Yet Another Warlock Nerf

New Blogger: Romil

Romil — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:35:09 +0000

Hello all YAWN readers!

I wanted to introduce myself quick… I’m the newest blogger to the site. I come from the far away land of Philadelphia, PA, USA.

My main just happens to be a 70 Warlock, which seems to fit into the theme of this site quite nicely. But Warlock’s are not my only love, I also have a bunch of alts of varying levels. When I’m not raiding on my ‘lock, I’m concentrating on my Shadow Priest or my BM Hunter.

My main characters are all Alliance toons, even though I sometimes regret that decision the moment I step foot in a battleground. But I do dabble on the Horde side of things on another server to remain nameless.

In game I like to do a lot of things, from raiding to PVP to just messing around with my guild mates. I can’t say I’m the greatest PVP player, I still haven’t cracked the “how to beat a rogue” puzzle quite yet on my Warlock, but I can hold my own. Alterac Valley is my favorite battleground, even though we (Alliance) can never can win there.

When I’m not playing WoW, I like to play golf (or pretend to), play roller hockey, and just spend time with my new fiance.

Thanks again, I hope you like what you read!

Post from: Yet Another Warlock Nerf.

New Blogger: Romil

Similar Posts:

Druid Form Skins Incoming

Horns — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:05:49 +0000

You may not care if you’re not a druid, but watching the same old forms for years without any improvements is quite dull. We have some great looking item sets, yet we all look exactly the same while shapeshifted. I realize it would be nearly impossible to make items show in forms - that’s a lot of work which can be spent on things that really matter (nerfing rogues for example).

I wrote about it before, and so did Phaelia, and it looks the changes to our skins might see daylight in Wrath - but then again, perhaps not. Koraa popped up on the forums today to tell us the opposite of what we’ve heard on WWI druid panel.

We’re not actually getting a Dire Cat Form, which I’m sure many druids were looking forward to. Instead, Koraa states Kalgan was actually talking about the new skins to existing forms.

I think what Kalgan meant was that we intend to do different texture variances for Druid forms, including Cat form. Which is true, though not sure how soon we’re going to get that. They may come from a repeatable quest, or through inscription.

Honestly, that doesn’t sound too reassuring. I get the feeling our forms are somewhere at the bottom of their to-do list, and will remain there for some time. It’s understandable - cosmetic changes are probably the least of their worries right now. How are we supposed to get the skins from repeatable quests is beyond my comprehension, but whatever they come up with is fine - as long as they close the mouth on cat from. I’m drooling all over Shattrath!

Keep your fingers crossed.

Post from: Yet Another Warlock Nerf.

Druid Form Skins Incoming

Similar Posts:

l2pvp: The Trinket

Horns — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 12:44:06 +0000

This is the third post in a series of guides about PvP, which will hopefully help some of you newbies step outside your PvE bubble and learn how the big boys play this game.

It’s the trinket. The mother of all trinkets, the one trinket to rule them all. There’s no talk about PvP without mentioning it, it became necessary and crucial to have since the day it existed.

It’s the one item all players have in common, regardless of classes or specs. Being able to break crowd controls, even if only once every 2 minutes can change the outcome of your battle, duel or arena.

There’s currently three different PvP trinkets available:

Insignia of the Alliance/Horde

As you can see from the tooltip, this one only has the Use effect without additional stats. It costs 2,805 honor points and can be bought from Master Sergeant Biggins in Champion’s Hall if you’re alliance, or Brave Stonehide in Hall of Legends if you’re horde.

There are nine different versions, one for each class. They used to remove specific effects depending on your class, which was changed way back in patch 2.1.2 to remove all effects which cause loss of control of your character. Why Blizz didn’t just merge it into one trinket remains a mystery.

Medallion of the Alliance/Horde

This one is much better. If you know a thing or two about resilience, you should know it will reduce the chance to receive a critical hit by 0,5%, and the damage of critical hits by 1% roughly. Additionally, the cooldown on this one is only two minutes. It costs 8,000 honor, and can be bought from the same vendors mentioned above, in either Hall of Legends or Champion’s Hall.

Medallion of the Alliance/Horde (epic)

They really should put a different name for this item, there’s way too much confusion. This one was introduced in patch 2.4.2, and costs 40,000 honor. It has 25 more resilience than the rare version, and for any serious PvP player it’s another must have.

Note: all trinkets share the same cooldown!

Which one to get

Insignia is obviously a waste of honor points. With a 5 minute cooldown you will always ask yourself whether to use it or save for another time - I know, I used to have it back in the days when Medallion was about 23,000 honor.

Get one of the Medallions, either rare or epic. There’s no doubt the epic one is better, 25 resilience is a decent upgrade for any class. But ask yourself, is 25 resilience worth 32,000 honor. You can easily get two pieces of S2 gear for that, which is undoubtedly a bigger upgrade unless you already have better. It also depends on how dedicated you are to PvPing - if you’re serious about it and want each and every item to be the best possible you can have, then shoot for the epic one. My recommendation: get the rare one and focus on other items.

What effects does it remove

Removes all movement impairing effects and all effects which cause loss of control of your character.

They really mean it. Basically, it removes all stun, fear, charm, polymorph, slowing and immobilizing effects.

Will remove: polymorph, crippling poison, entangling roots, frost nova, blind, sap, wing clip, consussive shot, freezing trap (but not frost trap!), fear, death coil, intimidating shout, cyclone, hibernate, judgement of justice, repentance, hamstring, banish, dragon’s breath, scatter shot, seduce, intercept, mind control, stuns (including mace stuns)… Can’t think of anything else.

Will not remove: spell interrupts like Earth Shock, or silencing effects like Spell Lock or Silence.

Note: it will not in any way make you immune to any of those effects!

Using the trinket

That’s the tricky part. Nobody can tell you when to use it, it depends on the situation, class or classes you’re fighting against and many, many other factors. After awhile, you just know it - it’s a split second judgment call based purely on your experience and situation.

I can try to give you a few hints when it’s most useful, but again, in certain situations it may also be completely useless to blow the cooldown.

