World of Warcraft Warrior PVP - Murth

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 »

Murth7 2H Fury video up on Filefront

My 7th movie of fun alternative PVP build of fury 2H 0/40/21

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LZVVzu0gRiziZfVtoh0z

I recorded this few month ago while I was doing Murth6 and didn’t intend of finishing it, but felt like it would have been a waste, so I made it anyway.

This just another video the usual music + fight montages, don’t have high expectation and you might like it.

about the build - I was looking for a good fury build with last stand and though 2H fury would be nice for burst damage with high whirlwind damage and 0.5 sec slam.

but some frustrating aspect of the build is playing with 2H without Deepwound can be annoying to wait for swing time to finish of my opponents. And rage generation is too low against high armor target (paladin, druids) Deepwound plays very important role with DP S for 2Handers.

So if i would to go 2H fury again, it would have to be
17/41/3 http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LV0xkhbZVVzu0gRizioc

but lost of last stand is not what I’m looking for.

which is why I think DW Fury is the way to go for solo Fury PVP
5/45/11 http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LVZVVzuxxRiuVof0t

which is what I was intending on making murth7 on but don’t have the time lately, I’ll try that for murth8 using the best gear I have for some BAD ASS DPS

anyway enjoy the movie.

murth7.wmv

murth7.wmv

Size = 198MB
Length = 9 mins

Songs

Stronger (Dance Remix) - DB+
Shut Up And Drive (Factory Team Remix) - Angelica

Posted in Fury | 10 Comments »

Murth7 2H Fury 0/40/21 coming soon,

I haven’t had time to record much footage lately, because of too much arena-ing  and respec can be costly. I was going to scrap the 2H fury 0/40/21 movie but I have actually got enough good footage for a 10 mins video. And I was trying to make a DW Fury pvp movie which was great but I don’t have enough good footage.

I recorded this months ago while I was making the Prot PVP video, so it will be kinda similar to Murth6 using season 1 gear, outdoor and BG pvp.

I’m only going to host it on Filefront and Google livestream.  Its not going to be of high standard as what WarcraftMovies community like to see. The pressure of releasing a high quality movie in WCM is just too much for me, I don’t have much time to record let alone do fancy editing. I just don’t have the editing talent.

I’d like to be able to release movies of just straight fights with different specs, thats how its going to be, then I’ll be able to release more stuff faster.

so stay tune to this website as I will post it here first,  i’ll try to get it done within a week from now.  use the email notification on the top right corner if you want to be notified of its release, saves you time of coming back here to check all the time.

Posted in General | 6 Comments »

Season 4 talk and new notes for WOLTK

Hi there, I know it has been almost a month since I last blog but I guess better late than never, been a bit busy lately with work and I had a vacation during the final week of s3 which was extremely bad timing, as my 3s couldnt get enough games in for murth to reach Gladiator.

nothing much going on I hope everyone is enjoying the launch of Season 4, With the PR requirement for S4 weapons at 2050 I don’t think anyone is going to be able to get that anytime soon so I decided to spend all my Arena Points on Armor first, I guess by the time I save up 3750 points it should be a lot easier to get 2050 PR.

my goal today was 1650 Personal rating so I can spend my 5k honor for 3 piece s4 arena set (glove, pants, chest) and honor gear for Guardian’s Band of Triumph especially for the 56 Armor Penetration,

This is probably the best honor upgrade for warriors going from Veteran to Guardian you gain

+8 stamina
+8 crit rating
+10 attack power
+56 armor ignore

Not sure when this happen because I’ve been away but check out the new changes in WOTLK with warrior talents.

Majors changes are

- Shield Slam now Trainable -  I’m surprise to see this change but it is exciting at the same time, because this gives warriors a bit more utility with offensive dispels, this is going to help a lot in Arena when you play with healer that doesn’t have any offensive dispels (druid & pally) I’m guessing it is going to have a shared 6 second cooldown with MS & Bloodthirst.

