Good website for PvP newbies like myself?

[Fuzzyboy]

I'm currently at the start of my PvP career and looking for some basic info. I'm reading all that I can on this site, but I'm still missing out on some general pvp info that isn't specific to multiboxing.

I've been on arena-junkies but the maturity level in that place is like "lololol my epeen-rating is >> you l2p" and while there is good info there I simply can't stand reading the posts there. Does anyone know of an alternative site?

[asonimie]

wowwiki has a lot of general game information, such as required stat ratings etc. I think most of what you will find is required hit / penetration / popular builds etc. "Strategy" type information you may find will be a lot more subjective, and going to be more based on opinions of the common idiot than any skilled pvper.

If you wanna list a few questions I'd be happy to answer them or point you in the right direction :)

[Fuzzyboy]

That's very nice of you :-) Here's a few to start on:

- What abilities from different classes do I need to look out for? I realize this is a pretty general question, but I'm not sure how to phrase it.

- Is there a priority on what buffs should be purged and which you can ignore and skip purge?

- How do you handle bladestorm? In BG's (I'm not doing arenas yet since I don't haven't found a healer yet) I've had wars team up on me a storm in with 2 x bladestorm which destroys me whether I have a healer or not. Usually one or more of my shaman are snared, so I can't nitroboost out or stuff like that.

- How do you handle the swirling melee types? usually I'll try and TS them away and the burst them, but if they get TS'ed in the opposite direction (or if TS is down - I stagger, but in BG's it gets used a lot), I lose time from positioning while theyre running back and if they have a healer it's a real pain.

[asonimie]

That's very nice of you :-) Here's a few to start on:

- What abilities from different classes do I need to look out for? I realize this is a pretty general question, but I'm not sure how to phrase it.

- Is there a priority on what buffs should be purged and which you can ignore and skip purge?

- How do you handle bladestorm? In BG's (I'm not doing arenas yet since I don't haven't found a healer yet) I've had wars team up on me a storm in with 2 x bladestorm which destroys me whether I have a healer or not. Usually one or more of my shaman are snared, so I can't nitroboost out or stuff like that.

- How do you handle the swirling melee types? usually I'll try and TS them away and the burst them, but if they get TS'ed in the opposite direction (or if TS is down - I stagger, but in BG's it gets used a lot), I lose time from positioning while theyre running back and if they have a healer it's a real pain.

I'll assume you're playing a 4x Elemental team.

Few general tips:
- Make it a habit to always re-drop (preferably slightly staggered) totems. Getting psychic screamed while traveling mounted will ruin your day every time. When in doubt, dismount and totem / ghost wolf.
- Don't charge into an area full of enemies. Dismount / totem camp 80 yards out, and work your way into them few steps at a time, while picking off people who charge you. Wear them down.
- Recruit a healer buddy for BGs, when we don't have to think about healing - we become unstoppable killing machines. It's night and day even with my gear.
- Burst overall is very high in WoW right now, so don't be discouraged if you die quickly. You will have a huge target on your head, play smart.
- You count as 4 bodies, so position yourself well. Don't fight in the middle of nowhere and get swarmed by enemies, fight on capture nodes so at least your presence is accomplishing something. Fighting in "the middle" of bgs is generally Fail anyway.

Abilities to watch for:
- Destro warlocks can be a PITA. Not as bad in BGs compared to arena, but still a pain. Make sure to put pressure on them to either kill or make them run. Don't let them stand there and cast on you. Same goes for other Wizard Cleave classes. (elemental sham, arcane mage, destro lock). Re-drop those groundings every chance you get!
- Kill priests any chance you get, they can make targets invincible (other healers too, but priests are the worst)
- In general with melee, much easier to TS + nuke them at 20 yards than try to cast on them on top of you. Killing melee close range requires lots of practice and a solid turn left/turn right hotkey for your clones. Enemies at 10-35 yards die really quick, targets closer than that significantly drop elemental dps.

Purging? I rarely ever purge, especially with multiple enemies around. Your job is to pump out dps ASAP. Only situation I can think of where I regularly purge is on a ret pally approaching me with minimal enemies around. Purging a ret will drop their DPS noticably.

Bladestorm? Ya it sucks. Once you get good pvp gear and high resilience, it doesn't hurt nearly as much tho. A bladestorming warrior will only hit me for ~30% or so now. Trick with warriors is to see them coming. They allll do the EXACT same thing. Run to 30 yards, charge, wait 1 second, bladestorm. Trick? TS them as SOON as they charge. 75% of the time you will see them bladestorming through the air away from you. Gotta be quick tho, before they cast it. 3 options for them really, either instant nuke them, TS them quick, or just start chain healing early :P Don't waste time trying to outrun bladestorm, your clones 10 yards behind you will just get murdered anyway.

