Ask a Gladiator

[Fhenrir]

I've wanted to make a thread like this for awhile, and now there's a good place to put it.

Got an arena/BG/PvP question you're not sure about? Wanna go to someone who probably is sure about it? Ask away, and I'll give you a good answer when I get the chance. Or Kali will, 'cause I can probably get him trolling this thread too.

[NotMaithanet]

What am I supposed to do on the rare occasion I get spell lock down? I sort of flail aimlessly right now. I should note I PvP Holy. Because Retlol PvE gear doesnt cut it.

[Fhenrir]

What am I supposed to do on the rare occasion I get spell lock down? I sort of flail aimlessly right now. I should note I PvP Holy. Because Retlol PvE gear doesnt cut it.

As a holy paladin there isn't a whole lot you can do once you've been silenced; basically, all you can do is take the best steps you can to avoid being hit by it in the first place.

Ways you can go about doing that include tactful pillar humping and juking counterspells/kicks. If someone is looking at you that can counterspell, try to start winding up a long, slow spell and quickly tap your strafe button as they'd react to the cast. Ideally, they'll whiff and you're free to cast.

You can also stave off being counterspelled longer by preemptively bubbling or spamming instant casts as long as possible (holy shock, cleanse). I employ both of these often against rogue/mage while playing warrior/paladin.

If you do get silenced as a holydin you'll basically want to try and position yourself to not die (ie; line of sight ranged DPS while silenced) or call out in vent appropriately and have teammates support you until you're free to cast again.

[Amoola]

I'll bite.

Any good basic PvP advice for an Elemental Shaman.

I can shred with the best of them if there is something holding the other side's attention but I tend to get steam rolled solo.

[Fhenrir]

I'll bite.

Any good basic PvP advice for an Elemental Shaman.

I can shred with the best of them if there is something holding the other side's attention but I tend to get steam rolled solo.

Well... there's not really too much I can say when the question is too broad or sweeping. What sort of help are you looking for specifically? Are there particular classes/specs that are giving you trouble? Also, where are you fighting them? Is it in the arenas, BGs, or world PvP?

[Amoola]

I'm fighting in BGs and world PvP as it happens.

Otherwise..... yeah I suck bad enough at PvP that it's a rare occation indeed that I come out the victor in any one on one fight.

I'm honestly just looking for general pointers to build questions off of.

I am trying to remember to use more shocks since I get a little resilience buff from my armor when I do. Obvious ranged stuff when others can keep stuff off of me since I do more damage that way. And in general try to stay out of melee reach, though that is easier said then done.

[NotMaithanet]

Well, why dont you give a couple of examples of fights you lost in?

[Fhenrir]

This is likely a good time to clarify that the purpose of this thread is moreso to answer any specific questions that people may have, and when specifically seeking out someone likely to have experience to ask directly. Basically I'm trying to make myself more approachable.

This is a brand new forum, and this seems much more like a topic that'd make a great thread all in itself. Infact, done! (http://wow-tng.org/showthread.php?p=224725#post224725)

Regarding your question specifically...


I'm fighting in BGs and world PvP as it happens.

Otherwise..... yeah I suck bad enough at PvP that it's a rare occation indeed that I come out the victor in any one on one fight.

I'm honestly just looking for general pointers to build questions off of.

I am trying to remember to use more shocks since I get a little resilience buff from my armor when I do. Obvious ranged stuff when others can keep stuff off of me since I do more damage that way. And in general try to stay out of melee reach, though that is easier said then done.

I can toss you a tip or two to start off with, but other than that I encourage you to research and come back with specific questions. S'pose I'll cover what's closest to me as a starting point.

MS warriors: Depending on your gear level, they can be very easy or very difficult. If you've got a good set of the PvP gear (read; over 300 resilience, shield, high armor value) then you can usually nuke them into nothing because their rage gen will be so starved until you open up on them. If your resilience is low, they'll probably tear you to shreds.

A good time to pvp trinket against them 1 on 1 is right after they intercept and hamstring. Hit is as they cast and they're on GCD, then book it away while frost shocking or earthbinding. Kite away from there.

Make sure to use totems. Earthbind is good for kiting, and Searing will dish out a good amount of sustained DPS outside of you having to actually cast.

[Moknim]

How to deal with paladins.

This is the only class that I consistently have problems with in 2s. They have the "this is not a movement impairing effect" movement impairing effect thingy (justice maybe? never played a pally, so I can't remember). Bubbles, blessing of freedom, and stuns. I can never get away, I can't root, and if I shift out to attempt to cyclone I eat a stun and die pretty quick. This has been especially problematic lately - I think we hit 3 2x paladin teams out of our 10 games on Monday.

[Yatokth]

Warrior/Paladin

Good strategies. How the flip do we stand against priest/warlock? Mage/other DPS? (usually rogue, but we lost to mage/retadin twice last week)

And is mace spec essential for this comp?

[Fhenrir]

How to deal with paladins.

This is the only class that I consistently have problems with in 2s. They have the "this is not a movement impairing effect" movement impairing effect thingy (justice maybe? never played a pally, so I can't remember). Bubbles, blessing of freedom, and stuns. I can never get away, I can't root, and if I shift out to attempt to cyclone I eat a stun and die pretty quick. This has been especially problematic lately - I think we hit 3 2x paladin teams out of our 10 games on Monday.

What make up do you play? I'm assuming you still play warrior/druid, but I can never be too sure.

The reason I ask is that what makeup you run is essential knowledge in how you can properly counter and deal with paladin teams. Also, which paladin teams you're having trouble with specifically would be good info to have.


Warrior/Paladin

Good strategies. How the flip do we stand against priest/warlock? Mage/other DPS? (usually rogue, but we lost to mage/retadin twice last week)

And is mace spec essential for this comp?


Priest/warlock will be one of your hardest comps to stand against as warrior/pally. Honestly, if they play their cards right you should be losing to them. Helpful things you can do are quick swaps to burst down felhunters and getting lucky burst strings on the priest. As the holy paladin in this match I tend to try and throw down holy shocks/judgement of righteousness against the priest any time I see him throw up a bubble (helps to get your warrior generating rage sooner).

Turn Evil comes in handy against the pets as well, gets you a few seconds without the risk of counterspell (or forces their counterspell to stop the fear). As far as tongues is concerned there isn't much you can do to stop it from being reapplied except bubbling to get it off you for a few seconds and keep your partner alive in emergencies. Essentially, you need to kill something fast here. Usually it's the priest you wanna try and take down.


As far as mage/DPS is concerned, it depends on what the other DPS is. When it's mage/rogue it's going to be a very hard match. Your paladin will want to spam holy shock and cleanse as much as possible on whichever their DPS target is, while your warrior does as much damage to the rogue as possible. You must preemptively bubble before you go to cast or you're going to eat a counterspell/kick/blind/etc. When you bubble the rogue will try and escape; if the warrior can keep him from escaping (freedom helps) while the pally heals you both up in bubble, you should be able to pull it off. Still a very hard match.

As far as mage/BM hunter or mage/ele shaman, your strategy is essentially the same. Last a little while before preemptively bubbling and spam heals while the warrior kills the hunter/ele shaman (frost mage is a bad first target because of ice blocks and snares; plus, he can spell steal your freedom and counter hamstring entirely). These are a little easier than mage/rogue, but it can still be a rough match. Recommended that your warrior has a quality spell reflect/defensive stance macro for turtling.


Regarding mace spec, it really is the best you can do right now as a warrior in general (regardless of makeup/bracket). When 3.0 hits the weapon specs will be closer to personal preference, but I'm inclined to say axes without windfury and swords with.

[Moknim]

Warr/Druid.

We recently hit Ret/Holy twice and Ret/Shockadin (I think). Pallys in general are tough for me to deal with (Warr/Pally, ret/priest even saw rogue/healadin and had a little trouble).

Warr/Pal is the most common we hit - I try to prehot, hit bear and run while trying to get in some kind of CC, but with BoF taking off spamstring and roots, the warrior is on me the whole time except for the duration of the fear bomb (which isn't really that long) and the pally has the ability, at any point during the match, to basically reset the game for their side (by bubbling and healing up both parties). The only times we have won is if we can get them separated, in Blades Edge for example, with the Pally out of LoS of the warrior - then I can CC him to keep him off. In Lordaeron - forget it, they will just burn me down, wait for me to shift out to heal, stun me and kill me.

[Fynne]

How do I not embarass double-glaive rogues everywhere by being completely mediocre at non-ganking PvP?

[Fhenrir]

Warr/Druid.

We recently hit Ret/Holy twice and Ret/Shockadin (I think). Pallys in general are tough for me to deal with (Warr/Pally, ret/priest even saw rogue/healadin and had a little trouble).

Warr/Pal is the most common we hit - I try to prehot, hit bear and run while trying to get in some kind of CC, but with BoF taking off spamstring and roots, the warrior is on me the whole time except for the duration of the fear bomb (which isn't really that long) and the pally has the ability, at any point during the match, to basically reset the game for their side (by bubbling and healing up both parties). The only times we have won is if we can get them separated, in Blades Edge for example, with the Pally out of LoS of the warrior - then I can CC him to keep him off. In Lordaeron - forget it, they will just burn me down, wait for me to shift out to heal, stun me and kill me.


The best thing you can do as warrior/druid against warrior/paladin is to play defensively, your warrior especially. He needs to help keep pressure off you, and he can help do that by keeping hamstring up on both the warrior and the paladin. Since freedom can only hit one of them, you want to put distance between them as soon as you can with hamstring up. After distance has been built (usually the pally will fall behind) you can feral charge after JoJ is down and try to get some distance. You'll also want to coordinate your warrior intervening you at the proper times to absorb hamstrings and intercepting/disarming the warrior to additionally keep off pressure.

You've got the advantage on CC (being a druid), but they have the advantage on offensive potential/burst (holyshock, JoR, etc). What it comes down to is out-defensing their offense, if that makes sense. The more coordinated you are with your warrior in getting people off of you at key times and keeping both of them from catching up with you, the better. You're usually in for a long fight if both teams are competent, and your warrior can't really rely on gunning for either the warrior or pally 100% of the time. Be ready to target swap with CC.


Regarding double paladin teams (ret/shockadin, ret/holy?) I really don't know what to say, but aside from a little burst potential those teams really shouldn't be able to take you down. Your warrior may need to be playing more defensively here as well.


As far as rogue/holy goes, it's similar to warrior/holy except that rogue will be more glued to you than the warrior would be. Your warrior should be glued to the rogue most of the match. If the rogue is after you the warrior should be able to keep up enough hamstring/stuns/CC to keep the rogue from decimating you, and eventually the rogue should be taking enough extra damage that you can out-mana the pally (you'll probably have more chances to drink than the pally). Another long fight awaits you here.


All in all in general, without actually being able to watch you play, it sounds like you could use to try and coordinate a little better with your warrior; and get him to tunnel vision a little less. I could very well be mistaken, but it seems to me he isn't giving you the support you need to survive in those tough spots.

Much like Maithanet never gives me the support I need when I'm in a tough spot.

[Fhenrir]

How do I not embarass double-glaive rogues everywhere by being completely mediocre at non-ganking PvP?

Spec 20/0/41, get a rogue/mage/druid on your team, cooldown zerg.

You've got access to stupid amounts of PvE gear and the most overtuned rogue racial at the moment (perception), so I'm not sure what problem you'd be having. Anything more specific you're having trouble with or have questions about?

[Moknim]

Its the hair Fynne, you can't win with that hair.

Thanks for the tips Fhen.

[Fynne]

Well, we just get murdered. I was doing rogue/rogue earlier, one of my rogues said it's a good comp. We ran into shaman / war, got murdered because we couldn't take the warrior down before the shaman got out of sap / 2x blind. Then we went up against priest / druid and they just double-healed and whittled us down.

Basically... I suck. I'm half convinced that he sucks too though, because apparently (according to him) it's crazy easy to do as rogue/rogue.

[Advurb]

rogue/rogue really isn't that great. It's viable, but not great.

[Thalarios]

Hey Fynne.

Nudge nudge.

[Fynne]

Couldn't be any worse than rogue/rogue, right?

[Thalarios]

Couldn't be any worse than rogue/rogue, right?

Not at all.

Besides, I'm doing 2s with a BM hunter right now, we managed to grab 1650.

[Kaliera]

When the hell did this section of the forums pop up?

[Qabian]

For Fynne: Rogue/Rogue (http://www.arenajunkies.com/showthread.php?t=41799). The part about the matchups and tips is probably most informative.

[Fhenrir]

Well, we just get murdered. I was doing rogue/rogue earlier, one of my rogues said it's a good comp. We ran into shaman / war, got murdered because we couldn't take the warrior down before the shaman got out of sap / 2x blind. Then we went up against priest / druid and they just double-healed and whittled us down.

Basically... I suck. I'm half convinced that he sucks too though, because apparently (according to him) it's crazy easy to do as rogue/rogue.

Rogue/rogue is plenty viable, especially if one or both of you is capable of running a mix of PvE/PvP gear (think running 4pc T6 and 4pc S4 gear. Yum).

Against resto shaman/warrior you want to be on the shaman, throwing an early blind on the warrior and popping double evasion as he breaks it and gets to you. I recommend installing a mod to keep track of diminishing returns on blind, so as soon as it fades your other rogue can blind the warrior for another full 10 second blind. Combining that with your raw DPS output, you should be able to take down the shaman in that time and then escape to take the warrior down 2v1.

Also recommend coordinating your interrupts on the shaman via vent. Calling out who gets which kick, gouge, vanish garotte, etc will make your time taking him down considerably easier.


Against healy priest/healy druid? Um... I'm not positive, but I'd say either could be viable burn targets. Be ready for quick target swaps. You could always split DPS too if necessary, keep either of them from really doing anything.

Maybe pressure the druid into trying to escape, then Shsing to the priest and burning him before the druid can react? You've got a lot of options you could employ against it.


When the hell did this section of the forums pop up?

As a fellow Gladiator I'm insulted you weren't privy to these forums sooner. Scrub. (Check the rules sticky, I posted that about 10 minutes after these forums came into creation)

[Gutslag]

I am fairly new to a PVP server, and to playing a warrior. At this point i am lvl 43, and specced arms, i have MS. In BG's, and questing i can handle my own. It seems that my problem is in 1v1, especially with a particular rogue. After doing some research, i have found that my gear is uber important. So trying to PVP with old gear is no good. I have also learned that speccing Arms is good for PVP.

So what else can i do to be a more solid Warrior PVPer. should i learn to use berserker stance more? I havent really mastered stance switching as it's not needed to quest. Should i learn to run around and jump more often? I tend to stand and swing?
any tips would be immensely helpful on this.

[Yatokth]

I am fairly new to a PVP server, and to playing a warrior. At this point i am lvl 43, and specced arms, i have MS. In BG's, and questing i can handle my own. It seems that my problem is in 1v1, especially with a particular rogue. After doing some research, i have found that my gear is uber important. So trying to PVP with old gear is no good. I have also learned that speccing Arms is good for PVP.

So what else can i do to be a more solid Warrior PVPer. should i learn to use berserker stance more? I havent really mastered stance switching as it's not needed to quest. Should i learn to run around and jump more often? I tend to stand and swing?
any tips would be immensely helpful on this.

Well here's the basics man - (Hi-jackin your thread Fhen, since he's in my guild. :P)

Berserker stance is generally good because it has pummel and intercept - two very powerful abilities. One can interrupt casters who cast things you don't want on you - like polymorph.

However, with the new patch, AND against rogues, you want to be in battle stance - for Overpower. Rogues dodge alot, and you can use overpower for alot of damage with a high crit chance (if you have imp overpower, which ya should) on them multiple times. Also, with the new patch, there's a new talent that lets Rend have a 30% chance on every tick to let you use Overpower whether or not they dodged - so it's actually worth keeping up rend on your target and staying in battle stance.

As for combat movement, you don't need to jump much (I mean you can, it won't kill you and it may make your opponent go OCD pissed. -shrug-) but you should always try and keep your opponent's back to you. That way, they can't attack you (out of line of sight) and can't cast spells (see before) and you can't be parried, dodged, or blocked. You won't stay there all the time as they'll be moving to, but that's the general idea.

[Taknar]

Holy Priests and Lightwell. Apparently come 3.0.3 this is the ability that lets us PvP in this spec again. What would you recommend for a 2s or 3s team setup, and what strategy would you recommend?