, I'd have played BG's a lot more. (Did they fix that?)

I'm about to resub, so I'm hoping Blizzard will do something to buff hunters a bit. As it is, I'll probably go back to levelling my shaman.

I want to say they have fixed the pet rezzing bugs, but I don't play a hunter or lock as a primary, so I don't really know 100%. It sure SEEMS like hunters and locks all have their pets in AV though  :wink:


Snake trap is a really good at disrupting the flags in AB and AV, since you can't capture the node with something hitting you and each individual snake has it's own attack. The various poisons they apply are also quite nasty, includes some snare poisons. Tracking is not to be underestimated either. Being able to find the FC in WSG, or being able to see inc from over the horizon in AB and AV.


The only issue with the BG's now, is that they are simply token dispensers and honour farms. Arena's have taken priority for "real" PvP, so the BG's are gotten stupider then usual as of late. The one good thing is you rarely have to deal with Set Groups steam rolling PuGs anymore, little incentive for the Set Groups once they get all their honour items within the week. AV has a huge AFK issue though, not uncommon to join games with half of the players just idling in the starting caves, hitting the jump button every so often to not AFK out.

The honour items just cost too much for their relative worth compared to the Arena Items or PvE equivalents, so you'll get people finding every way possible to maximize honour gains with minimal effort. It isn't too different from the old HWL honour farm, but now way more people do it since they'll actually be able to get items. Hurrah for a reward system balanced off of hardcore PvP teams farming it up during the first week of release, the same teams that haven't touched the system since that first week  :x .

I think I'm going too far off topic though, so enough of my ranting  :-)

Hehe. Are gotten stupider. You are a clever, clever man.

I'll take stupider BG's. I was sick of getting steamrolled by Horde teams (I played PuGs -- if I was lucky, I'd be paired with two or three guildies).

Yes pets rez in bgs now.  No I don't know how they do in BGs since I don't bother with them anymore, because of what Fordel outlined.  I get better gear with less headaches just losing my 10 arena matches a week.

How does the arena gear thing work? (My main is only 61 -- I quit not long after TBC). Hell, how does the arena work?

The Arena is a modified Elo rating system. There are three brackets, 5v5, 3v3, 2v2. Team DeathMatch basically, no respawns. Your team can have twice as many members as the brackets size for subs, so 10, 6, 4 for each respective bracket. Arena Teams are like mini guilds, you have to buy a team charter, the team gets its own name and its own emblem (though you can't wear that emblem as a tabbard sadly) and you don't have to be in the same guild to join any team.

Teams require at least 10 games played a week in their bracket in order to qualify for Arena Points. Members on a team must have at least 20% activity in numbers of game played by the entire team (I'll double check that number, I am not 100% certain on it). You are rewarded Arena Points once a week (Tuesday downtime) based on how high (or low) your team is ranked. There are many http://www.wowwiki.com/Arena_point_calculator sites that can help you guesstimate your point value. You use Arena Points to purchase gladiator armor, weapons and items. Glad items are tier 4-5+ equivalents but directed towards PvP. The 3v3 and 2v2 brackets receive reduced points compared to the 5v5 bracket of equivalent rating. You can be on a team for each bracket, but you only receive Arena Points for the team with the highest point return for that week.

The Arena itself currently consists of three playing fields. One is a open circle with 4 LoS blocking pillars near the ends. The second is a square with a elevated platform along the middle and a pair of pillars to either side of it, all block LoS. The Third is a open graveyard with a large tomb in the middle that blocks LoS but can be climbed. All three are quite small so fighting is close quartered. As the match progresses, power up gems will appear in the arena at designated points that allow the user to see stealth-ed players, This is to avoid a stealth'er from delaying a game forever by hiding.

The Arena's have special restrictions on items and abilities. No class ability with a cooldown longer then 15 mins is usable. No consumables are usable either (no health potions, grenades etc.) Exceptions include mage conjured food and water, warlock health stones, special PvP water purchased from the PvP vendor in your capital city and band-aids. Upon entering the Arena's pre-match waiting area, all buffs are stripped, so only the buffs available to your teams class choices are available. Inside the pre-match waiting area, all mana/energy/rage costs are zero, to expedite buffing. I'm not certain, but I believe warlocks also don't require soulstones during this pre-match period. Other reagents apply as normal.

All three brackets are ruled by FOTM 'ideal' team setups and superior gear. It's only at the top most rankings of the Arena's does actual player skill (what little of there that is in WoW) begin to differentiate the good teams from the stubborn. The good thing about the system is even the worst teams can net 300+ points a week, and will be able to pick up some kind of Glad item in a month or so, which isn't ideal, but neither is it completely horrible. Pushing even marginally above the average ranking of 1500ish will net you considerable gains.


From my perspective, the largest downside to the Arena is a fair number of classes and specs are just worthless. Warrior isn't arms? Your team will suffer. Paladin isn't Holy?  Mage isn't Frost? Shaman IS enhance? etc...

To say nothing of the classes, regardless of spec, that become liabilities for their teams.

Yeah, I can understand why hunters eat it there -- LOS alone would kill us.

However, remember that most enemies will need LOS on you, too. My pally's 3v3 is shadowpriest+hunter+pally (sub in a feral druid for the spriest sometimes), and we do pretty well against a variety of teams. The idea is that I stick close to the hunter, so if they try to get out of his LOS, they won't be able to counterspell/pewpew me either. We aren't uberl33t, but an 1650-ish rating after one week with blue/green gear [at least on my end] isn't that bad. :p

Now in 2v2, I can see it being a pain, you can have people just running around a pillar endlessly while beating on you. In 3v3 and 5v5, unless the other team is REALLY defensive, LOS abuse is only a huge problem on the blade's edge map [the one with the elevated bridge-platform and two pillars]. IMO, anyway.


-- Z.

Which is one of the big issues, 'most' not all. One of the many reasons why Heavy DoT teams are so dominant, especially in the smaller brackets. Lock is draining you, run behind a pillar, well that did absolutely nothing  :cry:

I don't see others eating it like a hunter does. First, I'm getting "small map" here -- which means less room between the hunter and his target. Hunters only do damage between 8 and 41 yards (what we do in melee isn't really damage. It's shit).

Our only DoTs are weak and work best paired with others (Viper is a bitch if someone ELSE is mana-draining you). We need space to kite, because once we lose that minimum 8 yard range we are well and truly fucked. We have minimal crowd-control (3 second stun, basically) unless you're stupid enough to hit our traps (arming times now). Our flares blow (easy to avoid now), our Mark is dispellable by vanishing rogues (great thought there), our burst damage is non-existant. TBW is nice, but it doesn't do shit if I can't shoot you because you won't stay in LOS.

I can think of two possible ways a hunter can make himself useful in 5v5. Get a scorpion to spam poison DoTs, making it tougher to remove the "Bad" poisons, or play the role of "crappy mage" for ranged assist trains. Or use a fast-attack pet to irritate the clothies, so they can't cast as easily.

