World of Warcraft Warrior PVP - Murth

Gemming in Patch 3.0

I was going to mention this in the earlier post but I though it deserve a seperate post because I think this is a really good tip on how to save gold,  if you’re still confused about how to gem in 3.0  ,

With full PVP Gear you will have 5 Yellow Slot and 3 Red Slot

and we have 3 choices of great Meta Gems,

Enigmatic Skyfire Diamond - 12 Crit,  Reduces 10% Snare Duration

Chaotic Skyfire Diamond - 12 Crit , 3% to bonus to Crit DMG

Powerful Earthstorm Diamond - 18 Stam, Reduces 10% Stun Duration

Note: The 15% tooltip on Enigmatic Skyfire Diamond and Powerful Earthstorm Diamond are incorrect.

If you didn’t know about Chaotic Skyfire Diamond before, this is because it used to be a Spell Crit gem but since patch 3.0 there’s only 1 Crit stat which affect both melee and spell making this better than Relentless Earthstorm Diamond .

To be able to change your Meta without changing any other gem, you should get

3x Sovereign Shadowsong Amethyst
5x Inscribed Pyrestone

this will meet the requirements of all 3 meta gems.

and finaly how do you choose which Meta to go for?

Personally I really like to stack the Duration Reductions ,

so If I have Toughness i’d use Enigmatic Skyfire Diamond

If I have Iron Will i’d use Powerful Earthstorm Diamond , I really like stun duration reduction as Arms becuase Second Wind will keep proccing and the stun penalty is reduced a lot over time.

but if more damage is what you think you need in PVP then go for Chaotic Skyfire Diamond , but I don’t think more damage is the key anymore when there’s so much damage done already.

well all this can be different at level 80 and we might need the extra damage

Posted in General | 2 Comments »

My final WOTLK Prot build

After 2 weeks of laggy server, BG is finally playable and Arena is still laggy but not too bad during off peak hours.

I’ve been so frustrated with patch 3.0 I even though of quiting wow, loggin on was pointless and when it last for 2 weeks I start to accept that I don’t need wow anymore lol.

Not to mention getting WTFowned everyday by Paladins in blue/s1 gear literrally made me sick.

anyway, that is why I’ve been absent, the server lag and stupid Paladins prevent me from enjoying the game.

After I spended 2000 gold or something  on respecing, I think I’m finaly contempt with the spec that I choose, I will probably use it for leveling up to 80 because I love it so much.

It is 0/38/23 at level 70 and 0/38/33 at level 80

This is a Fury/Prot Hybrid build, I would still like to call this a Prot spec really because I’ll be playing 1H+Shield 100% of the time against all classes.

DPS Rotation would be Shield Slam > Bloodthirst > Heroic Strike > Shield Slam etc.

If you didn’t know Shield Slam  is not on the same cooldown as Bloodthirst, so the Burst potential is amazing with Bloodthirst.

I believe this build is Superior in every way vs other 50+ PVP Prot Spec because of the following reasons

Bloodthirst > Devastate   - Hands down simply because it deals way more damage in 1 GCD  and the Healing effect can really stack up. Devastate damage is just too low and take too much GCD for it to become effective. Not to mention that in 3.0.3 Bloodthirst is going to get buffed to 5sec cooldown and 50% AP damage.

Enrage > Imp Def Stance - Even though it cost more talent points its just better because it will work againts casters.

Furious Attack > Warbringer, this is something that Prot desperately need to be competitive in Arena. Playing 1H-Shield with Furious Attack is incredible, I’ve never had so much fun playing the Warrior because healing classes can’t laugh at me anymore.

But I find the proc rate of Furious Attack is pretty bad, it can be hard to stack 2x for some reason even with all the spamming of Shield Slam and Bloodthirst, Furious Attack can still wear off easily. Oh well its still better than no healing debuff.

Improve Berskerer Rage - This is like drinking a Rage potion every 20 second,  it is amazing to play with Improve Berserker Rage if you don’t have Tactical Mastery.

This is an incredibly good build, I have been able to kill any geared class 1vs1, and the DPS is still respectable.  Shield Slam damage is nearly as high as Full Prot because you can still get Imp Shield Bash for 10% dmg and Shield Mastery,  the main thing different than Full Prot is 1H Mastery which you can get at level 80.