- Vigilance (new talent)  - well this looks like an extremely good 31 talent point for PVE tanking but not much application for PVP other than giving your healer 5% dodge. What happens when 2 tanks cast vigilance on each other? 5% dodge on both tanks and unlimited taunt?  weird talent, expect it to be tweak a bit more.

with shield slam being trainable and a PVE talent for a 31 points Prot, its a bit confusing as to what blizzard wants to do in the future for Protection spec.. because now you don’t really need to spec that deep into Prot to enjoy a Prot style of gameplay.

You can spec MS and when you switch  to 1H+Shield its VOILA! you’re playing as Prot spec.  So only real incentive to go deep into prot for PVP is Safeguard, Sword & Board and Shockwave, not sure if this is going to make up for the loss of MS for prot spec to be a viable arena spec.

Safeguard sounds amazing if you can break roots with it making a Prot warrior extremely hard to CC.

Notes: http://wotlkwiki.info/wiki/index.php/Warrior

Talent Calculator: http://wotlkwiki.info/talent/warrior.html

8471 Changes

Arms

• Sword Specialization - “This effect cannot occur more than once every 6 seconds.” added to the description.

Fury

• Heroic Leap - Daze effect changed to Stun.

8391 Changes

Arms

• Anger Management - “while in combat” removed from description.
• Mocking Blow - Cooldown changed to 1 minute, now usable in defensive stance.
• Sudden Death (new) - Your melee critical hits have a 10%/20/30% chance of allowing the use of Execute regardless of the target’s health state.
• Sweeping Strikes - Now only affects the next 5 strikes.

Protection

• Defensive Stance - Now increases threat by 45% (up from 30%).
• Improved Disarm - Bonus damage against disarmed targets 4/7/10% (down from 5-15%)
• Improved Shield Block - Reduces the cooldown of your Shield Block ability by 5/10 sec.
• Shield Specialization - Changed from 1 rage per block to 2.
• Shield Block - Increases your chance to block and the amount blocked by 100% for 5 sec, but will only block 1 attack. 30 sec cooldown.
• Last Stand - Now has a 6 minutes cooldown.
• Incite (new) - Increases the critical strike chance of your Heroic Strike, Thunder Clap and Cleave abilities by 5%/10%/15%.
• Vigilance (new) - Focus your protective gaze on a friendly target, increasing their chance to dodge by 5%. In addition, any time they are hit by an attack your Taunt cooldown is refreshed. Lasts until cancelled. This effect can only be on one target at a time.
• Shield Slam - Replaced with Vigilance (now trainable).
• Defiance - Replaced with Incite. Extra 15% threat now default for defensive stance.

Posted in WOLTK talk | 9 Comments »

Leaked Warrior WOTLK Alpha Patch Notes

I kept hearing about these Alpha patch notes but Blizzard kept deleting the threads so after a bit of digging around I found this site

http://wotlk.wikidot.com

even include a level 80 talent calculator
http://war-tools.darlinganime.com/index.php?i=warrior

the most interesting ability I think is Bloodbath which is a counter to Enrage ability. finaly a reason not to have Enrage as a core PVP ability? would definately be interesting of the variety of talent build that we can come up with at level 80 if enrage is not a “must have” ability.

But wow now I’m definately looking forward to WOLTK , every talent tree have great PVP potential. all it need is some sort of trainable 50% healing Debuff :).

Warrior abilties:

• Shield Break (Level 75, 15 rage, 1m cooldown) - Break down the enemy’s defenses, disarming any shield they have equipped or reducing the chance the enemy will block by 3% for 10 sec.
• Bloodbath (Rank 1) - Wound up to 5 enemy targets within 8 yards, causing 244 to 256 damage and causing them to Bleed for 250 damage over 15 seconds. If the target becomes Enraged, the Bloodbath bleed effect causes four times the normal damage.

