Arenas, BGs, or Wintergrasp

[Delmania]

So I am currently spending the majority of my time in WoW working on the Crusader title and leveling Inscription, but I hope to be finished with those before 3.3 is released.  Since i have a hard time findings groups and my guild is pretty much dead, which of the 3 pvp based activities gives teh best phat lootz?

[dd0029]

Arena, WG, BGs in order of phatness.  WG is probably the easiest phat lewtzs per unit of time though.  Arena is the hardest and longest.  2s are the "easiest" because its you and one other, but its hopeless from a balance perspective.  The randomness of the low bracket - 1300-1500 - really got to me personally. You see a lot of people going up and down here so you never know what you are going to face.  And unfortunately that's my rating bracket.  BGs are just time sinks in AV.

[Gobbeldygook]

If you're just getting into arenas, I strongly, strongly suggest going for a 2's double-dps comp.  Attempting to learn to play healer/dps will make you want to kill yourself.

[Merusk]

Based on the profile you linked previously, do all 3. You need resil. gear, bad.  Accept that you're going to get killed a lot.  In fact you'll be dirt napping more than you're doing anything else because of where we are in the content cycle.  You'll be fighting folks in uber epics and mega arena gear while you're still decked in blues, greens and holiday purples.  WUA can give more insight here, because he started late as well.

My advice:
 Hit WG at least once a day if your side wins regularly, otherwise it's probably not worth it more than once a week for the quests.   This will let you start accruing the shards you can trade for some resil gear and gems and tokens for other bits of gear.  Make sure you PUG VoA 10 AND 25 every week until you've gotten the pieces you want; this will also give you badges  you can trade-in for other bits.

Hit at least the BG daily every day until you win and you'll start accruing the 'crappy' honor armor pretty quick. You'll also start to learn something about how other classes can own you and what you can do to counter them.

Arenas are a once-a-week thing for your 10 matches, unless you're going to do them seriously to climb the ladder.  That's not something you're going to do for a while without any resil, so just take the losses and rejoice in any wins.  Find the biggest team you can manage to get together regularly and WITHOUT FAIL on your scheduled days.  My biggest headache in BC was being on an 8 person 5-man team with a set date, but always scrambling to pick someone up or recruiting a pug into the team for just that week's matches.   

[Fordel]

Don't bother with Arena unless you have a dedicated partner or three.


Just WG when it's up, and then do which ever BG's you enjoy the most.

[WindupAtheist]

WUA can give more insight here, because he started late as well.

He's getting started a lot later in the expansion cycle than me, but the principle is the same.

1) Wintergrasp whenever possible. The quests reset on Tuesday after maintenance, and again like four days later. So if you're able to do them all on Tuesday, you can do them again on Saturday. Nail those quests whenever you can, they're the richest source of honor in the game when they're up.

2) Battlegrounds the rest of the time. Wintergrasp happens every couple hours on it's own schedule, not yours, so obviously you need something to do the rest of the time. Whenever you have at least one token from each of the battlegrounds you can turn them in for extra honor, but you're probably better off just doing the ones you like rather than suffering through the ones you don't just to get tokens.

3) Arena if you have a partner who's on at the right time, plays a class that goes all right with yours, and is at least halfway decent at PVP. I dunno, I never really got into the whole arena thing. Look into it if the idea appeals to you, otherwise don't sweat it. You should probably have some PVP gear before going into it though.

4) Without PVP gear, you're going to die pretty easily. It's no big deal, just suck it up and don't try to run around solo. At all, really, but especially not when you don't have any resilience. Stick around other players, gang up on who they're hitting. Maybe drive a vehicle or man a gun in a battle that includes them. Contribute by being aware of the objectives, calling out incoming enemies, and so forth.

5) Battleground and Wintergrasp gear are basically the same, just itemized a bit differently. In any case you're gearing up and the two rely on different currencies (honor versus Wintergrasp marks) so you'll be buying both anyway.

