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The Art of War(craft): Gearing up for PvP
One of the most important things in World of Warcraft PvP, obviously -- as with all endeavors in a loot-driven game -- is gear. Epic items with Stamina and Resilience, PvP set bonuses and all that. Well, that's not what we're going to talk about today. Today we'll take a look at the metagame. What you do outside the World of Warcraft and how you can improve your PvP skills with so-called gaming gear and other factors out of the game.Over the past few months, my brother built a custom trail bike that he weighed down to the gram (it's about 10.12kg compared to the 15kg bike I currently use). It cost him something in the atmosphere of $3,000, and when I chided him about spending so much for it, he explained that since he doesn't have as much skill as other competitive bikers, he tries to make up for it with a better tool. It makes sense. Obviously, a superior athlete with a mediocre bicycle could and does outperform him in competitions, but he beats bikers of identical skill and athleticism with his new, lightweight, high-end bike.What does this have to do with the World of Warcraft, you ask? Well, my brother's reasoning applies to gaming, as well. While natural talent and skill for video games isn't something you can achieve or obtain overnight (if at all), it's easy enough to take steps to improve your metagame. Just as characters get an advantage through in-game gear, players can get an advantage using real life gear.
Blizzard discusses the state of PvP
One thread over at the forums sparked quite a discussion when it asked what the problem was with World of Warcraft PvP. It's a pretty good question and definitely not something with a simple answer, but Ghostcrawler took up the task and addressed several issues in his usual forthcoming fashion. In a nutshell, Blizzard views the following issues as the primary problems of PvP: Too much emphasis on Arenas and not enough on Battlegrounds. Too much emphasis on 2s and not enough on 3s and 5s. Not enough class / spec representation in Arena. Warlock, hunter and shaman numbers in particular are too low, but they're not the only ones. Too fast-paced. Ghostcrawler proceeded to explain the last point in detail, talking once again about burst damage and reiterating their intent that PvP should be a balance between damage, healing, and crowd control. He says that Blizzard plans to "add an extra GCD or two" in the small window where a player can either be healed to full or fall to enemy fire, allowing players to better use their full toolbox. Anyone who has ever played Arenas should know that that's a pretty tall order.
Hunter solos Utgarde Keep
Tribunalx sent us this great video about something that's fallen out of fashion lately: Hunter soloing. Back in the day, when Mend Pet was still affected by plus healing (back when there was plus healing), Hunters would routinely take down Azuregos by themselves, but they've since had to sit on the sidelines while other classes stepped into the solo arena. But now, with Mend Pet and Bestial Wrath glyphs, a Hunter stacking Stamina in PvP gear, the new version of Deterrence, and pets with their own Tenacity talents, Hunter soloing is possible yet again.As Tribunalx says in the video, it's not really easy, and there's a lot you have to keep track of (and Hunters definitely aren't the only class that can do this -- there's probably a Paladin soloing UK and/or a Death Knight out there as well). But it is definitely possible, as you can see above. Maybe we're experiencing a renaissance of Hunter solo possibilities -- next up, The Nexus? Good luck with the Ormorok gauntlet.
The Queue: Casinos? In my WoW?
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.If you've been reading The Queue for awhile, you'd know that Adam Holisky and I were taking turns writing this thing each day, but he's been sparse lately. Before we get started today, I just wanted to stop and let you guys know that he's okay, he's alive, but the flooding in his hometown of Fargo has gotten pretty ridiculous. He's been documenting the Fargo Flood on his personal blog the whole way through, so if you're interested, give it a gander.If you have friends or family in the area, or simply want to lend a hand, Red Cross and the United Way have set up some resources for all of you to peruse as well. Keep the people of Fargo in your thoughts, folks. I'm sure having Blackhawks flying over your house loses its cool factor after awhile.Jack Spicer asked..."What's the best/easiest way to get starter gear for PvP at 80?"
