Step by Step

A quick post today.

I know I've blathered on quite a bit about using PvP gear for PvE. I was digging around my blog andwasn't sure I actually had one single post that covered most of it. Mainly because I would learn/realize something, post about it, and then I would learn more and post more.

So, in an attempt to make things a bit more reader friendly, here is all I have to say about...

PvP Gear for Use in PvE

What items are possible "easy" upgrades? Well, there are PvP items for just about every slot you have, but some are better than others. Places to AVOID using PvP items would be:

- Replacing any Tier slot (head, shoulders, chest, legs, hands) Unless you have EVERY Tier item, and a PvP item would still be an upgrade. Most of these slots would be filled with "Furious" gear, which should be last on your PvP upgrade list (let alone your PvE list)

- Replacing any item that has a nearly equivalent ilvl. If you have a choice of a ilvl 264 PvP item, and an iLvl 251 PvE item, the PvE item will (most likely) be better for you. The only exception here would be if you (for example) had a hunter necklace that was an upgrade (maybe had Str, Hit ang Crit) but you are a Warrior, and a "DPS PvP" item might still be better.


All the PvP items you will want will be bought using honor. (unless you get a lucky drop in VoA) Don't just buy the cheapest one you can get. The cheapest ones (Relentless items) are also the "weakest". For not *that* much more honor, you will get a much better item.In order of likely "need" and/or value:

1) Back or Wrist or Neck - Depending on what you have currently equipped, one of these will likely be your first choice. They are all "Wrathful" which are ilvl 264, which means they are VERY good items. The one you chose, is the one that offers the best stats upgrades: ignore resilience, and armor in this evaluation (unless you are a tank)

2) Waist & feet - These are "Relentless" items with an ilvl of 245. Not great, but still far, far better than any pre-heroic item (and better than many heroic items as well)

3) (probably #1 for Pallies) This is for for Paladins only. (unless there is an equivalent item for other classes, which I'm not sure of. Maybe Elemental or Restoration Shammies?) You can buy the Deadly Gladiator's Libram of Fortitude from the Apprentice Arena/PvP goblin vendor in the sewers under Dalaran.


OK, so you can buy the stuff. What to do next? review your critical stats to make sure they are still where they need to be. These are things like:

- Hit
- Spell Hit
- Experise
- Defense
- etc (stuff that applies to your class & spec)

If using one of the PvP items lowers one or more of these, be prepared to re-gem and/or re-enchant an item (or two, or three...) to get it back to where it needs to be.

Which gems & Enchants to use? I'm glad you asked because this brings up the other item I wanted to mention

BANG & BLAME - NOW WITH PAGE 2!!!!

Yes, I've gone and sold out. My blog now has a page two, and therein I attempt to collate, organize and link any information that I deem useful, important and or worthy.

LINK

Obviously it will be a work in progress until I can get most/all of my useful stuff included. (how much of my stuff is useful is up for personal debate, but that's another story)

Enjoy.

War Pig, or Battle Goat - More General PvP Gearing Thoughts

In general, there are 4 typesPvP gear, each with it's own level of investment to get:

• Heirloom PvP Gear, purchased with Stone Keeper Shards.


• Crafted PvP gear. This will generally be iLvl 187 or there abouts.


• Honor/Mark purchased PvP gear. This can be Potent! (especially the Wrathful stuff!)


• Arena PvP Gear. Purchased with Arena points with a minimum rank requirement (hard to get for a noobie)

Well, there's one other place to get PvP gear, though it may not be perfect:

Outdated Heroic/Tier/Epic gear! (you know, the T-9 stuff, your Heroic drops, and maybe even some T-10 stuff that got replaced by ToC and/or ICC gear)

Huh? NONE of that has any Resilience, the bread & butter of PvP!!!

True, but it will have AWESOME "normal" stats for whatever spec you play, AND, you will likely have 10-12 gem slots that can accept resilience gems. Either Mystic King's Amber (a JC cut) or Kharmaa's Grace, which you just buy with Stone keeper Shards. Both of which are +20 Resilience. That's 200-240 resilince right there!