[Zetor]

Another vote for Wintergrasp, at least once a week. WG itself gives a ton of honor, the weekly quests give even more, and the marks can be used to buy some very nice gear. When to play WG really depends on your server. On mine, whoever's on offense wins 90% of the time, so I just join WGs where my side is on the offensive, and do a 'defensive' WG once a week (to complete the 'destroy enemy tower' quest).

BGs can be hit and miss. With bad gear, zergy BGs like av/ioc/strand are best, along with eots maybe. Warsong and arathi basin are more about small-group combat where a gear disadvantage can be crippling. Still, you should be doing all BGs every once in a while to get marks for the "give me one mark of each BG" quest, which is also a crazy source of honor. This is also faction/battlegroup-dependent... if your side NEVER wins AV, just skip it and do something else instead, in my battlegroup wins/losses tend to be even everywhere else. On battleground weekends, queue for the battleground whose weekend it is, obviously.

At this point in the game (and your gear level), arena is unlikely to get you anything but frustration. Even in the lower brackets almost everyone is decked out in full deadly/furious at the very least, along with some ilevel226+ weapon from raiding*. Only do arena if you have an RL friend or trusty guildmate who doesn't mind losing, losing, and losing some more, or do it AFTER you have a set of deadly+ gear.

My recommendation on gearing is kinda simplistic: go for the highest ilevels first. For me it meant (I already had a 2-minute pvp trinket from BC; if you don't have a 2-min trinket, it should be your FIRST purchase)
Titan-forged legs (wg) -> furious bracers/belt/boots/cloak/neck (honor) -> titan-forged ring (wg) -> furious ring (honor) -> pvp trinket (honor or wg depending on preference) -> deadly gladiator's set (honor) and maybe the flow of knowledge wg trinket

The deadly set is the one that's going to cost you the most honor in my experience... tbh I'm not even sure it's worth doing if they're switching to the next season with 3.3 (are they?), since it'll become obsolete.

Edit: You CAN get a set of blue frostsavage (that's the cloth resil set right?) gear which is 'almost passable' for starting out, though you do sacrifice damage stats for stam + resilience. Actually, it might better to just go with a full set of pve gear and a pvp trinket since the slightly slower speed with which you die in frostsavage doesn't make up for the offensive power you lose from your pve gear (even if it's just blues and greens) in a BG situation.


* disclaimer: I haven't done arena since early season5 when I got fed up with how zergy and 'drop someone in two global cooldowns' it is even when compared to BC arena, but this is what I've heard from friends.

[Sheepherder]

ToC purples are superior to the crafted blues to my way of thinking.

[Delmania]

IO

Edit: You CAN get a set of blue frostsavage (that's the cloth resil set right?) gear which is 'almost passable' for starting out, though you do sacrifice damage stats for stam + resilience. Actually, it might better to just go with a full set of pve gear and a pvp trinket since the slightly slower speed with which you die in frostsavage doesn't make up for the offensive power you lose from your pve gear (even if it's just blues and greens) in a BG situation.


* disclaimer: I haven't done arena since early season5 when I got fed up with how zergy and 'drop someone in two global cooldowns' it is even when compared to BC arena, but this is what I've heard from friends.

I was just about to ask about the Frostsavage.  In terms of the Arena, I was reading a guide on Wowhead in which the person said just to recruit someone to form a 2 man team, then go into the fight, sit down, and close your eyes.  If my friend can stick out the last 4 levels, I'll have a pallie to group with.  Thanks for the all the information!

[Delmania]

One more question, in terms professions, would alchemy pots help at all with this?  The only benefit from Inscription is the shoulder enchant, as in terms of money making, it requires humping teh auctioneer.  I was considering dumping it in favor of Alc for the various potions.

[Paelos]

I'd also toss out the idea that you should run a couple of heroic dungeons. If you ran VH and Ajol, which combined take an hour max with breaks, you could buy some deadly gladiator pieces with the badges as well.

[Gobbeldygook]

Alchemy is not better than inscription.

[Delmania]

In terms of ultimate benefits, I think the shoulder enchants and the flask of northern rage are comparable.  I was thinking more of the endless health pots and FAPs.