When to use it:

The following is more or less for 1vs1 situations:

Fear, when you expect to be feared again especially. Simple logic would say it’s best to trinket immediately, since the second fear will last half as long due to diminishing returns.
Frost Nova: if you’re dealing with a frost mage, you can expect about 4,000 or more damage in the next few seconds unless you dispel it (the famous shatter combo).
Kidney Shot: rogue’s 6 second stun. As say, a warlock, there’s no point saving you trinket cooldown for anything else (like Blind) - you can keep the rogue in combat with your pet so he won’t be able to bandage or restealth. Those 6 seconds could very well mean the end of you.

When not to use it:

Sap - there’s really no reason to trinket sap
Polymorph - usually no point dispelling it; might sometimes be good for warriors though
Charge - even if you escape, you’ll get Intercept immediately
Hamstring/Crippling poison - unless you’re sure you can get away (or catch someone). You could use it say after a warrior’s intercept, slow him down or CC in some way and escape his melee range. There’s a reason why they call it Spamstring, so be careful now to blow your cooldown for nothing.
Death Coil - with DC, warlocks are only giving themselves some breathing room to be able to cast Fear (unless it’s one of those douchebag locks who use it as on opener like Cheap Shot - but still don’t trinket it).
Cheap Shot - I had high hopes for the PvP Matrix when I wrote about it, but some of the stuff people write there is complete garbage. Most likely, the rogue already has 4 combo points on you as soon as he Cheap Shotted via Premeditation - with only one Hemo you’ll get a full duration KS, or Blind > Restealth, or Vanish and he’ll start over again… In 99% cases, it’s a mistake.

In arenas, it’s completely different, depending on your setup and your opponents setup, match length & blown cooldowns etc.

It’s impossible to go through every single class setup and abilities, and even then I’d be wrong in half cases. I will however list an example which will probably not help you at all.

2v2, lets say you’re a paladin with a warrior vs. rogue & priest (bad choice but bear with me). Priest fears you and you use your trinket. In 24 seconds, he can do it again. Sure, you think it’s no big deal, you’ll keep your team mate topped with health and everything will be alright, he can survive till you’re feared again. But after his fear, rogue Blinds you, then Vanishes and Saps you since you’re out of combat. That’s almost 30 seconds of CC, in which your warrior buddy is probably dead. Sure, there are counters to this like Intervene, Blessing of Protection or Sacrifice, even Divine Shield. Or rogue has Rend (god no) or Deep Wounds and can’t Vanish… Perhaps you’re godlike at pillar humping and priest can’t even touch you. As I said, there’s too many variables to predict a situation in which to use your beloved trinket. It’s even worse in 3v3 versus RMP (rogue/mage/priest) for example - there’s even more CC there (five if I’m not mistaken - Mind Control, Sap, Blind, Polymorph, Fear), which if properly executed can turn into a quick death of one of your mates.

Again, it’s a judgment call which can only be based on your personal experience and the situation you are in.

A few general tips:

If you have a dispeller in your team, yell at him and do whatever else is necessary to get Fear, Polymorph, Roots and other spells removed. Save your trinket for another day.
Use racial abilities like WotF or Escape Artist before Medallion
Common sense would tell you it’s best to use it as soon as possible in arenas. Since matches are usually longer than 2 minutes, you can use it twice (even more), but that’s not always the case. Sometimes I play 5 minute matches and don’t blow my trinket even once - you’re waiting for that perfect CC from the opposing team but they simply can’t execute it.
It goes the other way too. If you’re about to finish someone off, it’s worth using it even on ‘minor’ things like mace stuns.
It’s not uncommon for warriors to resist my Cyclone 2 times in a row, despite having enough spell hit. A lucky mace stun on me, and a dispel (with trinket) of my next CC is usually the part when I die. Yet in many matches warriors save their trinket for another time. Pay attention, watch enemy cooldowns, and make the right choice.
Don’t trinket Sap (start of the match) unless it’s absolutely necessary.
Don’t get caught Hibernated or Banished in Ghost Wolf/Tree of Life etc. - it’s a dumb way to blow your most important cooldown

I hope all of this gives you a bit of insight on how powerful this item is. If you’re more into PvE, you should know it’s required for some encounters like Rage Winterchill and Archimonde in Hyjal, and also useful if you’re a druid/paladin tank on Nightbane. Not having it is a sin, even for those of you who don’t step into battlegrounds that often.

If there’s anything you want to add or give some advices to folks reading this, feel free to leave a comment. I’m sure the comment processing badgers behind the scenes will send you a thank you card.

l2pvp part I: Resilience
l2pvp part II: Gearing Up

Post from: Yet Another Warlock Nerf.

l2pvp: The Trinket

Similar Posts:

WotLK Beta Patch Notes - Warlock

Horns — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:37:08 +0000

If you haven’t heard, Wrath Beta invitations are being sent, NDA is lifted, the forums are now online and patch notes are posted everywhere - now even here.

I linked some spells so it should be more clear if you’re not familiar with talent names. You’re welcome to ignore my comments.

