The right pvp attitude.

[Shortington]

So recently I've been getting tired of tanking stuff up in the PVE content and for the last week and a half I tried some pvp. I have a Paladin partner for 2's and Paladin/Mage for 3's. I was excited because I had enough badges rotting in my bag for 3/5 furious, and enough honor/shards to get a trinket, and two pieces of hatefuls. The only gem I had was an old khaarma's grace which I got for fun when I thought they'd sell on AH (dhurr). Now... to be frank, I suck at pvp atm, if ratings could go into fractions, I reckon I'd be somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 getting whipped by 8 year old warlocks. I was feeling pretty down but keen to get better when an 1800 rating rogue duels/messages me:

Rogue: Man L2play, you look like a scrub.
Me: I AM a scrub...
Rogue: get some gems then, tard.

Do I have the wrong idea? I mean, I was looking forward to PVP because it wasn't a gear check. I have like 667 resil, a 251 weapon (Axe), and other sundry "not bad" stats and I'm working on setting up my keybinds, addons and macros. Do I need better gear to win right now?

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...cn=Shortington

Here's my armory link, but it often shows my tank set.

[Voddy]

Your right, it's showing your tank set, which makes it hard for me to offer any advice. You have the correct excitement 'buzz' which is a good tool of the trade. Arena is based on MMR (Matchmaking Rating) so this means you and your partners will all have a rating which can rise or lower, which determines what teams you will go against who are similiar to the skill in which you have. As you have been saying, it's definitely a sound idea to setup a decent/organised set of keybinds and macros. 'Gladius' is the King of arena addons, and it's definitely a good idea to get that. The two pieces of hatefuls should be a piority to replace. Also, if you have any dps set gear, this can be a good idea to use, provided you and your partner can survive with the slight loss of resi. Ignore the 1800 rated rogue. He's not exactly 'pro' material, and people like him should learn some lessons in respect. A good sight to check is http://www.arenajunkies.com/, look at some of the top rated warriors in the world, and learn from their gemming and their speccs. If your keen to do better, and don't mind watching some warrior PvP movies then, http://www.warcraftmovies.com/. As to your question of 'Do I need better gear to win right now?' The answer is 'no' as your MMR will pair you up with those of a similiar skill and usually similiar gear level. By the sounds of it, your gear is rather good, but you really need to replace the hateful gear and gem correctly by browsing through 'AJ' and looking at Gladiator warriors.

[Shortington]

Ahh thank you, it's good to know I'm not alone by saying gems won't win matches for me!

Slight update, since I posted I farmed enough badges for another furious piece, and the link is showing my pvp gear now. Also I don't feel so scrub, I won my first skirmish, pally/warr vs rogue 2v1! Yeeeaah!

Thank you for Gladius by the way, it's a sweet addon, although I did know about those sites and I've been working hard reading the knowledges they provide. PVP is way different to PVE I find as far as gearing goes, I don't look forward to the better gear from boss X, it just kind of comes as I play and get more honor/badges/whatever. I like it, it feels way less important. Although there is a question that nags me, how will I be able to tell when I'm losing because I'm itemizing incorrectly? I assume (in the distant future) I'll be leet enough to tell, but is there any telltale signs? Does it ever actually happen?

[Voddy]

Looking at your gear, it is actually not too bad, replace the final hateful piece and seriously consider gemming and enchanting correctly asap. Sometimes it can be hard to tell if your losing a game because your gear is preventing you from doing anything major to your opponent. The best sign is by going against a mirror combo, and if you are slightly beaten it could be due to experience issues, but if you are heavily beaten by someone of your same gear and experience (you can usually tell) then you might want to consider sorting out you itemising.

[Genome852]

Farm honor (which should be easy come 3.3.3) and get the Wrathful offset. Find a good mix between PVP and PVE gear. Most warriors try to attain the ArP softcap and wear an ArP trinket so that they have 100% ArP when the trinket procs.

For example, if I were you I'd use 4/5 furious for the 4 piece set bonus while using a mainset PVE piece, like T10 shoulders. Get Hellfrozen Bonegrinders (or Blood Soaked Saronite Stompers if you raid 25man ICC) and the crafted TOC ArP bracers and you should be pretty close to the softcap already assuming you gem for ArP. They would also be upgrades for your PVE set.

PVP isn't all about gear, but gear is still a very important aspect. Game knowledge and skill are the others, and both need to be learned, so keep playing and figuring things out.

Also, that rogue is an idiot... there's a similar kind of person on my server who trashtalks others but is terrible himself. Ignore these elitists.

PS. why do you have a 20 crit gem in your ring? <_<

[Shortington]

Thankyou for the advice on gear.

