PvP for Dummies

[Jayce]

Sorry for all the questions.  I've been looking at Thotbott, but I'm not even sure where to start.

Wowwiki is a better resource for questions like this, though probably not as in-depth as someone here can tell you.

Does anyone even use Thottbot any more?

[bhodi]

Thottbot has not been updated in a long time. Use wowhead for all your thottbot needs, it's virtually the same.

[Nevermore]

In a nutshell:

If your side does not already control Wintergrasp, your goal is to capture the relic inside the keep within 30 minutes of the event starting.  If your side already contols WG, then obviously your goal is to prevent the capture of the relic until time runs out.

Besides the keep itself, there are also 4 vehicle workshops and 3 towers arranged around the zone.  There are also towers and a couple of workshops in the keep itself.  All the keep walls and towers can be destroyed by vehicles.  The non-keep workshops can be captured using the 'we have more people here than you do' capture mechanic (rather than the 'click the flag to capture' mechanic). 

Each workshop gives the side that controls it the ability to use up to 4 vehicles.  There are three kinds of vehicles: catapults (which kind of suck, at least when you're on offense since they take up a vehicle 'slot' and aren't good at taking down walls), demolishers and siege engines.  The latter two are the key for the offense winning since those are used to knock down the keep walls so the attackers can get to the relic.  Defense generally revolves around destroying enemy siege and/or capturing workshops to limit the number of vehicles the offensive side can make.

When the game first starts, no one is able to build a vehicle (this is somewhat buggy though, as it's sometimes possible to kill NPCs before the event actually starts to get vehicle credit).  You gain the ability to make vehicles by getting honor kills or killing enemy faction NPCs.  Unless you're out in the middle of nowhere with your thumb up your butt you should get the ability to make vehicles pretty quickly.

In my experience both sides tend to ignore the three offense controlled towers on the opposite side of the zone from the keep, but for each one the defense destroys the offense's vehicles do less damage and the defense's do more.  Not only that, but if the defense can destroy all three of the towers, the game instantly shortens by 10 minutes which can reallly screw the offense.

I think that covers the basics.  There's also something called 'tenacity' but I don't know much about the mechanics of that other than it seems like it's always the other side that has it.

[Nebu]

That's a big help.  Thanks for taking the time. 

Next dumb question: Should I be playing the BG's for honor or will the Wintergrasp gear be all that I need?  I'm doing alright with the crafted blue resilience set and not dying as fast as I had anticipated.  I'm willing to be patient, so it's not about getting average stuff fast.  I'm just interested in getting stuff that will help most.

Thanks again.

[Der Helm]

Well, let's start with the obvious causes.

Did you forget to spend your talent points?

Are you less than level 80?

Are you wearing greens?

Do you have downs?

No.

No.

No. I am in the process of replacing the savage saronite armor with honor (non-arena) and WG purples.

I am sure you thought you were really clever and funny when you wrote that. You are not.

edit: I am speaking about 1v1 fights, I get HKs and even some killing blows just fine in big melees, but against a single target, random button smashing does not work.

[Rendakor]

Tenacity in Wintergrasp is a buff given to the side that is outnumbered, to give them a fighting chance. The more unbalanced the sides are, the more stacks of tenacity the outnumbered side will have. It increases HP, damage done, etc.

The PVP daily refers to a single quest given out to win a single battleground. The battleground chosen each day is random, but it's worth trying to complete each day as it rewards some bonus honor.

Considering that the season is almost over, you should probably just stockpile honor right now. The WG rewards aren't likely to be updated, but the honor gear will be. That said, the WG gear alone will not be enough, simply because it doesn't cover every slot, so you'll need to fill the remaining slots with honor gear. I'd recommend picking up your pvp set gloves first with honor, as they usually have some interesting effect on them (the shaman one increases the range on all shocks by 5 yards, for example).

[Nebu]

Considering that the season is almost over, you should probably just stockpile honor right now. The WG rewards aren't likely to be updated, but the honor gear will be. That said, the WG gear alone will not be enough, simply because it doesn't cover every slot, so you'll need to fill the remaining slots with honor gear. I'd recommend picking up your pvp set gloves first with honor, as they usually have some interesting effect on them (the shaman one increases the range on all shocks by 5 yards, for example).

That's very helpful.  I appreciate the tip.

[Nevermore]

I'd recommend picking up your pvp set gloves first with honor, as they usually have some interesting effect on them (the shaman one increases the range on all shocks by 5 yards, for example).

Wait, so a Flame Shock from an Elemental Shaman with those gloves would have a range of 45 yards?  Would that be the longest ranged attack in the game?

[K9]

That's a big help.  Thanks for taking the time. 

Next dumb question: Should I be playing the BG's for honor or will the Wintergrasp gear be all that I need?  I'm doing alright with the crafted blue resilience set and not dying as fast as I had anticipated.  I'm willing to be patient, so it's not about getting average stuff fast.  I'm just interested in getting stuff that will help most.