Warlock

Aftermath (Destruction) - Now a 2-point talent, down from 5.
All demon abilities and spells will automatically be learned as pets gain levels. Demon Master trainers will be removed. Great news actually - unless you used addons it was a hell to find all those grimoires to learn pet skills, and it was a rather big gold sink also.
Blood Pact now works raid-wide (not just in party). Consistent with paladin auras and shaman totems. Haven’t found anything about druids moonkin/feral form bonus, but I’m guessing it will be raid-wide also.
Cataclysm (Destruction) - Now also increases your chance to hit with Destruction spells by 1% per point. A topic of many discussions, destruction locks finally have a spell hit talent
Curse of Recklessness will no longer prevent Fear effects, only prevent NPCs from fleeing (e.g. at low health). It could be considered a buff to leveling but more or less useless change
Dark Pact: Tooltip updated to be more consistent with other similar effects.
Demon Armor - Now increases healing done by spells and effects by 20%, but no longer has in-combat health regeneration. I hope it’s a typo: should increase damage and healing
Demon Skin, Demon Armor and Fel Armor are no longer Magic effects and cannot be dispelled.
Fel Armor - Now increases your spell damage equal to 30% of your total Spirit, but no longer increases healing done by spells and effects by 20%. Will have to wait and see: if there’s decent spirit itemization for warlocks it could prove to be quite good for raiding.
Fel Stamina (Demonology) has been merged with Fel Intellect into Fel Vitality. Sweet!
Howl of Terror now costs 15% of base mana.
Improved Curse of Weakness (Affliction) is now “Frailty” - Increases the amount of attack power reduced by your Curse of Weakness spell by 10/20%, and increases the amount of armor reduced by your Curse of Recklessness by 10/20%.
Improved Enslave Demon (Demonology) is now a Tier 5 talent, up from Tier 4. Useless talent, who cares
Improved Lash of Pain (Destruction) and Improved Firebolt (Destruction) have been merged into one talent, Demonic Power. Two more useless talents merged into one even more useless.
Improved Shadow Bolt (Destruction) - Now increases damage by your next Shadow damage spells by 3/6/9/12/15%, down from 4/8/12/16/20%. Good, should be in line with Scorch now
Mana Feed: Tooltip updated to be more consistent with other similar effects.
Master Demonologist – Felguard (Demonology) - Now increases all damage by 1/2/3/4/5%, and reduces all damage done to you by 1/2/3/4/5%. If they do decide to change their minds and give us proper pet scaling, felguard might again be more useful in PvP. We lost 5% less damage from Soul Link, this should help
Master Demonologist – Imp (Demonology) - Now increases Fire damage by 1/2/3/4/5%, and critical hit chance with Fire spells by 1/2/3/4/5%.
Master Demonologist – Succubus (Demonology) - Now increases Shadow damage by 1/2/3/4/5%, and critical hit chance with Shadow spells by 1/2/3/4/5%.
Master Demonologist (Demonology) - Most effects have been altered.
New Talent: Demonic Empowerment (Demonology) - Grants your Summoned Demon power for a short time.
New Talent: Eradication (Affliction) - Your Corruption, Siphon Life and Curse of Agony ticks have a 5/10/15% chance to increase your spell haste by 20% for 8 sec. This effect has a 10 second cooldown.
New Talent: Molten Core (Destruction) - Your Shadow spells and damage over time effects have a 5/10/15% chance to increase the damage of your Fire spells by 10% for 6 sec. This could be useless unless it increases fire damage from all sources (mages).
Pyroclasm (Destruction) - Now also includes Conflagrate.
Shadowfury (Destruction) - Can now be cast while moving. Stun duration increased to 3 seconds, up from 2. Nobody ever uses it these days, we’ll see how it goes
Soul Link (Demonology) is now an 11-point talent (used to be a 31-point talent), but the 5% bonus damage from this talent has been removed. In addition, the damage absorbed by Soul Link is now 15%, down from 20%. A tradeoff I’m happy with
Soul Siphon (Affliction): Now also increases the damage of your Drain Soul.
Suppression (Affliction) is now a 3-point talent, down from 5. Now increases your chance to hit with Affliction spells by 1/2/3%, down from 1/2/3/4/5%.
Unstable Affliction (Affliction): Silence effect reduced to 3 seconds, down from 5.

Post from: Yet Another Warlock Nerf.

WotLK Beta Patch Notes - Warlock

Similar Posts:

Reminder: Looking for More

Horns — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:43:18 +0000

Here’s a reminder for those of you who missed my LFM page.

I’m looking for a writer or two who are passionate about WoW, have enough spare time and would like to spend it blogging. If you ever thought about starting your own blog, you might want to skip all that hassle and go straight to the best part - writing. You’ll get almost a thousand hungry visitors each day to flame your posts as a bonus!

There’s also an open invitation to those who already have their blogs - if you want to join forces, I’m sure we can arrange something.

Despite my initial plan of writing on all things warlock, I usually write about whatever pops my mind, and you can do the same. Regardless of your class, I’m looking for you: even enhancement shaman or rogues - there’s no discrimination here (ok maybe a little).

If you’re interested, read this and shoot me an email so we can discuss more. I won’t bite.

Post from: Yet Another Warlock Nerf.

Reminder: Looking for More

Similar Posts:

Addons: WitchHunt & SpellAlerter

Horns — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 00:37:01 +0000

These two addons reviewed today are rather similar, but also quite different. Using one of them should be enough, but they both have pros and cons, so you might even decide to use both depending on your preference.

Basically, WitchHunt and SpellAlerter will show you which spells are your enemies casting. You probably wonder what’s different from the usual enemy casting bars: well, casting bars are nothing compared to this.

WitchHunt

WitchHunt is pretty straightforward - it does have plenty of options but there’s not many of them you will need to change. The window is customizable and you can move it by typing /wh unlock.

It works well in instances (the image above is not a good example but oh well), and helps you figure out what’s going on - normal casting bars would only show your target, WH will however show you what all nearby enemies are doing. It can be a bit spammy in battlegrounds due to weird range limits (or lack of limits to be more precise), but if you want to give it a shot, you can download it from Curse or Wowinterface.

SpellAlerter

This one is a real gem for PvP. It has an extensive list of class spells, and dodging Mind Control or Mana Burn, or destroying Mana Tide Totem becomes a breeze.

For options, type /sa in your chat and play with it for awhile. You can easily add more spells which are not in the list, although you probably won’t have to.

For PvP, I recommend SpellAlerter over WitchHunt - it’s quite good out of the box and you’ll get used to it fast. Most good players I know use it and swear by it, so there’s gotta be something good about it, right? You have my recommendation. Head over to Wowinterface or Curse to get it.

Post from: Yet Another Warlock Nerf.

Addons: WitchHunt & SpellAlerter

Similar Posts:

l2pvp: Gearing Up

Horns — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 23:16:03 +0000

This is the second post in a series of guides about PvP, which will hopefully help some of you newbies get into this wonderful aspect of our favorite game and tell you why rogues are OP.

So, you finally leveled your toon and decided to do some PvP, you entered the battleground eager to melt some faces, only to get disappointed and frustrated because everyone seems to be killing you, and the only thing you can do is crawl up in some corner and call in for reinforcements. You start thinking your class sucks and turn to PvE. Wrong.