[Nebu]

I started a toon at level 1 when WotLK came out and here's what I did:  

- WG when up (as above).  Get every WG quest you can for shards. 

- Do each BG once (for the extra honor and cash from the quest where you turn in one token from each)

- Do the BG's you lose to build a stock of tokens for future quest turn ins

- When I had a stockpile, I'd play the BG's I enjoyed the most.  

I think I was geared all in decent WG or Honor gear in two weeks.  Granted, we almost never lost WG which helped.

[Fordel]

Alch is fine for BG/WG style PvP, but the endless pots and stuff don't work in Arena (as in, literally not allowed by the game).

The Endless Flask will work in Arena though.



I think most 'serious' PvP'ers end up with some combination of two production professions. Like JC and Enchanting, but those folks have alts that gather for them.

[Selby]

I think most 'serious' PvP'ers end up with some combination of two production professions. Like JC and Enchanting, but those folks have alts that gather for them.

Serious raiders and PvP'ers do this.  You get 2 professions that actually benefit your character in ways that not having the profession can't.  Similarly for cloth casters taking up enchanting and tailoring, plate wearers using JC and blacksmithing, etc.

I would personally not pick up alchemy by dropping inscription.  Potions can be expensive yes, but if you are a gatherer you can talk to alchemists and exchange some work for materials such as frost lotus and the ingredients for the potions much cheaper than buying them at the AH.

[Fordel]

For me, My Druid has been Alch/Herb since the day the server opened, she'll stay that way till the day the server shuts down.

[Selby]

For me, My Druid has been Alch/Herb since the day the server opened, she'll stay that way till the day the server shuts down.

My druid is the same way.  She does very well for herself supplying flasks to my alts ;-)

[WindupAtheist]

I quit PVP. I just watched Alliance on my Battlegroup lose Arathi Basin twelve fucking times in a row. I'll do Wintergrasp when it's up, but they can cram this shit up their ass. Buncha fucking tools in their precious PVE garbage getting two-shotted while utterly failing to heal each other, gang up on healers, or do anything but perform like very poorly scripted bots.

[Selby]

Buncha fucking tools in their precious PVE garbage getting two-shotted while utterly failing to heal each other, gang up on healers, or do anything but perform like very poorly scripted bots.

It's what they do for PVE, why wouldn't it work in PVP too?  And when they do it in PVE, they fail there too...

[Fordel]

Some of them may very well have been bots. I've noticed quite a few the last couple weeks.

[WindupAtheist]

I did the Wintergrasp gathering quest and repeatedly tore the asshole out of some lock who was fucking with the Alliance noobs. Felt much better. But yeah, the level of Alliance fail on Whirlwind is just absurd. I'd change realms if all my friends weren't here.

[Xanthippe]

I quit PVP. I just watched Alliance on my Battlegroup lose Arathi Basin twelve fucking times in a row. I'll do Wintergrasp when it's up, but they can cram this shit up their ass. Buncha fucking tools in their precious PVE garbage getting two-shotted while utterly failing to heal each other, gang up on healers, or do anything but perform like very poorly scripted bots.

Switch sides.  All the kool kids do.

[Merusk]

I quit PVP. I just watched Alliance on my Battlegroup lose Arathi Basin twelve fucking times in a row. I'll do Wintergrasp when it's up, but they can cram this shit up their ass. Buncha fucking tools in their precious PVE garbage getting two-shotted while utterly failing to heal each other, gang up on healers, or do anything but perform like very poorly scripted bots.

Switch sides.  All the kool kids do.

I did it with my PVP Pally and the only regret I have is the 8.5:1 Alliance:Horde ratio on Alleria. (Which the LFD tool negates for anything but raid weeklys)   I'd server transfer, but it's much more fun to kill your guildmates in WG with 12-18 tenacity than random strangers.

Long-time Horde players like to SAY "well, you get those idiots Horde side, too,"  but until you've lived it for a few years at level cap you just can't relate.  Yeah, I still lose BGs to Alliance from time to time because of idots, but it's so much less frustrating this way it's not comparable. 

[Selby]

Switch sides.  All the kool kids do.

