The Glade 4.0

I figured I'd dive right into this topic since it annoys the piss out of me at the same time I greatly enjoy it. Such irony, eh?

First off, before I list my ***** and moans and complaints, let me acknowledge clearly that playing with a laptop touchpad instead of a mouse, being in my 30s and probably therefore a tad slower on the twitch speed than many opponents, and using a pure default UI are probably hurting my performance.

That said, there are a few tings that just piss me off.

When I used to play as a Hunter, pvp was just agony. There was no way to keep ANY class at bay and use your archery abilities and the pet didn't seem to do much of anything. People use to preach "Scattershot" but the fact that, like the ice trap, it broke on a hit made it basically worthless since it only really let you get one additional ability and one autoattack on a target and then they were all over you again. Mages weren't so bad since they also had little to gain by closing but even other cloth wearers like priests and warlocks wanted to get close to stop your archery and hit their fear abilities. Things got a tad better with the ability to deploy traps in combat and they seem even better for hunters now with the disenfgage that throws you back, the viper snake trap thing, and the improvements to pets, although I haven't played the Hunter enough in PvP since being back to get the hang of them myself.

Now, as a DK obviously I do want to get close. However, it seems that there are still 2 classes tht just rip everyone a new ******* in pvp and you can't do **** about it unless you have at least 2 people

Rogues: These were **** ridiculous overpowered before and they are now too. The only good thing I can say is they aren't 1 or 2 shotting my DK like they did my Hunter, but that's little consolation ebcause they just sap you, then hit you with some other stun, which gives them a few seconds to just unload everything on you. Lichborne and the Trinket I have are some help because they can break the stun, but the trinket is a 5 minute cooldown and lichborne doesn't seem to work very often. Beating a rogue even several levels below mine is a major problem because they always seem to have some "I win" button ability they just hit where they can just beat the **** out of you and you can't respond.

Paladins: These are almost as bad as rogues; the only thing that makes them less absurd is you can see them coming. It's essentially impossible to kill one because they just stun you over and over, heal themselves on every hit, heal themselves with spells (interrupts slow this down but eventually I run out of interrupts that aren't on refresh) and don't take much damage anyhow since they're plate armored. Even if I strangulate one, that doesn't give enough time to kill it, and blood presence doesn't seem to give enough healing to really help.

Warlocks and priests are also fairly bad with their "fear and then beat the **** out of you" ability and the pet for warlocks, but strangulate+chains of ice is much more effective becuase they're cloth wearers and I actually have a chance to kill them in the 5 seconds it stops them casting. Since I'm a BE I can pop Arcane Torrent too, and that gives a bit more time if I need it.

Still, some classes seem to get abilities that just let them beat everyone else unless they're outnumbered. I'm not really sure of the overall balance but Rogues are still just absurd.

On the positive side though druids seem to be easy meat most of the time and warriors are now manageable since they can't just close to melee and deprive me of all my abilities. Shamans don't seem nearly as bad as I remember seeing people complain about, nor mages. I think one of my problems migh be my total lack of any magic resistance whatsoever except that DK ability that sometimes gives you a short-term resist to one kind of magic when you get hit with it.

I haven't had a chance to try wintergrasp yet. It seems absurdly hard to get into strand of the ancients and isle of conquest though; I've never gotten into Isle yet and only once in Strand. On the other hand I haven't had too many ridiculous waits for other BGs. I also do like the addition of reinforcement count to Alterac Valley since the deadlock for hours on end is no longer a danger. I really think it ought to be a bit higher to make killing the general a more attractive path to victory, but it's ok.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Cheap shot, spamming SS/BS until 5 points, then Kidney shot. that keeps people locked down for about 10 seconds, depending on luck.

Trinket out, and suddenly yes, they might be able to get a Kidney shot out still, but you have a better chance. (Or save it for the Kidney Shot and leave them with only "Blind or Vanish" for options.)

Icebound Fortitude is a better cooldown to burn, because it gives Stun immunity, -and- damage reduction. (Yes, you have to have some RP to get it off, but drop Death and Decay and you will.)

However, average Rogue is squishy. A few good hits with a twohander and suddenly they're looking for an out, and with diseases, they can't get a good escape on because the ticks kill Vanish and Stealth. Rogues -rely- on getting the drop on you. If you see them first, or if you're in a defensive position that lets you keep Death and Decay up, then they tend to splatter.