Warrior talents:

• Titan’s Grip - “Allows you to equip two-handed axes, maces and swords in one hand, but you attack 28/26/24/22/20% slower then normal.” (Fury)
• Strength of Arms - “Increases your Strength and total health by 1/2/3/4/5%.” (Arms)
• Shockwave - “Sends a wave of force in front of the warrior, causing 25% AP damage and stunning all enemy targets within 10 yards in a frontal cone for 4 sec. This ability causes a high amount of threat.” [20 rage, 45 sec cooldown] (Protection)
• Sword and Board - “When your Devastate and Shield Slam abilities deal damage they have a 2/4/6/8/10% chance of refreshing the cooldown of your Shield Slam ability and reducing its cost by 100% for 5 sec.” (Protection)
• Safeguard - ,”Reduces damage taken by the target of your Intervene ability by 20/40/60% for 6 sec. In addition, your Charge, Intercept and Intervene abilities have a 33%/66%/100% chance to remove all movement impairing effects when used.” (Protection)
• Trauma - “Your normal melee critical strikes increase the effectiveness of Bleed effects on the target by 15/30% for 15 sec.” (Arms)
• Bladestorm - “Instantly Whirlwind all nearby targets and for the next 4.5 sec you will perform a whirlwind attack every 1.5 seconds. While under the effects of Bladestorm, you can move but cannot perform any other attacks or abilities but you do not feel pity or remorse or fear and you cannot be stopped unless killed.” [25 rage, cooldown: 90 sec] (Arms)
• Furious Resolve - “Reduces threat caused by attacks in Battle and Berserker Stance by 4/7/10% and increases your total Stamina by 1/3/5%.” (Fury)
• Bull Rush - “Increases the duration of the Stun effect of your Charge and Intercept abilities by .4/.7/1 seconds.” (Arms)
• Unrelenting Assault - “Reduces the cooldown of your Overpower and Revenge abilities by 1/2/3 seconds.” (Arms)
• Bloodsurge - “Your Bloodthirst critical hits have a 33/66/100% chance of reducing the swing time of your next Slam by 100% for 5 sec.” (Fury)
• Critical Block - “Your successful blocks have a 10/20/30% chance to block double the normal amount.” (Protection)
• Stalwart Protector - “You gain 1/2 rage every time you parry or dodge an attack.” (Protection) [note: that's a two point talent granting 1 or 2 rage, not half a point]

but what interest me the most is the changes to existing talents and spells, which has a lot of major buff to warrior and some amazing changes, especially in the Protection tree.
Changes to Shield Bash, Concussion Blow scaling with AP is great for added DPS with PVP gear
2 Minute last stand is a bit too good to be true, will definately be a core ability for any PVP warrior build in WOLTK. It will most likely be changed either by increased cooldown or less % of HP.

I also like the Sweeping Strike and Deathwish swap. Blizzard original attempt to make Endless Rage a good build for PVP failed because its not possible to get 5/5 enraged and 3/3 tac mastery if you spec ER, not to mentioned 12 charges of Sweeping Strikes was too good to pass for Endless Rage.

Would be amazing if some of these changes goes in before season 4, (it could happen..)

Warrior

• Shield bash now deals damage equal to 20% of Attack Power
• Thunder Clap’s damage increases as you get more Attack Power.
• Rend’s Scaling with weapon damage has been improved.
• Sunder Armor’s threat now scales with attack power.
• Rend has had it’s duration reduced. Total damage dealt is unchanged.
• Challenging Shout cooldown reduced to 3 minutes.
• Revenge’s tooltip has been clarified.
• The bonus damage dealt by Cleave and Heroic Strike has been increased.
• There is now only one rank of the Overpower ability. Bonus damage removed.
• Spell Reflection now costs 15 rage
• The stun from Mace Specialization now has a 6 second cooldown.
• Improved Rend’s name changed to Bloodletting, it now also affects the Bloodbath skill.
• Death Wish no longer grants fear immunity.
• Deathwish and Sweepingstrikes have once again switched places.
• Anticipation now increases your chance to dodge by 1% per point, instead of increasing your defense skill.
• Iron Will now reduces the duration of Stun and Charm effects on you by 10/20/30% instead of giving you a chance to resist these effects.
• Improved Bloodrage now increases rage generated by 25/50%.
• Improved Shield Bash now also increases your Shield Slam damage by 5/10%.
• Improved Disarm now reduces the cooldown on your Disarm and Shield Break abilities by 5/10/15 seconds, and additionally will cause any targets you’ve disarmed to take 5/10/15% extra damage.
• The amount of charges on Sweeping Strikes has been reduced to 3.
• Poleaxe Specialization now also increases the damage your critical strikes with Polearms and Axes do by 1% per point in addition to it’s old effect.
• Improved Revenge now increases the damage dealt by your Revenge ability by 8/16/25% in addition to it’s old effect.
• Concussion Blow now causes damage equal to 25% of your attack power and has had it’s cooldown reduced to 30 seconds. In addition the damage caused by Concusion Blow generates high threat.
• Last Stand’s cooldown reduced to 2 minutes.
• Blood Craze now regenerates 2/4/6% of your health after being the victim of a critical strike.
• Bloodthirst now recoverd 1.5% of your max health per hit. Bloodthirst now has only one rank.
• Improved Disciplines (Rank 1) now reduces your cooldowns on Retaliation, Reckless and Shield by 5 minutes and increases their duration by 3 seconds

