Update: Apparently I need more sleep or coffee (or both), since S3 ring already have armor penetration ><. So yeah, it makes Angelista hardly an S4 item, still a decent replacement for S2 ring till the end of S3.

The forums are currently stormed by a bunch of whiners QQing about S4 having high (like 1600 for a chest is high) rating requirements, but that’s not what I’d like to talk about.

Patch 2.4 along with it’s badge rewards introduced one nice item: [Angelista's Revenge]. Some people might compare it to [Veteran's Band of Triumph], I’d rather compare it to [Vindicator's Band of Triumph], as with S4 we will have access to S4+S3 rings. So, let’s look at the stats, the difference between Angelista and Vindicator’s Band are:

- 6 stamina
- 22 resilience
- 0.3% crit (-26 crit rating + 29 agi = 0.88 -1.18%)
+ 14 attack power
+ whooping 126 armor penetration
+ 70 armor penetration

So yeah, the ring is pretty cool, kinda suboptimal for PvP if you consider the lack of resilience, but 126 armor pen is half of the whole S3 set. How much damage is 126 armor pen? Nothing really hard to count, against an enemy with 5k armor:

Armor reduction without reduction: 32.14%
Armor reduction with reduction: 31.58%

DPS increased by 0.82%

Obviously, that % is going up the more armor pen you stack and the less armor the target has (and vice versa), executioner, sunders and armor penetration gear all work perfectly well with each other. Pretty decent ring, I might not want to force myself to do heroics for it, but since we now can get badges from dailies, I’ll probably get it sooner or later.

Update: Just noticed I never linked my Armor Crab Calculator, so there you have it, for all your crabby needs!

Terhix

Yesterday, I managed to grow cotton and to pick, gin and bale it (aka did all daily). After that I was greatly bored. I looked up my friends list and there was this Shammy that asked me to play 2v2 some time ago. Since I had nothing better to do, I decided to try duo with him. Previously I only played with Druids and Paladin.
My guess was that we will get like 1800 and after few lost games we will stop, but hell its better than nothing.
We took some 1820 team and decided we will see how it goes. And than miracles begin.
I cannot stress this enough, how much in shock I was. We steamrolled every single team we came arcoss.
I never thought we can perform that good, offensive playstyle of Shamman perfectly fits my blood thirst. We were able to instagib priests thanks to mass purge, wf, bloodlust and its was a joke how easy that was. We did lose some games against shadow priests, but still we got 2k in now time with 13-4. After that, we gave that team away and decided to start new one to see how much further can we get if we start using ventrilo. We played for another 3h and managed to reach 2022 in 47 games, with one disconnect, we could prolly do it in 45.
I underestimated this setup and never really wanted to try it, but after yesterday I have to say this is by far best setup in 2v2 for warrior like me. Im not much fan of entire “lets outlast them”, i hate to turtle and kite.
Shaman is by far most offensive and one of the toughest healers you can get. He can tank s3 warrior with no mana loss or dish out decent dps with support of purges and wf. If you never concidered playing with shammy because “War/Druid pwns” try it, its really worth it.

Your master, S.

PS.

Ming is a tool.

SandMan

There are three titles coming for every fantasy-mmo fanboy is focused atm, these are the second WoW expansion pack, Warhammer Online and Age of Conan. I’m doing some research about each of them as I’m not really decided what to play in the future. Granted I’ve a pretty clear view on what WAR brings to the table as I’m in beta, and I’m hopefully going to get my opinion about AoC, as I got an invite to the tech test not so long ago (yay!).

Both AoC and WAR attempts to lure PvP to their worlds, both in two different ways, where AoC is heading free-for-all sandbox style PvP, WAR is doing the RvR style of PvP which, while being similar to WoW, has quite a lot of unique mechanics already in place to occupy any PvPer, and that’s the problem WoW can have, as all you can do is:

- World PvP with Halaa and stuff, yeah right, who does that?
- Battlegrounds, sounds like fun, after doing WSG/AB/EotS/AV for 432423th time with people who don’t even care about winning or loosing. They just want to get honor for epix. It’s not really challenging or fun to play and I think it’s safe to say that battlegrounds these days are just grinding spots.
- Arenas, that’s pretty cool, but is it really enough to keep you occupied 24/7? It sure isn’t for me.

The mentioned old honor system kept anyone who wanted to achieve anything occupied for a long LONG time, now it’s different. As WoW is evolving and PvP is changing something needs to be done, and it needs to be done outside arenas and battlegrounds.

Now the perfect ground for that, and I bet that Blizzard does realize that, is the open world pvp. Lake Wintergraps in WotLK can be either a huge step forward, or another ‘SANDLOL!’. I hope that all of the pre TBC and TBC world pvp fail Blizzard has committed is enough for them to learn a lesson. PvP can be so much more, and I guess that anyone who played any korean MMO that has siege wars knows what I’m talking about - no, it’s not about destroying buildings, it’s about the community, drama, politics and all that social aspects.