You should know by now you need a whole lot of resilience. Fortunately, there’s more than one way to get the proper items for your adventures, and here’s your guide.

Reputation sets

Hardly the best items around, but cheap and easy to get. Since patch 2.4, quartermasters of various factions listed below are selling them for less than 150 gold, which is really cheap. You will need honored reputation to buy those items, which means you might have to do a couple of instance runs for some factions.

Cenarion Expedition, Sha’tar, Lower City, Keepers of Time, Thrallmar/Honor Hold - check each quartermaster to see which items they are selling for your class.

If you get the entire set, you should have around 120 - 140 resilience.

Honor gear (Guardian’s)

You can get it in either Hall of Legends or Champions’s Hall, depending on your faction. They will cost anywhere from 11,800 to almost 18,000 honor, but are well worth it. Note that some of these items have arena rating requirements, so you will have to work your way up in arena to get it. You can also buy Vindicator gear - stats are a bit lower but there are no rating requirements, however you should always aim for the best items possible.

Boots: 17,850 honor point + 40 EoTS marks | 1700 rating
Ring: 15,300 honor points + 10 AV marks | 1650 rating
Bracers: 11,794 honor points + 20 WSG marks | 1575 rating
Neck: 15,300 honor points + 10 EoTS marks | no rating
Belt: 17,850 honor points + 40 AB marks | no rating

Necklace has a yellow socket, in which I recommend you put Steady Seaspray Emerald. If you feel you don’t need any resilience, you could go for other stats. Bracers have either a yellow or a red socket, which is best socketed with Steady Seaspray Emerald, or pure Healing/Agility/Strength/Spelldamage if red. You could get Shattered Sun neck pieces also, they are quite good, but if you need resilience you know what’s better.

Under no circumstance should you ever put a yellow gem in a red socket, no matter how much resilience you need: for example, Guardian’s Dragonhide Bracers. Steady Seaspray Emerald will give you +5 resilience and +7 stamina, while a Bold Crimson Spinel will give you +10 strenght and +2 resilience - much better. Always check your socket bonuses and put gems accordingly - there are exceptions but generally that’s the best way. Also, take note of which gems you will need for a meta gem. But enough about sockets.

You will need a total of 78,094 honor for these items, depending on your dedication it will take you anywhere from a week to two months to get it. When you pass 200 resilience, you should have no problems getting into premades, which will really boost your honor income.

Season 2 gear (Merciless Gladiator)

With the release of arena season 4, S2 items are available for purchase for honor points.

Armor

Gloves - 10,500 honor points | 20 AV marks
Chest - 14,500 honor points | 30 AB marks
Head - 14,500 honor points | 30 AV marks
Shoulders - 11,250 honor points | 20 AB marks
Legs -14,500 honor points | 30 WSG marks

Total honor required for full season 2 set: 65,250.

S2 Weapons

Two-hand weapons, bows, staves: 27,000 honor
Idols, totems, librams - 8,000 honor
One-hand & off-hand - 9,000 to 18,000 honor
Shield - 15,000 honor
Caster 1H - 25,200 honor
Thrown - 8,000 honor

Needless to say, weapons are huge upgrades and worth every penny.

Other items

Back

For decent cloaks, PvE is your only option. G’eras in Shattrath city will sell you really amazing backs for 60 Badges of Justice - one week of doing heroics should net you with enough.

Trinkets

Medallion is your best buy, and a topic of my next guide, so I won’t get into it too much now.

Luckily our favorite azerothians can equip two trinkets.

Battlemaster’s trinkets (example) are pretty good, great bonuses and an extra 1750 health every 3 minutes is nothing to laugh at. They are however extremely expensive: 30,000 honor or 75 Badges of Justice. I’ll leave it up to you to decide which is easier to farm, but this should be your last upgrade. There are also a number of great trinkets which you can get from PvE: HSH, Berserker’s Call, Shadowsong Panther, Eye of Magtheridon, and similar. Runed Fungalcap is terribad, but if you’re scraping for resilience it’s pretty easy to get.

But Horns, what should I get first?

Obviously, try to get as much reputation gear as you can at first. If you’re missing too much rep for honored (usually happens with Keepers of Time and Lower City), it might be faster to farm S2 items in battlegrounds.

As for S2 items, I recommend getting head piece and shoulders first: S4 require rather high personal ratings, 1700 for head and 2200 for shoulders, so don’t expect to get it soon. You will get a set bonus of +35 resilience with those two pieces, so that’s another boost. Also, since those items won’t be replaced so soon you can and should put decent gems and enchants on it. Shattered Sun Offensive has a +18 sta +20 resilience head enchant which is good for starters.

Get the Medallion as soon as possible - the epic one is obviously better than rare, but there is a huge difference in the cost - is 25 resilience worth 32,000 honor? I’d say no, at least for now. Insignia is only 2,805 honor, but don’t waste your hard earned points on that. Get the rare medallion, and save honor for something more important, like…

Weapons are especially important if you’re melee - warriors, rogues, enhtards and other misfits should get the best weapons available as soon as possible - S4 weapons have 2050 rating requirement so you can scrath that from your shopping list. Get S2 shinies.

If you didn’t buy rep gloves, get Merciless ASAP. The class specific bonuses are amazing, and 10,500 honor is hardly much compared to some other items. Remember, S4 gloves don’t have a rating requirement, so if you have spare arena points, spend them.

Although you can enchant your legs with spellthread/leg armors and it’s a huge upgrade at that point, chest is a much wiser choice: 3 sockets which you probably need to get the meta gem working, plus you can enchant it with resilience. Don’t forget you’re getting +35 resilience set bonus from reputation legs & chest, so you might consider upgrading some other items which will give the same stat wise, but you’ll still keep that bonus.

If you’re an enchanter, move rings a bit up on your list, due to, you know, enchants.

Few months before the expansion - can you be competitive?

I’m in the same dilemma. Only a couple of levels to go on my rogue, for about a month now. I’m still missing some feral pieces on my druid, so it would be quite a feat getting everyone geared.