But why would you take a Hunter when you could have any other damage dealer? It seems even worse on 2v2 and 3v3 games, where burst damage is even more critical.

Mages, rogues, and warriors are all better DPS. Warlocks can ignore LOS entirely with their DoTs, and their pets are almost as good as a BM specced hunter -- if not better. Looking at the top teams for all brackets, I don't see many Hunters. It appears we're either dead last, or close to it, in terms of team makeup.

I just don't see any reason to bring a Hunter to an arena match. We don't offer anything.

Yes, hunters eat it mightily against anyone with sense.  However, most teams DON'T have sense I'm able to run around with impunity until the healers are dead most times. I've picked-off some twits who chase me rather than stick close to their healers because they tried to LOS me but LOS'd their healer instead.  Oops.  It also helps that I'm beast, and people ignore the kitty who does nice damage even when he's not big & red.

If we had a pally we'd be a better team, as only teams with pallies or which massively outgear us seem to be spanking my current team hard.  However since most teams have pallies now, we're losing more often than not.  Key to success?  A healer in plate with 50% damage mitigation, 90% disrupt resist and low-cost heals that you have to kill twice.  Ignore 'em and they heal their team.. try and kill 'em and their team kills your healers then you.

Fuck i hate pallies.

That's just a reflection of the lower rankings and under geared people. The big red kitty isn't an issue once you start wearing 150-200+ resilience and have 10k HP unbuffed. Hunter's just don't have the tools for the Arena, not if you want to be competitive.

http://www.wowinsider.com/2007/07/12/this-week-in-the-arena/ and the original post http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=174763906&postId=1744694952&sid=1#0

Shows who is grouped with what in each bracket. Overall Druids, hunters and shamans seem to round out the bottom end. With most druids and shamans being resto.

Are we talking high rankings and being competitive here or 'what those of us on this board will be up against with our team of buddies'?

Yeah, hunters suck very quickly if you start to rank up.  That's been covered.  However, if your there to enjoy yourself and get some pvp gear, then it's a different discussion, and the one I thought I was partaking in.  You want to 'be competitive' then you're going to be leaving a bunch of classes & specs out.  Since there's nothing to gain but e-peen I don't see the point.

I was talking about overall effectiveness of the class in the Arena and PvP in general.

If we are discussing what we do for shits and giggles in PvP, I'll regale everyone with tales of my guilds 5v5 team consisting of and not limited to, A Balance Druid, A Protection Warrior, A half dozen Fire/Arcane mages with all of 6k HP and one desperate Holy Paladin doing her best to keep us alive. We really rock out the 1400's  :-D

Please do.  It's much more interesting than theorycrafting and pointing out all the flaws in the pvp system due to pve stuff. (And lord are there tons.)

Well, 2v2 is pretty much a gimmick-fest. Someone on my battlegroup did a quick count of the class distribution, and warlock+healer [or warlock+dps] completely dominates. There are a few odd combos too, like warlock+moonkin (http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/team-info.xml?r=Darkspear&ts=2&t=Lads&select=Lads). 2v2 is either dot-and-outlast (http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/team-info.xml?r=Stormscale&ts=2&t=dude+WTF+do+we+do&select=dude+WTF+do+we+do) [which beats most teams in the current metagame] or something like frostmage+rogue (http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/team-info.xml?r=Uldum&ts=2&t=Pro+Baddies&select=Pro+Baddies) where you have to rely on perfect CC to get the job done.

I can tell stories of my guild's 5v5 team too, consisting of a pve-spec holy priest [only healer, no pain suppression or blessed resilience], two pve-spec mages [squish squish], an MS warrior and a feral drood. Surprisingly, we broke 1650 with that team once in season 1, but otherwise we seem to hover in the 1500s. That's not too bad, considering only two people in our entire guild pvp. :P

3v3 seems to be a bit more balanced, with the gimmick teams being warrior+healer+pally and mana drain teams ie. warlock+priest+pally (carried over to 5v5 it'd be warlock+priest+drood+hunter+pally (http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/team-info.xml?r=Crushridge&ts=5&t=Team+Asia&select=Team+Asia)). I think a lot of the complaints would go away if drains started obeying LOS.


-- Z.

The 5v5 incarnation is more likely to have a elemental/resto shaman then a druid.




One of my guilds more amusing and bizarre matches went roughly like this. Our team was BalanceDruid, HolyPaladin, ProtWarrior, IceMage and FireMage. The enemy team was a HolyPaladin, ArmsWarrior, HealingNE (Druid or priest, I honestly don't remember), FireMage and SubtletyRogue.

The match was in the Nagrand Arena, with the four pillars and the open middle. Started off with a feeling out period, neither side wanted to leave the safety of their respective pillar spot, so the first minute or so, was me scouting their position and their rogue doing the same to us. Finally we go "screw it!" and charge across and our opponents had the exact same idea! The first 2.5 seconds of the fight go by and their NightElf Healer gets Pyrosploded all across the arena by our mages, she had no more then 6k HP, probably less. The next 4.5 seconds of the fight have our Gnome FireMage get insta gibbed by their rogue and ArmsWarrior. In the same amount of time passed, our Prot warrior is unsheepd by our paladin making their paladin curse shield bash, shield slam and concussive blow.

By this time, I've crossed the field in stealth to their FireMage and Pounce, Rake, Maim, Cyclone, Root, Tree (41 point balance talent) DoT, DoT, Nuke, Nuke, Dead Mage all the while he was blowing his cooldowns and escape tools in order to assist attempting to kill our frost mage, who in Turn IceBlocked with maybe seven HP left. At that moment I instantly became the target of the Warrior+Rogue train and shifted into Moonkin and Barkskinned, which allowed our Paladin to heal me, but caused our mage to come out of block with no healing and was holy shocked by their paladin and died.

So now it's Moonkin, ProtWarrior and Running Low on Mana HolyPaladin, against ArmsWarrior, SubRogue and Also fairly low on mana Holypaladin. So with both the warrior and the rogue beating on me, casting is futile between pushback and their interrupts, Shifting out is suicide, I'd lose my armor bonus, which is the only thing keeping me almost alive. So it's down to my instant spells available in moonkin. First thing I pop is Nature's Grasp, which luckily procs on the warrior and I move out of his range. I try to cast a cyclone on the rogue, but that is promptly kicked and 90% of my spells are now temporarily locked out. So what do I have left?

MoonFire!  :-D

I spam my moonfire button for all it's worth, spam it till my other spells unlock, then I apply my InsectSwarm (DoT) and FarieFire (prevents stealth). The Rogue is taking lots of damage, far more then he or their paladin expected. He Cloak of Shadows himself, but I get lucky and beat the odds to reapply my DoTs again. Our Paladin is healing unmolested while their paladin is only getting half his heals off thanks to our ProtWarrior. It's a strange, lopsided DPS race, one that I'm winning, I have the rogue within a sliver of life, a tiny spec, then BAM, the warrior's root wore off and he intercepts me, which stuns me, saving their rogue and dropping me from the fight.