The evolutionary design of Arena gear
When we reported on MMO Champion's sneak peek at the new Furious Gladiator gear, you might have found that new Arena sets were somewhat familiar. They should be. Arena Season 6 item sets are slight variations on a theme. Most of the pieces are recolored versions of the Season 5 multi-tier sets, but the head and shoulder pieces are entirely new models.What many players who don't like the sets seem to miss on is that this is something entirely new in the game. Blizzard has always done recolored versions of armor, but this is the first time by my reckoning that they have done evolutionary tier gear. [EDIT: This isn't entirely true. Reader Suzaku pointed out that the leather armor from Level 60 PvP sets evolved. My bad on missing out on that.] When I first encountered Blizzard's new multi-tiered PvP gear system, I was apprehensive about the next season's gear because I was afraid it would be difficult to match pieces visually. Arena gear had, prior to Season 5, been mere recolors of PvE raid sets, so there was no contuity from the one season to the next.The problem with that was upgrading from one season's set to the other created visual clashes. As much as we like to min/max, PvPers like to look good, too. Enter Season 5 and the multi-tier gear system. There were three different sets of gear but all of them melded seamlessly into the other, with minor discrepancies in color. The introduction of an entirely new set of gear with completely different designs in Season 6 would have invalidated not just one but three sets of gear. However, the new design philosophy builds upon the older models, evolving -- as Alex put it -- like Azerothian Pokemon.
Ghostcrawler talks a bit about Resilience
Let's face it, Resilience blows right now. In their effort to give escalating rewards through the Seasons, Blizzard allocated minimal Resilience for Season 5 gear. It's not bad, but in order to make Resilience count, you would need to stack over 1,200 Resilience Rating to hit the optimal cap. That's not even possible with the current gear. In order to even reach about 900 Resilience Rating -- the point where its effects start to be palpable -- players would have to gimp themselves with all their gems and enchantments. This means severely lowered damage output. In the current Arena setting, it's all about burst damage, with matches lasting nowhere near as long as they used to back before Wrath of the Lich King. Ghostcrawler pops over the forums to talk a little about Resilience and how Blizzard feels that it still makes, or will make, a difference. He explains that the reason so many players are wearing PvE gear to PvP is because its readily available, going so far as to call Naxxramas gear the new welfare epics. He says that as more players get Resilience, other players will have to keep pace.That might take some time. Like I mentioned, even with a complete set of Deadly Gladiator gear and non-set items, it's going to be impossible to hit the Resilience cap. Resilience makes very little impact in PvP encounters right now that the risk to using PvE gear over PvP gear is minimal. Hitting 600-700 Resilience is very possible with a decent complement of PvP gear, but this only reduces damage from crits by about 17% at best. Resilience in its current design does nothing to reduce normal, or non-crit damage. Until more Resilience shows up in PvP gear or its coefficients or ratios changed, the trend of using a lot of PvE gear will probably continue throughout Season 5.
Wrath 101: Resilience at Level 80
The current trend in Arena matches nowadays are quick and dirty fights that last no more than a minute. Perhaps two at best. This is because of the prevalence and dominance of burst damage, which Blizzard acknowledges. This is in contrast with the latter seasons of Arenas where matches were drawn out and crowd control, mana draining, and exceptional healing dominated matches. Blizzard is aware of this trend but say they want to observe things first until players get more Resilience.One common question I've been asked and often seen thrown in the general and trade channels is "what is the new Resilience cap?" The answer isn't a straightforward one. It's important to first understand what Resilience means and why it's so important for PvP. Resilience is the character attribute that reduces the chance a player will get hit by a critical strike, reduces the damage done by critical strikes and damage over time effects, and reduces the amount drained by mana draining effects. It's an awesome mechanic and is probably my favorite item stat. More Resilience means higher survivability in PvP, but conversely -- because it takes up valuable stat points -- means players generally deal less damage than players dressed up in PvE gear.
Wrath 101: Honor points
One of our site leads, Dan O'Halloran, asked me a question that surprised me yesterday. He asked me what he was supposed to do with Honor points and where he could spend them. See, Dan isn't a huge fan of PvP. In fact, he only happened to try out the wonderfully fun and crazy Wintergrasp in between exploring on his brand-spankin' new epic wings. I think he found it fun enough to play it again. This brought us to the conclusion that maybe, just maybe, a whole lot of players are going to be accumulating Honor pretty soon without them knowing it. He thinks that a lot of players, mostly strictly-PvE carebears, would be curious enough about Wintergrasp to try it out... and hopefully enjoy it enough to play it again. I hope so, too. This means a whole lot of players who'd never PvP'd before, like Dan, for example, would need some sort of guide on Honor points and what to do with them. Here's where we step in with this handy little Honor overview.