Full S2 gear + S4 Guardian’s gear, both trinkets and weapons - you will need more than 250,000 honor! That’s a huge grind. If you do battlegrounds 10 hours every day, you will need a minimum of two weeks to get that - and 10 hours a day is a shitload of work.

One last tip before I wrap this up: start with arenas as soon as possible. Don’t wait until you have xxx amount of resilience or xx,xxx amount of health - get into arenas the same day you ding 70. Even if you have 1200 rating - that’s 250ish points weekly and some valuable skills you’ll pick up along the way. You will get killed repeatedly, get farmed by the same teams, loose to teams which clearly have better gear - but that happens at any rating. Remember, the day will come when you’ll be on the other side.

l2pvp part I: Resilience
l2pvp part III: The Trinket

Post from: Yet Another Warlock Nerf.

l2pvp: Gearing Up

Similar Posts:

l2pvp: Resilience

Horns — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:48:30 +0000

This is the first post in a series of guides about PvP, which will hopefully help some of you newbies get into this wonderful aspect of our favorite game and tell you why you suck.

Even if you’re decked in T6 epics, you will have a hard time surviving even the slightest hits from other players. Resilience changed the face of WoW PvP completely, to the point where certain classes (healers) are unkillable in 1v1 fights.

In case you don’t already know, resilience will reduce the chance for a critical hit to land on you, and also reduce the damage of critical strikes and DoTs. For mana users, it also reduces the amount of mana drained by Drain Mana, Mana Burn or Viper Sting.

In numbers: 394 resilience will decrease the chance to receive a critical strike by 10%, decrease the damage of critical strikes and mana drains by 20% and the DoT damage by 10%, meaning you will survive much longer, especially versus classes with high crit ratings like warriors, rogues or mages. For a better overview, check the table below:

Resilience is capped at 492,8 - after you reach that much you will only be decreasing critical chance and damage over time - the amount of mana drained and crit damage will remain capped at 25%.

How much resilience do you need

It really depends on your class and choice of talents.

Warrior: anything between 350 and 400 is good. You should never enchant or socket for resilience, only critical, attack power, strength.

Hunter: 350 - 400+. Depends if you’re wearing good PvE gear.

Mage: anything over 400 is fine.

Shaman: 450ish for elemental and restoration; enhancement can have a bit less due to PvE gear.

Paladin: 350 or more.

Warlock: 450 or more

Priest: 450+ for both shadow and discipline

Druid: resto - 400-450; dreamstate or balance can have a bit less due to moonkin armor bonus, but still around 400. Feral druids can have rather low resilience (even 250ish) with PvE gear, otherwise aim for 400.

Rogue: unless you have warglaives and 4xT6, aim for 400.

Some classes, even without high resilience have enough survivability, and often it is better to use gear from raids for extra dps; but do note, just because some players are wearing PvE gear in arenas, does not mean you can do the same with your Karazhan gear.

Talents like Survival of the Fittest or Demonic Resilience can further increase your survivability, and do not count towards resilience cap. Shadow priests have Shadow resilience, rogues Sleight of Hand, and I can’t think of anything else. Additionally, most classes have talents which reduce their damage taken or armor bonuses, which is always good to have.

Enchants

Glyph of the Gladiator - available from SSO quartermaster at revered. Adds 20 resilience to your head piece.

Enchant Chest - Major Resilience - depending on your class it might be better to put Exceptional Stats.

Enchant Shield - Resilience - although shields are not available to all classes, for those who can wear them this is pretty good.

Gems

Steady Talasite - extremely cheap, 10-20 gold, matches a blue and yellow socket and has 2 important stats which you need for starting gear. Steady Seaspray Emerald is the epic version, and will cost significantly more (150-250 gold) - make sure you won’t replace the item soon or it’s not worth it.

Mystic Dawnstone will cost a bit more than Talasite, matches a yellow socket only. Mystic Lionseye is the epic equivalent. You can also get Sublime Mystic Dawnstone, but getting 100 Halaa Battle Tokens is much harder than getting 300ish gold.

Conclusion

You can never have enough survivability. With proper choice of talents, gear, enchants and gems you can be a killing machine and still able to dish out serious damage. Take some time, go through the numbers and decide what is the best choice for your class according to your gear. If you’re in doubt, you can always check other players on the Armory and see their solutions. But no matter what gear is available to you, always keep in mind you can’t DPS if you’re dead.

For further reading and a bunch of formulas I hardly understand, I recommend visiting Wowwiki.

l2pvp part II: Gearing Up
l2pvp part III: The Trinket

Post from: Yet Another Warlock Nerf.

l2pvp: Resilience

Similar Posts:

Best Looking Druid Set

Horns — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 15:24:34 +0000

Just noticed it’s been over a month since my best looking warlock set poll, I guess it’s about damn time for another one - this time druids as promised.

Don’t forget to click on the images for a larger view.

So there it is. My personal favorite would be T5, nice greenish set with amazing wood-like shoulders which grow flowers. What do you think, can other sets beat that? Vote below:

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

If you can’t see the poll, you’re probably reading this in your feed reader.

Now we’re done with 2 classes, so there’s 7 left. I don’t know yet which class is next, but if you wish to be notified try subscribing to my RSS feed.

Post from: Yet Another Warlock Nerf.

Best Looking Druid Set

Similar Posts:

Are Moonkins the New Mages?

Horns — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:35:05 +0000

Having decent moonkin gear myself (half restoration though, but still decent; if you really must know, 1050ish spell damage), I know we can pump out serious damage (6k+ Starfire crits in Karazhan is serious business). High threat is also an issue now, but Nature’s Reach will also reduce threat caused by balance spells by 30%. Paired with Subtlety talent in resto tree, that’s a 60% decrease in threat - 60% because the talents will be reduced to 3 points, and reduce threat by 10% for each point. It sounded too good to be true - Subtlety will be changed to only decrease threat caused by healing spells, not balance.

It’s pretty much impossible for me to get into heroics today as a moonkin. First of all, there’s people who know shit about the class and think we’re some undergeared shadowpriests, without the Vampiric Embrace/Touch. It’s not even so far from the truth - most moonkins I see are just playing it for fun with some quest greens & blues - thank heavens for the armory so we can see that before we get to the instance.

