Warcraft Revolutions

The Art of War(craft): Introductory guide to fighting rogues

Filed under: Rogue, Analysis / Opinion, PvP, The Art of War(craft) (PvP)

Uh-oh. Rogues. Those sneaky little bastards could be anywhere. Out of all the classes in the game, there is perhaps no class no more feared for their PvP prowess than rogues. Rogues gain a fearsome reputation by virtue of the nature of the class alone — they can Stealth. Because of rogues, everyone has to literally watch their backs. No place is safe because a rogue can be lying in lurking in some dark corner waiting to strike at the proper time. Through years of leveling in a PvP server, there is no sound in the game more unsettling than the low humming whoosh of a nearby stealthed rogue. In fact, rogue (and by extension, feral druid) stealth is the single biggest reason why I don’t PvP with music on.

And for rogues, it’s all about timing. In the Battlegrounds, it isn’t uncommon to find rogues preying on the weak, those low on life, the defenseless players eating or drinking. They can’t help it. It’s in their nature. The class encourages foul play through Stealth and a wonderful repertoire of attacks from behind. Rogues are at their best when catching their opponents off guard and are extremely capable of doing so. After the jump, we’ll take a closer look at the basic things to expect when fighting a rogue regardless of their spec.

Continue reading The Art of War(craft): Introductory guide to fighting rogues

The Art of War(craft): Introductory guide to fighting rogues originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Blood Sport: Horde racials

Filed under: PvP, Blood Sport (Arena PvP)

Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all-things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com’s arena column.

Listening Music: New Slang, by The Shins. My wife turned me on to The Shins maybe ~5 years ago and I’ve loved them and the genre ever since. This live version is raw and beautiful, even if a little slow.

Last Week: We talked about Alliance racials and why Humans are overpowered. Check it out if you have the time.

This Week: We’ll be discussing Horde racials in arena. I’ve included power-rankings as well. Let me know if you think I’m spot-on or way-off.

Tauren

War Stomp: Activate to stun opponents - Stuns up to 5 enemies within 8 yards for 2 seconds. 2 minute cooldown.

This might just be personal bias, but I absolutely love War Stomp. It’s a racial that is often under-utilized — I see PvPers trying to use it defensively a lot of times. This thing is nothing short of an extra stun in a kill-target lockdown repertoire. It can also double as a silence to interrupt healers.

While War Stomp isn’t strictly better than Arcane Torrent, it comes pretty close. War stomp has a .5 second cast time, but works on everyone (silencing melee doesn’t do that much). The .5 second cast time can actually be a benefit, as you have more time off the global cooldown once the ability affects your target.

For an active racial (as opposed to a passive racial), it doesn’t get any better than War Stomp.

Continue reading Blood Sport: Horde racials

Blood Sport: Horde racials originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Colosseum: Tredd, warrior of Auchindoun

Filed under: Warrior, PvP, Interviews, The Colosseum

The Colosseum takes us inside the world of the Gladiator (Relentless, Furious, Deadly, Brutal, Vengeful, Merciless, and otherwise), to interview some of the top Arena fighters on the battlegroups. Our goal is to bring a better understanding of the strategy, makeup, and work that goes into dueling it out for fame, fortune, and Frostwyrms. We’re especially focused on the people who play these games, to further shed light on the world of the PvP player. If you’d like to be interviewed for The Colosseum, please feel free to contact us — be sure to include your armory as a link!

Warriors in arena seem to be all the rage these days. We were pleased to interview Tredd, a front-page warrior who plays multiple team compositions in 3v3. Read on to see what Tredd has to say about the state of arena!

WoW.com: Why do you play warrior? What is it about the class’s toolbox that appeals to you for competitive arena?

Tredd: To me, warriors are one of the most prime classes when it comes to dealing damage and keeping up the pressure. This is mostly due to the rage mechanic, which allows me to keep using abilities and not having the weakness of having to drink. Also, our incredibly good defensive measures with Shield Block + Shield Wall and Spell Reflect make the class very versatile when going head to head with any other class.

WoW.com: Why do you play arms instead of protection?

Tredd: I currently run arms mostly for the comps I play — Mortal Strike is more effective than prot’s fifty billion stuns. I do, however, enjoy protection PvP as much as Arms. I can’t really say more than that, since prot has Warbringer Intervene vs. Bladestorm etc.