The nipples of dragons
So, Arena Season 5 has started. There's a lot of new stuff, and it's pretty cool how it's easily available to everyone, isn't it? Except for the top gear, pretty much everything can be farmed even without having to do any PvP whatsoever. All very well and good, but have you actually taken a look at any of the new PvP gear? Back in Burning Crusade, the Arena sets were mere re-colors of the raid sets, a mistake that Blizzard said they'd avoid in Wrath. They made good on that promise with Season 5, but somehow, the appearance of the sets are kind of... meh.The lackluster designs came under fire on the forums a few days back, and Zarhym was quick to defend the art team, saying that "the looks of the sets will improve as the seasons continue," and that if Blizzard had started the first sets with awesome designs, the latter seasons might see Thrall being worn around players' heads. It's a pretty funny joke, but I'm not quite sure it holds water. Zarhym continues to say that the design philosophy is that "in PvE you're killing very rare and challenging creatures of Azeroth, while in PvP you're receiving gear from the crafters (so to speak) of your faction to get you battle-ready."He goes on to make a truly memorable line, "chances are you're going to be given the gear that'll get the job done rather than the gear that has to be constructed entirely out of the nipples of a 7,000 year-old dragon." Now that's pretty clever. It makes a lot of sense, too. Except, my question is, why can't 'crafted' gear that 'gets the job done' be, well, badass? Remember the Level 60 PvP sets? Now those were totally badass.
Wrath 101: PvP welfare gear
With gear upgrades these days being so easy to come by, I'm not so sure 'welfare epics' is such an accurate term for PvP gear anymore. That said, Arena Season 5 started the other day without so much as a whimper. It kind of crept in quietly, without even a patch to go along with it. I'm sure it's taken a few players by surprise to see so many new PvP gear available from different sources that it can get confusing. I know I wrote about it in an old post, but quite a bit has changed since Beta, and some things don't quite apply. Don't worry, we're here to help you make sense of it all.First of all, in the new PvP rewards system there are three tiers of PvP gear. The Savage Gladiator, Hateful Gladiator, and Deadly Gladiator are equivalent to Level 80 dungeon blues, 10-man raid epics, and 25-man raid epics respectively, with a lot of item points thrown in the way of Resilience and sometimes Stamina. These items aren't the best for PvE, so gear accordingly. You'll be wasting a lot of item points by way of Resilience, so keep in mind that all this new gear is best for your Battleground and Arena pursuits.
Forum post of the day: Pick up groups to pick up points
I'll give you a quick run down of the general forums today: Take away the arena point requirement, or else! Epic flight costs too much! Requiring arena points for PvP gear is a slap in the face! I can't get this or that achievement because it involves something I don't want to do! This is the end of casuals, I don't have time to play arenas! /waggle GG Bliz, the arena requirement is going to make me go play <insert any other MMORPG here>! Death Knights should tank! If you're going to make us play arenas, let us PUG them like battlegrounds! It is hard to find someone who is happy with this new PvP development. I'm indifferent. Personally I find arenas to be the best part of PvP and the purpose of battlegrounds anyway. Like so many others, you need not agree. That last theme however, Blizzard should players to PUG arenas, gave me a moment of pause.
Breakfast Topic: To bug or not to bug
We reported last night that some of the PvP gear was being shown as discounted or even free, and players were reportedly flooding the vendors, trying to pick up cheap gear. Of course, we also warned that taking bugged gear could be considered an exploit, even as some veteran players warned that taking free gear could result in a server rollback, suspended accounts, or even banning.Therein lies the question: did you bite? I can see arguments for both sides: maybe you stood your moral ground, said that that gear wasn't really supposed to be free, and didn't try to take advantage of a mistake one of Blizzard's coders made. Or maybe you said, "well, if it's on the live realms, it must be legit," and looted as much of the gear as you could (and maybe you're paying for it, too, either now or later this week).So what'd you do? This isn't the first time a game-changing exploit has made loot accessible to players when it shouldn't be, so if given a possible exploit in the game, do you grab away and let Blizzard worry about their own mistakes, or do you decide not to take advantage of mistakes Blizzard didn't mean to make and wait for them to fix it while you do things fairly?