Thanks again.

Definitely BGs for honour. You can also trade the Stone Keepers' Shards you recieve for doing the WG weeklies for Wintergrasp Commendations, which give you 2000 honour a pop. Stockpile your honour now, because when S7 comes all the armour sets drop down a peg; so hateful will no longer be available for honour, deadly will require just honour, fruious will be hnour and arena points, and relentless will be arena points and team rating. Look at the WG rewards and try to figure out which are the best investment of marks, since the old items don't get cheaper over time, but are generally inferior in terms of item level.

Wintergrasp also has the best selection of trinkets, although as a human I am slightly spoiled as I do not need to use a pvp trinket (racials heyo!)

Stick to the BGs you enjoy, but it's worth dropping into the ones you enjoy less every so often to pick up marks for the "Concerted Efforts" quest, which gives you a bunch of honour.

[Rendakor]

I'm not sure if the range increase stacks with the Ele shaman talent; my shaman's enhance. Here are the gloves in question though: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41006

[Hindenburg]

No. I am in the process of replacing the savage saronite armor with honor (non-arena) and WG purples.

I am sure you thought you were really clever and funny when you wrote that. You are not.

edit: I am speaking about 1v1 fights, I get HKs and even some killing blows just fine in big melees, but against a single target, random button smashing does not work.

Armory link. Now.

[Jayce]

so hateful will no longer be available for honour, deadly will require just honour, fruious will be hnour and arena points, and relentless will be arena points and team rating.

I'm glad. I'm not a hateful person, I'm more deadly and/or furious.

[Der Helm]

Armory link. Now.

Good idea. 

Hm. I am pretty sure I have Glyphs for my Blood spec (which I use for PvP atm), but they don't show up. vOv

[Hindenburg]

Why are you using a sigil that increases Scourge Strike damage?

Also, you, for some reason, skipped a lot of terrific DPS talents. Annihilation doesn't even make a lot of sense, since you'll mainly be using DS.
As blood, I couldn't see myself ever letting go of morbidity. I'd also spec unholy for pvp, and get quite a bit more resilience.
You really need to grab an edge of ruin.

[K9]

Mix of tank and DPS gear, no gems, almost all enchants missing 

There's a lot of very basic stuff you can fix easily here that will get you up to speed fast.

[Zetor]

Using a runeforge (fallen crusader, maybe cinderglacier in some odd builds; stoneskin gargoyle for tanking) is almost always better than a 2h weapon enchant.

And yeah, ditch that tanking gear for some dps stuff (pref. the other pieces of the saronite set for pvp) and get some green-quality gems, they're way cheap. I'd also buy a titansteel destroyer / grind for the argent championship 2h / get lucky with the axe from heroic halls of lightning.

(edit -- I didn't look at the spec; I still use 0/10/61 on my DK since it does well with bad gear, but doesn't scale well. If you like blood, go 51/0/20 imo; I prefer using a standard dps spec for pvp instead of speccing for pvp, since I don't arena, and those specs do just fine in battlegrounds)

[Nebu]

Update: Got myself setup with the crafted pvp suit and some crafted jewelry so that my resiliance is about 402.  Took all the pvp daily quests that I could find and hit BG's while Wintergrasp was down. 

Some of the BG's seem very odd and chaotic.  While I could make sense of a few the first time through, some were very strange.  I have come to realize that success seems mostly based on pre-made groups, good gear, and not getting picked off solo.  The Eye of Storms still makes no sense to me at all.  I'm not sure I'll play that one beyond the daily quest that requires them all. 

I also wanted to say that the help in the thread has been very helpful.  The only thing I need to do now is to learn how to play my class better.  Seems that hunters are pretty weak in pvp.  Oh... trinkets.  I have two right now.  One has a 2k heal on it and the other I got in BC and it has a cc purge on a 5 min timer.  I'll look at the wintergrasp rewards, but wondered what folks here thought would be most useful. 

[WindupAtheist]

Eye of the Storm is simple enough. There are 4 objectives, and the more of them your team holds, the faster your score goes up. There is also a flag in the middle of the place. Bringing the flag to an objective you hold is worth bonus points. First one to 2k wins. The flag is usually retard bait for people who'd be better off capturing an objective.

[Nevermore]

Eye of the Storm sucks.  That's the BG I dislike the most by far.  Alterac Valley probably has the most non-intuitive goals (pro-tip: it's more than just zerg the commander guy).  It's linear enough that you should do ok just following around the zerg and shoot stuff until you learn the various objectives.

One of your first goals should be to buy the improved version of that CC breaker trinket when you have enough honor.  The better version has a 2 minute cooldown instead of 5 minutes.