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Grenade 3 Sports Drink. It's fire in the hole.. Your hole!

Part of my problem is that I may just be using too weak a weapon. I'm using the Axe of Frozen Death and I'm about to hit level 79. Green 2-handers that are better are available on the auction hall but I have yet to have one drop, although it seems like I'm perpetually cleaning up green quests so I haen't seen anything better drop. I'd really like to have a sword for aesthetics but...

I'll try to pop icebound fortitude more frequently; I tend to forget I have this and Unbreakable Armor. I also may be well advised to get the 2 points in Unholy that increase disease duration on my Frost spec. I had been debating over whether to put the last 2 in bladed armor or the melee crit in Blood, but since Frost is so far my PvP spec and that tip about diseases and vanish, the disease duration thing may be better.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I don't have any practical experience as a Rogue fighting Death Knights, but I've been ruining people's day as a rogue for a good long time. >_> I know what counters me.

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Grenade 3 Sports Drink. It's fire in the hole.. Your hole!

I wouldn't worry about Epidemic. In fact, I'd probably stick to Frost/Blood and steer clear of the Unholy tree. Probably something like this.

PvP gets pretty hectic, and it's hard to keep 2 diseases up on your targets. And at your gear level, your Howling Blast is going to be one of your heaviest hitters. So use the Glyph of HB, and let HB apply Frost Fever to your targets. Trust me, HB glyph makes it 10x's easier to apply FF, and it does it to multiple targets. And with Chilblains, they are now all snared, too. And since you'll HB (and therefore re-apply FF) so often you won't need Epidemic anyway.

Your Obliterate should be hitting for a decent amount of dmg, as well. And with the Glyph of Obliterate, you won't miss the bonus dmg from not having a 2nd disease on the target. Plus, with a single disease rotation (actually it's more of a priority system at this point), you'll get more Obliterates off, which is a much better use of those Unholy runes than Plague strikes.

I'd definitely max out Bladed Armor. At your gear level, it is a very big source of AP, which is what all of our spells and abilities scale off of. 2H Weapon Spec and Dark Conviction (5% crit chance) are very good, since you want to make every hit count in PvP. The points in Rune Tap and Imp. Rune Tap are optional, but could come in handy in PvP situations.

You'll want to make a macro to tie Deathchill to HB. A guaranteed HB crit every 2 mins is very nice. You only have to hit the button once, since Deathchill is not on the global cooldown.


Also, you might want to look at the Power Auras add-on, or something similar to monitor Rime and Killing Machine Procs, so that none of them go to waste. I use Power Auras myself, and it works very well for keeping track of those things.

Icebound fortitude is great against stuns, Lichborne is used for breaking Fear. It not only makes you immune, but it breaks you out of fear, as well. And don't be afraid to use Unbreakable Armor as an offensive weapon, either. Pop it for 20 seconds of 10% additional strength, and summon your ghoul then, too. Your ghoul takes a snapshot of your stats when you summon him, so he'll get the extra 10% strength, too.

Here's the basic "rotation" to start with. I'd try it out a bit in PvE for a while, until you get used to it. And remember that you'll almost never be able to use an actual rotation in PvP.


Save your Rime procs until your Runic Dump/Frost Strike phase, and try and time them with a Killing Machine proc, if possible. Also, if Rime doesn't proc, and your Frost Fever is about to drop off, Howling Blast. Always make sure you keep Frost Fever on your target, to take advantage of Glacier Rot and Tundra Stalker.

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"I Live, I Love, I Slay, and I Am Content."
- Conan the Barbarian

That's all pretty good stuff, especially the glyphs. I need to pick some up; I had totally forgotten these exist since they weren't around when I quit before.

I might play with that spec a bit because I definitely want Frost for my tanking spec. I suppose I could have two Frost specs but that seems sort of wasteful. I'll probably shift my blood spec to Unholy at some point just to see how it works, but if I'm not impressed, back to Blood for my DPS.

