resto druids do well in 2v2 and take forever to actually kill, also if you are low rating they generaly match you with teams with sorta similar gear or rating, of course that doesnt always hold true as many times we have gotten matched against full season 2 geared pally/warrior and that is a 99% chance you lose. We play 10 games a week generally and hover around 1600 and I have managed enough to get the MH, OH and gloves on my rogue and the shoulders and gloves on my shaman. Just plan out your gear and pick up pieces that you cant get somewhere else sorta easily.

10/27/2007 2:55:46 PM

welfare epics

10/27/2007 5:17:34 PM

^ agreed.

Since when did Democrats take over WoW management/development

10/27/2007 5:20:30 PM

which s why they aren't welfare epics because you have to have some ability to get your gear in a timely fashion... to be quite honest I dont care if some kids chill at 15-- rating and take 6 months to get their gear...


if they can do that for 6 months they deserve it

I saw a 2's team with 13xx games played like 624-676 1500 rating .... hell give them something it takes dedication to be that consistently mediocre and yet still be able to continue to play.

10/27/2007 5:51:30 PM

don't award mediocrity

10/27/2007 6:02:02 PM

fine but at least award time spent to those kids, since there is nothing from rep in pvp anymore, like others said if you arent running with a team with a high rating it takes fucking forever to get that gear and by the time they do the next season has started and all those teams that have 5000 points saved immediately have 3 pieces of that seasons gear anyways.

10/27/2007 6:18:57 PM

Quote :

"Well yea I always ran with the badge trinket and another +damage on use trinket to always pump out a serious amount of DPS but there are better trinkets that are extremely easy to get. Don;t get me wrong, it was a great trinket pre kara but if you are rocking t6 at least get Xi'ris gift from revered shattar. The +crit is always nice for Imp SB debuff shadow damage boosts."

You can't blindly sacrifice spell damage for crit. +Crit is always nice for ISB debuff, this is true, but every stat is always nice for something. There's a destro lock or two in every raid to provide ISB debuffs... Before BT, most guilds run with just 1 destro lock for ISB debuffs, but destro scales better so most guilds begin to run with just 1 affliction lock for 13% CoS & Shadow Embrace (which would be me). With my build, and my current gear, my relative weights on each stat are as follows.

0.89 per +1 shadow damage
0.11 per +1 fire damage
1.00 per +1 generic spell damage
0.72 per +1 hit (dots being maxed by suppression)
0.45 per +1 crit rating
0.34 per +1 haste rating (or more, if the fight requires more movement)

Xiri's Gift really sucks for me. Aside from ISB debuffs (which I assume to be on there anyway from the 2-3 other locks in the raid), crits only occur on SBs, which constitute 40% of my damage output. I also don't have ruin, so my crits are 150% damage rather than 200%. I'm at 1166 unbuffed +damage right now. I'd need about 1200 more +damage before Xiri's Gift is worth it... and that won't happen until Wrath.

10/29/2007 9:54:40 AM

Quote :

"^ agreed. Since when did Democrats take over WoW management/development"

no offense but the only people I run across that are mad about the PVP epics are either 1) people who arent any good in the arena. 2) people who are mad that the 5-7 days of raiding they put in a week doesnt guarantee them the only decent epics in the game anymore or 3) a combination of both.

and before you try and discredit my raiding experience:

pre BC I cleared every instance up through 10 bosses in Naxx(as a class leader/raid leader in more than once instane) and even that far in was in the upper echelon of the raiding population. In BC I was raiding up through server horde first of all instances up through SSC/TK and finally I realized it wasnt even worth it because even with all the gear I was getting, I preferred and wore my arena and honor set 100% of the time outside of the instance (farming, bg, arena etc).

And the best part about quitting raiding? I dont have to hear the same melee dps kids complaining that I got an item over them when they've made every raid for months straight and I didnt raid on friday/saturday nights unless its a new boss because I have a life (even when I screwed up less than them/did less dps). I get to control my own destiny in the way I earn gear and avoid complaining altogether.

I cant completely argue with you that arena doesnt reward mediocrity because your mind is made up but at the same time if youre going to say that, youre blind if you think that raiding doesnt reward mediocrity as well as long as you show up 5-7 days a week and are willing to put the time in and pay the price. If you look at the guilds that havent progressed as far, the MAIN reason is that they raid less than the top guilds, their raids dont last as long each night, kids arent as serious and as such dont pot out etc. This has been the main difference between top tier and medicore guilds since MC: time and gold. with skill coming in a distant third.