Yeah, there are alot of complaints about how when faction change came out all the alliance who were tired of losing WG came over to our horde side (the retard noise level did go up about then).  The only time alliance seems to win WG on our server is between 3AM-7AM or randomly during the middle of the day when no one else is around.

[Morfiend]

I am on one of the most populated servers (Tich) and ever since the faction change our sever went from roughly 1:1 ration to 2:1 ratio Horde side. Although I can see this leveling out for Cataclysm as about 80% of the people who changed to BE will probably change back to Alliance to play Worgan. I am planning on killing a lot of Worgan Druids, Rogues and DK.

Also, seems like in general Horde wins WG about 3 out of 5.

[Fordel]

WG is almost always a reflection of your servers specific H/A ratio, nothing more.


I'm always interested in how the various battlegroups seem to break down in BGs though. Nightfall has always been pretty much as 50/50 as you can get in my experience. If anything it favours the alliance slightly.

[WindupAtheist]

Alliance wins Wintergrasp the majority of the time, but it's an RP server that's been around since launch and has the expected Alliance-heavy population balance. The local Horde aren't particularly good, either. Sure some are, but there are plenty of zero-resilience retards running around who think their raid epics make them badasses.

It's just the battlegrounds that are total epic failure.

[WindupAtheist]

Jesus, with all the gear flying around AV is just a race to kill the general. The side that ignores the towers and just goes wins. Fucking ridiculous.

[apocrypha]

My server is about 3:1 Alliance to Horde and WG is really, really fun. About 70% of the time the attacking side wins, regardless of which side that is. The other 30% of the games are where the real fun happens though - hard fought defences, awesome set battles in the courtyards, skin-of-the-teeth tower attacks, etc.

The only consistent thing I've noticed (as Horde this is) is that when the raid chat has a few whiners and nay-sayers we lose. When the raid chat consists more of people giving intel and talking tactics then we win.

We've got a couple of people in our guild who transferred over from Alliance to join us (v small friends/family only guild) and they say that it's awful on the Alliance side. Kids, whingers, idiots, etc. Sure, they're present Horde side to but simply being outnumbered 3:1 seems to make the real tards piss off eventually.

[Fordel]

I've been having some really good games in Strands these days, where both sides are able to defend for long periods of time. Even had a game where both sides defended for the full 10 minutes. (Its a Draw and you both get 1 token :( )

I actually get a chance to use one of those cannons for longer then 5 seconds. Also don't have to spend the entire game trying to catch siege engines so I can cast 1 spell and chase them again.



-fake edit-


Apoc, it's another reflection of the numbers present. When your side is legion with numbers, lots of people get the attitude "someone else will do it". When you can see it's only a handful, most everyone tries to pull their weight and yea, the general attitude and morale plays a large factor. Once people resign themselves to lose, they probably will.

[Merusk]

Jesus, with all the gear flying around AV is just a race to kill the general. The side that ignores the towers and just goes wins. Fucking ridiculous.

It's not just the gear that does that.  My rogue is now level 71 and the Horde on Rampage BG has been doing that since I was 52.   There's always a prot pally or DK Horde side that's geared/ willing to multi-tank and enough healers to keep him up.  Meanwhile, Alliance sits there with their thumb up their ass waiting on towers to cap  OR the motherfuckers run out because "zomg I got aggro and might die in a battleground!"  My last game there were still 1:50 left on the DB towers when Vann died.

I haven't played AV at 80 in months.. I bet it's even worse there. They probably tank him with all 4 warmasters up.

[apocrypha]

Apoc, it's another reflection of the numbers present. When your side is legion with numbers, lots of people get the attitude "someone else will do it". When you can see it's only a handful, most everyone tries to pull their weight and yea, the general attitude and morale plays a large factor. Once people resign themselves to lose, they probably will.

Yeah I agree entirely with that. The smaller battles (20-40 per side) are often the best, where every person counts, but those are also the battles most susceptible to morale effects.

We've got 4 or 5 of us in my guild who are at 80 now and when we go in together, all on voice comms, we can turn the tide of the battle if we get it right, which is frankly awesome :)