(thanks to WoW gem-finder for the easy search & filter)


And then you can add:

• Arcanum of the XYZ - Add 20-25 resilience (depending on particular one, there
  are SEVERAL) to a head slot.


• Earthen Leg Armor - Add 40 resilience to
  legs


• Enchant Chest - Exceptional Resilience - Add 20 resilience to your
  chest


• Inscription of XYZ - (like the Arcanums, there are several) Add 15 resilience to your shoulders

(thanks to epicenchants for the easy to use search/filter)

That's another 90+ resilience there, for a bare minimum of 300 resilience. Not too shabby!

While this won't be a truly "Epic" (let alone Gladiator) set, it will still be epic in its own way, and will get you a "full set" of PvP gear for only the cost of a few gems & enchants. (just remember not to throw away all that old gear!)

Remember: reduce, reuse, recycle

:P

TO-MORROW! TO-MORROW!!

Well, it would have been tomorrow, if I had finished this post last night. In case you can't read that picture (I can't) it shows that I am currently Revered with the Kalu'ak, and am only 890 reputation points from being Exalted: 20,110 out of 21,000. I will get that with 2 quests this evening.

So I can get my fishing pole: Mastercraft Kalu'ak Fishing Pole

Though I'm not entirely sure why I want it. Part of me would like to get the "Salty" title, but since I've never even been able to show up for a fishing derby, OR catch either Old Crafty or Old Ironjaw, that may just be a fit of fancy.

And, at roughly 7:30 pm server, my second Mysterious Egg should be hatching. My first one had a cobra hatchling, which is worth maybe 10 gold. (I already have one, so no value there)

BATTLE!!!!

One gripe many people seem to have on our server is that a LOT of people will ask "do we have WG?" or "when can we do VOA?"

The implication being that the folks asking are looking for a benefit (going to the WG vendors, or VOA loot) without even showing up to help fight for WG.

And that is a gripe I can get on board with. Don't whine about not getting VoA, if you aren't willing to help fight to get it. We are constantly outnumbered in WG, and very rarely win it anymore. (at least when I'm on)

A couple of asides.

As I have slowly been accumulating PvP gear, it is becoming apparent that my survivability is increasing, though it isn't consistent. Sometimes, I will go after one guy, get jumped by 2 more, and destroy all three.

Other times, I will go after one lone guy, and NOTHING works: none of my stuns have any effect, my bubble won't cast, and I die in a VERY lopsided 1v1 fight. Even if I blow my CDs and avoid being stunned too much, I do MAYBE 10-15% damage to them, and then I'm wiped. If it matters, I have ~27k health when PvP ready, ~500 resilience and 14k armor. My PvP Gear Score is about 5,560. (HERE'S a link to my current PvP gear progress)

I can understand that a well geared PvPer (like a full arena Wrathful set -ouch!) will be nearly immune to my crits, but none of my stuns rely on that: Hammer of Justice, Repent and Seal/Judge of Justice are all instant cast or effect on hit. (I PvP with Seal of Justice active - it procs a diminishing return stun 3 times) This is a total of 5 stuns I should be getting, and yet there are other players that are 100% immune to them.

WTF?

Overall, I would say the bane of my PvP experience lately are fucking bubble fucking priests. I don't fully understand how they work, but they are 100% immune to my attacks, and yet can still DESTROY me while immune. I'm not a fan of Locks or Rogues, but I'm learning to bubble, trink, cleanse, etc to counter them.

Just in case you think the Pally bubble is "ZOMG! OP!": our bubbles have severe limits:

1 - EITHER it's only a 50% damage reduction OR 100% reduction BUT *our* damage is cut by 50%
2 - only lasts 10 seconds
3 - is dispellable/breakable (Warriors, anyone?).
4 - has forbearance AND a 3 minute cooldown.

