Switching from PvE to 2v2 (Gearing)

[ebs2002]

Hey guys,

Little preface about me: I'm constantly in a cycle between PvE and PvP. I PvE until there's nothing left to get through 5-mans (usually as fury), and then switch to PvP and start fresh.

I just got my 2nd BoH a week or so ago, and started building up my honor and pvp gear. I'd like to get into 2v2 Arena, but am not sure how to gear properly (or if I'm better off going 3v3 or 5v5 instead).

Here's my armory in PvE gear: The World of Warcraft Armory
Not shown PvE gear that may cross over well: Girdle of the Ascended Phantom - Item - World of Warcraft and Titansteel Shield for spell reflecting

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Okay, so now my question is, how do I go about transitioning to a Fury 2v2? I've respecced before to Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft and I know I could tweak it a little bit, but my problem is with gearing. I'm not on a 1600+ team yet, and Archavon has been brutal to warriors regarding pvp gear in my runs, so the only gear accessable to me is Savage Gladiator and non-set honor purchases without a rating requirement.

So far I've purchased:
- 4/5 Savage Gladiator (all but chest) ... wanted the 4pc set bonus, as I know it was huge in 2.x
- 20resil trinket (left over from 2.x) ... replaced FotFF
- WG Anvil trinket ... replaced Mirror
- Honor bracers and cloak

Next upgrades:
- Wintergrasp Boots
- 80resil pvp trinket

But I'm not even sure if I should be wearing these; I have my resil up to ~400, but my DPS has taken a HUGE hit going from epic213 to blue200s on the set pieces (the honor purchases are still a hit, but not by much; in fact, I wouldn't increase in DPS stats if I were upgrading to anything, just stamina/armor/resilience).

So I guess my questions are:
- Is the 4pc worth going from 25man plate to the blue gear?
- Should I keep my valorous and get my resil from the honor purchases?
- Am I doing anything else wrong, spec/gear wise
- Assuming I can find a competent partner/team, where would I fit in best to get over 1600 and start buying the hateful gear? 2v2 with a holypal/restoshm? Or go heavy PvE gear and join a 5v5 where I won't be focused as quickly?

[Kavtor]

If you're doing two's, you can probably just roll with straight PVE gear until you can get epics. I've found the blue resilience to be not worth wearing over high ilvl pve gear.

I've only got back into 2's the last couple days, and we're fantastically bad relative to how we know we can play in the past. But still, it's not often that I'm taking unhealable burst, they're trying to set up burst on my shaman, so you need the PVE gear just for rage generation to be able to participate in the match.

Unless it's rogue / mage.

I don't think 3's are going to provide a wildly different experience (other than probably having fewer games where you're denied the ability to participate by counter comp cc) but 5's should be pretty good, and you can probably roll straight PVE gear even over epic PVP gear until you get high enough that teams actively target swap burst.

It might not even be a bad idea to get a druid partner, in anticipation of some sort of love for the combo down the line.

[blackhand]

Resilience really depends on the comp you're running with. If it's a dual dps group then you probably could get away with having low resilience since you're trying to burst the group down. But if you're running with a healer I find that having enough resilience so that you aren't taking spiky damage is good. But really it's PvP there are few hard rules and it's all down to how you play with what you got.

[Kazeyonoma]

I'm actually PvP spec'd right now and geared. This is about what I run with, with possibly replacing my helm with the hateful gladiator helm via 25man token turn ins. I'd have to figure out where I can find the hit to replace the huge 60 i'm losing. I'd also likely replace my belt and maybe my neck eventually if I get enough honor (not likely). Right now with this current set up I do okay, but my healer has trouble keeping me up when i'm focused a lot so i'm very very very proactive on just popping on my shield when things look scary. the best thing about Titan's grip? You can use your 2hander with your shield on. I've won more matches with my 2hand/shield than dwing 2 2handers.