This brings me to the subject of 1vs1 as Warrior, playing 1H+Shield is now better in every way againts any class.  This is because you gain Shield Slam as an additional instant damage for only 20 rage,

and your Shield Slam damage is as high as your 2Hander Slam damage and it gives you the Ability to stay in Battle Stance and Spell Reflect.

Or Defensive Stance > Shield Block > Revenge vs Melee classes, You also will deal more damage in Defensive Stance because you gain Revenge as another attack which is about 1500 damage (untalented) for 5 rage.

I haven’t seen Warriors using Shield Block much at all, didn’t they notice that it Blocks ALL attacks for 10 sec, this is like the Warrior’s version of Evasion.

Well I think Warriors will always need to switch to 1H+Shield in any 1vs1 situation no matter what spec you are. If you’re not doing this yet, you need to start and I’ll guarantee that you’ll have more success in PVP.

Posted in General | 8 Comments »

Last Week of PTR so Final Verdict on Specs

I’ve been reluctant to do anymore post about specs since blizzard costantly make changes to the PTR, but with 1 week to go and no more hints of any Warrior changes. I think its safe to say that these are probably going to be the new build I’ll be using for the new patch 3.0

First thing to note: I don’t believe any PVP (Arena) build will work without Piercing Howl, the talent is simply too good, it has a 10 yd range and your opponents can’t dodge, parry it.

Arms 50/11/0 - This has got to be the hardest tree to spec correctly for PVP, there’s so much damage talent and not enough points. Picking Bladestorm is not an option as it would mean giving up Piercing Howl , Bladestorm is not something I’d consider until level 71-80.

So I picked my talent by separating the PVE talent from the PVP talent.

So DPS Talents I skipped in Arms is because I considered them to be more applicable in PVE than PVP.
Improved Rend, Taste of Blood, Unrelenting Assault, Improved MS.

Arms DPS in PVP with Taste of Blood is extremely difficult when you need to apply Rend first then stay in Battle Stance to watch a proc, and stance dancing can cost a lot of rage. And I find there is just isnt enough GCD to add Rend as part of your DPS rotation in PVP. It is an exteremely fun talent for PVE but in PVP trying to DPS with Rend/Overpower just makes your gameplay more difficult, 5 talent points better spended in other DPS talent.

Improved MS is a great talent now for 3 points,  but most of the DPS gain from the -1 sec cooldown is mostly for PVE.

If you’re not aware Glyph of Hamstring stacks with Improved Hamstring for a 25% chance to root your enemy with Hamstring,  and with Slam fix (not resetting your swing timer) Improved Slam will see a lot more use in PVP but if you find that you’re not using it that often you can take Strenght of Arms instead.

Fury 7/54/0 DW Titan Grip - Undending Fury is a decent talent now it is pretty much 10% damage for all our yellow damage which will scale extremely well with Improved Whirlwind and Enrage, this build will evolve to something like 18/53/0 at level 80 picking up Impale , Deepwound and 2H Mastery

or 16/45/0 2H Fury - Like I mentioned in my earlier post a single 2H fury build will still be a viable build,  Impale and Deepwound alone will make up for the loss of Titan Grip.  If you hate the Miss rate of Titan Grip but want to play fury I highly recommend this spec for PVP. This will evolve to 26/45/0 to get Poleaxe Spec (more crits = more Bloodsurge & Flurry for crazy damage) , Sweeping Strike and 2H Mastery

Prot 0/11/50 - The decission to abandon Toughness was a tough one but I think it is a good choice to be able to pick up Improved Revenge and Improved Disarm.  Toughness nerf to only reduce 30% snaring effect is pretty bad but I’m glad it happen to all class, Warbringer will dispel all snaring effect anyway and we’re able to do this an endless number of times with Charge and Intercept.

Having play in Prot in PTR, Warbringer really makes the build fun by being able to Charge in defensive stance makes the loss of Tactical Mastery much more bearable and with the massive damage increase for Revenge (1800dmg in PTR), improved Revenge is now a must have talent for Prot Spec!

Posted in WOLTK talk | 6 Comments »

DPS test on PTR 3.0

I spended few hours on the PTR recently going through different PVP build and testing it on the Training Dummy in orgrimmar.

I used a mod called DPSmeter don’t know how accurate it is but it does the job ok.

The build I used are.

Prot PVP with Piercing Howl  0/11/50 - DPS rotation is pretty simple, Shield Slam > Devastate while watching Sword and Board Proc  for free Shield Slam and Concussion Blow whenever possible.