Continue reading The Colosseum: Tredd, warrior of Auchindoun

The Colosseum: Tredd, warrior of Auchindoun originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Daily Quest: PvP edition

Filed under: PvP, The Daily Quest

Here at WoW.com we’re on a Daily Quest (which we try to do every day, honest) to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we ought to follow? Just leave us a comment and you may see it here tomorrow!

If you’re interested in PvP battlegrounds, you’re probably aware that patch 3.3.3 is turning the system on its head — completely removing Marks of Honor as well as increasing honor gains across the board. Have a bank full of the things? Well, we’ve got good news for you — at present on the PTR you can convert them to honor at the rate of 2000 honor per mark. Combine that with the recent explanation of Wintergrasp mechanics and what have you got? A lot of excitement about PvP battlegrounds. Here’s what’s making the rounds of the blogosphere.

• Cynwise thinks now’s the time to be running battlegrounds and collecting Marks of Honor.
• Holypaladin.net talks about Wintergrasp imbalance.
• Birdfall discusses seeing the opposite faction as people.
• Getting back to the basics, Spiceytuna explains resilience and gives talks frost mage PvP 101.
• Already a PvP expert? Over on the official forums Nethaera is looking for Warsong Gultch advice to be included in the next World of Warcraft magazine.

The Daily Quest: PvP edition originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Introductory guide to fighting priests, Part 2

Filed under: Priest, Analysis / Opinion, PvP, The Art of War(craft) (PvP)

Zach broke up this guide to fighting priests in personal-sized helpings similar to how he’d slice up a banoffee pie for your devouring convenience. But also mostly because his head felt like it had just been hit by a Mind Blast.

Yesterday we took a look at priests and their most commonly used abilities in PvP regardless of spec. Today we’ll get a little more specific and break down the three basic specs and their abilities in tactics. This should answer some folks’ question about why I didn’t mention Penance, which is arguably the most used priest heal on the battlefield. The answer, of course, is that Penance is the last tier discipline talent and not every priest will have access to it. You see someone in Shadowform, they’re not going to be using Penance. You see someone toss a Guardian Spirit — another awesome angel wing graphic spell — they’re not going to be using Penance. Now that we’ve got that little detail out of the way, let’s jump right into the different kinds of priests you’ll be encountering in the Battlegrounds.

The cool thing about the Battlegrounds as opposed to Arenas is that there’s a lot more spec flexibility. The relaxed environment allows for more freedom to play the spec you want to play as opposed to the spec you need to play in order to be optimal for competition. For priests, in particular, this means the freedom to play any of the three specs as opposed to necessarily speccing discipline in order to enjoy success in PvP. For you, the would-be priest-slayer, this means that you should expect to see priests of all kinds in play.

Continue reading Introductory guide to fighting priests, Part 2

Introductory guide to fighting priests, Part 2 originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PvP with Blizzard today

Filed under: News items, PvP

Taking place tomorrow from 4:00 p.m. PST / 7:00 p.m. EST until 6:30 p.m. PST / 9:30 p.m. EST is another chance for you to engage in PvP combat with Blizzard employees on the U.S. PTR. The Community Team and Quality Assurance team will queue up via the Random Battleground Finder and fight the pleabes in this battle royale. Want to show Zarhym how much you love him? Now’s your chance!

Also taking place tomorrow is the twitter developer chat with Cory Stockton and Greg Street, so you won’t have an opportunity to exact revenge on Ghostcrawler for nerfing your class to the ground (baby). But there’s certainly a lot of potential for some community engaged WoW fun tomorrow.

In general the blues on the PTR can be quite entertaining… especially when they decide to start turning people into toads and chickens. Good times!

Ujumqin — PvP a Blizzard Employee

P.S. Zarhym: We totally won’t replace the Wyvern with an Orc or Onyxia or something. For real. We’ll behave. Promise. Just ask Ghostcrawler.