Whirly melee? Same as the warrior strategy, either nuke them early at 20 yards or more, thunderstorm them off and kill 1 guy between each TS, or drop nova totems, wait 1 sec, then do Chain lightning + 4xthunderstorm. All enemies around you will get hit by 4x nova, 4x chainlightning, and 4x TS... this will kill most equal geared targets.

There's infinitely more I could say but gotta get my car fixed BBL. Good luck and just have fun!!

PS, here's a nice tip. Ignore BG chat. You are entering a world of teen nerd rage haters, who love you when you win, and hate you when THEY fail. I rarely if EVER look at BG chat anymore. Learn your niche as a boxer in each BG, there's a good strat for each one usually, and then just execute! The rest is up to them, it's impossible to COMPLETELY carry your BG team (except in wsg, where I have a 100% win ratio and can not be stopped :)

[Clovis]

That's always hilarious -- especially in EOTS when you thunderstorm them off the node and they whirley twirley into the void a mile away -- vent usually errupts from laughing by my healers and I when that happens.

I'm not sure how your gear is but BGs sucked for me when I first hit 80 -- I had 12.5k HP going up against people with 30k+ that would kill me nearly instantly -- so I started hanging in the back and playing like my old hunter - trying to hide in the bushes and pick people off =P


>>Bladestorm? Ya it sucks. Once you get good pvp gear and high resilience, it doesn't hurt nearly as much tho. A bladestorming warrior will only hit me for ~30% or so now. Trick with warriors is to see them coming. They allll do the EXACT same thing. Run to 30 yards, charge, wait 1 second, bladestorm. Trick? TS them as SOON as they charge. 75% of the time you will see them bladestorming through the air away from you. Gotta be quick tho, before they cast it. 3 options for them really, either instant nuke them, TS them quick, or just start chain healing early :P Don't waste time trying to outrun bladestorm, your clones 10 yards behind you will just get murdered anyway.

[Gares]

I hate to say it but if you really read past all the bullshit on Arena Junkies from all the e-peen little gladiator kids, there is tons of good information.

I read the site daily and unfortunately you really have to read alot of the sections to find what you are looking for: (The entire Ask a Gladiator Section, 2v2, 3v3, 5v5 and also the classes you are looking to play). Its there you just have to read past all the trolling.

[Ualaa]

I'll second the arena junkies, although there is a lot of junk there too.
Elitistjerks is a decent option too, although more of a PvE focus.
I also use www.talentchic.com to see the most common spec, talent, glyph choices for a given class/build, you can check for pvp etc.

[Mamut]

"PS, here's a nice tip. Ignore BG chat. You are entering a world of teen nerd rage haters, who love you when you win, and hate you when THEY fail. I rarely if EVER look at BG chat anymore. Learn your niche as a boxer in each BG, there's a good strat for each one usually, and then just execute! The rest is up to them, it's impossible to COMPLETELY carry your BG team (except in wsg, where I have a 100% win ratio and can not be stopped http://www.dual-boxing.com/images/smilies/smile.gif"

How do you generally approach wsg? I find it the hardest BG to get people to cooperate with me as most either sit at the GY assuming an auto loss, or they all follow me around and i cant get anyone to either go after enemy flag carrier or to carry our flag so i can go after the efc.

peace

[Ualaa]

I'd be interested in a thread or threads, basically one per BG... with suggestions for maximizing our chances to win as a boxer.

[Fuzzyboy]

I'll assume you're playing a 4x Elemental team.
- Make it a habit to always re-drop (preferably slightly staggered) totems. Getting psychic screamed while traveling mounted


I usually just stagger tremors - is there any reason to stagger other totems? And what totems do you drop when PvPing?



Purging? I rarely ever purge, especially with multiple enemies around. Your job is to pump out dps ASAP. Only situation I can think of where I regularly purge is on a ret pally approaching me with minimal enemies around. Purging a ret will drop their DPS noticably.

I thought it was standard procedure (at least in arenas) to purge before blasting? Did I miss something or is it only in BGs it's not needed?

All in all, thanks for the info - it's great stuff. I might make a shaman PvP compendium for multiboxers - could be useful :-)

[asonimie]

I usually just stagger tremors - is there any reason to stagger other totems? And what totems do you drop when PvPing?