From what I can tell, NONE of the above are true for priests. I would welcome some insight into how to fight them, so comment away! (I believe they are "just" standard priest bubbles that absorb X amount of damage, but they are spammable and come off CD much faster than I can burn through them)

I'm not a fan of CC spam either. Seal of Justice has diminishing returns that does NOT reset. Unlike Fear. *cue dramatic sigh*

Now, on to some of the "fun" bits: wading through the enemy and just wiping the floor with them. This is where my asides FINALLY come full circle. Some of the "easy" kills are no doubt due to better gear, but I realized last night what the most likely cause is:

Multiple stacks of Tenacity. It's amazing what a little extra health, healing and damage dealing can do for a plate wearer. (though it does nothing against CC)

Hmmm....

If You could Read My Mind, you would be afraid....

We all know that gearing up is the grit & gristle of WoW raiding. You can't do the raid if you don't have the gear. For most folks, that means grinding heroics and such to get their Triumph and Frost badge gear.

Then, it's on to farming ToC and ICC.

Well, just so you know, there is another way. Especially if you're like me and get really tired of PuG Heroic runs and/or don't have access to farm raids.


We Be PvP

Many days & weeks ago, someone mentioned that the Wrathful Gladiator's Bracers of Triumph are pretty good for PvE, simply because they are ilvl 264, and are easily purchasable.

After a glance at Cynwise's recent list of PvP gear for 3.3.3 LINKY it became glaringly obvious to me that I could use more than that to fill out my PvE gear needs.

In summary, here's the list of top level, "easily" available (ie, purchasable with only marks or honor, no PvP rank needed)


■Head: Furious (ilvl 232)
■Neck: Wrathful (ilvl 264)
■Shoulder: Titan-Forged (ilvl 251)
■Back: Wrathful (ilvl 264)
■Chest: Furious (ilvl 232)
■Wrist: Wrathful (ilvl 264)
■Hands: Furious (ilvl 232)
■Waist: Relentless (ilvl 245)
■Legs: Furious (ilvl 232)
■Feet: Relentless (ilvl 245)
■1st Ring: Wrathful (ilvl 264)
■2nd Ring: Relentless (ilvl 245)
■Trinket: Medallion of the Alliance/Horde (ilvl 264)
■Trinket: Battlemaster (ilvl 245)

(f you want more info about them, visit Cyn's site!)

Now, most of these are NOT something I would get for PvE use, simply because Triumph & Frost badges can get you better stuff (mainly your 4 piece tier 9 and 10 stuff) But keep in mind, that tier gear will only fill 4-5 slots.

What about your wrists?
Feet?
Cloaks?

For some classes/slots, of the non-tier badge gear is pretty good, but in some instances, the PvP gear is actually better (ie, the PvP cloak for Shammies)

In other places, PvP is your only alternative to farming. The Wrathful Bracers are a good case in point, but there are others.

For me, the next obvious one was the foot slot. My then-current gear was the Death-Inured Sabatons I bought as exalted with the Ebon Hold. They were a decent buy for only 52 gold or so. But, a quick look at the list of PvP gear, and you can find Relentless Gladiator's Greaves of Triumph.

The chart below here shows a stat by stat comparison of the two, assuming they are both gemmed with +20 strength gems (which for PvE is what a Ret should be doing)



They are a substantial gain across the board, with the slight exception of crit; the PvP gear drops your crit by 7 points. BUT, as most Ret Paladin websites will tell you, STR should be your first choice for gear, and with this, you gain 23 strength for a small crit loss. (not to mention 78 extra stamina and 159 more armor)

The best thing? Both of those pieces were at the lowest price bracket for PvP gear; only 34,000 honor each. (or, if you chose, many PvP pieces can be bought with "spare" triumph badges)


But I HATE PvP!

Ok, valid point, but you can actually get a moderate amount of honor without ever seeing combat or participating in a "live" Battleground.

How?