PvP with Blizzard today originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Patch 3.3.3 PTR: New battleground mark conversion

Filed under: News items, PvP

• PvP Mounts
• Level 60 Legacy PvP Armor - page 1, page 2, page 3
• Level 60 Legacy PvP Weapons - page 1, page 2, page 3
• Level 70 Outland PvP Armor - page 1, page 2
• Level 70 Outland PvP Trinkets - page 1, page 2

Patch 3.3.3 PTR: New battleground mark conversion originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Art of War(craft): Introductory guide to fighting priests

Filed under: Priest, Analysis / Opinion, PvP, The Art of War(craft) (PvP)

Zach enjoys PvP almost as much as he enjoys eating his wife’s phenomenal banoffee pies. That’s saying a lot because, damn, those banoffee pies are freaking awesome melanges of succulent toffee, rich chocolate syrup, perfectly ripe bananas, and luscious whipped cream on a deliciously molded graham crust. He’s probably snuck down to the fridge and grabbed a slice now. Kind of like how those pesky rogues steal the flag when you’re not looking.

Priests are an interesting study for this series, primarily because out of all the game’s ten classes, they are the only ones with two talent trees devoted to healing. This means that two out of three times, you’ll be encountering a healing priest. That’s not exact math, but you know what I mean. Shadow, the class’ DPS tree, has had an interesting history with viability and acceptance, having been known as a PvP tree in the game’s early years, later gaining raid viability and losing PvP luster. In the current environment, shadow remains a popular PvP tree but it is far easier to find success in Arenas and Battlegrounds with a healing spec. In this regard, discipline, the mitigation tree formerly considered to be complementary and gimmicky has shone.

Naturally, most fights against priests, particularly discipline-specced ones, will be long and difficult for most classes. That said, let’s take a moment to examine the various abilities used by priests on the battlefield. A priest’s repertoire of common spells is rather limited, and most of their key abilities will depend on their spec. A rundown of stuff to expect from them after the break.

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The Art of War(craft): Introductory guide to fighting priests originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A look at GM Island and the Player Jail

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Cheats

It’s hard to judge exactly how many players know about GM Island. Some of the older players will remember the flood of trade chat and guild chats whenever a GM was online and visible in GM Island, and those folks who like to mess around with private servers and unexplored places will have at least heard of its existence. However today, with the island being so cordoned off, many players probably are not familiar with the mythical island of the game masters.

GM Island is a piece of land that used to exist in the very upper left hand coordinates of Azeroth, far beyond the reach of players. It exists as an in-game entrance point for Blizzard GMs, and is a relatively mundane place. It has a small keep and a dock, a few trees and bushes, and that’s it.

There was a time when players were able to swim out to the island, and that swim took around an hour of hard work. It involved using a level one character constantly casting renew and other healing spells; and the player had to know exactly where to point themselves or risk being hopelessly lost in the vast oceans of Azeroth. The trick used to get there was similar to the one that allowed players to get to the Isle of Quel’Danas on the patch 2.4 PTR back in 2008. It was also possible to water-walk out there, but not much is known anymore about that method, at least publicly.

After the break we’ll take a look at a few of the features and lore surrounding GM Island, as well as look at some videos. However, please be forewarned that some of the images and videos in this post are from private servers. Enough legitimate in-game footage simply doesn’t exist.

Continue reading A look at GM Island and the Player Jail

A look at GM Island and the Player Jail originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Blood Sport: Alliance Racism

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, PvP, Blood Sport (Arena PvP)

Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all-things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com’s arena column.

Listening Music: Sting with some of my favorite folk, “The Snow, It Melts the Soonest.” Although this version isn’t my favorite, it’s one of the only videos with decent quality I could find — and it’s by Sting, gotta love Sting.

Last Week: We talked about season eight compositions and trends, particularly in 3v3. Not much has changed since then. Check it out if you have the time, it’s still very relevant.

This Week: We’ll be discussing the wonderful imbalances we call “racials” for arena. The alliance have historically had worse PvP racials than their horde counterparts, but this might have changed in WotLK.

Remember back to a time when race changes didn’t exist. In vanilla WoW and The Burning Crusade, players had to reroll or deal with the racials that they originally chose, even if those racials got nerfed or buffed. These racials were also far more imbalanced than they are today, which added insult to injury for certain race / class combinations.

Dwarf

Stoneform: Activate to remove poison, disease, and bleed effects; +10% Armor; Lasts 8 seconds. 2 minute cooldown.

This racial is a shadow of what it once was. Pre-WotLK, this racial would give a 8 second immunity to poison, disease, and bleed effects. The difference is enormous — removing a 50% healing debuff in Wound Poison for an 8 second window allowed the dwarf to receive some massive heals. The racial was also on a three minute cooldown, but most PvPers will tell you that the shortened cooldown does not make up for the 8 second immunity. Dwarf priests and hunters had a much easier time surviving against rogues in The Burning Crusade, which is probably the reason the racial was nerfed for WotLK.