[ebs2002]

Kaz,

A few questions:

- Is this just for a 5v5 team? Or do you 2v2 as well?
- No 2pc or 4pc setup, just gloves, and <300 resil. Do you find survivability an issue at all, or does the adding of a shield solve most problems?
- Which shield are you using?
- More of a comment: for the loss of hit, if Grim Toll is doable, it's worth considering. The ArPen proc is huge, and the passive 83hit may make it worth unequipping the mirror

[Kazeyonoma]

this is actually for my 2v2 (albeit it's not going well because we're learning the ropes, me fury and him holy) for my 5s i used to run prot =P

Yes I do find survivability an issue quite a bit, hence why I said I need to be very proactive about running away a lot. I'm working on the resil part, namely to get the Hateful helm to get a big +50 set bonus + the stam/resil from just the helm swap. Of course I'd like the 4pc if I could but I find it too difficult to give up my other pieces from t7/7.5 because the dps loss would be too huge and I'm finding it more difficult killing things than me dying. But this may be an improper assessment.

I'm throwing on Hero's Surrender.

Yeh, I don't have Grim Toll unfortunately otherwise I'd use it instead of my mirror (although I love the mirror). No drops yet for my entire guild sadly =( I do have the Sphere of Red Dragon's Blood which is a nice chunk of hit and has an AP proc, I might swap it in for my mirror if i make the change to the hateful helm.

[blackhand]

My warrior is PvP fury spec'd and geared. I'm actually in the process of losing some resil since I feel I'm lacking on crit/ap. I'll pick up the last 2 pieces for my 4piece bonus Tuesday. I'm pretty much going to just get resil from gear and gem/enchant for AP and crit to help on my damage. My 2s is War/Resto Sham so I'm usually never focused first. Though with all these patch changes I might end up going arms if I feel it's viable again (I was arms all BC).

[Mikasa]

I've started doing arenas lately (like 3 weeks ago) with an Holy Paly friend and, although we aren't doing good (we got to 1550, then dropped a little) we aren't doing too bad either, considering we're still working out the little thing (when and what to trinket, who to put pressure on, bubble timing and whatnot). We ended up like 4-7 first week, then we got pretty eaven, and now this week we got a winning reccord despite him DCing on one occasion right as i got sent in. We do plan on doing some more tommorow, and aim for a 1600 rating next week. Neither of us have any prior arena experience.

Personally i'd recommend against stacking resilience for the fun of it. So far, i haven't been put into any situation where i'm taking too much damage, with the exception of popping a recklessness at the wrong time. Sure here and there will be a mage who's tearing you a new hole, but even so i can force an iceblock before i'm dead. I have however been lucky and gotten 2 deadly pieces from archavon so my resil sits in the 500, so that might help a little. i used to have 750, but i changed all my gems/enchants that were hp/resil for strenght, and more strength. and i think it's working quite well, since we're now doing much better.

Most people run with a healer, so even with the zerker penalty 25k hp go a long way (well maybe 8 seconds, but that's enough for my healer to get interupted and still throw me a heal once it fade). For double dps team, even though i feel kinda squishy they tend to go for my paly, or to split, meaning it's still healable. So while more is better, i wouldn't give up crit and ap for resil, because most of our losses are when he gets all focused on, interrupted and killed before able to bubble. And when i do get killed, it's usualy while he's being heavily CCed, or when i akwardly LoS him, so nothing a little 200 resilience would have saved.

So yea, all that to say there's no need to go all out pvp gear, specialy early on. With dual BoH, you should be able to destroy pretty much anything. Id try to do both vault every week or use valor tokens to get a 2 set bonus, but i wouldn't obsess about 4 pieces. I use only 3, and so far have never been in a position where i would have needed my intercept 5 seconds earlier. with Heroic Fury, i have what i need. i suspect it would be way better and more important for arms, since -5 sec from 20 is already better then -5 from 30, and you'd have no reset.