So now it's a ArmsWarrior, HolyPaladin nearly OOM and a JustAboutGoingToDie Rogue vs. A ProtWarrior and Practically OOM HolyPaladin. Game Over...  :cry:


Or not! The Rogue in his haste and eagerness for the kill, neglects to actually bandage himself before charge into our Paladin, so he promptly gets holyshocked and dies. Now it's all down to Warriors and Paladins. At this point in the fight, both paladins have exhausted nearly all of their mana, we are talking waiting on mana5 to regen enough to cast a Flash of Light out of mana. So it's a DPS race, with the paladins adding their awesome auto attack DPS to the mix. Slowly, very slowly, both sides paladins are starting to die. It's looking very bad for our team, the ArmsWarrior is just outclassing our Protwarrior in DPS, and then, doom their paladin uses avenging wrath. Our Paladin dies, her last act is tossing Blessing of Freedom on our warrior. She lost the battle, but won the war.

Now, this part, you may not believe, I hardly believe it myself and I was watching it as it happened. The Last BoF on our warrior, was vital, it allowed our warrior to ignore their warriors hamstring, and hamstring their paladin in turn. Their paladin BoF'd himself, but it was removed by ShieldSlam and he was hamstrung again. He was slowly being whittled away by our warrior, it was absurd. He was actually dieing somehow. All the while their arms warrior is attacking furiously against our ProtWarrior, but to no great effect. Our warrior was in his full PvE tanking gear, and had all his defensive cooldowns to burn. The ArmsWarriors attacks only served to give our ProtWarrior unlimited rage! The paladin regens enough mana for a heal, but it's interrupted by a shield bash, Six seconds without healing. The Paladin's reaction once his spells were unlocked was to stun our Warrior. It backfires! Our warrior had anticipated this move and had spell reflect up. Six more seconds of no healing. The paladin tries to heal again, bashed. Precious moments without healing. Then the Paladins BoF is refreshed and he runs away to heal, but he fails to attain a LoS block and is promptly intercepted by a stance dancing protection warrior. Another costly interrupt, and lots of distance closed by our warrior, who shield slams BoF away again. The paladin is nearly dead, he can't run anymore, he has no cooldowns to use, his last desperate act is to HolyShock his warrior, to top it off, then is promptly executed, dead.

No one can believe this match is still going. Least of all the two warriors left in the ring. Now we have a Full Health ArmsWarrior against a Half Health Prot warrior. NOW it's game over, right? There is no possible way for our side to win now... is there? I knew different though, so did our warrior. Earlier in the day, before we started our Arena matches for the week, Our warrior and I were doing some spell reflect tests with my paladin in front of IF. Of course, Duels in front of IF draw a little crowd, and soon enough, other warriors wanted to duel our Prot warrior, most Fury and Arms warriors. Time and again, our warrior has dueled DPS warriors and time and again he has won, usually handily and without difficulty.

Ironically (well perhaps not true irony) the most demanded and arguably overpowered spec for Arena/PvP play is countered and defeated by arguably the least used Arena/PvP spec in play.

It was a duel, nothing more. Just another Warrior vs Warrior duel. One that our warrior was going to win... it was only a matter of time. Their warrior is unleashing every cooldown he hasn't spent. Using every burst combo he knew. He gets no where, our warrior just has to much physical mitigation and avoidance. All the Arms warrior is doing is supply rage, which our warrior is using quite effectively. Ignoring conventional wisdom, our warrior is dueling in defensive stance, he's stacked a full set of sunders and is now DPSing with Devestate and ShieldSlam. The effect of the full sunder stack, combined with the arms warrior in berserk stance, is causing our warrior to slowly, but surely win this DPS race. The Arms warriors can see what's happening, but doesn't know what to do, he tries to hamstring kite to bandage, but is merely interrupted by a thrown weapon. He tries to go defensive and emulate our warriors tactics, but doesn't have the gear nor the talents for it. Paper cut, after Paper cut, their warrior is dieing. In one final push, our warrior Concussive blows, Shield Slams, stance dances and Executes!


We Win!

So ends Fordel's overly dramatic tale from the 1400's, tune in next week, same scrub time, same scrub channel!  (I apologize for any grammar and spelling mistakes  :-P)

Thanks Fordel. That's one of the most fun and interesting stories I've read in a while.

edit to add thoughts:  That Protection warrior was really on the ball.  I don't know that I would have had the presence of mind to put spell reflect up in particular, and also it seems like he was using his shield bash nearly everytime the timer expired.  At the same time he's tanking an angry fly (Arms warrior) and burning defensive cooldowns.

He gets the MVP award in my book.

Protection warriors with good gear were always great to have in PvP. People always tend to focus fire on the warriors because MS and Fury are usually made of paper and drop fast, since protection warriors don't drop so fast the rest of your team can pick off the other team almost unmolested. Everyone just assumes that in PvP the warrior you are facing is a DPS spec. We always won 3-0 in WSG when our MT was our flag carrier.

It's his own personal game in PvP, seeing what he can reflect back onto people. He used to play "Disarm the Arms warriors" but the talent changes removed that game   :-(

Most of the points have already been touched upon.  You should almost always open with sheep to avoid them running out of range during a cast, even if they aren't aware of you.  It's also a good time to bandage if they got the jump on you.

Sheep also works as a good interrupt when your CS is in cooldown, especially in group pvp.

Spell Steal (Or Steal Spell, whatever the hell it's called) works well on priests and frost mages when they shield up, or for collecting good buffs in general, especially the priests' Fort that they almost always have.

I recently realized this one.  It's like a poor man's purge, except you get the buff! (and you have to cast it a few times)

im not sure why the thread derailed for a bit into hunters suck at arena or whatnot, but i don't find its nearly the case people make it out to be. theorycrafting about how people abuse LOS blah sounds bad for a hunter on paper but theres really not alot of arena's this is a huge problem in. Probably just blades edge. before the trinket patch, survival hunters could cc me for well over a minute combining wyvern sting as the trap wore off and then retrapping me, it was maddening to say the least.

BM hunters pretty much destroy everything except tanks, even tanks have serious trouble with them due to the fact you can't snare them at all, and LOS isn't a huge issue, the pet alone will devastate anyone in leather or lower while they are tryin to stay out of LOS.

So, I flat out disagree that hunters aren't that great anymore, they still wtfpwn people's faces if played well and specced well. And geared out hunters are insane I have a hunter who has some of the pvp nonset epics and mostly  70 dungeon blues, and i ran into a arena season 1 hunter (not even season 2 gear) and he 3 shot me. (i have 7.7k hp) with a few autoshots in there. So if someone around ~8k hp and mail armor gets 3 shotted by a geared hunter i shudder to think what that guy does to clothies, geared or not.


happy ironwood?