[Edited on October 29, 2007 at 10:37 AM. Reason : ]

[Edited on October 29, 2007 at 10:37 AM. Reason : ]

10/29/2007 10:35:12 AM

oh and before i offend anyone. the focus of my argument has nothing to do with which is harder or who 'deserves' these epics more. Rather stating that its ridiculous for people with PVE gear in WoW to 'look down' on the PVP gear.

10/29/2007 12:01:41 PM

let's pretend someone is a decent arena player (~1600 arena rating) in 5v5. (465 pts per week)

2h Weapon (3750 pts) @ 465 pts / week = 8 weeks
1h Weapon (2625 pts) @ 465 pts / week = 6 weeks
Typical Armor piece (1875 pts) @ 465 pts / week = 4 weeks

That's a really long time in between obtaining new gear at a 1600 rating (which is a rating if you are a somewhat decent 5v5 team). If you can't obtain some kind of upgrade in that kind of time frame, your guild either sucks, you have horrible luck with drops, or you just plain fail at the game.

The people who get their arena gear fast, are the ones with 1900+ rating in 5v5, which takes a lot of skill and coordination to get to.


also..

Quote :

"no offense but the only people I run across that are mad about the PVP epics are either 1) people who arent any good in the arena. 2) people who are mad that the 5-7 days of raiding they put in a week doesnt guarantee them the only decent epics in the game anymore or 3) a combination of both."

QFT

problem exists between your keyboard and chair

[Edited on October 29, 2007 at 12:13 PM. Reason : .]

10/29/2007 12:10:50 PM

Quote :

"The people who get their arena gear fast, are the ones with 1900+ rating in 5v5, which takes a lot of skill and coordination to get to."

bullshit, it's just a matter of exploiting class make up. I wish I had vids of my 5v5 before 2 people transferred.
3x elemental shaman, combat rogue, paladin. I sapped a healer, they dropped 3x totem of wrath for +9% crit, 2x grounding, and 1x wrath of air. then they all just chainlightning'd my cheapshot target. he would instantly be dead, so would another 1 or 2 usually. if lightning overload proc'd it was particularly deadly. all of the with bloodlust for literally the entire fight. with MAYBE 200 res to the whole team, we got to 1900 our first 3 hours.

skill? not hardly. just exploiting the game's bullshit mechanics

10/29/2007 2:28:49 PM

So what happens when a mage sheeps your pally, a rogue saps a shaman, the priest trinkets out and fears the other two, and then they proceed to rape you? Just saying that would work against some teams, but good teams with decent makeups could counter that. Of course I only play 2v2 really so Im speaking from what I would expect. Pretty much any team that doesnt have a warrior or paladin loses to us and any team with one, the other, or both beat us 2v2. Basically paladins and MS warriors are so OP in 2v2 its unreal, followed closely by BM hunters.

10/29/2007 2:36:48 PM

10/29/2007 2:38:39 PM

obviously it didnt work against every team. we got owned by spell reflect a time or 2 but all I had to do was lock down a healer for ~5s and 1-2 people were dead. the best were warriors all aggressive because theyre near unstoppable with a healer. charge in with deathwish up, instagib, no need to even follow with shocks, he was dead

10/29/2007 2:45:15 PM

even 1900 really isnt that good

that nonsense worked because you played people who were reckless and stupid


any 2100 team would piss on your chain lightning nonsense ... that or they'd lose 1 time and figure out it's a one trick pony and take 50 pts from you the next 4 games

10/29/2007 2:52:10 PM

THERE'S NO TRUCKS IN WARCRAFT

10/29/2007 2:53:54 PM

Quote :

"we got to 1900 our first 3 hours"

id like to know how long you stayed there. thats the real question. Ive seen plenty of teams exploit a class makeup and get a super high ranking..for all of a week or two until they start facing real teams or facing teams more than once.

Quote :

"any 2100 team would piss on your chain lightning nonsense ... that or they'd lose 1 time and figure out it's a one trick pony and take 50 pts from you the next 4 games"

exactly. if a team lets 3 chain lightnings get off at once without any being interrupted, and the shaman's target's healers dont have a Q healed then they suck anyways or are only going to let it happen 1 game when they are caught off guard. im not saying its impossible to do well with that makeup, but instagibbing doesnt carry you far in the arena rankings, much less hold you there.


put it this way. youre obviously acknowledging that the arena gear is good by feeling somewhat threatened that other people can get it without raiding. So, if it is easy to get, I dont see why everyone complaining doesnt just get it and then not complain about it.