When talking about that on our guild vent recently some folks said they actually doubt that WoW can make a good siege-war type of game with all the mechanics that are currently in. Well, they are right, but 4 years ago WoW didn’t really appeal to anyone as an e-sport kind of game, and now they got the arena tournament server, that’s a huge step forward. The bad news for us is that ranged classes usually win in large scale open world pvp, but keeping in mind how it worked out for many other games I wouldn’t be so scared.

Another thing that might be a problem is the amount of abilities (both base skills and talents) that players will have access to. Warhammer Devs already said they are planning for 20 clickable abilities per class and no more, and that’s IMO a really good number, I’ve half of my keyboard and 5 mouse buttons bound to something (be it an ability, ‘oh shit’ macro or trinket) in WoW. With each expansion giving more and more buttons to play with the game can become a bit overwhelming to say the least. We will most likely see more skills that are not something totally new, but is rather a replacement for something we already have, like another attack with cooldown shared with MS, another shout that doesn’t stack with BS/CS, another aspect for hunters, another poison for rogues, another armor-spell for warlocks, that kind of stuff. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m really thinking about buying myself a G15 to make my gaming experience easier.

Terhix

Warning, HUGE blog.

Name: Get a cool and short name, like Leh or Lemo, so people can armory or remember you easier. Thus, getting some attention and maybe a good healer.

Racials: Gnomes, Orc, Tauren, or reroll. Every little advantage helps… like getting out of the frost nova, resisting the intercept stun, or winning a match with 100 hp.

Hotkeys: You need them. Read previous blogs.

Macros: I personally use only 3 macros.
1. /equip “your shield here” /equip “your 1hander here”
2. /target focus /cast intercept(rank5)
3. /cast defensive stance /equip shield /cast spell reflect /equip 1hander

Internet Connection and Computer: Get good ones because graphical or internet lag will cost games.

Addons: NECB, a cool down count (I use OmniCC), a focus frame mod, and Proximo.

Weapon choice: Mace/Swords for 2s, 3s. Most prefer maces. Sword is probably better with a shaman.

Talents: 35/23/3 or 33/28, I’d socket Crit for either of the build because “burst is king.” I went crit and this is my build http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LV0xdGbqMhkbZVVzu0xRZc.

Gear/Enchant: Highest item level value per slot. IE 5 strength + 4 crit rating gem > 8 strength gem or 8 critical gem. 24 ap and minor speed meta gem + Surefooted boots enchant. 15 resilience > 6 stats. Executioner for 2hander and Mongoose for 1hander with 12 resilience to shield. I think I’ve covered the important ones.

Gems: I’d like to go over why Critical Strike Rating gems are better in arena than Attack Power gems. First, most of your burst is from intercepting a target, a white swing, then Mortal Striking and Whirl winding. If you take a look at this scenario, attack power helps white swing the most and is reduced on MS or WW because of AP normalization. However, critical strike rating helps all 3 attacks equally. The key word is “burst.” There’s a higher chance of you and/or your team down a target if you get critical hits (especially 2 or 3 in a row) on your target. If your white swing crits then you’d have blood frenzy or flurry for the next few attacks. Critical strike rating helps with other special attack such as hamstring, pummel, and execute. Maybe you’ll do 20 damage less each swing or 500 less damage after a match is over, but it’s the crit that wins games.

Professions: Jewel crafting and Enchanting for 24 attack power and 12 critical strike rating gems along with +4 all stats to each ring. Every little advantage adds up.

Cup of Shut the Beep Up: In case you lose you won’t be able to make up some excuse why you sucked or blame your team mate. Remember, you can’t arena alone. I prefer water in this case.

Duels: Dueling is not PvP? It helps a ton with reflexes, teaches you how to adapt to certain situation, and how certain classes react to you. If you got some time waiting for those 2on2 queues, try dueling. It gives you a better understanding of the other classes you don’t play.

Strategy: You need one against different make ups. For each of those make up you’ll need different strategy depending on what target they are on. For example, as a Arms Warrior/ Holy Priest vs Shadow Priest and Shadow step Rogue
If they are on my priest, I would stick on their shadow priest
Call for dispels whenever power word shield is up
I would pummel the mind blast
Intervene into hamstring / disarm rogue
Intercept back on the priest during a cast

If they are on me, I put on a mace and shield and reflect mind blast
Demoralize/Thunderclap/Mortal Strike/Overpower the rogue
Shield block if you have the extra rage
Go to berserker stance then intercept the priest if he mind blasts if you sucked and reflected something useless.
Disarm only if the rogue’s evasion is off.
Use your battle master’s trinket or fear to save yourself.