I think this will be the build I would use for level 70 pvp,  note I only put 3/5 on Toughness because I think Toughness can be a bit overrated in prot, especially with prot high  mobility with Warbringer and Safeguard.

After playing a bit of BG in PTR, I remembered why i never PVP without Piercing Howl, you just got to have it. While Shockwave is great its still not worth the sacrifice. At level 80 I can see the build evolving to 0/20/51 dropping Imp Defensive Stance for Enrage.

Enrage is a much better talent than Imp Defensive Stance even thou it cost 5 points instead of 2, it will proc a lot more often againts caster team, while you’ll be lucky to get proc it with Imp Def Stance againts casters.

2H Fury Impale / Deepwounds  15/45/1 -  DPS Rotation of Bloodthirst > Whirlwind > Slam (if Bloodthirst crit) best to use whirlwind at every cooldown before Bloodsurge.

With all the hype of Titan Grip a single  2H Fury can still be viable, evolving to 25/45/1 at level 80 for Sweeping Strike 5/5 2H Mastery and 4/5 Poleaxe spec which is great synergy  which you can’t get with Titan Grip build.

Titan Grip 2H DW Fury  0/53/8 - same as 2H fury DPS Rotation, there’s so many different ways to spec titan grip i think this is one of the best DPS build for level 70 pvp.

Arms with Sudden Death and Improved Slam  49/11/1 - This is probably the most complicated build to DPS with. Staying in Battle Stance to keep Rend up at all time,   MS > Imp Slam and Overpower whenever available.

I find  1 point on Unrelenting Assault is enough as you have a shit load of rage and MS is better than overpower and the event of Overpower proccing back to back does happen but not often enough. ( though  againts a high armor target (feral druid with high dodge rate) and  where rage is in issue 2 points on Unrelenting Assault can be amazing)

I only use Sudden Death proc straight after MS to be more rage efficient,

Note: I opted for 1/3 in Tactical Mastery because i think that is all we need since Disarm and Spell Reflect rage cost has been reduced to 15 rage, point well spend.

Also Note: Training Dummy have 0 armor, so any build without Deepwounds will see more reduction in DPS.

the Result

#1 Titan Grip 2H DW Fury   -  1550 DPS
#2 2H Fury with Impale / Deepwounds - 1460 DPS
#3 Arms with Improved Slam / Sudden Death - 1440 DPS
#4 Prot PVP with Piercing Howl - 1360 DPS

so to my conclusion is despite all the tears in the Warrior forum about the 15% chance to miss, Titan Grip build still provide the highest amount of DPS for PVP and probably for PVE aswell. I think it is still a large amount of DPS gained from 1 point, counter balancing is definately needed.

And Fury still have 10% more damage potential in comparison to Arms because there’s no Enrage proc for Fury.

as with Arms DPS , Improved Slam and Taste for Blood  is definately needed to get a DPS that high, a lot more micro management involved to dps in Arms.

another thing I’d like to point out is that a single 2H Fury is still a viable build at level 70 because this allows you to get Impale and Deepwounds which is a lot DPS gained, so if you wish to PVP with Fury and  hate the RNG aspec of Titan Grip and prefer a more stable DPS (getting Bloodthrist crit for Bloodsurge then missing the instant Slam lol ),  definately consider a single 2H fury build.

Posted in Fury, General, Protection, WOLTK talk | 5 Comments »

Prot now have the highest burst damage!