Edit: as far as hunters go, I only have a very low level one but I can tell you from fighting them that while they are extremely strong in the low level BGs (so much so they earned the name 'huntards'), by the time everyone is 80 they're much more of a challenge to play.  From the viewpoint of a melee character, I have by far the most difficulty dealing with hunters that know how to use Frost Trap well.

[Vash]

I also wanted to say that the help in the thread has been very helpful.  The only thing I need to do now is to learn how to play my class better.  Seems that hunters are pretty weak in pvp.  Oh... trinkets.  I have two right now.  One has a 2k heal on it and the other I got in BC and it has a cc purge on a 5 min timer.  I'll look at the wintergrasp rewards, but wondered what folks here thought would be most useful. 

Definitely want the trinket with CC removal on a 2min cd and dps stats (190 attack power?) as your first trinket upgrade.  Trinketing out of CC/snares every 2 min vs. every 5 min is a huge difference, not to mention the one you have from TBC has no other beneficial stats in addition to the CC removal.

Your other trinket slot can be pretty flexible once you have the CC removal covered and there are several good options.  You can use a pure dps trinket if you ever pick a good one up in PvE for maximum damage/burst.  If you want maximum survivability you can get the other wintergrasp trinket with Resilience and a dps proc.  If you want a good mix of dps/survivability you can get the Battlemaster trinket from honor that has dps stats and an on use health increase.

[Nebu]

Edit: as far as hunters go, I only have a very low level one but I can tell you from fighting them that while they are extremely strong in the low level BGs (so much so they earned the name 'huntards'), by the time everyone is 80 they're much more of a challenge to play.  From the viewpoint of a melee character, I have by far the most difficulty dealing with hunters that know how to use Frost Trap well.

I have to confess that I'm still on the learning curve with my hunter, but my experience in the solo game in DAoC is helping.  I'm currently trying to get used to kiting in such a cc heavy game, but find a well-played druid, warrior, or rogue to be more than I can handle.  Most well-geared rogues can kill me before their stuns wear off.  I'm hoping that a gear improvement will help with this, especially a faster reuse timer on my trinket. 

[Gobbeldygook]

I'll look at the wintergrasp rewards, but wondered what folks here thought would be most useful. 

By far the best buy is the PVP trinket.  That is, one of those that clears CC on a 2 minute cooldown.  You can either get one via honor for ~36k?(I forget) or you can buy one through WG that trade the resilience on the trinket for DPS stats.

If you haven't already, pick up a second spec for PVP.  Most hunters are survival these days.  Something like this.

[Nebu]

Looking at the vendor charts, it seems the honor trinket is on a 3 min timer while the WG trinket is on a 2 min.  I think I'll use my honor for a cloak with resiliance and my WG tokens for the 2 min refresh.  Seems a logical way to get started. 

As for survival, I will use that when I can afford the 1k for the extra spec.  I went broke buying resiliance gear. 

Thanks for the input!

[Der Helm]

Mix of tank and DPS gear, no gems, almost all enchants missing 

There's a lot of very basic stuff you can fix easily here that will get you up to speed fast.

I slotted the gems very recently, they now show up on the armory.

I am in the process of replacing the tanking gear with Honor/WG rewards. Most where lucky drops from heroic instances or ToC.

Still wondering if it is worthwile to put enchants on my  gear. 

[Vash]

Looking at the vendor charts, it seems the honor trinket is on a 3 min timer while the WG trinket is on a 2 min.  I think I'll use my honor for a cloak with resiliance and my WG tokens for the 2 min refresh.  Seems a logical way to get started. 

As for survival, I will use that when I can afford the 1k for the extra spec.  I went broke buying resiliance gear. 

Thanks for the input!

The 3 minute cd on the honor trinket (battlemasters) is a health increase (not cc removal) and thus on a separate cd from the WG trinket.  Just a FYI as the cloak may still be a better upgrade.

Some additional thoughts:

You should also get a pet specifically for pvp, and spec the pet for it.  Last I knew crabs were a popular choice with the ability to pin someone in place for a few seconds, any extra CC that helps you kite/survive is a welcome addition.  Tank pets overall are fairly popular because of the talents/skills they can learn, like Intervene and the one that splits damage from a target with the pet similar to Soul Link for warlocks.  Both of those can be used situationally to boost your survivability or even on a friend/healer/flag carrier.

Blizzard was supposedly planning to improve Cunning pets with an eye towards PvP but I haven't been paying enough attention over the last few months to notice if they've improved them enough for serious PvP hunters to chose them over the tank type pets.

Also, you should familiarize yourself with using Master's Call (?) I think it's called, which is a stun/snare removal and short immunity you learn at 75 or so.  It's based on your pet and it's target or something strange though so you'll most likely need to look up a good macro for it (to have your pet target you, cast the spell, then switch back to your intended target all in one key press).