Continue reading Blood Sport: Alliance Racism

Blood Sport: Alliance Racism originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wintergrasp’s hidden balance mechanics revealed, minor changes coming soon

Filed under: News items, PvP

Not long after Zarhym officially announced the Assault on the Ruby Sanctum, he also posted a thread announcing some changes incoming for Wintergrasp. Far more interesting than that, however, is the glimpse into the hidden mechanics behind Wintergrasp that caused the various anomalies that have left players scratching their heads since Wrath’s launch, such as the opposing faction gaining the ability to build siege tanks after only one kill.

The changes are posted in full below, and keep this note from Zarhym in mind: “[...] although this information may feel very new to you, the actual changes being made in the patch to the current system are relatively minor.”

Continue reading Wintergrasp’s hidden balance mechanics revealed, minor changes coming soon

Wintergrasp’s hidden balance mechanics revealed, minor changes coming soon originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Art of War(craft): Introductory guide to fighting paladins

Filed under: Paladin, Analysis / Opinion, PvP, The Art of War(craft) (PvP)

Zach writes the weekly Battlegrounds and world PvP column The Art of War(craft). He is also a career Paladin who has played the class in all its iterations in various RPGs. He attempts to live high, live mighty, and live righteously.

Ah, Paladins. Otherwise known as the game’s God-class. Paladins, next to hunters, arguably have the lowest skill to success ratio among all classes in the game. This means that many players with low familiarity with the game can pick up a paladin and play the class with relative ease and have moderate success in the battlegrounds. Retribution paladins, in particular, are so easy to play that it can be addicting. Many players easily get the delusion that they’re good. This is what prompted Blizzard to call out the spec, saying that it is successful in lower Arena brackets but significantly less so against tougher competition.

Paladins also enjoy a significant psychological edge against a lot of players because of their reputation, giving them an advantage even before the fight begins. Well, today we’re focusing on how to fight paladins in our series of guides aimed at teaching players basic strategies against particular classes. We’ve discussed death knights, druids, hunters, and last week, mages. After the jump, we’ll break down a paladin’s strengths, discuss their frequently used skills, and eventually their weaknesses. As fearsome as paladins can be in combat, they suffer from glaring weaknesses, too. As long as you keep those weaknesses in mind, you should fare better against them on the battlefield.

Continue reading The Art of War(craft): Introductory guide to fighting paladins

The Art of War(craft): Introductory guide to fighting paladins originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 23:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Upcoming battleground and honor changes

Filed under: News items, PvP

Zarhym has announced today major upcoming battleground and honor changes. These changes will be present in the next minor content patch, which will be on the PTR soon. Some of the key points:

• Marks of Honor are going away.
• Holiday weekends will now be denoted as “Call to Arms” and award tiered system of honor for participation. The tier is based on you winning or losing the battleground, and if you’ve won or lost before.
• Honor kills reward 100% more honor, Wintergrasp weekly quests give 50% less honor, and XP rewarded from honor kills are reduced by 50%.
• Implementation of the Random Battleground Finder — much like the current Random Dungeon Finder. There are further honor rewards, which are similar to the ones provided by the Call to Arms.

Obviously, there are a ton of implications in these changes to the basic way people participate in PvP. These changes also represent a good start to the massive overhaul we’ll see in Cataclysm when rated battlegrounds are introduced.

The full statement after the break.

Continue reading Upcoming battleground and honor changes

Upcoming battleground and honor changes originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Encrypted Text: The art of the gank

Filed under: Rogue, PvP, (Rogue) Encrypted Text

Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we discuss how to gank with style and grace.

You’re tired. You’ve been slaying the denizens of Icecrown Citadel for hours, you’ve spent your entire week clearing the daily heroics for your valuable Emblems of Frost, and you can’t remember the last time you left Dalaran when you weren’t en route to a raid. Your work has not been in vain, and you probably have some stiff new leather armor and maybe a plastic-wrapped weapon or two to show for it.