My guess is, in Wrath it’s gonna change.

Crowd Control

According to the leaked Wrath patch notes, one of the things druids will be getting - and it’s about damn time - is a change to Entangling Roots spell, which will finally be castable indoors. We rarely get to use the spell nowadays outside of arenas - maybe you used it a couple of times in Zul’Farrak or Zul’Aman but that’s about it.

Another great spell is Hibernate, a 40 second sleep, which I use in Slave Pens and … nowhere else (forget PvP for awhile ok). Although it’s limited to only beast and dragonkin, it’s still there, and with the new roots it will be easy to keep two mobs controlled.

The dreaded Cyclone, a subject of many discussions when it comes to PvP, will have its diminishing returns removed, and will be spammable in PvE. Although it’s a 6 second duration, in tight situations we can easily cast it and control 3 mobs at a time.

While this is not a CC type spell, Soothe Animal can actually be useful sometimes - rarely, but still deserves a place on your action bars; will be changed to instant cast in the expansion.

Group Buffs

We all know casters love our Moonkin Aura, a 5% bonus to spell crit chance is nothing to laugh at. Improved Moonkin Form will also give a chance for you and your party members to gain 20% spell haste, so that’s another great reason to stay furry bird form.

Mark of the Wild is hardly the best buff around, but better than nothing. Casting Thorns is a waste of mana on anyone other than the tank - some druids are even crazy enough to spec into Brambles - those precious three talent points can be used much better, but to each its own I guess.

Improved Faerie Fire will in addition to its current effect also increase spell hit chance, that’s another 3 points you can use to help out your fellow players who aren’t hit capped.

Innervate… should I say more?

Healing

Moonkins are more than capable of healing in tight situations - with a decently geared tank you could probably even be a main healer in a heroic.

Tranquility is an amazing AoE heal - you will be able to reduce its cooldown to 5 minutes in WotLK if you pick up Improved. Even without restoration talents, it’s ticks for over nine thous… err two thousand.

Resurrecting

The one and only, Rebirth. Saved me from running back to my corpse a bunch of times. Currently the only resurrect castable in combat, its 20 minute cooldown is not a lot.

Revive is the new out-of-combat resurrect for druids - we have waited long time for this baby, now just a little bit more. In my experience, this is one of the main reasons other healers are preferred for 5 man instances.

AoE

Currently, we only have Hurricane - it doesn’t do much other than help the mage or warlock while they do their thing.

Typhoon is the new spell on the block - it will do an unknown amount of damage (520 damage keeps popping up but don’t take my word for it) when it comes in contact with your enemies, and knock them back 5 yards. The details about the spell like mana cost, duration etc. are not available at this time, but sounds pretty slick.

I’m positive I heard something about Starfall, but can’t seem to find anything about it right now. Basically, it’s like Tranquility but doing damage and possibly has a chance to stun enemies. But why the hell can’t I find it now. The spell linked is from some mob in The Eye.

Survivability

A 400% armor bonus in Moonkin Form is nothing to laugh at, we’re more than capable of surviving some unexpected damage. If you pop Barkskin, you’re pretty much a walking tank for 12 seconds - more than enough to finish off the mob or your tank to pick up aggro.

Interrupts

Maybe you’re a special snowflake like me and sometimes pick up Feral Charge in feral tree - if you’re not that’s ok, means you’re normal. Maim is limited to feral druids, so don’t expect a moonkin to go cat form and use it. That leaves us with Bash, a 4 second stun (non-talented) with a one minute cooldown. Usually the mob will already finish his casting by the time you shift into bear form, get to the creature and use the spell. Rumors say Feral Charge will be moved lower in the feral tree so it will require 21 points. A Counterspell-like talent deep in balance tree would be freakin awesome - however I haven’t heard anything about something like that - we can only dream. If you’re a tauren like myself, you got War Stomp though, but again, if you’re 30 yards away it won’t do you much good.

Conclusion

Durids are for fite! With all the amazing changes to our talent trees and spells, we’re going to be kings of heroics and even raids. More than enough ways to crowd control creatures, great damage with low threat and group buffs will be our ticket in. Throw in the mix an extra emergency healer plus weak (but not that weak) AoE damage and you’re more wanted than a tank. Moonkins will be a true hybrid class.

All we’re missing now is some biscuits!

Post from: Yet Another Warlock Nerf.

Are Moonkins the New Mages?

Similar Posts:

New Hunter Pet Abilities in Wrath

Horns — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 18:09:37 +0000

I’m pretty excited about most of this stuff coming in about WotLK so I’m on a posting rampage. Thanks to Wotlkwiki, we now have a preview of new hunter pet skills, which if real are seriously sick.

- New line of pet spells called “Smack“. Equivalent to Claw except with different name.

- Tendom Rip (Rank 1) - 25 focus, Next melee, 20 second cooldown. “Damages an enemy for 3 to 5 and reduces movement speed by 25% for 8 sec.”

- Spore Cloud (Rank 1) - 50 focus, 10 second cooldown. “Inflicts 2 nature damage to nearby enemies every 2 sec for 6 sec and reduces armor by 15%.
- Dust Cloud (Rank 1) - 50 focus, 20 second cooldown. “Kick up an obscuring cloud of dust, lowering the chance for enemies to hit by 30%. Effects last 8 sec.”
- Serenity Dust (Rank 1) - 75 focus, 2 minute cooldown. “Heals the pet for 510 over 15 sec.”
- Bad Attitude (Rank 1) - 25 focus, 3 minute cooldown. “Snap back for 5 damage at any target that strikes

you for the next 2 min.”
- Nether Shock (Rank 1) - 30 focus, 20 yard range, 6 second cooldown. “Instantly lashes an enemy for 17 to 19 Shadow damage. Also interrupts spellcasting and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 1 sec.”
- Ravage (Rank 1) - 80 focus, 1 minute cooldown. “Violently attack an enemy for 4 to 6, stunning it for 2 sec.”