Winning = arena points/ratings
Losing = develop strategies, stop queuing because they are your counter-comp, or counter-comp back.
Counter-comp is part of the game, learn to adjust to it.

Counter spelling as a warrrior: (mainly for 2s/3s)
Regardless of what others say, you can lock down healers. We have a counter spell, the macro for it is
/target focus
/cast intercept(rank 5)
Always set a focus target during the match.
Work on your communication with your team so you can lock down a target longer.
Example: Warrior Mage Priest
“I’m going to get the first interrupt” your pummel interrupts holy light
“I’m going to counter-spell his next one” Mage counter spells Paladin’s flash of light
“I got the next one” I would use the focus/intercept macro and interrupt the heal
I then stand right next to the healer and wait for the stun to wear off so I can pummel while my teammates are beating down a target.

Here are some useful arena tips:
Say something when you’re going to pummel so your team don’t waste their interrupt
Spam Hamstring (Mace stuns) if your healer needs to peel off something
Shield reflect something useful
Call out “druid’s innervated, dispel or purge”“going to get sheeped, dispel”
Throw at the caster if you know they are going to drink
Be aware of your/healer’s position, put up raid icons so you can see them easier
Don’t disarm when the rogue is evasion’d unless you’re behind them/they’re stunned.
Innervate your team if you need to reposition/save yourself/teammate
Get anger management / imp hamstring/ imp overpower
Taunt pets to buy time for your healer to drink
Arms warrior can tank almost any heroic instances, being a good tank might help you play better when being focus fired (ie spam defensive abilities/trinket/health stones)
LoS sheeps/entangles if you think it’s coming
The shoulders, gloves, and throwing weapon are poor upgrades, get them last
Predict whether the druid is going to cyclone you or if the paladin is going to heal, run to them and get ready to pummel. You’ll need intuition or experience here
Get known by dueling/performing well in arena/or pay to play with top players and hope they notice you then people will want you on their team
If your target runs right next to a caster, be ready to quickly switch target and pummel
Hotkey everything, including your trinkets and macros
Pummel that frost bolt, lighting bolt, or mind blast. Why? you’re also stopping that ice lance, earth shock, or shadow word death.
Piercing Howl when people are bunched up.
Fear when something is about to die, offensively or defensively
Pummel, intercept, and then pummel can lock down casters

Post advice in comments and I’ll be sure to add to this list. Any other comments, suggestions, requests, or corrections are welcomed.

Leh

Disclaimer: this is another “guest post”, if you also want to share your thoughts on this blog, just let me know in comments and I’ll contact you via e-mail - Terhix

1/2 Improved Overpower or 2/2 Improved Overpower?

Flurry build – Higher chance to getting flurry procs
Tactical Mastery – More overpower usage
Every class can dodge, but it’s most effective vs rogues, hunters, and druids.
Answer – 2/2 overpower regardless of build

2% Blood Frenzy/ 15% Improved Hamstring or 4% Blood Frenzy/ 10% Improved Hamstring?

It comes down to make up. If you’re the only physical dpser, I’d suggest 2% Blood Frenzy and 4% Blood Frenzy if there’s more than one.

Improved Slam?

It’s not very good in “most” PvP situations. No.

Booming Voice, Improved Demoralizing Shout, or Unbridled Wrath?

Booming Voice or Unbridled Wrath. I’d prefer Unbridled Wrath, but Booming Voice can be useful too. I really don’t know what’s better here. Suggestions?

Improved Heroic Strike vs Parry

I haven’t found myself using Heroic Strike often enough to justify 3 talent points.

Weapon Spec?

Swords can be good in 3s and 5s depending on make up, while Mace is good in 2s, 3s, and 5s on any make up. I’d suggest Maces though. Axe is for PvE.

Racial?

Yes, racial IS game breaking. Gnomes for alliance and Orcs/Tauren for horde.

Crit vs AP (aka gems)

Instant attacks are affected by AP normalization.
Crits are affected by resilience.

Crit is better for arena in “most cases” since “burst is king.” Criting your target during a group burst or swap is more important doing 20 more damage. I’d gem mostly for crit.

Edit

Blood Craze vs Commanding Presence

Blood Craze gives you “more” per point of talent points you’re spending. 1 point in commanding presence gives you 8 strength or 5.4 stamina. 1 point in Blood Craze gives you 1% of your health over 6 seconds after a crit. Is 8 strength or 5.4 stamina worth it over blood craze? In situations like double melee, maybe.

Chest enchant 15 resilience or +6 stats

15 resilience is harder to find in items and it’s more valuable than 6str 6 agi and 6 stamina in terms of item value.

I’m planning on giving more details on my reasoning for each section.

Leh