New Beta Patch have a lot of AMAZING changes

• Shockwave now deals [75% of AP] damage (up from 50%) but doesn’t cause a high amount of threat anymore.
• Sword and Board changed to 3 ranks and now Increases the critical strike chance of your Devastate ability by 5/10/15% and when your Devastate ability deals damage it has a 10/20/30% (Old - 3/6/9/12/15%) chance of refreshing the cooldown of your Shield Slam ability and reducing its cost by 100% for 5 sec. (Old - Didn’t increase critical strike chance of Devastate)
• Vitality now Increases your total Strength and Stamina by 2/4/6% (Old - 1/2/3%) and your Expertise by 6. (Old - Didn’t affect expertise)
• Shield Mastery moved from Tier 6 to Tier 3 and changed from 3 point to 2 points. Now Increases your block value by 15/30% and reduces the cooldown of your Shield Block ability by 10/20 sec. (Old - 10/20% block value and didn’t reduce cooldown)
• Improved Shield Wall renamed to Improved Disciplines. Now Reduces the cooldown of your Shield Wall, Retaliation and Recklessness abilities by 30/60 secs.
• Concussion Blow now deals [75% of AP] damage (up from 25%) but doesn’t cause a high amount of threat anymore.
• Improved Disarm doesn’t affect Shield Break anymore.
• Last Stand cooldown reduced from 6 minutes to 5 minutes.
• Rank 3 of Puncture has been re-added.
• Improved Shield Block has been removed.
• First rank of Improved Toughness now properly reduces the duration of all movement slowing effects by 10%. (Old - 20%)
• *New Talent* - Damage Shield (Tier 10) - Whenever you take damage from or block a melee attack you cause damage equal to 10/20% of your block value.
  I’m really confused with the description of this ability, “from or block” does this mean we will deal 20% block value whenever we are hit by melee attack or only when we block?
• *New Talent* - Warbringer - Your Charge ability is now usable while in combat and in any stance.

Now Prot PVP have the HIGHEST Burst Damage,
wow I am truly amazed….  I can see why Blizzard have not added an MS talent for Prot tree. This is because they want us to kill with CRAZY damage instead.

Shockwave and Concussion blow now buffed to 75% of AP damage, thats 1500 each so Prot can dish out 3000 burst damage every 30sec.

Thunderclap been buffed to 50% more damage + 12% of AP so this will deal about 850 damage at level 70.

Devastate and Shield Slam will have 55% chance to crit total and 30% chance on Devastate to get a free Shield Slam.

So wow at level 70 with 2000AP we can deal about  6000 dmg  within the first 6 second of a fight with Concussion Blow 1500 dmg > Thunderclap 850 dmg > Shockwave 1500 dmg  > Shield Slam 1000 dmg  (2 STR = 1 Block Value in Beta) + 2 auto attack for 1500 dmg.

and  thats if none of the ability CRIT.

what can ARMS do in 6 seconds?  Mortal Strike for 1350 > Whirlwind for 1100 > Thunderclap for 850 dmg (if they have talent) > and 1 auto attack for 1100  for a total of 4400 dmg

what can FURY do in 6 seconds? Bloodthirst for 1000 > Whirlwind for 1320 (with imp whirlwind > Thunderclap for 850 > and 2 auto attack for 1100 + 550 for total of 4820 dmg,

of course this a very inaccurate description there are a lot of factor involved with Sudden Death, Bloodsurge (but i’m also not factoring in Sword n Board and Prot high chance to crit etc) but whatever you get the picture, because of Shockwave and Concussion Blow dealing 75% AP they  2 of the hardest hitting talents for warrior by far only accessible to Prot Warriors.

15% Crit rating talent for almost every ability = 55% chance to Crit in season 4 gear, maybe its time to drop Cruelty.

So we got 15% additional crit for Devastate, Shield Slam, Heroic Strike, Thunderclap, so what else is there, we’ll be lucky not to crit when we’re Prot.

Since it is unlikely for us to Sacrifice Piercing Howl for Shockwave,  perhaps we can finaly drop Cruelty and spend points in the Arms Tree.

I’m a big fan of Cruelty and I could never find myself not spending 5/5 cruelty in any build period, but with all the Crit talents given in the Prot tree giving Cruelty as prot we would still have about 50% chance to crit with most of our ability.

Thunderclap is now becoming an important part of our damage rotation as it will deal more damage and cheaper cost (13 rage) than Whirlwind and its usable in Battle Stance.

And with Warbringer and Improved Charge we can generate 25 rage every 15 sec  :O

I’m starting to see a Level 70 Prot build look more like 10/0/51 at level 70 and evolving to 15/5/51 at level 80, which also make it a better tanking spec at the same time.