- Sonic Blast (Rank 1) - 80 focus, 1 minute cooldown. “Emits a piercing shriek, inflicted 4 to 6 physical damage and stunning the target for 2 sec.”
- Wing Buffet (Rank 1) - 40 focus, 30 second cooldown. “Blasts the target for 4 to 6 damage and knocking it back.”
- Snatch (Rank 1) - 40 focus, 1 minute cooldown. “Grab the enemy’s weapon with your talons, disarming them for 10 sec.”
- Pin (Rank 1) - 80 Focus, channeled, 20 second cooldown. “Pins the target in place, and squeezes for 20 damage over 12 sec.”

We don’t know yet how exactly will pet talents work, but some of these abilities look 100% imbalanced - 6 sec Earth Shock for hunters? Mages won’t stand a chance.

Both warlocks and hunters want pet scaling (mostly with resilience) for months now, and according to my last post about PvP changes in Wrath, Blizzard is quite happy with the current scaling.

Post from: Yet Another Warlock Nerf.

New Hunter Pet Abilities in Wrath

Similar Posts:

WWI PvP Panel - What Awaits

Horns — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 14:56:37 +0000

General

The point is to keep arenas simple, while leaving room to innovate.
Stream lost at this point, will update later.
The battleground reporting system is being tuned to let player police themselves easier.
A spectator mode is planned.
There are no new racial abilities to to be added.
PvP rewards won’t be changed.

Arenas

There’s 2 new arenas, Dalaran and Orgrimmar.

Keep the new ones simple but still innovate
Moving objects in the arena - dynamic LOS. Can be timed, can be set random. Helps focusing on player skill.
Unique starting areas, that might be very close to each other

Dalaran Arena

Based on the new lore of the city
Arena map is located in the sewers of the flying capital city of Northrend
No mounts allowed
Similarly sized as the Blade’s Edge arena
The dynamic element is a pipe, a wall of water flows out of it sometimes, that is a complete LOS block
Only a few ramps to the center area, player-height ledge on the sides
Water shoots players out of the starting area, players can’t stay or return there

Orgrimmar Arena

New area in the old world
Dynamic objects that do damage to players (spikes)
Moving pillars on timers, players will see a wheel spin up before that happens
Extremely close starting areas - elevators bring players up to the center of the arena, only 10 yards away from each others, the spikes drop and the fight begins
Mounts are allowed
Bigger than Dalaran Arena
Orcs like watching fights, so there are NPCs on the edges who make noise too!
Players can stand on the pillars that sometimes move up. Still vulnerable to ranged damage there
When the pillars go up, the spikes come out of the ground so the player has to decide what to do.
Take the damage when moving across the area? Stay separated from the group?
No other LOS objects
Players have a couple of seconds to check out the opponents before the spikes go down and the fight starts

Lake Wintergrasp

PvE elements are being added to this PvP Zone, for example the equivalent of Elemental Plateau in Outland is in Lake Wintergrasp.
Siege Combat will be in both Lake Wintergrasp and the new Battleground (see below)
Siege vehicles incude air combat with flying vehicles.
You can destroy the buildings within Lake Wintergrasp and in the Battleground.
Lake Wintergrasp will feature an attack/defend game type. Just like the Auchindoun Spirit Towers, when your faction holds a tower it will keep it for a certain amount of time and retain all the advantage for a few hours.
Northrend “Spirit Shards” will be used to reward players. When your faction controls Lake Wintergrasp all the bosses in Northrend will start dropping them. You can then use these shards to buy rewards from a merchant, they won’t be more powerful any other reward but just an alternative to other sources of equipement (like gearing up for PvP very quickly).
“Wintergrasp Marks of Honor” will drop as well and will be redeemable for items through the honor system and other NPCs.
Bridges will be used as “choke point” in the map, siege vehicles can’t travel through water.
The goal of Lake Wintergrasp is to capture the “Wintergrasp Keep”, everything in that keep is destructable and you will have to break into the keep to capture the point.
Players will be able to control stationnary cannons on each tower to defend the keep.
Bridges are very large and very tall, players should be able to see them from anywhere in the map. They’re also totally destructable as well.

Siege Vehicles

The Demolisher
The Demolisher has both short and long range attacks
It is meant to bombard players and buildings from a long distance, it’s also equipped with a ram to siege buildings.
It can hold up to 3 passengers, passengers are exposed and can be targeted individually. However, players can cast while the vehicle is moving if they’re in it.
Forsaken Catapult
The catapult is faster than the demolisher but its range is slightly lower.
It does slightly less damage.
It cannot hold any pessenger.
The Siege Engine
This is the siege weapon with the longest range.
The gunner is sitting in the turrent and has full control of the turret.
The driver is only moving the vehicle.
The passengers in this vehicle are fully protected but can’t shoot other enemies.
It’s also got a very powerful ramming attack
Flying machine
Can bomb enemies, they’re swift but very vulnerable to anti-air attacks.

Goblin Shredder
The shredder is an anti-air vehicle.
It will use anti-air rockets, they’re long range homing missiles.
This is a personal armor suit, if the vehicle is destroyed the player just jumps out and keep fighting on his own.
You can use your sawblade as close range melee attacks.
The shredder can jump into the air just like rocket boots for players. This can also be used to jump over walls.
The shredder is very vulnerable to siege damage.

New Northrend Battleground

This battleground is located on an island south of Dragonblight
This is also an attack/defend game type battleground.
One team will attack and the other one defend, you will have a specific amount of time to succeed. After the end of the round teams will switch sides.
Attackers will come from boats and defenders will start in the middle of the beach.
There are 3 sections of walls in the Area, after each wall there are capture points and graveyards to make the attack on the next points faster.
Attackers will get more siege vehicles depending on their progression throughout the siege.
The battleground will be either 10vs10 or 15vs15, this isn’t decided yet.

Here’s some interesting Q&A, most importantly changes (or lack of them) to pet scaling:

Q: Now we have one source of honor, Alterac Valley, and everything else is a source of marks. Some people lose on purpose to get marks quicker. Is there anything being done to solve this problem?
Chilton: It’s a very very difficult problem to solve. We find that if we give no rewards for losing a battleground, it’s very punishing. That’s why we have systems to report players for not participating and we’ve lowered the number of players who need to report someone. (There is a certain point where the system can’t determine how hard you’re trying.