Your new armor is too tight, it is stifling and you must be nimble. If your weapons are too mint, they won’t fit in your hands, and they will throw off your balance. With such little time left at level 80, we don’t have the luxury of underperforming. How can you make your armor flexible to allow you to avoid enemy attacks? How can you mold your weapon to become an extension of your own arm? And how can you vent the pent up stress of mindlessly spamming Fan of Knives in heroics for hours on end? Luckily, there’s a magic element that will solve all three of these problems: innocent blood.

Continue reading Encrypted Text: The art of the gank

Encrypted Text: The art of the gank originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Blood Sport: Season eight team compositions

Filed under: PvP, Blood Sport (Arena PvP)

Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all-things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com’s arena column.

Listening Music: Deadmau5 with “Ghosts ‘N Stuff.” The Mau5 might be a WoW player himself, as evidenced by a somewhat recent facebook post (thanks for the tip, Karl)! Check him out on YouTube if you have the time. I actually had a recent in-game conversation about his brilliant techno electronica; his live stuff is second to none.

Last Week: Part VII of our Beginner’s Guide to Arena. We talked about seeking out and holding onto arena partners. There’s a lot involved in molding a successful arena team.

This Week: We’ll be discussing season eight team compositions and what they might hold for future trends.

Krebosh over on ArenaJunkies has compiled some interesting data about the most successful teams in season eight thus far. I wouldn’t normally post on something like this at the start of the season — after all, we’re only two weeks in. A lot of things can change, and any speculation as to trends appearing is purely that — speculation.

However, this is the start of a unique season in our Wrath of the Lich King era. Our beloved resilience has been buffed to all-get-out. Season eight has been prophesied to produce a significant deviation in strategy and composition that we haven’t seen in some time.

Continue reading Blood Sport: Season eight team compositions

Blood Sport: Season eight team compositions originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Colosseum: Patz, priest of Mugthol and Kel’Thuzad

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, PvP, The Colosseum

The Colosseum takes us inside the world of the Gladiator (Relentless, Furious, Deadly, Brutal, Vengeful, Merciless, and otherwise), to interview some of the top Arena fighters on the battlegroups. Our goal is to bring a better understanding of the strategy, makeup, and work that goes into dueling it out for fame, fortune, and Frostwyrms. We’re especially focused on the people who play these games, to further shed light on the world of the PvP player. If you’d like to be interviewed for The Colosseum, please feel free to contact us — be sure to include your armory as a link!

Today’s Colosseum offers a rare sight into the mind of an arena player who has multiple high-ranking teams…on multiple battlegroups. Patz, a discipline priest from Mugthol, has recently achieved top-five rank on not only his main character, but also an alt of the same class stationed on Kel’Thuzad (Patzqt).

On his main character, Patz plays a 5v5 composition commonly referred to as 2345. 2345 stands for discipline priest, holy paladin, warrior, elemental shaman, mage. However, our interviewee decided to go a different route on his alt Patzqt to utilize a completely different 5v5 composition of three healers, a warlock, and a hunter.

WoW.com: Why do you play priest? What is it about the class’s toolbox that appeals to you for competitive arena?

Patz: I play a priest because it has potential to be defensive or offensive at will. The amount of damage and defensive cooldowns that priests have appeals to me. Sometimes a priest can just spam damage into a target for the duration of a game and win. Mana Burn is skill as well, and I love double defensive/offensive dispels. Dispel Magic is one of the best abilities that priests have. The instant casts (Power Word: Shield, Prayer of Mending, Renew) make priests unique and keeps playing a priest fun as well.

Continue reading The Colosseum: Patz, priest of Mugthol and Kel’Thuzad

The Colosseum: Patz, priest of Mugthol and Kel’Thuzad originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 14 Feb 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Art of War(craft): Introductory guide to fighting mages

Filed under: Mage, Analysis / Opinion, PvP, The Art of War(craft) (PvP)

Zach, who’s obsessed with PvP, has sworn off playing his high level characters until Razer releases a Mac version of the Razer Naga driver v2.0, which allows key mapping. Because the Razer Naga’s awesome and key mapping is badass but gaming on a Mac sucks.

Mages are a slippery bunch. Don’t be fooled by those pansy dresses and flimsy wands. Mages are fearsome opponents on the battlefield, possessing wondrous abilities taken from the pages of classic fantasy — they can hurl gigantic fireballs, pop from one place to the other, turn opponents into critters, and even make their own food and drink (which is why it’s important to make friends with one)! Nowadays, they can even disappear and make copies of themselves, making them even trickier and more dastardly.