Edit* Serennia posted a great feed back on Prot PVP  with video in the Beta Warrior forum, check it out here

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=9679738953&sid=2000

Posted in Protection, WOLTK talk | 7 Comments »

Mace Specialization now ignores 15% of target’s armor

So I just found out the new figures for the Mace spec and its -15% armor reduction to your target, is this good or bad? lets do the math.  you can use this armor calculator http://rehfeld.us/wow/damage-reduction.html

Average Class Armor in S4

Bear Form/ Warrior with Shield / Paladins with Shield - 17500 ac 62.5%
Resto Shaman - 13100 55.4%
Warrior without shield - 11500 ac 52.1%
Hunter - 7400ac  41.2%
Enchancement Shaman  - 6500ac 38.1%
Rogue -  4400ac 29.4%
Priest with Inner Fire - 4400ac 29.4%
Druid  in caster form with MOTW -  3800ac 26.5%
Frost Mage with Arcane Fortitude - 4000ac 27.4%
Warlock - 2800ac  20.9%

With Mace Spec ignore 15% armor

Bear Form/ Warrior with Shield / Paladins with Shield -  14875ac 58.5%  (-2625 4% dmg)
Resto Shaman  -  11135ac  51.3% (-1965  4.1% dmg)
Warrior without shield -  9775ac 48% (-1725 4.1% dmg)
Hunter  - 6290ac   37.3% (-1110 3.9% dmg)
Enchancement Shaman - 5525ac 34.4% (-975 3.7% dmg)
Rogue - 3740ac  26.1% (-660 3.3% dmg)
Priest with Inner Fire  - 3740ac 26.1% (-660 3.3% dmg)
Druid  in caster form with MOTW - 3230ac 23.4% (-570 3.1% dmg)
Frost Mage with Arcane Fortitude  - 3400ac  24.4% (-600 3% dmg)
Warlock - 2380ac 18.4% (-357 2.5% dmg)

With s3 or s4 armor penetration and Executioner -1414ac

Bear Form/ Warrior with Shield / Paladins with Shield - 16086ac 60.4% (2.1% dmg)
Resto Shaman - 11686ac  52.5% (2.9% dmg)
Warrior without shield - 10086ac 48.9% (3.2% dmg)
Hunter - 5986ac  36.2% (5% dmg)
Enchancement Shaman  - 5086ac      32.5% (5.6% dmg)
Rogue -  2986ac 22% (7.4% dmg)
Priest with Inner Fire - 2986ac 22% (7.4% dmg)
Druid  in caster form with MOTW -  2386ac 18.4% (8.1% dmg)
Frost Mage with Arcane Fortitude - 2586ac 19.6% (7.8% dmg)
Warlock - 1386ac 11.6% (9.3% dmg)

Mace Spec ignore 15% armor + s3/s4 Armor penetration + Executioner

Bear Form/ Warrior with Shield / Paladins with Shield -  13461ac 56% (6.5% dmg)
Resto Shaman  -  9721ac  47.9% (7.5% dmg)
Warrior without shield -  8361ac 44.2% (7.9% dmg)
Hunter  - 4876ac   31.6% (9.6% dmg)
Enchancement Shaman - 4111ac 28%  (10.1% dmg)
Rogue - 2326ac  18% (11.4% dmg)
Priest with Inner Fire  - 2326ac 18% (11.4% dmg)
Druid  in caster form with MOTW - 1816ac 14.7% (11.8% dmg)
Frost Mage with Arcane Fortitude  - 1986ac  15.8% (11.6% dmg)
Warlock - 966ac 8.4 % (12.5% dmg)

well from this I see that the best Mace Spec will increase damage quite evenly across all class, since it is a percentage it scales up aswell as scales down.

More effective againts high armor class and less effective againts low armor class but only a small 1-2% dmg difference.

It will increase damage by about 2.5% for low armor -> 4.1% high armor class.

But if you combine this with armor penetration gear and executioner enchant it will become slightly better by 0.5 - 1%  at best.

so this is not a huge buff, but with the 10 rage per proc  I guess makes it a good talent, as a rule 1 talent is worth 1% dmg so if mace spec increase your dmg by 2.5 - 4.1 % for 5 talent points sounds a bit low, remember that it also have 10 rage per proc.

-15% ignore armor and 10 Rage generation proc will allow us to kill high armor target faster since we generate so little rage againts Bear Form Druid or Paladins. and you can still generate rage while hitting shields effects from Priest or Mage.

I think Blizzard still want Mace Spec to be the PVP weapon spec, and since Blizzard removed Enraged Assault as an additional attack.

Enraged Assault redesigned, now Enraged Regeneration: You regenerate 30% of your total health over 10 sec. This ability consumes all Enrage effects and prevents any from affecting you for the full duration. Must be enraged to use. Cost 15 rage, 3 min cooldown.