Q: Do you have plans to implement a spectator mode?
Chilton: Definitely on our list of things we want to do. To add to that, we also have the idea of using that spectator mode to extend to other things, in raids for example

Q: Unique (racial) combat moves?
Chilton: We don’t plan to add any more racials.

Q: My girlfriend and I love PvP, but since the Burning Crusade, we feel like we’re forced into arenas
Chilton: We do plan to keep a pretty similar sort of reward items.

Q: For the frost mage, some crowd control talents seem to be PvP-oriented, don’t you think this could cause unbalance?
Chilton: It’s always going to feel that way because bosses tend to be immune to crowd control, but we’re trying to open it up.

Q: What do you plan to fix Warlock pet scaling?
A: Right now we’re pretty happy with pet scaling. It should be a viable tactic to spend some time attacking the pets. A player has to make a choice. We feel like if that scales very well, it’s going to be a viable tactic to just focus on one.

Sources: Game-say.com, Wowjuju.com, Wowinsider, Mmo-champion

Post from: Yet Another Warlock Nerf.

WWI PvP Panel - What Awaits

Similar Posts:

WWI Developer Panel - Class Changes in Wrath

Horns — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 15:04:23 +0000

We already know about many new spells and talents coming in WotLK, but none of that info was official until now. The stuff in gray is my comments.

Death Knight

Developers don’t want talent trees to be pigeonholed into specific roles. Each tree will be functional both roles.
Runes have a 10 second separate cooldown
Army of the Undead will make players feel like how the Lich King feels when he commands the Scourge to attack
All races are confirmed to have Death Knights. The Lich King wants them all - Draenei female, gnomes, Night Elf female Deathknights… omfg. I was still hoping they would reconsider but I guess not.

Hunter

Steady Shot will no longer clip Auto Shot, meaning it won’t have to be timed, just spammed - Lets change all the things which require a bit of skill so all hunters will be like zombies just mashing two buttons
The skill point system of pets will be replaced with Pet Talents, one tree for utility, one tree for tanking and one tree for DPS - Pretty interesting change, I’m sure many hunters will be drooling over this
A new ability will make the pet deal extra 20% damage when on 20% health

Mage

Mage Armor will be reworked to reduce harmful debuff durations
New ability: Frostfire Bolt. In itself it’s not as good as Frostbolt or Fireball, but when the player talents into both Frost and Fire, Frostfire Bolt will be better.
Devs will make sure Mages are kings of AoE damage, and scaling up their damage to be viable - I feel bad for mages sometimes, Seed of Corruption is really sick

Shaman

Totems will affect the entire raid! - Cool but what about Tranquil Air?
Strength of Earth and Grace of Air will be merged - Awesome!
Windfury will be changed, so that druids are affected by it too. It’s no longer a weaponbuff, but a buff. - Another buff for feral druids; with all the great changes coming DPS will skyrocket
Rockbiter Weapon will be replaced with Earthliving Weapon which increases healing done
Flametongue Weapon will increase spell damage - Since Rockbiter will be removed and Flametongue changed to spell damage bonus, it might be a bit harder to level up till you get Frostbrand (level 20)
New ability: Hex. Emergency CC spell that leaves movement control for the hexxed player, but is unable to cast spells. 0.5sec casting time, 8-10sec duration - Much needed CC is here

Rogue

Sap will work on not only humanoid targets, but on pretty much everything that has a brain - Don’t have anything against it
New ability: Fan of Knives. Similar to the Warden spell in Warcraft 3. Short AoE

Warrior

New talent: Titan Grip is now confirmed. Allows the Warrior to wield Two-Hand weapons in both hands. - In theory it sounds amazing, but we’ll just have to wait and see; dual Stormheralds ftw (well WotLK version of it)
New ability: Shockwave. Helps prot warriors dealing damage
New talent: Bladestorm. Similar to WC3 spell - In W3, you start spinning around and dealing damage, and you’re also immune to all spells
Devs want warriors to feel more like the warriors in Warcraft 3 - We had warriors in W3?

Warlock

New talent: transforms the warlock into “Illidan demon form”. One of the available spells in demon form is an AoE shadowbolt that can be spammed! - Like we’re not spamming Shadowbolts enough in raids nowadays, they’re giving us AoE SB. Jeez…
New ability: Demonic Circle. Small area where the warlock can teleport back into and decreases pet summoning time - God knows warlocks need escape abilities, will this one be enough only time will tell. I don’t want a decrease in pet summoning time, I want proper scaling

Paladin

Retribution itemization will be moved even closer to Warrior and Death Knight itemization
New ability: Hand of Purity. Reactive healing spell

Priest

New ability: Divine Hymn. New holy spell that allows the priest to heal the entire party. When a partymember is struck they go into a trance.
New 51 point shadow talent: Dispersion. 90% incoming damage reduction, 6% health/mana regen. The priest can move, but cannot cast spells. Allows a new form of defense against melee to make Shadow Priests more viable in highend Arena PVP - With all the changes to Shadow tree, it will be pretty viable
New talent: Guardian Spirit. Prevents friendly target from being killed. A pet that gives “Cheat Death” to the target, if the player would die, the spirit pet dies instead

Druid

Entangling Roots will work indoors as well, to help druids get into heroic groups
New ability: Flourish. 1.5sec casting time healing spell, its effectiveness depends a lot on what HoT effects are on the target
Cyclone won’t be changed
Potions, on-hit effects and items will work in forms. - If a bear can mash their paws on some drums then he can drink potions as well.

Post from: Yet Another Warlock Nerf.

WWI Developer Panel - Class Changes in Wrath

Similar Posts:

Diablo 3 Announced

Horns — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 12:06:49 +0000

Hell yeah. As long as there’s no daily quests, I’m in.

Blizzard.com/diablo3 for the official things, mmo-champion for the rest.

Post from: Yet Another Warlock Nerf.

Diablo 3 Announced

Similar Posts: