by C. Christian Moore
Offense vs. defense
4 DPS teams are offensive quintets (even the healers participate in damage most of the time) that use incredible damage to accomplish quick wins and losses. They’re often referred to as “zerg teams.” Silly StarCraft references.
When I first started playing arena, a friend much more PvP-experienced than myself explained to me the difference between two-healer team and 4 DPS: “A two-healer team is a balanced fighting force, using positional and defensive advantages to their advantage. Think of a castle, fortified with archers and boiling oil. A 4 DPS team is more akin to a juggernaut, barreling through walls and relying on brute force. Sometimes the castle wins; sometimes the battering ram is successful. The lines of attack and defense are much different, however.”
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by C. Christian Moore
Drain teams were exceptionally successful in The Burning Crusade, so much so that developers went out of their way to make burst damage, and only burst damage, a successful strategy in Wrath of the Lich King. The problem, of course, was that it went completely overboard, and we were stuck looking at extreme dominance from classes that did best under high-burst-damage conditions.
In season eight, we’re seeing a return to some strategies that try to get an enemy’s mana to 0 percent before they make a serious attempt to kill anything.
I have a special place in my heart for drain comps. My first No. 1 title came from playing a drain team with fellow gladiators; it was our first time hitting No. 1 together and it was an amazing time. I probably sounded like a little girl when I screamed ridiculously loud as I saw that coveted title attached to my character’s name.
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by Chase Christian
Energy is simple to model and even simpler to use; no ability is more than 6 seconds away. The system has seen constant upgrades since its humble origins, though its core functionality has remained unaltered. It’s become a crucial part of our mindset, and it defines the experience of playing a rogue. I had an old friend that used to say that all true rogues set their watches to only tick every 2 seconds. What is about energy that keeps it marching on so reliably?
Energy has come a long way
Energy hasn’t always been quite as amazing as it is in today’s environment. Originally, it was generated in 20 energy chunks every 2 seconds, which was incredibly clunky. You could be just 5 energy short of using Kick against a clutch enemy ability and get stuck waiting for a full 2 seconds before you’d see your next energy tick. Luckily, in Wrath, Blizzard’s dev team smoothed out energy generation, and we now see 10 individual energy ticks every second. The new regeneration model helps us pull of more clutch Kicks, Blinds and Dismantles, as well as allowing us to squeeze out every last drop of DPS.
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by C. Christian Moore
Understanding why certain 5v5s work is as important to 5v5 success as understanding your own class. Last week, we talked about why some healing pairs (such as paladin-priest and druid-priest) have been historically successful. Today, we’ll be discussing DPS trios on a two-healer team.
The necessity of healing debuffs
Simply glancing at the SK-100′s 5v5 rankings, one can see the vast majority of teams use a 50 percent healing debuff. Mortal Strike, Wound Poison or Aimed Shot is almost required on a two-healer 5v5. I say almost because some teams have been successful without the assistance of warriors, rogues or hunters — but they are very rare.
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by C. Christian Moore
I started enjoying 5v5 at the end of season two. For a large part of my time in WoW, 5v5 was by far and wide my favorite arena bracket. It’s also the bracket I’ve gotten most of my rank #1 titles from (clearly no coincidence to being my favorite bracket *wink*).
The 5v5 bracket is a far different beast than 2v2 or 3v3 and is far more misunderstood. I’ve met 2v2 and 3v3 gladiators who just cannot comprehend the differences in the 5v5 bracket. 5v5 is the Rodney Dangerfield of arena. The bracket just doesn’t get enough respect. The biggest misconception centers around 5v5 being a “zerg” bracket.
You like how I throw around StarCraft terms like cowpies? Mhmm.
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by Fox Van Allen
we’re going to run down the list of the top ten most popular shadow priest glyphs and pick them apart, one by one. Hopefully, in the process, we can get rid of your cookie cutter build and find you a great new set of glyphs that matches your play style.
1. Glyph of Shadow Word: Pain
According to wowpopular, more shadow priests take the Glyph of Shadow Word: Pain than any other. Its popularity can probably be pinned to two factors.
First, it used to be a much better glyph. In the old 3.2 days, the glyph was a damage-increasing necessity that made our ticks of Mind Flay more powerful. Given the state of shadow priest damage back then, it was all but required for raiding. A solid chunk of shadow priests still hold on to this as a relic of that time.
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by C. Christian Moore
Goals The No. 1 issue players have to deal with when they decide to go for gladiator isn’t about gear, teammates or even skill. If you are a dedicated raider in a competitive progression guild, you can relate to what we’ll be discussing today. The issue is the desire to attain goals and sacrifices that must be made.
Some players want gladiator far more than others, just like some players want to be the first on their realms (or first in the world) to slay dragons. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t care a whole lot about slaying dragons. I was once in a top 50 U.S. guild but left it because raiding required too many hours — hours that could be spent playing arena (which I enjoy considerably more) or doing necessary IRL stuff.
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by C. Christian Moore
Cataclysm is still a while off, and now is as good a time as any to start PvPing. If nothing else, PvP gear is some of the best leveling gear around. The mix of offensive stats plus massive resilience gives you little downtime.
Wintergrasp
Do Wintergrasp every time it’s available. Wintergrasp tokens can be exchanged for honor if you aren’t going to use the gear that the tokens can buy. Several quests award lots of honor, as well; make sure to do them each time they become available.
If you are on a server where your faction is severely outnumbered, take the time to craft a PvP spec that can take advantage of Tenacity. For instance, if you are a warlock, you might want to consider a spec which uses Metamorphosis. I’ve heard of warlocks mashing Demon Charge into Immolation Aura, killing off 20+ players of the enemy faction and making 3,000ish honor in the matter of 10 to 15 seconds. Seriously, I’ve seen screenshots.
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by Chase Christian
I often see players talking about their experiences in PvP, sometimes in trade chat or a battleground. