Advice For A Care Bear wanting to test the waters?

[Svpernova09]

I'm a total care bear. but I'm interested in testing the waters. I've got 3 shaman, a feral druid, a DK, and a Warlock all at 80. Should I dive into WG and BGs and see how things pan out? What should I do to prepare? Should I really downgrade my PVE gear to blue PvP crafted gear?

[BobGnarly]

I would take your 3 shaman (simple), and do WG and AV. Being in a larger group helps give you some time to figure out what you're doing without always being focused (which is going to happen when you're boxing in general).

Use your pve gear - you'll get rolled with it on, but you'll also be dishing out the pain. I guess maybe it depends on your pve gear, but I assume you have pretty good gear or you wouldn't be asking. If it's marginal, yeah, get the blue crafted stuff.

Best thing to prepare is to understand you will probably need an entirely different set of keybinds and macros, in addition to a different mindset, obviously. Understand that you have pay careful attention to staying alive. While that's true in pve as well, while pve'ing you generally know exactly what is happening and what is going to happen because you've seen it all before. pvp is dynamica, and you never know when that rogue will jump you. Your power goes down exponentially as you lose toons, so I focus very hard on not letting anyone die. Plus it save a lot of headache about ressing a toon clear across the bg.

So yeah, just jump in a give is a whirl, you'll love it.

[Svpernova09]

Awesome info. I think I do have a bit of a PvP mindset, I played as a resto druid in 2v2 and some 3v3 in seasons 3 and 4, and toyed around as resto druid in 3s in S6. My druid has resto gear with ~750ish Resilience, So maybe I'll toy around with leading with the DK.

Next question...


FTL? I'm currently using focus, but I assume I can save myself some headache by swapping over to FTL before I get too involved.


Edit: I've been Bladstormed by an 80 warrior and it didn't seem to do much at all to me, I just TS'd and laughed at him. Maybe he was just really terribly geared.

[Kromtor]

Blue PvP gear is a waste of money. Don't enter arenas without at least full deadly + furious offsets from honor farming unless you want your dreams crushed before they begin.

[heyaz]

Mixed pvp, especially with a melee, is difficult to coordinate. You may find playing 4 casters to be your best option.

I would not downgrade your pve gear to the blue stuff. You will take a lot of damage in pve gear but you will be able to kill, which is important. if you are able to get epic pvp gear and gem it very aggressively (no stam gems, all spell power and penetration), that may be preferable.

Target priority is very important. I would give you a list but I think you will discover very quick;y which classes are the most threat to you. In general it's the DPS and people that can aoe. Aoe will be a significant factor until you've got 23k+ hp and 900+ resilience, at that point you can ignore it for at least a short time and kill off single target dps. When you're undergeared through, you need to find the blizzard, hurricane, or mind sear and stop it immediately.

You'll want to avoid arms warriors like the plague until you are very very tough. At that point you can either nuke them or heal through it.

Running with an aoe healer is very helpful. If I bring my priest just spamming circle of healing and such, it goes from being able to take on 4-5 people to more like 8-10.

You will want a minimum of 75 spell penetration on all your casters in PVP. More like 95-120 for arenas.

[Svpernova09]

Blue PvP gear is a waste of money. Don't enter arenas without at least full deadly + furious offsets from honor farming unless you want your dreams crushed before they begin.


No worries, my dreams were crushed as soon as I posted this thread. If I can get everything going fast enough I may try to lose a quick 10 tonight just to get the arena points going. My druid will be resto for sure, I've got 800+ resilience on her with about 1950 healing in resto pvp gear. My shaman are all geared out in heroic / badge gear.

[Ualaa]

Create an arena team immediately.
Play as few games as possible, where the team plays at least ten, and every toon plays at least 30% of the games.
The only objective here, is to be earning points; ten or twelve losses a week is just fine.
Even though you're only here for points now, observe how teams beat you.
Definitely try to win, and adapt a bit to each composition type that attacks you.
It will help out down the road, when you are trying to win with gearing done too.

The level 78 rare pvp set is worthwhile, for toons who are fresh to 80th.
Chances are it is a huge upgrade over quest rewards and drops.
However, for a team already at 80th for some time, especially with PvE gear, I'd pass.

I would spend most of my time in AV.
It is the best honor per hour of play time.
And honor is the limiting factor in how quickly gear comes.