With Enrage Assault proccing Wrecking Crew just to use Enrage Assault over and over again is a good way to deal burst DPS. But now that its gone, you can only use your Enrage effect once every 3 mins, it should be easy to maintain a Crit dmg every 12 secs with 40% crit.

I think Mace Spec will still be #1.

Posted in WOLTK talk | 10 Comments »

Level 70 Prot PVP build and possible Arena spec

When I saw the new changes to Prot tree,  my jaw literary dropped. I really think Blizzard have finaly taking a more serious step towards Prot PVP. I even see the possiblity of arena setup that can include Prot PVP warrior in 3v3 and 5v5.

Now there are  unique characteristing of Prot PVP that can make it a good option in arena,

1. Anti kite ability - Toughness , Safeguard, in combat Charge ( which also increase rage generation)
2. High Survivability - Last Stand, and massive amount of armor by holding a shield at all times.
3. More Dispel potential with  Sword and Board talent (with the 100% chance to dispel buff)
4. Good synergy with Melee classes - Automatic sunder + DPS with Devastate,
5. 30 sec cooldown ‘Pain Surpression’ -  with Safeguard
6. AOE stun ability - Shockwave
7. Massive Increase in DPS - many talent have increase Prot DPS with
   Shield Bash for 10% more Shield Slam Damage,
   Incite and  Critical Block for 15% to crit with Shield Slam,
   Sword and Board for free Shield Slam, (DPS gain and better rage efficiency since its free)
   Improved Defensive Stance for 10% Enrage
   Not to mention Blizzard block value will scale with STR, I’m not sure of numbers yet.
8. Improved Disarm causes the target to take 10% more damage,  the potential of using this a 5v5 cleave* setup can work extremely well and it will be available every 40sec.* Cleave setup is a term used for a 5v5 team with 3 melee DPS and 2 healer.

So here is a couple of build that I’d recommend for Level 70 when the patch comes out.

0/11/50 - Prot PVP with Piercing Howl

0/5/56 - Prot PVP with Shockwave

the hard choice is whether Shockwave is good enough to sacrifice Piercing Howl?  I’d never know until I give both build a try.

Possible 3v3 arena setup - paired with a class that can apply -50% healing debuff  (Warrior, Rogue, Hunter) and a healer , i think Prot spec can offer more than Arms or Fury setup.

setup such as Warrior / Rogue / Druid is already popular but the real question can Prot be better than Arms or Fury spec in this setup? I believe it can, because

• Rogue already bring the -50% healing debuff and the additional MS debuff from Warrior is not really required.
• and what Prot bring is the Dispels effect from Shield Slam, costantly dispelling HOTs and Buffs will prove more usefull than an additional MS
• the fast Sunder Armor and Improved Disarm will scale the overall team damage faster than Arms or Fury.
• This team setup is very vunerable from high damage of caster teams since Druid is unable to dispel DOTs (except curse), but Safeguard and Last Stand can prevent loses from high burst damage team.
• With the loss of Mace Stun, Prot Spec have a much better stunlock potential with Improved Shield Bash and Concussion Blow (and Shockwave if you have it)
• And with no dispels, Prot warrior should be able to stick to their target better than Arms or Fury warrior. (Arms have Bladestorm and Imp Intercept, and Fury have Heroic Leap but overall performance of sticking to a target is probably better done with prot because of Toughness, Charge, Safeguard)

What about the low Prot DPS ?   while Arms and Fury will scale alot better in Raid situation, I think everyone will be pleasantly surprise that Prot PVP dps is not far behind to Arms or Fury in solo or party situation, the hidden DPS comes from dispelling with Shield Slam, hoping to test this on PTR when it is released to prove it.

anyway this is just all my theory crafting, I would love to shut up and prove it when the patch comes out.

Posted in Protection, WOLTK talk | 15 Comments »

Will Poleaxe Spec be the new Mace Spec?

you may have heard that the new WOLTK talent and skill are going to be release “in the coming weeks”,  this is going be a huge change for season 4 arena. How will you spec for level 70 arena?

Most warriors will be itching go 51 Fury which will be a nice breath of fresh air after being MS for over a year.

I’m not too sure myself but I think Arms still offer some of the best talents for Arena, main thing I’d like to talk about is Weapon Specilization changes.

If you’re unaware in WOLTK and the new content patch 3.0 changed all the weapon spec, and hamstring / pummel will not deal any damage.

Mace Spec - Stun proc removed, changed to 10 rage per proc only.
Mace Spec & Sword Spec - proc can only occur once every 6 second.
Poleaxe Spec - 5% to crit chance AND 5% Bonus to crit damage.

Hamstring - only 1 rank and deal 0 damage.

so no more Mace stun FTL,

I’m happy and sad at the same time, it is a much needed change since I play a resto Druid myself nothing is more irritating than losing a game because of Mace stun.

But I’m sad since I have already bought my season 4 mace, so it is kinda  waste if I don’t stick to Mace spec.

The hamstring change is a huge change as the reason Mace and Sword spec is much better than Axe spec are primarly because that you can get a Mace / Sword Spec proc by spamming Hamstring, now that it deal 0 damage it will not proc any Mace / Sword spec.

This leads me to believe that Poleaxe spec could ultimately make a huge comeback.  why?

Poleaxe spec if we do the math I’m certain it will bring the most DPS because it give better synergy with Deepwounds , Impale, Trauma,  Wrecking Crew without Hamstring to proc Deepwound and Wrecking Crew your Crit stats is more important than ever.

Sword Spec have best burst possibility but the 6 second cooldown really hurts the spec because it can’t proc multiple times anymore when you hit more than one target with Sweeping Strike, Whirlwind or Cleave.

Mace Spec…. I don’t know what this is good for anymore, at its current state it already give us 7 rage per proc so they remove the Mace Stun part and give us 3 more rage?  and with Endless rage it is unlikely that you will be rage starved.  The reason I can see it being good is if you spec Sudden Death, which is going to use up a lot of rage and will help a lot with the rage generation but I’m still not convinced to use it.

At its current state I’m saving up for the season 4 axe to be ready for the new patch. looking forward for the patch to be released on PTR to try them out.

Posted in WOLTK talk | 4 Comments »

WOTLK PVP Build forecast 51 Arms & 51 Fury

I’m very excited to see new warrior changes for WOTLK  if you haven’t seen them check them out at

http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=13480.0

Finaly blizzard have given  us a new MS talent in the fury tree  with Furious Attack which make full fury a viable spec for arena PVP.

Unfortunately Blizzard seem to like to pigeon hole us deep into either 51 Arms or 51 Fury so I really don’t know how any hybrid  Arms/Fury  will be able to compete.

A Full 51 Arms main strength are of Wrecking Crew,  Bladestorm and Endless Rage

and a Full 51 Fury main strength are Titan’s Grip, Heroic Leap,  and Bloodsurge

HOW can any other build compete with these talents.

So after tweaking around I came up with these spec, in my opinion could be popular.

ARMS

57/11/1 Arms Build

Since Spell Reflect cost reduction to 15 rage I think 1 point is Tactical Mastery is good enough, otherwise you can drop points from 2 Hand Spec or something to gain 3/3 Tactical Mastery.

While its nice that Blizzard have buff Rend damage and a new synergy with Taste for Blood, but I’m still not really convinced of its practicality in PVP, because of Battle Stance requirements when the majority of our time will still be spended in Berserker Stance because of Intercept and Pummel. Could be a good dueling talent for Warrior vs Warrior but probably not Arena.

Improved Thunder Clap is something I’m not sure about, but I heard that will will scale with 20% of your AP, at level 80 with talents it will deal 400 damage + 500 (if its your AP at lvl80 is 2500 x .2 = 500) so 900 instant damage for 16 rage is extremely good and it can crit with Incite talent, not to mention the 20% attack speed reduction to melee.

Weapon specs are debatable but we wont go into that, current mace spec nerf to 10 rage on proc seems a bit weak, and I don’t see how rage is going to be an issue with Endlesss Rage and Tactical Mastery, perhaps Mace Spec could be viable with a Arms/Fury hybrid build in the future whatever that is. Poleaxe spec is going to be great the additional 5% bonus crit damage will scale nicely with Impale and also great synergy with Wrecking Crew.

Unrelenting Assault and Sudden Death are a couple  talent I’m unsure about, hard to tell until we really get chance to test it out. There are lots of situation where Sudden Death will show great potential,  and Unrelenting Assault can be a great Rogue killer talent for 2 points is not bad, It would be nice to somehow max out 2Hand Spec, maybe points could be better spend there.

This build are missing a couple of favourites talent that we’re used to which are Deathwish and Weapon Mastery, to be able to go that deep into Fury would mean giving up Wrecking Crew which is a heavy DPS loss as Arms build.