Realms down for a three-hour maintenance
It doesn't happen often, but when Blizzard breaks something, they seem to break it in a bad way. The recent Tuesday maintenance resulted in problems with in-game mail, forcing an extended downtime of several hours. Eventually, Blizzard decided to bring the realms back online while resolving the issue at the same time, allowing players to play the game before Wrath of the Lich King's release. In lieu of restoring lost mail, Blizzard sent in-game mail to players about problems with, uh, in-game mail. However, when the realms finally came online, a pleasant surprise greeted excited players upon logging in -- PvP gear was seemingly being given away for free. Ratings requirements were removed from some Season 4 gear, while a few Season 2 items were being sold by the vendors for absolutely nothing. For a short while, major cities were filled with players in full Season 2 Honor gear without any gems or enchantments. Not enchanting or socketing epic gear seems rather newbish, but it should be the wiser thing in hindsight. Blizzard stated that they were aware of the bug and advised players against purchasing the gear.Blizzard's Cinterome explained that the downtime was intended to correct the PvP gear issue and that all players who purchased items should expect that the items will be removed from their inventories and any currency used to purchase said gear (Arena points, Honor, and Marks of Honor) should be appropriately refunded. Now we've all got a more pressing issue ahead: what are we going to do for the next three hours?Are you ready for the challenges that await you in Northrend? WoW Insider has you covered with our 8-day guide to Preparing for Wrath and Wrath 101. Also, check out our feature on AddOns new, old and outdated and Essential AddOns for Wrath written especially with the expansion in mind.
Bug rewards free and discounted PvP gear [UPDATED]
The mail debacle isn't the only strange thing coming out of today's maintenance. PvP armor, both honor gear and arena gear, have had their prices all screwed up. Select Season 4 weapons have had their rating requirements removed. Select Season 2 weapons have found themselves bearing rating requirements they didn't previously have. Warlocks and Priests can purchase full sets of Season 2 gear at absolutely no cost whatsoever. Select Season 4 accessories can be acquired at no cost. The Brutal Gladiator's Hatchet is completely free as well. Those are only the things we know of right now, the problem may even go farther than that. I've checked the Tiers 4, 5 and 6 vendors with a few friends of various classes and haven't run into any oddities there yet. It seems exclusive to PvP gear.
Wrath 101: Level 70 PvP gear
If you were looking forward to getting gear upgrades through Honor at Level 70 when Wrath of the Lich King finally arrives in a few days, you probably shouldn't hold your breath. I know I advised doing a lot of PvP, but I meant that you should be keeping all that Honor for Level 80 rewards. Blizzard has stated that Season 3 rewards will not be available for Honor points, and that Brutal Gladiator items will retain their ratings requirement. Zarhym explains that there are no plans to make Season 3 gear available through the Honor system because there will no longer be any new rewards for Arenas at Level 70. Since all Honor gear available through vendors are two seasons old, all current Level 70 rewards will remain as they are. In another post, Wryxian explained that the personal ratings requirements for Brutal Gladiator gear will also stay in place, pointing out that the gear will last well through the Northrend leveling experience. To that end, Blizzard intends for the gear to be "somewhat limited in availability."
Funcom implements PvP XP rollback in Age of Conan
Funcom has sent a clear message to the number of Age of Conan players who've been exploiting a flaw in the PvP XP system: START OVER. Oliver 'Tarib' Kunz, Senior Community Manager for Age of Conan, addressed Funcom's recent decision to roll back the experience gained by some players who unfairly saw a meteoric rise in gains, as confirmed in a player-by-player investigation. Kunz stated, "We have then taken what we consider to be appropriate action against those players by reducing their PvP Levels to what they were before it was possible to take advantage of this flaw and removing all PvP Gear." Of course, Kunz says, Funcom is open to discussing the removal of experience and gear from those who believe they were unfairly targeted, and have stated that if they've misidentified an exploiter, the character(s) in question will be restored to their former status. Having fun in Conan's homeland? Make sure to check out all of our previous Age of Conan coverage, and stick with Massively for more news from the Hyborian Age!
Lake Wintergrasp: Balance, badges, bosses, and bling
I have to confess that I haven't spent as much time in Lake Wintergrasp as I thought I would. Even when we got premade Level 80s to fiddle around with in the Wrath Beta, I ended up spending very little time in the zone because it was simply too confusing. It didn't help that every build wiped your talent points, so I'd end up logging in to a crossfire without any abilities on my hotbars. In general, my Beta experience with what still promises to be my favorite zone of all time was rather unfulfilling.The good news is that there's a lot of work being done on the zone and the siege vehicles and buildings do a nice job of blowing up. I also appreciate the return of my favorite guys from Alterac Valley, like my Pusoy Dos buddy Lieutenant Murp. In general, though, Lake Wintergrasp needs a lot of breadcrumb quests and hand-holding just for people to get the basics. Blizzard has big plans for the zone, and they detailed a lot of those in yesterday's PvP panel.The zone is massive. In the Beta, there were areas that felt somewhat abandoned and felt empty. This is certain to happen in live realms, as there are off-hours of play. But Blizzard's aim is clear: they want this place to be all combat all the time, with hundreds of players bombing, killing, attacking and defending. In fact, they prepared their servers to handle such a load. If this happens -- and by the Light, I hope it will -- and hundreds of players do fill the zone for unadulterated combat, I'm going to have one hell of a good time.
Blood Sport: Everything Savage, Hateful, and Deadly
I realize now that the debate about Arenas will never end. A lot of you don't like it -- this is apparently the wrong blog site to enthuse about it. But the fact is that Arenas are a big part of the World of Warcraft today. Some would say too big, but I personally think it fits its niche rather nicely. There's a lot of room for debate on this, and reading through everyone's comments in past columns, it's easy to see that there won't be any resolution to it. Well, we're not talking about that today. This column is for people who like Arenas. If you're not a big fan of the format, you can skip right to the end of the column and post your well thought-out arguments about it (a lot of you are very impassioned about the matter, and I'm greatly impressed) or you can skip to another post as we've got a lot of good reads elsewhere around the site. No, this column is for those Arena freaks, the guys who get giddy when the queue pops up and get an adrenaline rush when the gates open. The next Arena season is going to be fun. We'll have ten more levels to slog through and a lot of experimentation to do before we settle on a PvP groove and find out which specs and playstyles actually work for us. At the end of it all, when we finally hit Level 80, a new era of Arenas will begin and there'll actually be three tiers of gear to reward every level of play. For anyone who's ever stepped foot into an Arena and liked it, it promises to be the best season yet.
Ask WoW Insider: Is PvP gear still worth it?
Here's a good question from our email (it's ask at wow.com, if you've got a question for Ask WoW Insider). It's about PvP gear, and what to do about it in the few weeks left until the Wrath launch. We know now that Honor and marks are not getting wiped for sure, so Treecow wants to know what to do:My question is this, now that Wrath will be out in 6 weeks or so, does it really pay to get the S2 gear? Is it worth getting, even if it's going to be replaced within the first couple levels in Northrend, just to make those couple of levels easier? Or should I keep running quests and dailies? Or is there something else I should be doing that I haven't even thought about?Thanks,Treecow70 Druid on ThrallIf you ask me, dailies are the way to go at this point (and if you haven't gotten your rep up in some factions, dailies should help there, too), simply because gear will get quickly replaced and gold will always be useful. Not to mention that there are battleground dailies to do every day if BGs are what you'd rather play.But on the other hand, I'm mostly a PvE-er, and who knows -- doing the PvP to buy PvP gear could be worth it in the long run. You might even get more gold out of selling items you'd normally be equipping in Wrath. Readers, what do you say to Treecow?Previously on Ask WoW Insider...
Forum post of the day: Honor, glory, and coercion
This may come as a big surprise, but not everyone likes to do Arenas. Even some who very much enjoy Battleground play, are not enthralled with the small-scale and highly-competitive arena environment. I'm of the opinion that if you don't enjoy the arena, you probably shouldn't do it. Sasquach of Bahazzar is with me on this one. Like me, he enjoys arenas and is not partial to the PvE game. Sporting a 2300 rating for Season Three, he's looking forward to doing arena matches in wrath. The original poster vented his frustration that all PvP gear has an arena requirement on the test realm. Though Battlegrounds and Arenas are disparate systems with divergent goals and playstyle, Blizzard is putting rating requirements on all PvP gear. Even playing battleground after battleground, players will have to do arenas in order to don any PvP gear.