Specwise, i think you should still take 2h weapon spec. i mean you filled out enrage, which is a 2% dmg / point proc, over a always on 2% /point talent. I've seen warriors go without bloodsurge but personnaly i leave out intensify rage. i also don't spec imp execute, because i find that i almost never use it. not that it's bad or anything, just that i either don't have that much rage to make it worthwile.

oh well i kept on going for much longer then i would have liked so let's just finish with this. Personaly if i was in ur position i'd go back to mirror of truth over the WG trinket (same proc effect, but u get 2% more crit out of it, which i think is better then being critted 1% less, specialy with the insane damage u can get with those two babys). I'd use PvP helm and gloves, keep the t7.5, at least till u get hatefull, maybe even deadly, and only worry about getting the 84 resil counter CC trinket, since that's a 64 resil that you don't have to give anything for. As rating grow, then start going for more Deadly gear as rating/vault drops unlock them, replacing pieces with unecessary hit or with haste rating first, hanging on on as much armor pen and crit as u can, specialy since the ArP rating is getting buffed (gonna be 1/4th more effective)

[Kazeyonoma]

Alright, I've reprised on my original idea of go go burst burst, die die.

I've switched up my paladin to a more pvp focused one, and we've shown a lot of improvement. I've started switching out a lot of my gear for pvp gear and it's starting to show. When I can survive the burst, we end up winning matches because my burst comes mid/late game when I have full sunders, full rage, DRs on their ccs on me, and CDs ready to blow. My goal now is to reach 750+ resil with ~25k hp, before I think I can break past the 1750s. I'll try to keep you informed curnguz. My biggest problem is that my weapons SUCK. Hopefully tonight I pick up a death's bite =x

[blackhand]

I know I could tell a big difference from when I was in starter PvP gear in the low 300s to the 800 I was in. Though I am in the process of dropping my resil gems for crit. But I do plan on keeping all of the enchants that I have that give me AP and resil at least for now.

[Krays]

in 2v2 (above 1500) you gonna keep seeing mage/roge or pally/dk teams over and over, with the occasionl mirror matches. also occasionaly hunter/healer teams where without resi you gonna die.

A mage/rogue team will usually cc warrior and blow up your healer, but to beat them you to peel the rogue and keep mage out of action, and thatmeans they will start focusing on your or if hey good they run away, then come back and cc your healer then kill you.

Dk/pally team will nearly always kill you first, agains those teams resi for both of you is imprortant, as against a dk you cant really tell when the burst is coming and staying sword and board agains them will mean you will neverf be able to get the kill.

Against mage./rogue team or mage/lock team you looking at burst of 20K damage (crits) in 1-2 sec, no healer can heal that, that is were resi pays of. But sword and board helps alot here.

Against good teams you cant straight dps kill anyone, as a warrior, well thats what i found anyway. We get the kill with well timed death wish, sunders and recklesnes, fear and pummel and good support from your partner. The person you play with makes or breaks it, warriors cant carry people in pvp anymore, like how some other classes can now:P

[ebs2002]

So I found some decent teammates right now and am giving serious arena a go. Current armory is what I'm running with (The World of Warcraft Armory) -- only difference is that I'm currently specced for pve.

I'm sitting at 575resil. I sometimes swap out the 2 blues (avoid the Intercept bonus) for 213pve gear. I can also swap in an extra 50some resil with the Hateful chest (won it in lottery, but I don't like wearing it as much unless I need it).

I'm running DK/War/Pal in 3v3, but we spent most of last week salvaging a bad hidden rating (went 18-6, and ended in the high 1400s). I found a good resto sham with ~600resil for 2v2, and we were pretty much rocking, but only got in like 5 matches.

Never saw a rog/mag team, which worries me a little, but we saw DK/Pal once and they were easy to take out. They tried to burst down the sham because he's got low HP, but he kited like a pro. I took out his pet, kept him hamstrung, sundered up and forced a bubble. Resundered, waited for him to LOS his healer and then popped everything and took him out.

It's early to tell yet, but I'm thinking this is going to work! :-D

[Kazeyonoma]

GL curnguz! glad to see you're enjoying yourself. Remember, pvp is just another beast of a game in WoW, don't get too frustrated over some bad losses, they're gonna happen.