I pretty much always fight in Blood presence unless tanking for the health regen and damage boost, Unholy seems tactically useful with the movement boost (great for flag caps) and the faster refresh but in practice it doesn't seemto measure up.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#jfVMcZMxxzAMh0fubuzAo0x

I'm thinking of something like this for my tank/pvp spec. I based this off yours, just had to squeeze a few points out for dodge and the armor boost at the bottom of frost.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Both of my talents specs are Frost, one for DPS and one for tanking.

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"I Live, I Love, I Slay, and I Am Content."
- Conan the Barbarian

I may give that a shot. I shifted my Blood spec to Unholy for DPS/soloing just to try it out and... not impressed so far; I see the reason for your recommendation. I'll probably take that one back to blood or make it a frost DPS/PVP/solo spec and revise the other one for tanking only. I just didn't seem to have much success with Blood in PVP; the damage seemed ok but I really missed Lichborne and Howling Blast. Dancing Rune Weapon.. uh.. not so much.

I did go with your recommendations on glyphs, although I'm not 80 yet so the Frost Strike one is awaiting my last level (I'm a bit over a third through 79 today) and I couldn't find a glyph for Raise Dead on the AH today.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

That one is more for convenience than anything else. You could just as easily go with the Horn of Winter glyph. I also chose the Blood Tap glyph because I use Blood Tap a lot (it's tied to my Unbreakable Armor macro), so it's nice to not take dmg every time I use it.

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"I Live, I Love, I Slay, and I Am Content."
- Conan the Barbarian

I've been doing a lot of battlegrounds lately. How big a deal is resilience? I have roughly... lemme do the math here... carry the one.... zero. I have no pvp gear at all. I have good PvE stuff, but I could swap out some of my lesser gear for pvp items I suppose. Any battlegrounds 101 sites out there that can give me some direction for what gear to look for?

Paladin specific would be even better. I'm hearing Prot spec pallys are pretty sexy. I'm ret with prot offspec.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

Dash,

Resilience reduces crit chance and crit damage.

Here's how to get it:

Put on your prot offspec gear.

Make sure you have 535 or 540 Defense and good stamina.

Queue up for random Heroics.

Rinse and repeat until your eyes bleed.

You can buy a boatload of retribution PvP gear with emblems and will never want for a group for Heroics.

Resilience makes retribution survival increase greatly.

Protection with enough defense makes physical damage less of an issue and gives you 30% more HP before dying for real.

Best of luck.

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Once, I was a ranger
Then, I was a warlock
And a mage
And a paladin
Now, I seek to be myself

I run Blood as DPS and tank, personally.

Unholy Presence is for experience grinds and PvP - as someone who has been a rogue before, I know how delicious having 2/3 the GCD of everyone else is. Being able to finish my spike in 4 seconds instead of 6 is handy. >_>

Blood is for dungeons, or when I need protracted DPS instead of expecting the critter to be dead before I get repopping runes (IT/PS/HS/HS/DS and most things are either dead or can be death coiled out).

Frost is, obviously, for tank.

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Grenade 3 Sports Drink. It's fire in the hole.. Your hole!

So I've gotten the Northrend Armor BP and legplates from the PvP armor vendor in Orgrimmar.

When I start socketing, what should I go for? More reslilience? It seems like a lot of hunters, warriors and paladins can kill me in about 3 hits and I'm thinking the DR from resilience would be good. Crit? Attack power?

Also, what about these armors from Dalaran? Some of them seem to be the same set as the pvp armor, but better or worse in terms of stats even though they contribute to the set bonus. How do I get other kinds of marks? I've only got Marks of Triumph so far and I noticed marks of Frost come from Heroic randoms but where do you get the others?

Also what do you do with Arena points? I don't have an arena team but I have about 150 points saved from daily PvPs. What are these for?

And where are the weapons? I've seen very few weapons of any kind and a lot of them seem to be non-DK weapons.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

There's a badge money changer in the dalaran sewers. She'll trade your triumph 1 for 1 with the other types of badges.

And there are very few weapons to be had for badges. That's what raiding/arena is for.

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Holy shitsnacks!

So if you're not raiding and not on an arena team you're just ****? The best thing I've seen on the AH is that Titansteel Destroyer.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

There's a couple of middle ground two handers in heroics.

The ToC 5m heroic 2h axe used to be very popular. I think one of the 3 new heroics also has a 2hander but I don't know if they are popular DK weapons.

Basically.

