It's been one week since I hit 80. Two since I purchased WotLK. (I was gone most of the second week)
I've ground 110k honor, leveled engi and enchanting basically from scratch, finished Kirin Tor rep, and am slowly grinding through Hodir rep. My gear is still pretty mediocre, but weirdly when the new Honor gear arrives, my gear will probably improve to the point where I can PvE well enough. At which point, I'll be able to use my fierce PvE skills to improve my PvP situation. PvP to PvE to PvP?
I pretty much know who I want to PvP with come season start and basically have my teams loosely set. I'll be in Tokyo for the majority of the first two weeks of the season, so hopefully we'll run bigger rosters or squeeze games in when I'm around as it is technically possible with how things line up. (Although not optimal lol) I'm not in a terrible rush either way. I'm psyched for the season start and to learn new matrices and strategies, but I'm hoping for a repeat of season one where I was psyched to play EVERY week, not just the first few.
I'm not going to talk about my teammates till we're into the season because things can fall through and I don't want to snake anyone, but if things work out, I'm very psyched, i.e. THEY WILL CARRY ME LOLOL.
Most the discussions I've heard on the interwebs are basically nonstop crying about PvE vs PvP issues with little talk at all about actual strats, tricks, ideas, etc. To counter that, I'll list ten random things off the top of my head:
- Polymorph Glyph - This causes shadow word death to fail to break sheep and is, imo, a must.
- Mirror Image - This should be macro'd with a /stopcasting before it. It has some major problems in PvP, but does function as a decent way of interrupting an enemy's cast on you (say avoiding a Hex or Poly), or baiting a CS. (Start a Poly, cancel into MI to burn their CS). I've yet to test how the target dropping performs with Focus Frames, but it does seem to drop you from Default UI's focus at least. This is overall a pretty terrible ability, but it is a strange mechanic and thus has a lot of potential in skilled players' hands if we can figure out clever uses.
- Improved Wards - Not so much a trick, but recognize that these are extremely potent. Imp Fire Ward reflects cannon fire in WG and Strand. In general, these are very very strong in mage versus mage encounters, to the point where the mage without is not very likely to prevail.
- Resilience - The cap is 1230. Realistic setups with full Deadly have closer to 800. I've been killed by rogues in two globals many times at zero resilience. (premed ambush evisc -> 9.5k + 7k) I've also tasted 10k Rune Strikes. While reducing these crits by 25% or so might help some, I think it might be a while till we're back at the point where cloth can tank melee for extended periods. Until it is possible to survive the burst, stamina is going to be a much better stat than resilience. (Resilience is more of a healing efficiency stat than anything else)
- Spell Reflecting Living Bomb - Yup, you can reflect the asplosion. LOL.
- Dealing with DKs - Personally I find DKs to be the most annoying class in BGs to run into. They waste a lot of your CDs to defeat and it takes a pretty long time. If you're Arcane, you need to get Slow up before they Strangle->CoI you, or you're going to need to burn IB or EA immediately. I find EA very clumsy against CoI -- the delay seems extremely long. I don't want to say too much here because the class is about to receive susbtantial nerfs, but DKs currently give me severe nerdrage in AB.
- Honor Grinding - Everyone is saying WG is amazing honor. I can't really agree with this. Doing whatever the weekend BG is seems like by far the best honor still. Most games of AB are won or lost in about 15 minutes and yield 600-1200 honor + marks and Strand last weekend was significantly better. I agree doing one WG per day is wise to get the easy dailies done, but beyond that I think is pointless.
- Eight Percent - This is roughly the amount of Haste you need to get 4 lances on a DF with IV popped. It's also the amount to base double shatter your DFs. (Four lances are a better option when you can) I'm thinking that the frostbolt->pet nova->df->ilx4 will be the cliche stupid burst.
- Cone of Cold - Okay, this is really basic, but I never see people do this. When you pop AP as an Arcane mage, if your target isn't slowed, your first cast on them should be CoC NOT AB or PoM-Ffb. I see people blowing AP burst into non snared target or wasting a global putting up Slow again. BAD. Also, people don't know that you don't have Shatter specced (or you might it even have it), which means that if you bite that CoC, they pretty much have to burn an out to break it or they eat a 10k crit. And for you bad fire mages, CoC and DB aren't linked anymore. You can rebind that shit. It's good.
- Sundial of the Exiled/Dying Curse - These seem to be very very good to me. My thought is that even if you want to make sure it's up, say for immediate pressure off the start, just make sure you spam Slow Fall before the gate opens, try to get it to proc at roughly the 30-15 window, and by the time you engage, the internal should be back up. They're double the effect of the clicky trinkets and really do change the burst potential into totally bonkers terriroty.
25 comments:
First lol
most effective use i have found for mirror image is to use it before going for a quick sheep to avoid cs/kick/pummel while you're not targeted
Also baller way to use Mirror Image: You can use it on huntertraps. Shits so baller. The images freak out on more than 2 targets though and sheep shit etc.
Btw. sometimes MI seem to bug out and be off GCD or is it supposed to be?
I think MI triggers a GCD itself, but you can actually cast it while youre on GCD. I like using it right after a barrage (while waiting for next GCD)
I dont get 10. at all, whats the point of using Slow Fall to proc the trinkets before the fight starts? To not have them proc on your first spell when youre not rdy to burst yet?
terriroty
For all you bads, MI puts a gcd on all your spells that are off gcd (iv, cs etc).
God raddy I hate you for suggesting proc trinkets.
You _cannot_ rely on a proc for your burst damage from trinket slot, especially not in arena, and especially not when damage is so high currently. You're as likely to die before you get it up at a decent time than you are to get use out of it.
But are there any better (and reliably obtainable) on use trinkets? Surely not that I know of, which is why you use the badge trinket.
Maybe the JC trinket, but tbh, the difference between a clicky +200 and a proc +600 is so massive, I can't really agree kzn.
2pc PvE has potential for "controllable" burst
hmm, with the stun duration reduction, say you are fighting a warr with 20% talented and 10% from the meta. so your 5 sec DF becomes 3.5 seconds, barely allowing you to squeeze in 3 IL's (8% haste and IV).
or does the stun duration stack multiplicatively? 3.6 isn't much better.
Good use for MI I found is to use it to get rogue's/druids out of stealth. They get them out in a weird way, but i've found it very reliable. Mirror image in the middle of nagrand arena will most likely pop rogue's out.
I have clicky 346 vs proc 590, and 2pc pve is not an option once you have 4pc gladiator imo.
Depends for what teams. On teams where you dont need fast polys, 2piece T7 beats 4piece by far.
Unless you're gimmick bursting people, there are no such setups.
Slowfall fishing for a proc won't work, since buffs less than 30 seconds (excepting invisibility)are wiped before the match starts now.
Good point about stun duration reduction. I hadn't really even thought of that since the meta seemed awful to me, but there are a few classes where those talents are worthwhile.
I'm not really that convinced by the 4pc glad. Nobody fails to interrupt 1.35 casts anymore than 1.5s. Granted with a lot of haste + IV, it makes a difference, as once you get poly to sub .8, I think people will generally fail to interrupt it, but this is a luxury, not a "must" to me. As frost, where you'll be stacking haste, yes, as Arc, don't see the need. (Although, engi glove + IV + 4pc ain't bad)
I really can't imagine the Poly Glyph thing being anything but a bug...
And even if its not a bug its not worth taking as a one trick pony to gay priests anti CC (and lets be real if youre playing with a rogue you are not going to be sheeping priests much)
Well it's worth taking until they fix it - vs priest/rogue its basically an autowin.
But not worth theorycrafting around. Guy on AJ says he's gotten confirmation that its a bug.
I can tell you've never had any trouble with pings, raddy.
1.35s vs 1.5s is a fairly significant difference if you're at all capable of fake casting. People with anywhere over 70ms are going to have serious issues waiting long enough to ensure its not a fake and actually getting WoW to register the interrupt on a 1.35s, where it was still vaguely possible on a 1.5s
With haste, you are getting very close to being able to get things off at will if you create a fear of fake casting.
after playing my death knight, i cannot fathom pvping in cloth before bc's introduction of resilience. words cannot express the hilarity of squishing clothies in the window of anti-magic shell. nothing is funnier than whacking at a mage while a retarded rogue IN FRONT OF YOU is tickling you.
i anxiously await the 1500 mage/rogue teams ollolololol.
I thought the consensus was to treat every cast 1.5 or lower as if it were fel dom and cs as instantly as you could unless you were VERY confident it was a fake.
That would at least explain why its so easy to fake with poly, I guess.
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