Couple of times I played, Shield Reflecting that instant cast pyroblast was always funny.  You know it's going to be the follow up spell to the crappy fireball that just hit you, so the shield goes up and the poor fool murdalises himself.

Also, Paragraphing is your friend young Angel.  Drawing breath also.

So that's why hunters are so well represented in 2v2, 3v3, and 5v5 games? What, they're not? In fact, Hunters are the least played class in 2v2 and 3v3, and barely hanging on to "third least played" in 5v5?

Quite the condundrum. Either you're wrong, or there's not more 5 good Hunters total out of the 9 million WoW players. I think I'm going to go with "You're wrong".

Actually, I can point out the problems with your theorycrafting pretty easy -- you're wrong on LOS (it's a huge problem), you're wrong on CC (survival hunters have a bit more look but their DPS is nothing), damage isn't nearly as high as it is with any other DPS class, and even clothies can ignore the pets (unless TBW is off) because resiliance means that the pets hit for shit and the hunters hit for shit.

In short, if you're being owned by Hunters in the arena -- you suck.

lol. you answered your own question. most hunters suck. most people roll hunters expecting easy mode. and it is untill you face competetive pvp. I play a 70 hunter, LOS problems were simply NOT a real problem except on blades edge. what are they gonna do? hide behind a pillar in nagrand while my pet humps their leg? oh no! or how bout that new arena, its mostly wide open space. zero LOS issues. LOS only becomes a problem in blades edge vs good teams who can abuse it, but the fact of the matter is people abusing LOS can't do much because then YOU are out of LOS as well, and if they want to hide you can let your pet play with them till they decide to do something, i mean i really ran into few instances were THAT was the real issue. they aren't played much in arena for other reasons really, their main cc took a huge nerf because it went from un trinketable to trinketable, and now the cooldown rapes them hard. they also dont withstand focus fire well, they dont have really high hp or armor in most cases. Just because they aren't top dog in an arena doesn't mean they suck at it. Most hunters are in BG's enjoying LOLZmode, but that doesn't mean a skilled hunter isn't a force to be reckoned with in 2v2 3v3 or 5v5.

and you know this how? maybe in the 2k+ range that may be the case, however most of my low to mid rated teams ran into PLENTY of hunters.

You're not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer now, are you?  You realize that you just made my point there for me, right?

yes, because top tier teams wont take hunters based on theorycrafting MUST mean Hunters suck in arena. Sure. I completely made your point that hunters aren't represented in 2v2 3v3 or 5v5 when they are all over the place. you obviously don't know anything about the arena and need to sit down and do some research before you flame me again. Most top tier teams go for cookie cutter setups (holy pally/ms war) and such.

Oh, you're right. I did fail to specify "TOP teams" when referring to you, mostly since you claim to have read the thread and that's what we were talking about. Jeez, isn't this the second time you've come busting into a thread only to show you hadn't actually read shit in it?

 I do love your assumption that "Top teams just don't take hunters based on theorycrafting". Do you even know how a ladder works? If teams with Hunters on them were good, they'd rise to the top.

So once more we're back to an undeniable fact -- teams with Hunters on them just can't seem to get to the top. Why would that be?

As for flaming you -- fuck, man, I haven't flamed you. If I had, I'd have to wait a week until you stopped crying before we could continue.

eh i said my piece, and i know who's right. as for "entering a thread without reading shit" go fuck yourself, this is the third time THIS thread you've said complete theorycrafted garbage, you obviously have played wow minimally and with little experience, know shit about the game, the arena, and hunters in general, which apparently qualifies you to be the fucking expert, so keep your theories, i could care less, you are just echoing stuff you've heard without applying your (albeit obviously small) brain to the issue. i'm done here. hunters are fine in arena.

Right. They're doing fine in the arena, as long as by "fine" you mean "Not on any top-ranked teams". Which isn't based on "theorycrafting" but on a simple head-count of the top-ranked Arena teams.

That is the nice thing about ladder games. "Top ranked" is pretty easy to determine. There's not subjectivity on who is better. There's just that little number next to their team name. Then all you have to do is count.

You can count, right?

Sigh once again. this Time it will be colored, bolded and capitalized so you can actually read it.

HUNTERS ARENT IN THE COOKIE CUTTER TOP TEAMS DOES NOT MEAN THEY SUCK IN ARENA THEY ARE JUST NOT THE BEST! THERE ARE MORE THAN JUST HUNTERS MISSING FROM THOSE LINEUPS

there, maybe you'll read that.

think of it this way, the max team size is 5. there is 8 classes. eventually theres only gonna be the same 5 or so classes in the top 5v5s because people will figure out the best 5 class combo's. its fucking simple as that for christ's sake. sure there will be variations, but because a few classes are left out doesn't mean they "suck" in the arena, just that they aren't "the best", which reinforces my point: hunters are FINE in arena.

And they're not in the 2v2 and 3v3 teams. What do you call a class that can't seem to compete on the top level in the Arena in any matchup? Oh yes -- "isn't competitive in the Arena". If hunters were 'fine' in the arena, the simple mechanics of a ladder would force them to the top in something vaguely close to their proportion among the population.

Goodness, it's like I've been making this point the entire time -- or maybe you really don't understand how a ladder works.

so that just means your point is that hunters aren't one of the top classes in arena. Sure ill concede that. Doesn't mean they suck. Look at the ladder some time you'll notice more than hunters missing from most of the top lineups. Doesn't mean those classes suck either (especially since it wouldnt be for a LOS issue now would it?) I know very well how a ladder works. Because a hunter/x class combo isn't good as another class/class combo doesn't mean that the hunter sucks in the arena. It just means it didnt match up well with x class. I can't look at the ladder right now but I know of several good hunters on extremely high ranked teams so I don't buy the "no hunters in top teams" bull either. Surely not the most popular class in the top teams but /shrug its like arguing with a brick wall, only you seem less intelligent.


I will concede one small point, my views may be somewhat skewed because I played in a 2on2 rogue/rogue team (for fun only) and we had the most trouble whenever an opposing team had a hunter, though we climbed high as 1870 once.

Is there a setting that allows me to get an email when slap-fights break out like this?  I missed the whole damned thing!

I know, it's quite funny.  I love how Darkangel calls Morat unintelligent, even though Morat is using an objective measurement, while he himself only relies upon his "personal experience".  It's a riot.

Hunters are dead last in 2v2 and 3v3 for representation among top teams. They barely make third to last in 5v5. In short, they are the LEAST represented class (by far, in fact) in small matchups and are at the rock bottom in 5v5.

That's pretty indicative that they suck in the arena. If it was just "No hunters in 2v2" I'd think you had a point. Go look up the numbers for the top 20 teams in each bracket. Hunters are a blip at the bottom, even for 5v5.
You have anecdotes. I just went to Blizzard and checked on the top teams. Guess who wins? Me!

However, just to throw you a bone, for the top 20 Arena teams, here are the percentages:
Goodness, second to last on 5v5 -- just beating out druids by a single percent. It's very interesting -- Hunters are one of the most popular classes, yet they make up five percent of the top rated 5v5 teams? A
Wow. Not just dead last, but creamed by Druids. 3 Druids for every Hunter in the 3v3 bracket.
2v2 -- you'd think here that "class skill" rather than "cookie cutter build" would be more paramount. Damn, look at that. Two percent. (I believe that represents a single Hunter, by the way).

Hunters have problems in the Arena. Otherwise they wouldn't be dead last, or effectively tied for dead last, among every top-tier team. A ladder system makes damn sure of that.

Thanks for proving me right.

You've yet to actually show WHERE Hunters do well in the Arena. It's not 2v2, it's not 3v3. It's not 5v5. It's apparently only against you or in "low-ranking games".

So in short, Hunters do well when their opponents suck. What class doesn't?

Nor does that prove your point -- actual team breakdowns are instructive in 5v5, nor is 5v5 the end-all and be all of Arenas.

But keep trying. There was almost a point there.

denial of truth doesn't make it go away ;)

so why are druids rogues and hunters all in the same boat in 5v5s? because people have found their optimum 5v5 and won't try anything else, because they've found their happy balance. Rogues and hunters are the top 2 played classes in the game, yet both can't find a group in 5v5 arena? does that mean rogues and hunters suck in arena? ... are you gonna say rogues suck in arena now too? christ you're brainless

Yes, yes it does. That is sort of what ladder competition is. They suck in PvP, which is basically just arena now. And actually, rogues do suck in arena, all you have to do is look at the rankings to see they aren't one of the better classes.

Why aren't Druids and Rogues in the same boat as Hunters in 2v2 and 3v3? Three times more Druids in 3v3, five times more in 2v2. Six times more Rogues in 2v2 and 3v3. What part of "Dead fucking last in all brackets" is lost on you?

Why are Hunters dead last in all three categories? Druids and Rogues aren't. Why are Hunters?

Dude, give it up. You're fucking wrong. You couldn't be more fucking wrong. Hell, this is a ladder tournament. If there wasn't an imbalance here, all classes would be represented more or less the same as their overall proportions. Every other class at least fluctuates depending on team size. Not Hunters. Dead last, dead last, and tied for dead last.

eh, once again, i've said my piece. i don't agree with you, i dont think you have a clue what you're talking about. you can think what you will. i dont care what the %'s say go load up arena and see how many hunters you run into. you just showed the top teams.

though i think its funny in the crusade to 'be right' you had to hunt down some numbers :D

That is the most retarded thing I have read today. Popular does not equal good. In fact, it indicates even more of an imbalance than the straight percentages would indicate, because you would expect them to be represented MORE on the ladder, seeing as how more people play them.

unless it supports your argument eh? like say... arena %s?

Psycho.

noting hypocrisy isn't psychotic. but i get what your saying.

how can you say, popular doesn't = good, but more people play warriors so they = good and teh others = bad!

thats fucking stupid. You can't have it both ways.

I haven't seen anyone this deliberately retarded since geldon. I'm not even going to answer that. I'm sure someone else will.

Essentially, yes. What part of ass-end of the statistics is hard to grasp here? First of all, part of being the most overplayed class in the game means that people generally hate your class when it comes to putting together groups. Why? Because the odds are strong you're gonna get a retard due to overpopulation. The retards have to go somewhere, and they LOVE to go after solo-friendly classes.

Second, in a 5 man setup, getting the jump on someone with stealth isn't anywhere near as crushing as in a 2v2 setup. Stun-locking one person in 2v2 is great, because it creates a 2 on 1 situation. Doing it in a 5 man is pretty meaningless, because a warrior is gonna jump right up your ass and hamstring you, and a mage is gonna 2 shot you. Note how fast the popularity jumps up on rogues in 3v3 and even more in 2v2 arenas. It's huge, and it's due to that fact. If you look, the exact same thing happens with warlocks. The more people you put in the situation, they less popular they are.

Third, look at overall utility. Look at how certain classes ability to play will fit in well with any other combo. Warriors, Paladins, and Priests are the best examples of this. No matter what, if you're not carrying at least one of your team, you're an idiot. They are the building blocks of anything in WoW, raiding or PvP.

because you don't have one. How can this be any clearer. You tell me Popularity doesnt = Good, but by the arena %s the low end = bad. What the fuck is the %s showing other than the POPULARITY of that class in ARENA? Moron.

You are an idiot. Not just a regular, run of the mill idiot, but a special and unique snowflake in the vast snow-covered mountains of idiocy that is the internet. First off, I didn't have to "hunt down" numbers -- they were linked in this thread long before you came along, spouting your idiocy.

Secondly, no one is saying there aren't a lot of Hunters in the arena. There are. Hunters are a popular class. We're saying that for the winning (top-ranked) teams, Hunters are by and far the least represented class. Hugely so. In direct opposition to their popularity.

And this convinces me you're trolling. No one could actually be that fucking stupid. The Arena is a ladder system, we were pointing out top-ranked teams. Which means that "popularity" isn't even a factor.

Jesus.
Given the arena is a ladder system, there are only two reasons you don't find Hunters in the top teams -- either there are virtually no Hunters as skilled as those who play every other class, or there is a flaw in the class itself when it comes to arena play (or many flaws).

Perhaps you missed or were unwilling to grasp that these the percentages of classes in the TOP TWENTY BEST TEAMS IN THE ARENA.

Not ALL THE FUCKING TEAMS EVER.

i can't believe the blatant stupidity here. For the IQ impaired:

pop·u·lar·i·ty     [pop-yuh-lar-i-tee] –noun 1. the quality or fact of being popular. 
2. the favor of the general public or of a particular group of people

Because you narrowed the field to the top 20 teams doesn't change the fact you are only showing %s of the POPULARITY of a CLASS in those TOP 20 TEAMS.

I say again, how can you in one hand say popularity does not = good, and on one hand use that as the defining portion of your argument? i mean i don't even give a shit about hunters at this point but seriously, you fucking fail.

Those "top 20" didn't get to be top twenty by being popular, you stupid fuck, they got there by beating the shit out of every other team playing in the Arena.

So what exactly is WRONG with looking at the top 20 teams -- who are the top 20 by beating the shit out of everyone else in PvP, thus correctly earning the title "best team" -- and noting the motherfucking total absence of hunters in all three types of arena teams, and thus concluding "Huh, there must be a serious problem with hunters, for they are a popular class, yet are massively underrepresented in the winning PvP teams in all arena brackets!".

For awhile I thought you were a troll, but I'm now seeing you actually believe what you're writing.

Amazing.

Top teams ===> Winners of matches
Popularity ===> Lots of hunters around.

If there are lots of hunters around yet they don't seem to be making it into the most "winningest" teams, hunters are not providing anything to those teams towards actually winning their matches.  Are you saying there is some kind of conspiracy going on that keeps Hunters out of the best groups or something?  Seriously, you make no sense.

lol  :popcorn:

Ok fine, since you seem to want to go this route, I'll explain to you why you aren't correct.

1 - There are THREE kinds of popularity at play here.
        A) The popularity of a class on the whole in the game (we'll call this overall popularity)
        B) The popularity of a class within the arena as a whole amongst all teams (we'll call this Total Arena popularity)
        C) The popularity of a class within the TOP 20 arena teams (we'll call this Top 20 popularity)

2 - If all things were equal and all classes were viable within the arena, all these popularity percentages should be the same.

3 - We know for a fact that Hunters makes up 16%, and are therefore the most popular class in Overall Popularity according to WoW Census.

4 - We assume that Hunters make up similar percentages close to, but not exactly 16% in Total Arena Popularity. We do not have this figure, so it can be debated, but most would agree that Hunters are involved in arena teams.

5 - Hunters come in dead last in the Top 20 popularity at numbers hovering between 2-5%.

6 - Even if we assume that Hunters make up only 10% of Total Arena Popularity, there is still a huge disparity between that and their Top 20 Popularity.

7 - Top 20 popularity is an indicator of which class makeups are the MOST SUCCESSFUL in the arenas. By definition these are the teams that are winning the most battles.

8 - Hunter percentages of that high a drop between Total Arena Popularity and Top 20 Popularity indicate that Hunters are not deemed worthwhile to have in the high ranking teams.

9 - Therefore, hunters are not the best choice for an arena team that wants be the most successful.

Finally, a rebuttal in line with your intellect. At this point, I think smiley-faces are about the most coherent argument you can muster.

nah its just funny to see you all  :tantrum: and im more like  :rofl:

So, no arguments then?

I do see you're a fan of the "Pretend you were just trolling after getting your stupid opinion curb-stomped" method of internet debate. Your mistake is in thinking this is the first time we've seen this.

We should send him to the politics forum. They shoot to kill there. Funny part is, even trolling for real makes you look retarded unless you are doing it for comic effect. This wasn't even funny.

Nah, we'd make him cry over there.

But it was pretty obvious he was shooting from the hip, got caught, didn't want to admit he fucked up, then sort of rolled around being a douche. Pulled the same shit in an EVE thread.

I like him (followed him here from the eve thread), it's like his browser found this site by accident and he's stuck here until he accidentally clicks a link to somewhere else.

They broke Lum's will there. I really think that DDA might kill himself if he went to that forum.

On another note, is there a lot of PVP action to be had at the lower levels? I kinda want to get back into WoW so I can do battlegrounds and arena matches, but I don't want to have to grind to 70 to participate. Anyone have some info? (I haven't played since 2005).

What do you mean by PvP action?

The Low level BG brackets are twink dominated. They can be amusing if you have your own twink, pointless otherwise. World PvP on PvP servers as far as I know, consists of a level 70 ganking you in STV because he can. On PVE servers, about once a month someone decides to kill westfall NPCs which in turn causes a crossroads raid.

That's about it.

That sucks. The second part of your post is the same as it always has been, but the first part really makes me not want to play again. 20-30 BGs used to remind me of DotA in WSG.

Yeah, and the various classes' armor buffs are nice to collect because they all stack.  You can also get some pretty fancy buffs from NPCs that people aren't even aware of unless they love to cast detect magic on everything.  There is a particular blood elf in one of Netherstorm's mana forges that has something called Fiery Intellect (I think) that also bestows +70 fire damage.

yeah, the terribly sad part is that spellsteal only lasts for 2 minutes, and costs about 5x the mana of a purge, so stealing NPC buffs is generally not all that usefull (unless you are pulling off shit like that one mage back when the fire shield from the AV Kobolds stacked and was effected by +spelldamage,  that vid of him running around ganking entire 20 man alliance teams with 2000 damage fire shield ticks was hilarious)

Hi.

I really lost track of who was arguing what, but darkangel I think you are using anecdotal evidence to contradict statisical facts. Talk to someone who plays in high-ranked arenas and you'll find that their anecdotal evidence supports the fact the hunters lack the synergy, staying power, and mechanics that make a character an asset in arena battles. Other less popular classes have other problems that manifest themselves in the statistics differently. Rogues, for instance, start strongly and lose their steam after they blow cooldowns, which is why they are not as popular in the long 5v5 battles, but more so in smaller 2v2 and 3v3 games.

The vast majority of people play arenas at a low level, and by low I mean under 1800. At those points the gear differences that make hunters largely ineffectual are not present, and you'll find people complaining about how, for instance, BM pets really mess up their day. To a well-geared caster, a BM hunter's pet is a joke. Sans pet, a hunter is essentially a mage with more armor, less burst damage, and less escape and survivability options. No wonder they aren't as popular!

I guess ignorance really IS bliss.  You can't even see that people are frustrated at your inability to comprehend, not because you're "right".  You're very very wrong here, and it's painful to watch you parade around like you've figured out some sort of secret. 

That's awesome.  Just reading that made me giggle myself silly.  A youtube link would complete my day.

Wasnt quite as high on an individual fireshield tick, but pretty impressive none the less (it can crit too, i'm pretty sure)

http://www.zannel.com/viewer.jsp?title=IRRL52N115

The scenes with him killing people while iceblocked or just chasing them down while mounted were priceless.

I repeat :  That's awesome.  Cheers for the link.

What a giggle.

I guess hunters could call these guys (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=711995718&sid=1) to improve their arena rankings.

Spamming StealSpell is a bad idea because of the mana but using it once or twice in a fight isn't going to hurt your mana pool much.  Of course using it when they can purge or dispell is wasteful unless you're using it for the same purpose.

Since we're tossing all kinds of PvP stuff in here.

You'll need a 1900 or better rating to buy season 3 weapons (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=711997091&sid=1)  I don't know if that applies to equip AND weapons, or just weapons.

Suxorz for casuals!

They mentioned adding a rating requirement to purchase weapons because unlike armor the weapons are just as good for pve as pvp, but the 1900 number was completely pulled out of someones ass.

Well to bring things vaguely back to topic, I can recommend playing an untwinked mage at level 29. You won't be able to kill anybody, but you'll be a total CC beast, and if you concentrate on escaping you'll stay alive and drive the enemy mad. Get some nice gear first (won't need expensive enchantments... just some quality greens and maybe a few instance runs) and your whole team will love you.

Oh wow how did i miss the hunter fight! i havent been this entertained for a long time.  Heres my opinion as a hunter in a 1905 rating team: might as well rename my class "frost trap + entrapment" because that is the only reason any team wants me.  I can keep up in dps with the dps classes as long as people let me stand in place and dps, which is rare against good teams, and if i dont mind going oom in the first minute of the fight from spamming multi and arcane shots.  I can help mana drain if i have a scorpion pet, but my mana drain is a joke compared to other classes, but when you are trying to drain the healers as fast as possible every bit helps i guess.  The only reason i have a decent team is because a) i made it with friends and b) i already had extremely good gear (12k hps unbuffed and 402 resil will open a few doors for you no matter your class), but theres no doubt that my team would be much higher ranked if they had a shaman or a mage or a warlock in my place.

My Moonkin is only at 9k HP and 280ish resilience :( , 54% DR on armor though! I'll break 300 resilience once I get my arena pants.

Mage at 39 is a bit more fun, and if you can get a friend to run you through SM and get a few crafted pieces you can pretty easily get around 100 spellpower. There's more character divergency and still no mounts, and casters can do decent damage because there's spellpower itemization at that level. It's pretty fun.

Takes a lot less time to get a character to 29 than it does to hit 39. Damage is only important if you want to kill people... the basic mage skillset is available at 29, and anything you learn there will make your life easier in high end PvP.

I yanked my mage out of storage yesterday (was at 32 and needed to get to 35 for the next level of tailoring), and forgot how much bloody fun a mage can be. I blew crap up, got to 33 so I could wear my Robe of Power,  got the Gnomer-hat that has the little radar-dish on top of it.

That's about what my untwinked 19 lock on Emerald Dream is relegated to.  Fear spamming healers and twinks.  I know I'm never going to kill one by myself unless I run into the odd non-twinked Alliance.

Back to mages, I started AV at lvl 51 back when it was the big map and became an expert at being a mage pain in the ass.  Rank 1 Frostbolt is great for the snare effect with fast casting time. 

A deep-frost mage can be a cast-iron bitch in PvP. In ways they're even more annoying to clustered groups than fear-bombing. Fear sends everyone running -- a deep-frost mage can nail 5 or 6 people to the floor, in a tight cluster, long enough for some serious AoE pain.

That's for damned sure, especially on the bridges in AV, the one leading into DB in particular.

Even if the rating is lower, it's going to kill arena for casuals. Unless they still allow you to buy the Season 2 weapons with saved-up points (since the S1 weapons are going to be shifted to honor).

It's why I specced pure frost -- all 33 levels of mage I have going.

Speaking of the Arena -- how do the Season weapons work? I just restarted play and my main won't be in the arena until next season at the earliest. Azazel said the S1 weapons are being shifted to honor points? To replace the Grand Marshal stuff, or as a supplement, or is there a different pool of honor points for arena stuff?

There's "Arena Points" which can only be spent on Arena gear at the vendor in Area 52.  Then there's the normal Battleground "Honor Points" which work the same as they always have.  There's no 3rd pool, so they're just shifting S1 stuff to the same currency as the blue Grand Marshall stuff you get out of Stormwind/ Orgrimar and the various Battleground PVP vendors.  I imagine that means you'll need tokens as well, though.

If they make it so that only the S3 weapons (or whichever is the latest) require a specific rating, and the second tier of arena rewards can be saved for then it'll still be worth playing, though it's pretty fucked up for casuals (and most players on rogues and hunters). Assume then that anything below whatever the top 2 tiers of arena gear at the time will then be shuffled down to the battlegrounds?

Fuck the weapons, they need to put a rating requirement on arena shoulders.

Season 1 Arena Gear will be available via Honour once Season 3 gear is out and about. The rating requirements are only for weapons, if they go through with it at all. The justification is that unlike the armor, the weapons have very little downside in terms of PVE usefulness.

It's still a pretty dumb idea, who gives a shit if Joe Casual spends his entire season saving up for his E-Peen sword, let him have his one piece of damn shiny.

Its not joe casual they are worried about its bob raider having easy access to BT level weapons while raiding kara/gruul.

If Bob Raider would rather pvp to get his shiny than raid, then maybe people need to look at raiding again with the idea of designing fun into it.

Or maybe raiding's not really that much fun if people would rather pvp to get the same shiny.

How many people raid because it's fun as opposed to raid because it's a path to the shiny? 

Me!  But there is a loot imbalance on the weapon side of things.  The best ranged weapon before prince, for example, is 79dps.  The Season2 x-bow is 88dps which is ALSO better than the bow off of the Prince in Kara.  You'd be crazy NOT to arena for the few weeks it takes to get enough points to buy it instead of blowing a roll/ dkp/ whatever on the Raiding bows. Not only do you save your points for a different upgrade, but you help out your PvE abilities greatly with a little pvp dabbling during non raid-time.

It's pure min-maxing, which is what raiders excel at. 

I don't find raiding to be fun at all, but then again, I've never been in a successful raiding guild and I hate pugs with passion. 

I do PVP strictly because it's more fun, but I don't do it for the shinies and have found that I get beat pretty hard unless my side also has Shinies and twinks.  I hate WoW's system of feeding casual players to the hard core as if its some kind of reward to them, like they're Scooby snacks for spending so much time in the treadmill.

I can't stand pvp because it's got to be the most repetative thing I've ever seen. I mean raiding trash is bad, but I get no join out of hitting the same dudes over and over and over again in arenas.

Or maybe, PvP Arena awards are JUST TOO FUCKING EASY TO GET.  Ever think of that? 

Hell, even a nearly useless scrub arena team with an asstastic rating can get the arena weapons in a relatively short amount of time.  Under the old PvP system, at leas you had to be dedicated / insane enough to achieve high enough rank to buy the items.  The Arena system is broken due to the ONLY limiting factor for what gear you can get being the simple amount of time it takes to accumulate the points needed to spend on it.

Under the old pvp system, you needed to live in AV for a few months.  You didn't have to be dedicated to anything but fishing.

Explain to me the logic and reasoning that says that people who play the raiding game get to be - virtually - a few levels higher than people who play the pvp game IN PVP.

Such an assertion defies reason.

[Edit: to delineate the quote correctly.]

I don't think he's saying that. I think he's saying that the time-reward ratio of arena rewards is infinitely easier than the time-reward ratio for raiding for the exact same weapons. IMO, PVP and raiding should both offer similar rewards for similar time frames. They won't be exact. They don't have to be. However, if the raiding guilds who never ever pvp happen to decide to jump into arenas for a few weeks to get easy weapons, THIS INDICATES A PROBLEM. If PVPers were wandering into some kind of easy outdoor boss that dropped a fantasic PVP reward, that would make no sense either.

They shouldn't cross over like that at all. Weapons should be the hardest things to get in the game. They are the lowest drop rates on all bosses.

MOST people raid because its a path to more raiding.  We do it out of a desire to see and defeat every encounter there is out there.  Getting epics for no reason at all is completely pointless, hell they are not even good for pvp anymore.  "The shiny" is nothing but a tool to get what we want, which is more content, getting arena weapons is a huge shortcut in that process.

That seems to describe WoW in general, though.

And yet, the PvE side seems to be more engaging than getting owned by Rock/Paper/Scissors over and over again.

Name one person, just ONE, who AFK'd his way to High Warlord, and I will concede the point.  You couldnt do it simply by fishing in AV, or cowering in the AFKave.  Under the old system, you NEEDED to spend a good amount of time earning a rank, to get access to your weapons, regardless of how much honor you had to spend.  Slapping a minimum rating requirement on Arena weapons would go along way towards fixing what is currently the major issue in arena gear being too easy to get.

You're not seriously contending that people who earned High Warlord did it without gaming the system, are you?

It was a necessity to game the system.  People had their buddies play their toons so they had a presence 24/7 for months in the bg.  There were voluntary queues for people who were going for High Warlord so that others restricted their pvp in order to allow another to gain High Warlord first.  There were plenty of people not really playing who were dozing at their keyboards.

What's broken - in my opinion - is raiding.  It's stupid and senseless and unfun.  If it was fun the raiders wouldn't be pvping for gear.  Hence, they mostly raid for gear instead of fun.  Raiding requires a time commitment more than any sort of skill, for a person of average or better intelligence and maturity at any rate.

Why do whiny raiders want to fuck up pvp?

Raiding is about the epeen more than anything else.  "LOOK I HAVE GIGANTIC SHOULDERS!"

TO YOU.  It seems that way TO YOU.

Personally, I'd rather play against other players than long ass raids, particularly since my lifestyle precludes raiding. 

Although, if other things were equal - such as if I could access content without having to play as though my job depended upon it - then maybe I'd like it better.  But I already have enough responsibilities in life that regular raiding is impossible.  The cost benefit ratio doesn't work for me. 

On the other hand, I got awfully tired of seeing the insides of MC and BWL.  I can do something like that maybe 5 times before the fun is gone.  It's really fun the first time, but by the 5th it's fucking stale.

I got rank 14 without doing any of those things, i also have plenty of fun while raiding and i can assure you its not about the gear in the least.

Again, the broken mechanic here is the PvP weapons are BETTER than the PvE ones.  They do more top end damge, more DPS and have less varience.  You're stupid NOT to do a few half-assed attempts at arena a week just to get them, particularly when getting PvE weapons is such a pain in the ass due to low drop rates.

However, Even if they were equal to the PvE ones attainable in the same timeframe, you'd still see raiders PvPing due to loot distribution metagaming. Why spend raid points/ time/ lose out on rolling for a weapon if you could instead PvP a little bit to get an equal weapon.

But if the PvE weapons were better, you'd see PvPers raiding again (or bitching about the gear imbalance), like they did before BC.

It's a continuous cycle of PvE fucks up PvP and PvP fucks up PvE.  The only way around it is separate games, because no true balance will ever be achieved.

Or to balance it so that it takes exactly as long to get it both ways. Which I don't think anyone can do.

Or make arena weapons not work in raid instances and fuck over the raiders instead of the casuals for once.

Ideally the pvp weapons (I haven't looked at them) be equal in item budget to the raiding weapons but blow their budgets on things like penetration and resilience that are useless in PvP.  I wonder why they can't do that? I'd guess they are going to from here on out...

BTW, on another note, this thread delivers.  PvPers against PvEers, just like the old days!!

Random Loot tables suck, news at 11?  :-D


Just do away with the random, make all the bosses drop tokens or badges or even points of some sort, then have the PvE'ers hit up some vendor. They are already half way there with the armor token slots, Badges or justice and Crappy Rep Grinds (ideally they would be made to be not crappy). The fact there is a loot meta game to raiding just highlights how dumb random loot is.


That's the real whine, it might take 8 weeks of consecutive sucking to get that arena weapon, but you *will* get it. With the way loot works now in PvE, you might get your item this week, or you can keep doing that dungeon till 2009 and never see it. Even if the Arena Weapons were worse then the best or even the average PvE weapon, there would still be a huge amount of PvE'ers doing their 8 weeks to get the arena weapons "until their real weapons drop".




As to the old Honour System, the only way to hit the top rank(s) was continuous play. The kind of nonstop play that made the consumable farm prep-time of old raids seem quick and easy.

Doesn't really work for the melee weapons (which are the weapons of issue) since anything you put on a PvP weapon will also make it work as well in PvE. The token amount of resilience doesn't make or break the weapon either way.

The pvp weapons do have tons of stam and resil which are worthless in raiding, but weapons are not like armor.  The main thing is the dps and damage range the stats are only important when comparing weapons of the same or close damage.

That's exactly what I was thinking.  It'd be like incorporating the already-used DKP system into the game.  Hell, the incredible randomness of drops is 99% of the frustration.  For example, my Kara group has gotten Warlock/ Mage/ Hunter gloves from Curator the last 4 weeks.  WE DON'T FUCKING NEED THAT TOKEN.  Ditto on the damn gun in the Opera event.  If instead you got points for killing a boss, and then could spend your Boss Kill Points, oh how much better that would be.

Of course, the hardcore "you must endure to make it 'worthwhile' idiots would have a problem with it... the same as they did with "omg non-raiding purplez from "Heroics!?!!" *apoplexy*  But the game hasn't suffered for it.

I'm not entirely of the endure it school of thought, but I think that some grief in the system makes the highs higher.  You can't have high highs (when the weapon you REALLY want drops) without the low lows ("damn, 10th run and nothing but hunter loot").

I think the token-based thing but also with really good loot on the random system is a good model.

Yeah, and raiding sucks TO YOU! Honestly, what's the purpose in pointing that out? I don't think I have some objective hold over reality that raiding is the best of all things and rules the world. I like to raid, you don't, but you also don't seem to concede the point that was being made about the weapons. The weapons were ridiculously undervalued in the points system. Nobody that plays WoW looks at something purple that's extremely easy to attain and thinks, oh well that's not a normal activity that I engage in, therefore I'll ignore it. PvPers will run instances if they provide the best armor in the game easily, and PvErs will PvP when it takes neglible time and effort to get an epic piece that will trump whatever they could find in a dungeon by far. Why? Because it gives you an edge in the part of the game you like, and it's freaking easy.

Seriously though, WoW PvP was an afterthought and it pretty much blows. I like pvp when it's fun and dynamic, but while the former is debatable on style, the latter is not. WoW pvp seriously lacks the changing atmosphere and gamesmanship that other games have had. They are trying desperately to patch it in, but most of the decisions they have made in regards to world pvp especially have been off the mark in creating conflict. The only success I can think of is the Bone Waste Towers of Terrokar that give the owners spirit shards in PvE. That was smart. They tied PvP and PvE together and made them care about the buff. More of that needs to take place instead of "ho-hum, 5% to damage, who cares."