Every week in Wintergrasp, there is at least one quest that is a "PVE-ish" collection grind. You might need 10 bone arrows, 10 horde armor pieces or 10 flame thingies, all of which are obtained by killing the NPC mobs in Wintergrasp, NOT by killing/fighting other players. They can be done (and are more easily done) when a battle is NOT in progress.

There's also the frequent quest to kill 10 Horde (or Alliance if you ARE Horde) And the neat thing? NPC Horde/Alliance mobs are all that's required. It doesn't need to be a live player.

Anyhow, each of those quests give you about 10 gold, 3,000 honor and 10 Stone Keeper Shards.

Remember, Stone Keeper Shards (from any source, including Heroic Boss Kills) can be converted directly into honor by purchasing commendations from the vendor in Wintergrasp.

So, with the occasional Heroic run that gives you Shards, as well as the above easy & quick honor sources, you should be able to buy a "cheap" PvP item within a week, or two. (or sooner if you have unspent honor)

Poof Goes the Magic Dragon

So I'm running around doing my dailies, and while collecting whositwhatsit egg sacs, NPC_Scan alerts me that Vyragosa is nearby.

w00t!

I ran across her a while back, but she refused to land, and I didn't have the gear to survive her attacks. So I ran away and vowed to get her at some later date.

It's now a later date... and this time?

Well, even though I *still* couldn't get her to land, I *was* able to survive her attacks. With Frost Aura on, she hits like a paraplegic kindergartner (no offence intended to any paraplegic kindergartners OR anyone else...) So, with my mighty Exorcism spell, I burned her into the ground (with one or two Hammer of Wrath) Yeah, casting once every 8-10 seconds means the battle takes a while...

If you look *really* closely in the screen cap, you can see my DPS for the fight: 2418. So, for the duration of the fight, using Exorcism & HoW exclusively, I still managed to get nearly 2.5k DPS. I dunno why, but I do find that kinda humorous. (like a joke, not the bone)

In the loot, I got some leather helm that is now sitting in the AH, about 10 gold and some frostweave. *shrug*. Not too shabby for simply flying by...


As I mentioned in my last post, I have been on a spending spree with the Dalaran jeweler. Well, I finally dropped the remaining 2,000 gold.

Runed Ring of the Kirin Tor

This puts it just ahead of the ring it replaced (bloodshed band) I lose some hit (not a big deal- I'm way over cap anyhow) gain a little stamina, a bunch of expertise (which I still don't really understand) and I lose 6 strength. Not perfect for DPS, but eff it, because:

I gain one MASSIVELY nice thing: an extra teleport back to Dal.

Yes, I'm lazy like that.

Also, I had remembered reading somewhere (probably at Critical QQ, Cynwises' Battle manual, or maybe even Gnomeageddon) that there is a really nice bracer available from the PvP vendors:

Wrathful Gladiators Bracers of Triumph

Even without gems or enchants, they are better than the piece they replaced (can't remember what they were, but I can look them up from a recent RAWR save) Also, since I have been looking to put together a set of PvP gear (via honor and emblems, not arena) this works out PERFECTLY. I get an upgrade for my PvE gear that also happens to be a really nice piece for PvP.

And all for a "mere" 43,000 honor points, plus another 10k honor for the uncut cardinal ruby. (and 20 gold for the gem cutting, and 120 gold for the greater assault enchant)

BUT STILL! a neat upgrade relatively cheap.

Oh, my Argent pets still haven't sold, but I made the quick money by selling 10 bars of titansteel. I still need to sell off the rest of it, because with that upcoming patch (and elimination of the 24 hour cooldown on smelting titansteel) it will likely drop a LOT in value.

Sell it for 110 each now, and then buy it later (if needed) for 25-30 gold each.

I'm going to try to post "My Guild Application" in the next few days. Then, theoretically, if I apply to any guilds, I can refer them to it, which will give them a LOT more info about who I am and how I play AND give them a blunt head's up that I blog.