Posted in General | 19 Comments »

New 1900 Prot PVP Arena video by Sabastien

There’s a new prot pvp video worth watching by Sabastien using 0/20/41 build,

I enjoyed it because it featured some arena footage something I haven’t done before, its always funny to watch people losing to prot in arena especially at that rating. Showed several clip vs 2 DPS class which is usually hard for warriors with a standard MS setup but with prot this is not a problem as you have last stand for back up and shield bash, shield slam, conc blow to help reduce damage received.

anyway without further a do check it out by visiting the link below, he posted it on the forum with the file front link don’t forget to place your comments.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=6440786170&…..5

oh and sorry for my absence, I have been a bit ticked of with Blizzard lately, just days after I posted about Murth account not affected by blizzard axe, they decided that I need to proof my ownership of the account so wtf is up with that, and the whole process to return my account took forever.

I also had to go spend $50 to get a Notary of the public to sign the paperwork, after all that blizzard return the account without even an apology, I think they should refund me $50. Really made me feel like quiting wow as a matter of principle I didn’t want to give Blizzard anymore of my money. sorry about my Rant i’ll get back to work

Posted in Protection | 3 Comments »

Blizzard Takes Action Against Win Trading

Looks like no arena for a lot of people for a few days, just about all my friends have been suspended and lost all their season 3 gear which is a major setback.

This is a great thing but I do believe there are many innocent victims in this massive crackdown, and to be removed of all season 3 is a bit excessive, most top players enter season 3 with 5000 arena points lets give them that at least.

well I just want to inform the world that your favourite warrior still sporting full season 3 and didn’t get banned . I have already have 2 strike on Murth’s account for certain ZG and Warrior exploits back at level 60 a 3rd strike would be a permanent ban for me so I know not to do anything to risk my account.

my Druid account Murthy however wasn’t so lucky, I used the Druid to do a lot point selling which I though was legal stated here http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=62…#2

checkout the thread on arena junkies here for more discussions http://arenajunkies.com/showthread.php?t=21903

Posted in General | No Comments »

Other Prot PVP Videos

Like to tell you about couple other Prot PVP videos that are worth watching.

I don’t know how I missed this first one, but this was released October 07 jand I’ve only just watched it recently, created by Caedes from Europe WoW. I was really impressed with the amount of effort he put into it including a lengthy discussion of a variety of different build in the forum.

Its a very educational video about Prot PVP and I agree with the principles that he explains, but the arena part is probably no longer possible to get that rating unless you’re playing in a very very bad BG.

The build used was 0/31/30 - Using Bloodthirst instead of Shield Slam, this is a great build and I’ve tried it myself, to play it correctly thou I’d recommend lots of weapon switching between DW and 1H+Shield becuase technically this is a Fury DW build rather than a Prot build. DW is priorty for best result and switching to shield for reflect and shield bash againts certain classes. But there’s no weapon switching in this video.