Once you have near full honor gear, start to concentrate on arena's.
Experiment and see what works for you.

[daviddoran]

My shaman are starting to get more geared and I can definitely feel my survivavility going up. Warriors no longer one shot me, I usually one shot them before they get close, or just drop totems and chain heal through.

I'd run with the warlock as main pvp destro and abuse the aoe stun.

What makes the biggest impact is finding here your team is weak and supporting that aspect. Often it's either a strong offense, but we get rolled in D, and they recap us for a quick loss, or we have no offense, the entire raid goes to the capt and we fight a losing battle on the timers. I either recap towers to give us the timer advantage, or lead the offensive into the base and spearhead a victory. Also using the recall trinket has save at least 3 av matches for me. 5 shaman dropping in, fire elementals, and thunderstorm = pure pwnage, and if I die i just port back.... Using an alt to ninja cap in combat works wonders as they all focus on the head shaman.

[Iceorbz]

I've thought about making a long staggered castsequnce macro that'll have my Shaman cast chain heal on themselves every so often. Like:

1 - ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,ch,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
2 - ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,ch,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
3 - ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,ch,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Not sure if that's a good idea or not, but it may heal with survivability. Might eat mana like crazy too. hehe

for pvp id leave everything to be based off your decisions imo.

Super, I would for sure pvp with some of your other toons in diff comps if you have the time 2v2 / 3v3 ect.. to get the rating up to purchase some real gear isntead of wasting time on furious off pieces. As a multiboxer you have, or should have gold. Friggen just pay some rogue to carry your druid to 1800 for 2k-3k gold. Get the rating there, then start working the points with a 5's team. Rinse and repeat for your other toons / shaman.

[Ualaa]

It doesn't hurt to add the Chain Heal sequence to your click dps.
Especially for AV's, as that is basically PvE objectives with PvP along the way.
Just add an extra Click line to your master macro.
Or alternatively, always have the click line, but only put a macro in that slot when you want the passive heals.

For more competitive pvp, especially arena...
You'll want every ability as its own click.
No click castsequences.
Break your dps into 4 or 5 buttons, and try to have similar casting times between toons.
That gives you so much more control over what you're doing and when you're doing it.

[Svpernova09]

I appreciate all the replies. Instead of jumping into 5 toons as a mixed team, I took my 3 shaman so I could get a feel for how things will be in BGs. You guys will be happy to know I spent all night in AV and AB (AB was the daily BG) AV was fun, but currently in Ruin-US, it's a Drek / Van zerg as soon as towers are up, and horde NEVER backcap, or we easily destroy their back capping team. So I saw a lot of action, but most of the lessons learned were in AB. I died A LOT, but I always died laughing, and I never died without taking at least 3 people with me.

Lessons from AB:
I spent a lot of time roaming. I don't have a lot of survivability unless I get 3 Chain Heals rocking. I even survived a bladestorming warrior just by spamming chain heals. I'm pretty sure he said "oh shit" when he came out of BS and saw me casting on him. Warlocks and Hunters are the most dangerous class to me atm. Warriors aren't much of an issue if I can nuke them before they get to me. Warlocks can just burst me down and I just need to start focusing them first. Hunters hurt, it's probably my lack of gear but they chew right through me unless I focus on them before they see me. Mages are cute, they think they can kite me but they always end up dead before they can out range me. Rogues are pretty tough, and it's very situational on the outcome.

I spent nearly 1 entire game defending mine (lame I know, but I didn't want to leave the flag unattended and the other people weren't very nice about sending someone to guard while I went out to hunt) So there I am, keeping all my totems down and it was very amusing to see people charge in. A Ret Paladin charged in, and he was dead before he could bubble. At one point, my main was sapped and then a lock, mage, and a resto druid charge in on me. I managed to kill the Druid and the Mage easily. I actually got a hex off on the rogue but it didn't last long. I Thunderstormed the rogue and was able to burst down the Lock. I killed the rogue, but lost one of my shaman. But it was a huge rush to kill so many people so quickly.

Lessons from AV:
Easy Honor. Crusader Aura blows. I have a hard time getting to Galv before the group kills him so I stopped worrying about him and just move forward since I catch up with the group as they're leaving his room. There really wasn't a lot of pvp here. I was able to surprise nuke a couple people that were playing peek-a-boo in Drek's room.

I did 2 WG battles as well, WG was a LOT of fun. Probably more fun than AV and I think I was learning just as much as I was in AB.

I cashed in all my stone keeper's shards and bought everyone Deadly Gladiator's Mail Gauntlets and one of my other shaman got Deadly Gladiator's Ringmail Spaulders from VoA. So not a bad night.

Thanks for all your info, please feel free to keep the discussion going, I'll post another update after another round of battles and such.



Edit: I didn't see ANY boxer hate, which was kinda surprising, although someone did offer me 5k for all my accounts. Not sure if he meant Gold, Silver, Dollars, or pounds, but he was amusing nonetheless.

[Svpernova09]

Oh, if you're Alliance, use and abuse Gift of the Naruu. ;)

Yeah I need to finish my setup. I was running the default ISBoxer FTL wizard setup with a couple extra keymaps for abilities, and changed some of the bindings. I would have done better if I was more prepared, but I just need to get comfortable in the chaos of PvP.

[Ridere]

And for what it's worth, there are a ton more arena teams playing on Monday. I used to get my arena losses on Wednesday (20 total, 10 per team), and it'd be an evening-long affair. I did my 20 losses on my two new 80's teams yesterday (Monday), and queues were no more than 3-5 minute wait times. I hammered out my losses very quickly.

Wintergrasp and AV are definitely good practice grounds for PVP, as you can kind of hide in the pack and work on things.

[Svpernova09]

And for what it's worth, there are a ton more arena teams playing on Monday. I used to get my arena losses on Wednesday (20 total, 10 per team), and it'd be an evening-long affair. I did my 20 losses on my two new 80's teams yesterday (Monday), and queues were no more than 3-5 minute wait times. I hammered out my losses very quickly.

Wintergrasp and AV are definitely good practice grounds for PVP, as you can kind of hide in the pack and work on things.

I've seen people here talk about easy / quick ques on Monday nights, I created a 3v3 and qued, and waited for 45 minutes before giving up and heading to WG. and this was at 10pm Server time, so I'll try to get my games in earlier.

[Iceorbz]

wow... no one plays 5's on my realm (1062 rating and im 222nd ranked). And I never wait for a que except for the 1 minute lol.

[Ualaa]

A lot of people get their games done, primetime on maintenance day after the servers have come up.

And several people rush to get games done shortly before maintenance, for points that week.
Primetime seems the best for this as well.

In addition, there are a ton of people on weekends, but I'm not sure if that is a good time for arena games.

[BobGnarly]

...

Good stuff, glad you had fun. It really is a blast.

Hey, I'm on US-Ruin. You're right, AV is race, and I hate it honestly. In fact, my team hardly ever manages to keep SHB or IWB, so grats on the free wins thanks to the stupidity that is Ruin-Horde.

Maybe I'll see you in there sometime. :)

[thinus]

Good stuff, glad you had fun. It really is a blast.

Hey, I'm on US-Ruin. You're right, AV is race, and I hate it honestly. In fact, my team hardly ever manages to keep SHB or IWB, so grats on the free wins thanks to the stupidity that is Ruin-Horde.

Maybe I'll see you in there sometime. :)

Same on Bloodlust-Horde. We are a lot less organized than the Alliance. They don't defend capped bunkers or recap towers. Usually the Alliance will leave a good healer with 2 or 3 dps in a tower which is a nightmare to recap. So they end up capping the towers in mid. They recap the bunkers. And they kill Drek and we cannot kill Vann.

[gitcho]

Create an arena team immediately.
Play as few games as possible, where the team plays at least ten, and every toon plays at least 30% of the games.
The only objective here, is to be earning points; ten or twelve losses a week is just fine.
Even though you're only here for points now, observe how teams beat you. <---- THIS. I have teams at 80 i'm not playing right now but still logging on to lose 10 arena games a week. That and doing WG weekly quests is getting me 1-2 peices of deadly each per week with less than an hour's work.

[Svpernova09]

Good stuff, glad you had fun. It really is a blast.

Hey, I'm on US-Ruin. You're right, AV is race, and I hate it honestly. In fact, my team hardly ever manages to keep SHB or IWB, so grats on the free wins thanks to the stupidity that is Ruin-Horde.

Maybe I'll see you in there sometime. :)


Awesome. Would be cool, (and probably painful) to run into another boxer in AV.