[Edited on October 29, 2007 at 3:17 PM. Reason : ]

10/29/2007 3:07:45 PM

i love blizzards matching system, as soon as you get to 1600 its 10 straight games of either warrior paladin or some gimmick group like dual warlocks with felguards

10/29/2007 5:09:23 PM

how far do you get in 2v2 without a healer ?

like mage/rogue. how long does the "nuke one, deal with the other later" strategy work?

10/29/2007 5:17:04 PM

frost mage?

[Edited on October 29, 2007 at 5:43 PM. Reason : we stayed at 1900 for 2-3 weeks until everyone ebay'd or transferred. ]

10/29/2007 5:43:05 PM

nah, 3m arcane/fire

10/29/2007 5:57:27 PM

3min mage + a rogue doesn't work well at all I've found. the mage blows their load and no ice block to avoid their shit gettin pushed. you can try instagib but there are considerably more ways to avoid spell damage then there are ways to avoid melee. 40-0-21 could be good for the mage too but I'm hard pressed to pick anything other than the pet for arena.

[Edited on October 29, 2007 at 6:05 PM. Reason : d]

10/29/2007 6:04:19 PM

40/0/21 looks like a raid spec frost build. taking the points out of mind mastery and using them in the frost tree would probably be more applicable.

if i didn't already cancel a frost mage account and play one for months on tbc beta i might not have felt the need to spec into fire/spellfire when my current one reached 70.

i guess i can always manipulate the guild im in now as a 'casual celebrity' for the 3 epics to replace spellfire and spec frost again.

but if i did that, it would be no question, i'd have 54 points in frost.

10/29/2007 6:35:59 PM

we run feral druid/rogue, if the healer isnt a paladin its possible, if a paladin is in the game though its a 95% chance of a loss

10/29/2007 6:36:50 PM

yeah paladin's are fucked. if my invis is still up and the rogue gets a nice jump on the paladin he usually won't want to waste his bubble. then i can get a couple instant crits before he realizes what happened. but usually the paladin is better than that :/

[Edited on October 29, 2007 at 6:41 PM. Reason : .]

10/29/2007 6:40:48 PM

Quote :

"Basically paladins and MS warriors are so OP in 2v2 its unreal, followed closely by BM hunters."

Seriously? I'm a pally and I do way better with our 2v2 running with my MS friend than with my hunter friend and he is one of the best hunters I have seen in a long time. With just the hunter and me we hover around 1750. Can't wait till the hunter changes though.

10/29/2007 7:25:37 PM

I was basing that on the fact a BM hunters pet does enough damage to basically count as one person, so might as well be 3v2. I suppose frost mages could be included in that as well. Either way nothing compares to a warrior pally team really in 2v2.

10/29/2007 7:45:31 PM

fuck BM hunters

10/29/2007 7:50:09 PM

will the hunter MS shot make another OP combo of Hunter/Paladin similar to Warrior/Paladin? this will be nasty because there is the pet to deal with along with the ranged damage of the hunter...

10/29/2007 10:24:09 PM

Anyone interested in buying my 70 Undead Warlock?

10/29/2007 10:26:58 PM

^^ Also note that arcane shot will purge and that they will have hardly any dead zone. Shit yes.

10/29/2007 11:58:08 PM

bm hunters are easy to deal with as a rogue. just cloak and sprint into a vanish. let BW fade, fuck him up in the next 3min.

Quote :

"we run feral druid/rogue, if the healer isnt a paladin its possible, if a paladin is in the game though its a 95% chance of a loss"

you aren't using cyclone enough. kite the warrior around with the druid and fuck him up while the pally is blinded or sapped, then when the pally goes for a big heal or BOP, cyclone the war. he'll be immune to the heal. then finish him off. you can do the same accept to the paladin and just chain cyclone the warrior while the paladin has divine shield up. if you have decent resilience, the warrior will be rage starved and shouldnt be able to outpace druid heals unless you're hitting him back or he gets a lot of lucky crits on you

you also MUST use deadly poison and wound together. deadly on the OH 5x shiv-> envenom. it's not mitigated by AC. the warrior cant do anything to you without being close anyway so no need for crip and the paladin is gonna keep freedom up.

[Edited on October 30, 2007 at 12:33 AM. Reason : d]

[Edited on October 30, 2007 at 12:33 AM. Reason : paladins cant cleanse poisons either]

10/30/2007 12:31:40 AM

warrior paladin is a joke against a competant frostmage

10/30/2007 1:28:42 AM

where is the best place to farm motes of mana?

10/30/2007 1:49:28 AM

Yeah that is what we try to do but never seems to work out, the warrior always ignores the druid because he knows he cant hit him for anything in bear form. I think I have around 120-140 resilience right now which isnt a ton because well I have several lvl 70 chars I play so I dont have time to pvp non stop haha. Also I tried to build up my stamina and in turn sacrificed agility which I think is coming back to haunt me, I have a lot more health but my dodge rating is way down which gets me killed by warriors and rogues much more quickly. Evasion helps obviously but doesnt last forever. Pretty much anytime a warrior with mostly pvp gear gets anywhere near me I am dead within 5 seconds, not sure what I can do about that other than get better gear.

10/30/2007 7:33:41 AM

Quote :

"paladins cant cleanse poisons either"

Nitpick: Paladins can cleanse everything but curses, which seems kinda stupid, since they're a fucking paladin, but anyway, they can take care of poisons. They can't take care of poison STACKS, since one cleanse will do away one charge on all cleanse-able debuffs...if it gets through your anti-dispel talents. A paladin will have to spam cleanse and its 1 second GC to get rid of the debuffs, so its hard to say if he'll even bother and just choose to spam heals.

10/30/2007 7:57:41 AM

^^^ try the phase hunters north of the undead draenei ruins in netherstorm. i farmed there pretty nicely and its rarely camped.

another spot is the eastern tip of the netherstorm island with area 52 on it, although every time ive been there there's been at least 1 other person farming.

10/30/2007 8:53:24 AM

bm hunters are a joke in 2v2... MM hunters with silence and scatter are much much tougher to deal with ... iguess you could do some gimp rigged gib team with a bmhunter/x but it wouldnt be worth it. I've never lost to a team playing a bm hunter with my hunter/priest team


and pally warrior is cake sub 2k

10/30/2007 11:15:55 AM

Because I don't have enough issues already, I started a little ret pally to be ready for the 2.3 leveling bonus. I figured since I already had a 70 feral druid and enhance shammy, I might as well go for the whole trio.

10/30/2007 12:01:30 PM

10/30/2007 12:04:29 PM

leveling bonus starts in 2.3 ? no shit ? might finally level my warlock

10/30/2007 12:11:08 PM

I'd like to level my warlock but she is tweaked out already at 39 and I would hate to waste all that money, plus on days when I am getting owned all day in pvp its nice to logon to her and dot/kill their entire team crossing midfield lol.

10/30/2007 1:42:27 PM

im gonna level a shadow priest and 2v2 with my decked out warlock friend

2500 rating here i come.

10/30/2007 1:45:53 PM

Quote :

"where is the best place to farm motes of mana?"

netherstorm - wizard's row

10/30/2007 1:56:22 PM

is there good synergy with a shadow priest and a fire mage for 2v2?

10/30/2007 1:59:44 PM

fire mages usually get eaten alive in any arena. most good mages are specced deep frost for WE.

10/30/2007 2:35:45 PM

yea, so shadow + fire might mean we die easily, haha

10/30/2007 2:38:38 PM

shadow priests have 0 escapability and fire mages lack cc. sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. though you have 2 offensive silences (maybe 4? belfs?). you'd probably do ok against caster teams and get worked against melee + healer.

10/30/2007 3:14:28 PM

SP/warlock are so deadly because of the CoS, misery, shadoweaving etc that makes both of their dots tick for sick amounts. Fire mage usually has one burst in him and if it doesnt kill someone then he is pretty much useless for all intensive purposes. Very little survivability and chances are the only spell you are gonna get off after your burst is fire blasts. I actually love mages who come out and first thing POM/pyro. The good fire mages save it till a point when they are fairly certain it is gonna take someone out.

10/30/2007 3:17:06 PM

Quote :

"It's a bit late for first kill news, but this one is impressive. Burning Crusade was released in China on September 6th and yesterday a chinese guild called "The Seven" killed Illidan for the first time, that's about 7 weeks to clear Serpentshrine Cavern + Tempest Keep + Black Temple, not counting minor instances like Karazhan, Gruul's Lair and Magtheridon's Lair. That's probably the first killshot of Illidan with so many people still wearing their Tier 3 gear."

oooooooooh china...

10/30/2007 4:06:55 PM