You can find the video here at http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=52549

and visit the forum thread about it here where he suggest many variety of Prot PVP build

Second video is recently created by Doomglazer from US WOW forum, I really didn’t expect much becuase he titled it “My Super Bad Prot PVP Video” and the video is very rough on the edges becuase it was his first video using a demo version of Fraps but I though it was a gem because he used good build 0/20/41 and PVP gear.

I though there was some good display of skills as well check it out here http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=73115 and click here for his forum thread

Posted in Protection | 9 Comments »

Murth7 2H Fury 0/40/21 Progress

Well you know I mention that Murth7 2H fury is coming soon in my last video.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LZVVzu0gRiziZfVtoh0z

I got quite a few footage but in the end the spec just doesn’t ‘feel’ right going 2H without Deepwounds talent. Here are some of my biggest complaint about the build

1. Killing Rogues can be extremely difficult when they have cheat death, and you’re force to hit him again with a slow 2H which would usually be dodged. If I have Deepwounds in the build, I know that the DOT could finish him off.

In addition Rogues can vanish, blind and bandage as they please, unless I waste my time trying to apply rend on a Rogue which could lead to a loss itself.

2. Killing high armor target is also a pain in the ass without Deepwound, feral Druids in particular with their high dodge rate, and me using 2H without imp overpower and Deepwound.

3. Concussion Blow is doesn’t seem to be worth the sacrifice, its not that great with 2Hander because you would only get 1 or 2 extra swing while the target is stunned. If I was Duel Wielding, I would a lot more extra swing during the stun topping myself up with rage a lot faster. It is good for an extra spell interrupt but highly unreliable on a 45 second cooldown. Definately not something you would go out your way to spec for, ie I had to give up Rampage which is far more usefull overtime.

4. No Deepwound also make finishing off anyone a pain in the ass, because if your execute didn’t finish them off it takes too long to build rage for a second execute. While with a standard 2H MS spec Deepwound will normaly finish your opponent.

well I still had a good time with it, but I don’t think this will be the main feature spec on my next video. So I’m going to cancel it, I will probably just release the footage that I got already, unofficially on murthpvp.com

there’s some decent fights in it, could still be enjoyable but the WCM community is a very harsh one, their high standard is hard to live up too (which is a good thing)

I have several other ideas for a Fury Solo Build instead

2H Fury 17/41/3
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LV0xkhbZVVzu0gRizioc - This is high 2H DPS build with, haven’t done the maths but I would think this would DPS harder than even an Endless Rage build Deepwound DOT damage would tick extremely high because you would have over 2500AP, but you loose last stand with this build which is good for 1v1 fights, but still extremely fun for BGs, and good PVE DPS build.
Rampage is a bit slow to use with 2H build, it takes a lot longer to 5x stack with DW it stacks 5x almost instantly.

2H Fury 17/33/11
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LV0xkhbZVVzu0gRizZf0t - Similar to the build above but at the loss of Improve Berserker Rage and Rampage for Last Stand and Toughness great for 1v1 fights, but I dont think it worth it I would still go the Rampage build for 2H fury, at least I have an extra talent that is always available rather than an 8 min cooldown talent.

OH THE DILEMMA I want Imp Berserker Rage and Rampage and Last Stand.. so I gave in and go Dual Wield which is the answer to my fury PVP build problem. I’m really a big fan of slow 2Hander Fury for PVP because of the burst potential in combination with Improve Slam. Whirlwind is will hit a lot harder, but one thing I’ve forgot is that Whirlwind will also hit with offhand now! so Dual Wielding is not as bad as it used to be.

DW 5/45/11
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LVZVVzuxxRiuVof0t - Key talents that I wanted here is DW Spec, Imp Berserker Stance , Rampage and Last Stand. I think this is the build I would definately use for Fury PVP. Deepwound is not important or ideal for DW because the Deepwound proc will keep reseting everytime you Crit, so if you have a high crit rate as DW you’ll be lucky to see Deepwound actually doing damage. the DOT damage is also a lot less from a 1H weapon, and it is easy to finish anyone as DW as rage generation is more constant and reliable no more waiting for slow 2H to swing for rage to finish people off.