I thought it was standard procedure (at least in arenas) to purge before blasting? Did I miss something or is it only in BGs it's not needed?

All in all, thanks for the info - it's great stuff. I might make a shaman PvP compendium for multiboxers - could be useful :-)

We used to purge, and I believe it's been agreed the majority of times even in arena we don't waste time on purge anymore. There is too much dmg vs. survivability nowadays and purging is precious seconds lost where you should have just dps'd.

I just stagger the whole "totem set" (call of elements or w/e), therefore the tremor is auto staggered, and you don't have to wait the 1 second GCD between clicks, just tap the sequence 4 times quick and voila, done in like 1 second.

[Fuzzyboy]

We used to purge, and I believe it's been agreed the majority of times even in arena we don't waste time on purge anymore. There is too much dmg vs. survivability nowadays and purging is precious seconds lost where you should have just dps'd.

I just stagger the whole "totem set" (call of elements or w/e), therefore the tremor is auto staggered, and you don't have to wait the 1 second GCD between clicks, just tap the sequence 4 times quick and voila, done in like 1 second.

I'm not entirely sure, but doesn't tremor pulse every 4 secs? So it should (ideally, not sure if it matters and if that's your point) be staggerede like 1 tremor per second?

At the moment I use Call of the Spirits (or whatever it's called - one of the three totem-bar spells) to place all water + fire + air totems, plus one tremor. Then I stagger the remaining three tremors with about 1 second interval, although sometimes I dont have time for that - if I'm in the middle of a fight, and just use the one. That situation is probably different in arena though since you'll have prep time?

And noted on the purge - are there no spells which should be purged at all? Priest shield etc? Or is purge just too hard to micro. I guess if you're at 2k with no purging you're doing pretty well :-D

[asonimie]

I'm not entirely sure, but doesn't tremor pulse every 4 secs? So it should (ideally, not sure if it matters and if that's your point) be staggerede like 1 tremor per second?

At the moment I use Call of the Spirits (or whatever it's called - one of the three totem-bar spells) to place all water + fire + air totems, plus one tremor. Then I stagger the remaining three tremors with about 1 second interval, although sometimes I dont have time for that - if I'm in the middle of a fight, and just use the one. That situation is probably different in arena though since you'll have prep time?

And noted on the purge - are there no spells which should be purged at all? Priest shield etc? Or is purge just too hard to micro. I guess if you're at 2k with no purging you're doing pretty well :-D

3 second pulse, so one every .5 sec is fine. Just stagger your entire totem set. No need for individual totem dropping. Much faster.

Purging is fine just that time is such a factor in, especially with crap gear. Do it both ways, see what you like. Anything that wastes a GCD drops your damage a lot.

[Ualaa]

With a 3 second pulse, and four totems, the ideal stagger would be every 0.75 seconds.
Which gets us a pulse every 3/4ths of a second.
If you can drop them in advance, when you have the time...

First Totem....... 0.00 seconds mark, 3.00 seconds until next pulse.
Second Totem.. 0.75 seconds mark, 2.25 seconds until next pulse.
Third Totem...... 1.50 seconds mark, 1.50 seconds until next pulse.
Fourth Totem.... 2.25 seconds mark, 0.75 seconds until next pulse.



As far as purge goes, you'll probably do more damage in a GCD from a nuke, then from buff removal.
But up to 2 buffs removed per shaman, is a few buffs gone.

[heyaz]

My call of elements drops everything I need - except earth totems on the last two shaman. I then (unless I'm getting rushed like crazy, or need to move my totems) use a staggering macro to have three shaman drop tremors a second apart (but if I don't get a chance - at least I have one totem up).

The problem I had was movement and re-laying the entire totem stack during matches - it would overwrite my staggered tremors - so I no longer have the last two shaman drop earth at all. With big positioning changes, totem stomping, or just long matches in general I sometimes re-lay the entire stack. Usually I'll still have my original staggered totems in this case. However I usually refresh those when I get a chance, just in case.

[Ualaa]

We have three options for sets of totems to be dropped on a single keybind.

You could easily go with a) All totems at once; and b) round-robin to stagger Tremors.

Then, when you are ganked/surprised, one GCD gets everything down, except staggered Tremors. And when you have the time, you can burn 4 GCD's (one per shaman) to stagger everything.

[ciscokid454]

Arena Junkies used to have alot of helpful info, although I haven't followed up with that site since 3.0 launched so it may be out of date