Today, we’ll figure out some basic things to consider when we’re fighting a mage. In the past weeks we’ve discussed how to deal with death knights, druids, and hunters, so today we’ll turn our attention to the archetypal caster class of the game. Some classes will have an easier time with mages, particularly those who can interrupt spellcasting and shrug off spell effects, while others will fall prey to their considerable abilities to snare, crowd control, and their remarkable burst damage. Mages are one-third of one of the most efficient, complementary, and successful 3v3 Arena comps and for good reason. A closer look at what Christian Belt proudly calls, “the best class in the game” after the break.

Continue reading The Art of War(craft): Introductory guide to fighting mages

The Art of War(craft): Introductory guide to fighting mages originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Blood Sport: Beginner’s guide to arena, Part VII

Filed under: PvP, Blood Sport (Arena PvP)

Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all-things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com’s arena column.

Listening Music: 15 Step, by Radiohead. If you liked it, check out the full set — it’s fourteen tracks, and they don’t stick to just In Rainbows! Myxomatosis and Where I End and You Begin (a personal favorite) are included.

Last Week: Beginner’s guide to arena, part VI. A glossary of arena terms is important for any starting arena player. We went over some of the more interesting and often confusing terms PvPers like to use in casual conversation. Get acquainted with some gladiator jargon.

This Week: We’ll be discussing some helpful tips for finding arena partners. Everything from trade chat to recruitment forums and more. We’re gonna do this quasi-chronologically. You might shift around the order a bit, that’s cool.

1) Get as much PvP gear as possible.

Do Vault of Archavon 25-man and 10-man each week. Grind heroics for badges to buy PvP main pieces. Grind battlegrounds for off-set pieces. We talked about ways to gear up in Part I of our beginner’s guide series. Having a lot of PvP gear will help you to win games, which helps to get skilled PvPers to notice you.

Continue reading Blood Sport: Beginner’s guide to arena, Part VII

Blood Sport: Beginner’s guide to arena, Part VII originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Toravon: Strategy for the latest Wintergrasp boss

Filed under: PvP, Raiding

Toravon is the latest boss to appear within the Vault of Archavon, however we’re not quite sure if he is the last of the VoA bosses to be seen in this expansion. The boss is fairly simple conceptually, but don’t take him too lightly. I’ll walk you through what you need to know to get score some sweet tier 10 PvE gear and equivilent PvP gear.

Gear Drops

He drops tier 10 level gloves and legs along with PvP gear (like belt and boots). Unlike his brothers, he drops 3 items on 25 instead of 2. And yes, he does drop Emblems of Frost. Its a fairly simple encounter for an equipped raid group. There aren’t any fires to stay out of or anything. You’ll need 2 tanks and at least 4-5 healers (on 10 man, you can get away with 2).

Tanks

Tanks will need to switch off of each other to shake the Frostbite debuff. It can stack up to 100 times and each application places a DoT which hits for about 1000 every couple of seconds. Your tanks can switch when they feel the debuff is getting high.

Continue reading Toravon: Strategy for the latest Wintergrasp boss

Toravon: Strategy for the latest Wintergrasp boss originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Shield spell effectiveness reduced in PvP

Filed under: Paladin, Priest, Analysis / Opinion, PvP

After the recent changes to resilience and the reduction of healing in PvP, we now move on to spells that prevent damage entirely. Power Word: Shield and Sacred Shield are also being affected, having their effectiveness in Arenas, Wintergrasp and Battlegrounds reduced by 10%. Bornakk broke the news to the forums, which responded about as you might expect, with people who rely on those mechanics frustrated and those who have to try and kill people using them jubilant. I know, I was shocked too.

I’m kind of on the fence about this change. On the one hand, man, as a warrior I hate beating on a shield in PvP. Hate hate hate. It does seem odd to me that we moved resilience to reduce all incoming damage and then reduced all healing to match, though. It seems somewhat like a complicated way to do nothing at all. As someone who sometimes goes resto on my shaman for PvP, I don’t really look forward to having my heals heal for less, especially since it’s a penalty that will hit me immediately while farming up honor for PvP gear to get resilience will take me time, time my healing will have been adversely affected throughout. How about you? Happy or unhappy about the latest changes in PvP?

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Shield spell effectiveness reduced in PvP originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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