Rampage is also easier to use with DW, although 2H fury is possible it is still not as good as DW especially with the Whirlwind fix for DW.

So I’m absolutely loving the DW 5/45/11 build for fury,  I think its safe to say that Fury PVP is best with Dual Wield in TBC so goodbye 2H fury for now maybe  next time if blizzard add something new.

Next Post I’ll talk about which DW enchant is best and how you can also DW using  0/20/41 Prot Build.

Posted in Fury | 2 Comments »

Sword vs Mace

This is the question that has been asked over and over again in the warrior forum.

which one should I pick ? Sword or Mace?

For the new warriors who don’t know that Poleaxe is bad, Poleaxe spec is bad because of resilience reducing its effectiveness by 20% and

which proc would you rather get when you spam Hamstring?

an extra attack from Sword spec ?

or a 3 second stun from Mace spec ?

or a Crit of 150 with hamstring with Poleaxe spec ?

So the choice is really only Sword or Mace, on my earlier post I’m now favoring Crit Gems over STR / AP because of the burst potential. Sword has a lot better burst potential aswell than Mace but mace is still more popular because its easier to play with.

I think the popularity of mace is due to one thing. Resto Druids. Mace spec is the best weapon of taking down a Resto Druid, a Mace spec proc on a druid while he’s in caster form is priceless. I play a druid myself and I’ve always found mace spec warriors a lot more intimidating than sword spec because a 3second mace stun can screw a druid over in many ways. (stop cyclone/root , stop druid from pillar kiting in travel form)
While a sword proc will just do more damage.

But since patch 2.4 druid nerf they become less of a problem, chasing a druid is a lot easier since they loss their 15% speed bonus from PVP set.

Sword Pros

1. Better burst, great for switching target, killing pets.

2. More damage than Mace spec and more rage.

3. Better synergy with Shaman’s Windfury Totem (slightly more chance to proc windfury)

4. The extra damage scale with gear, ( sword spec will continue to get better while mace spec stays static)

Mace Pros

1. Good for killing Druids. ( chasing a Druid around a pillar is much easier with mace spec, a mace proc allows  you to catch up)

2. Better for killing healers (extra interrupt from mace spec can be crucial to taking down a paladin or resto shaman)

3. Better for chasing any target (mace stun will stop the target in its track allowing you and your team mate to catch up)

4. Better for ‘Peeling’ melee target off your team mate (a mace stun is just what you needed for your healer to walk away just out of melee range allowing slowing effects to wear off)

So in summary I’m not saying which is better but because druid teams are less of a problem in 2.4 I will play with Sword spec a lot more because my gear is at optimum level (Full S3 armor and weapons). I think Sword can benefit more with a skilled player because all the advantages of Mace spec can be compensated with the player skill of good timing and judgement.

To choose which is best also depends on your group make up,

eg play 2vs2 with a shaman (which is the new druid for 2s) I really enjoyed the play style of playing with a resto shaman, lots of burst and target switching, I really think sword is better with this setup

but I play 3s with Ret Pally , Resto Shaman, Warrior which in this situation I think Mace spec is better. as Warrior main job is to lock down main targer with stun,hamstring, and MS a so pally can remain close to DPS. Mace spec stun is also good synergy with Ret Pally as they gain more damage on stunned target.

and in 5s I play 3 melee 2 healer group with Rogue, I think Sword spec benefit more in this setup because we can switch target and kill anyone is a few second. During this time rogue probably applied a kidney shot and paladin hammer straight after. Mace spec proc will usually get wasted because a proc during a Kidney shot/Hoj stun still counts towards dimishing return.

well I got lots of gold and both weapons so I respec a lot depending which group I run with.

but if you’re just starting out I’d recommend you craft yourself a Stormherald because its easier to get started with, and save up for sword once you have most of your season 3 pvp gear

next post progress report with 2h Fury spec

Posted in General | 8 Comments »