The line of reasoning goes, if you're not on an arena team or raiding, you don't *need* anything better.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Add to Uinan's advice the 2h weapon you can buy after doing enough dailies at the Argent Tournament (about as good as Titansteel Destroyer) and that's about all there is. It's not really a terrible selection, I don't think. Tourney 2h or Titansteel Destroyer are perfectly fine for doing the harder heroics (ToC or any of the Icecrown ones), so a sense of progression is there. ilvl 232 from the Icecrown heroics isn't even horrible for starting to raid ICC25, being only about half a tier behind.

It is kind of weird that there are no PVP weapons available except for the really hard to get ones, but IMO they don't really leave you with nothing to work with. The Tourney weapons are guaranteed, and don't even take all that many days to obtain. Hunters are doubly blessed as they can get an epic gun as well as an epic staff... though as my Rogue found out, one still needs luck to get a pair of epic daggers. :p Damned elusive Rondel!

Hey DE, I am not mr PvP by any means but consider this:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... 2282&sid=1



So your arena points will be reset but I am also thinking a new season = new gear. If that's so i personally am holding off on buying anything with honor points just yet.

I'm planing on gearing up via running heroics with the dungeon finder, getting triumph badges and buying the gear that way. Mixed in with Honor points. Mixed in with running Vault of Archavon raids.

For weapons:
ToC 5 man heroic has http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47493
Pit of Sauron has http://www.wowhead.com/?item=50267

Or you could get super lucky in a new 5 man and get a battered hilt drop which turns into an i251 weapon I believe.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

As long as there's some option to get something in the Titansteel Destroyer general range that A) won't cost gold and B) isn't a mace. I don't like maces; they just aren't as cool. Axes are acceptable, swords are best. I also don't want to have to raise 2H mace skill from 1.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I see a lot of farming for the battered hilt in your future then. Pretty nifty 2h sword rewards from that.

I started off with the 2 handed sword from Argent Tournament: http://www.wowwiki.com/Argent_Tournament

Scroll down to "Champion weapons and armor"

2nd item down.

From there I got the Axe from ToC 5 man heroic. Do you do any raiding at all? Anyway if you get lucky with a battered hilt you're set on weapons for a long time.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

The Tyrannical Beheader from Pit of Saron Heroic is nice, the Orca Hunter's Harpoon from Halls of Reflection Heroic beats it out, at least for paladins.

I have the harpoon, and am waiting for either the Citadel Enforcer's Claymore from Marrowgar 10, or the Battered Hilt.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

So how do you get this battered hilt quest?

And how do you participate in the Argent Tournament?

I did manage to replace the Axe of the Frozen Wastes with a level 70 purple 2-handed sword from that troll instance in Ghostlands which boosted me up to a weapon of 128 DPS rating.

Also, what's this gear level buisness and how do I know what level an item is?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The Battered Hilt quest basically boils down to getting a rare, tradeable drop from one of the ICC 5 man instances, I think on heroic only. There are a lot of small steps afterwards but as I understand it, it's mostly just going to talk to this guy or that guy. Since it can be traded you can theoretically buy it, but seeing as how it's best in slot for everyone that doesn't raid or do really really well in Arenas, it will not come cheap. Kind of hard to win, too, since most people in a group will roll on it even if they don't need it. It would be the best weapon you can get, though, by a pretty big stretch.

The Argent Tournament is located in northeast Icecrown. It's essentially a quest hub with dailies. You earn new ranks every so often, and once you're doing the quests for essentially rank 3, you get Champion Seals which can be traded for gear, including a sword roughly equivalent to the Titansteel Destroyer. There's little to it other than jousting, which I think we already have information somewhere in the huge WotLK thread... maybe...

To see item level in game, go to Interface -> Display -> check off the "Show Item Level" box. Item level is basically a budget for stats, modified by quality (green/blue/epic/etc). An ilvl 213 epic will have a slightly bigger budget than an ilvl 200 epic, which usually means it's better. This isn't always the case, especially for trinkets, but it's usually pretty helpful. Coupling ilvl with knowing what stats are weak or strong for your class/spec will usually be enough to make a pretty good judgment on an item. The only thing that throws it off is hit/expertise caps, since getting more hit past the cap won't help at all but will obviously still be part of an item's budget.