The crit gem in my ring is a filler, I had to whack it in quickly because we were about to go into ICC25 and I didn't have a gem in it because I was researching about the arp soft cap and such. Come raiding time, it was in my bank so I used it because it was better than nothing XD.

I'll be getting the TOC bracers asap, I looked at them and decided I really liked them over my pve bracers, I hadn't considered seriously using PVE gear in PVP though, can I really sacrifice the resil? How important is resilience over damage?

[Genome852]

Yes, you can sacrifice resil. Resilience is good, but damage is too.

Warriors are one of the only classes that wear a ton of PVE gear in PVP. Why? Because armor pen is a ridiculously imbalanced stat.

Right now, many top warriors are aiming to have 80%+ armor pen with a mace and DBW for S8. However, the tradeoff is that they will only have around ~800 resil when everyone else will have 1.3k+. They will be glass cannons IMO.

It's really up to you to decide if you want more survivability or damage... but the general consensus is that wearing full PVP gear as a warrior will severely gimp your damage output. (There ARE high ranked warriors in full PVP gear though, so take that with a grain of salt)

[Avenus]

As a holy paladin during Ulduar, I did a great deal of pvp in pve healing gear. PvP gear at the time did not have the ilevel to compete with pve gear, and as an exceptionally equipped pve healer my survivability was easily comparable to a pvp holy paladins simply because of the power of the heals I could put out.

As gear inflates, though, I find this is less the case. PVP in PVE gear is less feasible than back at the start of Wrath.

[Eravian]

A lot of it is going to depend on your team comp, as well. If your paladin partner is Holy, then you'll want to make sure that you up your damage, since you'll be the primary offense for your team. If he's Ret, go for survivability, since the two of you can focus fire targets. Same with your 3v3 - since you have a mage, you have some offensive back-up as well, so it's not as vital that you do unbelievable burst, so long as you do constant damage to an opponent and peel melee of your mage and paladin teammates. My 3v3 team alternates between warrior (myself) - rogue - healer, and warrior - healer - healer right now. When the rogue is there, I wear my standard pvp gear, but with two healers I need to do all I can to up damage and swap in some PvE pieces, since it's up to me to kill stuff on the other team. So remember to take that into consideration too.

[Shortington]

Yes, you can sacrifice resil. Resilience is good, but damage is too.

Warriors are one of the only classes that wear a ton of PVE gear in PVP. Why? Because armor pen is a ridiculously imbalanced stat.

Right now, many top warriors are aiming to have 80%+ armor pen with a mace and DBW for S8. However, the tradeoff is that they will only have around ~800 resil when everyone else will have 1.3k+. They will be glass cannons IMO.

It's really up to you to decide if you want more survivability or damage... but the general consensus is that wearing full PVP gear as a warrior will severely gimp your damage output. (There ARE high ranked warriors in full PVP gear though, so take that with a grain of salt)

It's interesting to know this now. I have seen the higher ranked warriors and been eyeing their gear. As I said earlier I'm at around 667 resil, so my main gearing focus at the moment is to get to around 700-725 and then focus on damage pieces. Since it seems that's what they do. Hopefully one day I'll be able to get a [season name] gladiator's mace so I can use a better spec. Of course my main playstyle focus is getting the hang of bursting effectively.

As a holy paladin during Ulduar, I did a great deal of pvp in pve healing gear. PvP gear at the time did not have the ilevel to compete with pve gear, and as an exceptionally equipped pve healer my survivability was easily comparable to a pvp holy paladins simply because of the power of the heals I could put out.

As gear inflates, though, I find this is less the case. PVP in PVE gear is less feasible than back at the start of Wrath.

Our holy pally went squish over and over again before he got PVP gear, He's also gimped his healing a bit by going dual spec prot/holy so now 2v2 teams have mega trouble bursting him down (at least at our rating level). This is good because it lets me focus on learning how to use my sword better than "mashing and hoping" which is what it feels like I'm doing every now and then.

A lot of it is going to depend on your team comp, as well. If your paladin partner is Holy, then you'll want to make sure that you up your damage, since you'll be the primary offense for your team. If he's Ret, go for survivability, since the two of you can focus fire targets. Same with your 3v3 - since you have a mage, you have some offensive back-up as well, so it's not as vital that you do unbelievable burst, so long as you do constant damage to an opponent and peel melee of your mage and paladin teammates. My 3v3 team alternates between warrior (myself) - rogue - healer, and warrior - healer - healer right now. When the rogue is there, I wear my standard pvp gear, but with two healers I need to do all I can to up damage and swap in some PvE pieces, since it's up to me to kill stuff on the other team. So remember to take that into consideration too.

Ahh thank you for the advice, I can see what you mean with respect to complimenting my teammates. I'll take this into consideration when I balance survivability and damage output.

We actually won a rated game last week. I was so pleased to actually get a decent amount of points.