One of the pretty obvious disadvantages to running a static 5-member 5s teams is you rely on all 5 being available to play. Fortunately for us, (or unfortunately lol) that hasn't been too much an issue this season, but this week we have a long stretch where at least one person will be away. Because of this, we won't be playing till the weekend, and I can't really do 2s or 3s for a few days as well. (THIS SUCKS!)
That whining aside, it is great to play a static lineup. We ran with a full roster last season and it was a constant pain to ensure everyone got their 30%, and because we ran so many different lineups, we never really reached our potential in any one of them. I still think 7 is pretty much the number where adding more players hurts more than it can possibly help, but smaller lineups if you can make them work have many advantages.
It's been a pretty slow week for WoW news -- I was really hoping for the resilience DoTs change or fixing Mage S2 for the 2.13 patch coming soon, but it doesn't look like either will make it in the next build. This is a bit problematic as it makes spending points for us very hard. Most of us who've picked up our weapons are now looking to pick up 2 S2 pieces, but as to which 2 will end up being optimal, it's anyone's guess right now. Gloves and chest? Chest and shoulders? Gloves and shoulders?
Being that I favor DPS heavy gear, I'm unlikely to go with the double 2pc except in 2s or 3s against teams who I know like to punish me for my more squishy gear selection. The Trial Fire legs from KZ when damage-gemmed still provide a great way of trading survivability for extra damage, so for me the decision is basically which piece of season 1 I'd like to keep and which two I'll replace. (The Destruction Holo Gogs are too good to not wear IMO) I'm a few points short of being able to grab both gloves and chest this week, which temps me to opt for shoulders+gloves, and I know this has been done to death, but:
S1 Chest -> S2 Chest: +6 stam, -7 int, +2 spell crit, +2 resilience, +3 dmg
S1 Gloves -> S2 Gloves: +3 stam, +1 int, -5 spell crit, 0 resilience, +2 dmg
S1 Shoulders -> S2 Shoulders: +3 stam, -3 int, 0 spell crit, 0 resilience, +3 dmg
These two aren't an option for me, but for those who are considering helm/legs:
S1 Helm -> S2 Helm: -3 stam, +3 int, -2 spell crit, +1 resilience, +4 dmg
S1 Legs -> S2 Legs: -3 stam, +2 int, +1 spell crit, +1 resilience, +5 dmg
At this point, when you look at this closely, no piece of gear is really an upgrade of any consequence, except perhaps the chest, and even this is highly questionable. Amusingly, the 2 resilience, 2 dmg, 2 int upgrade you get from upgrading your wand is as good as it gets. I think I'll hang out another day or so before committing to chest+wand as my next purchases in hopes of a follow-up from Blue, but it is a strange situation we mages are in; we really can't upgrade meaningfully from our season one set and unless the double 2pc is getting you that extra 35 resilience, you're really better off making sure you pick up the non-set gear first.
Since I don't want to spend this whole post whining about the broken mage S2 set as it is a subject that's been beaten to death, resurrected, then beaten to death again, what are people's thoughts on Relentless Earthstorm as a PvP Metagem? It's definitely trendy in PvE, and it seems like most players don't understand that the 3% critical bonus really ends up being about 9% (9.5 if you're arcane); now resilience is going to work against you here, but we're talking 300ish more damage on bolt crits, and close to 200 more on lance. Picking up 500 more damage per shatter combo seems pretty fantastic and definitely might make up for the loss of the half cast proc. I very much like the mystical skyfire proc as it lets me put out pretty crazy damage by double casting missiles, and I'm not sure I'd like to give that much, but I'm pretty tempted to try out the relentless earthstorm. The other slight problem with the earthstorm equivalent are the somewhat cumbersome gem requirements -- I definitely don't want to have to use 2 yellow gems; I suppose a spell crit + dmg gem and a 10 resilience gem won't ruin my gem setup too much, but if I'm giving up damage to pick up the extra critical bonus, am I sacrificing too much base damage?
I'll hopefully have a strategy article update tomorrow as it's been quite a while since I've put up meaningful content. ^^
I'd like to thank minti for the positive mention on Shadow Gaming, much <3. We just setup an IRC channel for guild pvpers in which to hang or for anyone who wants a place to idle/chat. It's a ghost town so far, but hopefully it'll get at least a little use and it'd be much better for chatting than talking in game in between arena matches.
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18 comments:
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4th piece of s2 armor bought today, and staff is a long way off :>
i like it o/
What's the IRC channel?
4th!
Reft
#fhpvp @ irc.gamesurge.net
How does the gem become 9/9.5%?
WTB Pigvomit vid! =[
S2 is sucking hard alrite! I bought it since i believe it will be fixed!
I use a meta gem that takes 2 red/blue/yellow, and if you put a orange or yellow gem in your bracers you get the socket bonus of +2 damage and only lose about 1-2 +damage over a normal red damage gem.
I would have to do the math on that 3% crit dmg meta but my initial feeling is that a good chunk of the added damage will be lost to resilience "bug" (40% is not an uncommon reduction now on crits ...)
Not only that but the half cast meta coupled with a "metafocus" mod has allowed me to pull a few sick combos and if anything it brings a big fun factor.
as far as season 2 upgrades, coming from t4 helm/legs arena 1 chest/gloves/shoulders I have decided to go for chest after picking up MH/OH last week, I will grab legs next to go with 2pc season 1 2pc season2 and engi googles. I will still be using 2pc t4 in bgs, which is where the set bonus really shines.
I plan on getting helm next and to socket it with 18stam meta and a star of elune for those games where I m the focus. I ll finish the set with gloves/shoulders 1st or second week of august.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2007/june/warlock_felshroud.jpg
new fixed mage set.
just like season1 warlock and mage sets were identical
Blizzard really doesn't put much effort into the sets =/
The warlock set has int budgeted way too high on Dreadweave, so Dreadweave is basically the same as Felweave but with no crit, some of the pieces are even less stam and damage too, it really makes no sense =/
The only real reason to use any Dreadweave is the double 2 pc, and the glove bonus, even though without the bonus the Felweave gloves are far better than the Dreadweave, which really doesn't make sense to me, aren't they supposed to be the same item level?
Merciless Gladiator's Dreadweave Gloves
Binds when picked up
Hands Cloth
283 Armor
+45 Stamina
+25 Intellect
Durability 35 / 35
Classes: Warlock
Requires Level 70
Equip: Improves your resilience rating by 21 (0.5%).
Equip: Gives you a 50% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting Fear.
Equip: Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 36.
Merciless Gladiator's Felweave Handguards
Binds when picked up
Hands Cloth
283 Armor
+46 Stamina
+15 Intellect
Durability 35 / 35
Classes: Warlock
Requires Level 70
Equip: Improves spell critical strike rating by 19 (0.9%).
Equip: Improves your resilience rating by 23 (0.6%).
Equip: Gives you a 50% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting Searing Pain.
Equip: Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 36.
Yes, the Dreadweave bonus on gloves is better, but I don't believe that should be coming into affect on item level. Do they really value 10 int higher than 1 stam, 2 resiliance, and 19 crit rating for a warlock? It seems pretty stupid to me considering no one really cares about int =/ ESPECIALLY if you're affliction, which is what the Dreadweave set is supposedly intended for, because you'll have Dark Pact, Siphon, Imp Lifetap, etc to keep your mana pool topped, if anything the Destro set should have the int, but honestly, neither sets need it, i'd be just as happy seeing 0 int and the item budget spent on something I care about, like +dmg, stam or resiliance.
Blizzard really puts no effort into the sets =/ it's pretty obvious to most that the mage set needs higher int, more damage, and obviously isn't in as big of a need for armor since you have far more escape abilities than a warlock or a priest.
I think they just wanted an overall reduction on melee damage on casters. Weapon dps just keeps on rising while mitigation of casters have only gotten lower. Getting some additional armor is a welcome change. But agreed we definitely need more int.
Radikal, I'd just like to say I <3 your blog. As a mage with no arena experience yet (rerolled, 48 and counting) it's a great read, both informative and exciting. Keep it up! :)
The post with the link to mmo-champion is cut off, though from what I'm told, no fixed s2 gear is on 2.13 PTR.
As for the 3% becoming 9%, I'm not 100% sure about this, but it appears to be similar to the resilience bug:
Crit Bonus = (150*resilience*gem) - 100
This is the amount of damage a critical strike does more than a normal attack.
On an attack vs a target with 0 resil, we get 54.5% bonus damage before talents, or 4.5% extra damage.
Combine this with talents and:
200*4.5 = 9 for deep frost
It gets a little better for Arc/Frost.
Your point about the extra armor on the set stands Bubbles - I think I definitely overlooked that when I wrote this up late last night.
Azael- The reason you see such a huge discrepancy on equip sets is because of how pure stats affect gear iLvl.
Basically, the more of a single stat you have on an item, the more expensive that stat becomes in iLvl points. That's why you'll see items that are (hypothetical and made-up example) like 30 stam, and another item that is 18 stam 18 int be the same item level, even though the former has more total stat points.
So, while as a player the value of the extra 10 int is very low, the system that distributes stat points values it higher than it realistically should by design. :/
Yeah, pvp sets are pretty weird for warlocks right now, planning on Glove + Shoulder felweave + Rest Dreaweve for season 2 myself.
What is really tearing me up though is choosing a meta gem, I went with Powerful Earthstorm in season 1, however the thought of abusing the proc for crazy mana drain goodness / insta fear / howl or even a soulfire for shits and giggles while cursing is very tempting and probably more useful in 5s.
Wish I was an orc so I could just go with Powerful earthstorm in a heartbeat. ><
Based on the numbers, going from season 1 to season 2 armor, helm+legs are the 'biggest' upgrade. If you're getting or already have the gogs, then chest+legs would be next. Then again if you got the legs and gogs, then chest+shoulder.
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