FURY

19/51/1 Fury Build

This build exclude deep wounds because high crit rate as Dual Wield from main hand and off-hand will keep reseting deep wounds and crit from off-hand will only deal 50% deep wound damage.

I’m trying to maximize all the damage talent for PVP, but not enough points for 5/5 Improved Berserker Stance which is a real shame. Perhaps we can learn to drop points from Enrage since the talent now only worth 15% damage with 5/5  Enrage, and it might be better to use the Enrage proc to use Enrage Assault ability for the chance to refresh Bloodthirst with Unending Fury Talent.

I’m guessing 2 Hand Weapon Spec will work together with Titan’s Grip (wouldn’t make sense if it doesnt)

Furious Attack is our new MS ability from the fury tree, with 1 talent spend it already provide a 50% chance to proc. It might be good enough to just spend 1 talent point in it, as it will stack up fast.

It would be nice to somehow include Intensify Rage in the build but I’m not sure how without sacrificing damage talents.

well I wish I have a beta key so I can really test them out instead of theory crafting, it is great to have two differently style of spec to arena with, finaly a step in the right direction. now if blizzard add MS to the protection tree I’ll be one happy warrior

Posted in WOLTK talk | 2 Comments »

Regrets on Spending Arena Points

Just writing a little rant about my regret on how I spended my 5000 arena points at the start of season 4. On day one of season 4 I rushed to spend all my points on any armor pieces upgrading my glove, leg, and chest armor.

Mistake #1 - I should have purchase the head piece over the Leg or Chest armor as it provide the most visual upgrade and it actually matches well with season 3 gear.

Mistake #2 - I should have only purchase 2 piece of season 4 and save the rest of the points for season 4 2Hand Mace Brutal Gladiator’s Bonegrinder

My regret is because today we manage to push our 3vs3 team rating to 2061 after exactly 100 games played 71 wins - 29 losses, which also place us in the top 10 in our battlegroup Rampage-US and a few more games will push my PR to 2050 for the weapon, but no real reason to get that now until I have enough points which will take me another 2 weeks at least ARGH!

Well at least our Paladin will get his new Season 4 weapon tomorrow.

Going from S3 to S4 2hander would have been the best DPS upgrade, lets do the math.
3750 points can buy you 2 Piece of armor (chest, legs, or head) or 2 Hander.

S3 -> S4 2Hand
+6.1 DPS = 85.4 AP
+4 Strength = 8 AP
+4 Stamina
+4 Hit Rating
+4 Crit Rating

2 Piece of Season 3 Armor (chest, legs) vs 2 Piece of Season 4 Armor (chest, legs)
+12 Strength
+16 Stamina
+12 Crit rating
+12 Hit Rating
+296 Armor

So just looking at DPS stat gain it would be 93AP vs 24AP + 8 Crit & 8 Hit

wow actualy now that I’ve done the math, its not as bad as I though because 8 Crit is comparable to 8 Str so the difference is 53AP vs 8hit, Well its more of even upgrade as armor pieces also give you additional stats with more Stamina and Armor.

Not as game breaking as going from S2 to S3 weapon which you would gain 110AP, 4 Crit and 98 Armor Penetration which is a huge upgrade. I think if you’re still sporting season 2 weapon from honor biting the bullet and get s3 weapon before s4 (instead of skipping straight to s4) is not a bad idea if you want your rating to progress.

Our 3vs3 team setup is Warrior / Retribution Paladin / Druid and we have been playing this combo since the start of season 3. Probably one of the most popular (best) 3vs3 combo for Ret Pally also called the “Druid Killer” combo because of Judgement of Justice prevents the Druid from escaping.

I think the success of the setup relies heavily on the Paladin’s skill and luckly we have a very talented Pally. While as the warrior my job is fairly simple which is heavy DPS, MS, Hamstring and good target switching also required. But our Paladin job takes a lot more micro management from doing a ton of defensive dispel to prevent CC on warrior, applying judgement, blessings and good timing with HOJ and repentance.

I much prefer this setup over the popular Warrior / Rogue / Druid combo which sometimes relies heavily on Blind + Intimidating Shout cheese, and can be countered easily by certain combo ie Hunter + 2 Healer setup.

I’ll try to fraps some high rated games over the next couple of weeks and maybe it will make a decent arena video.

Posted in General | 3 Comments »