[K9]

Looking at the vendor charts, it seems the honor trinket is on a 3 min timer while the WG trinket is on a 2 min.  I think I'll use my honor for a cloak with resiliance and my WG tokens for the 2 min refresh.  Seems a logical way to get started. 

As for survival, I will use that when I can afford the 1k for the extra spec.  I went broke buying resiliance gear. 

Thanks for the input!

Titan-Forged Rune of Determination is the PvP trinket he is referring to. The honour trinkets (Battlemaster trinkets) have an on-use that grants you 3.8K extra HP, which is effectively a 3.8K heal. In the short term the WG trinket is a big upgrade, as you can't get the 2-min free anywhere else on your gear.

As far as BGs go, you need to strike a balance between sticking with people and not just following the zerg around. If you're solo and not a Rogue, Feral or DK you're pretty suicidal; although you can make some mileage in killing other solo players, particularly undergeared healers. I guess the biggest problem with hunters in PvP is that they need space to manouvre which is a rare commodity.

The only tip I have for rogues is to get an addon that shows buffs more clearly, and trinket out of kidney shot, not cheap shot. All rogues will cheap shot you, then build combo points during cheap shot for a longer kidney shot stun (+1s per combo point). If you trinket the cheap shot, then they'll just kidney shot you and you're back where you started.

Another decent trinket (imo) is the Darkmoon Card: Bezerker, it gives +105 crit and +105 resilience at 3 stacks, which proc almost instantly, and it's usually pretty cheap to buy on the AH (~200g on my server). Might be worth grabbing until you have honour or marks for a better item.

Another thing to consider is that the PvP set boni all give +50 resilience for two-pieces, so aiming for two pieces of hateful (or deadly in about 2 weeks time) will give you an extra 50 resilience on top of what you get from the gear. So the first two set pieces often work out to be better value. I'd be inclined to save and wait for Deadly to be available for honour if you decide to go this route.

[Nebu]

Another thing to consider is that the PvP set boni all give +50 resilience for two-pieces, so aiming for two pieces of hateful (or deadly in about 2 weeks time) will give you an extra 50 resilience on top of what you get from the gear. So the first two set pieces often work out to be better value. I'd be inclined to save and wait for Deadly to be available for honour if you decide to go this route.

Great stuff. 

So, I should save my honor for the next set to release?  I'm in no hurry to spend points as I'm a delayed gratification guy anyway.  I also am fine with dying a lot for the next month or so until I get better geared and learn the mechanics of my class. 

[K9]

Well you have to weight everything up based on what you have currently. The gloves and shoulders are the cheapest pieces, at 31,600 honour each, and aren't mirrored by any equivalent from the WG vendors. So those are the two pieces I'd go for first from the set.

Overall, Arena Season 7 is very close, and everything available for honour will jump up a tier when it starts. So now is the time to horde honour, and go all-out on deadly pieces (armour, rings, cloaks etc) at the get-go of the next season. They usually reset arena points between seasons, but I don't think they reset honour. Someone else might be able to confirm that though.

[Rendakor]

I can confirm that they do not reset honor between seasons.

And just FYI the honor-purchased CC removal trinket is also on a 2m cooldown. The WG one is not better, just different stats.

[K9]

True, as a DPS I'd probably pick the WG one though, as it has offensive stats.

[Sheepherder]

Der Helm:

1. Abomination's Might
2. Improved Blood Presence
3. Unholy sub-spec for blood, the Obliterate rotation has been nerfed.

[Selby]

So... since PvP is the last set of achievements I have to accomplish and do it mostly solo, what advice would you give for a mage?  The last time I PvP'd was back in vanilla when you wanted to grind out rep in AV for the nifty purples and mount in addition to maintaining that Seargent rank.  Obviously resilience is now important, but should I just give up on a mage ever being anything but free honor for other people or would I be able to decently compete?

[Gobbeldygook]

So... since PvP is the last set of achievements I have to accomplish and do it mostly solo, what advice would you give for a mage?  The last time I PvP'd was back in vanilla when you wanted to grind out rep in AV for the nifty purples and mount in addition to maintaining that Seargent rank.  Obviously resilience is now important, but should I just give up on a mage ever being anything but free honor for other people or would I be able to decently compete?

As an outsider looking in, frost mages seem to do pretty well in BGs.  Arcane is probably a bit easier but more likely to die horribly.  Don't try and PVP as fire unless you enjoy setting yourself on fire.

Some of the PVP achievements are going to be really, really 'fun'.  I can only imagine the amount of NERD RAGE Ironman would be for a clothy.

[Merusk]

Iron man isn't that hard for a clothy.. it's the SOLOING clothy who will go mad trying it. 

[Rendakor]

Thinking ahead, I got Ironman on my lowbie spriest at 28 in a PUG. Capped twice and asked the team if they minded; someone brought the flag midfield for me and passed it.