I suck at mage PvP - Please help!

[Chenghiz]

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.

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.

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.

[pxib]

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.

[Morat20]

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.

[Train Wreck]

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.

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

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. 

[Morat20]

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.

[Train Wreck]

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.

[Azazel]

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

You'll need a 1900 or better rating to buy season 3 weapons  I don't know if that applies to equip AND weapons, or just weapons.

Suxorz for casuals!

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).

[Morat20]

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.

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?

[Merusk]

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.

[Azazel]

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?

[Threash]

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

[Fordel]

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.

[Threash]

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

[Xanthippe]

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? 

[Merusk]

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. 

[Train Wreck]

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.

[Paelos]

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.

[SurfD]

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? 

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.

[Xanthippe]

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.]

[Paelos]

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.

[Threash]

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? 

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.

[Train Wreck]

I can't stand pvp because it's got to be the most repetative thing I've ever seen.

That seems to describe WoW in general, though.

[Paelos]

I can't stand pvp because it's got to be the most repetative thing I've ever seen.

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.

[SurfD]

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.

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.

[Xanthippe]

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!"

[Xanthippe]

I can't stand pvp because it's got to be the most repetative thing I've ever seen.

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.

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.

[Threash]

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!"

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.

[Merusk]

  If it was fun the raiders wouldn't be pvping for gear.

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.

[Furiously]

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.

[Arrrgh]

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

[Jayce]

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!!

[Fordel]

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.

[Fordel]

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!!

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.

[Threash]

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!!

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.

[Merusk]

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 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.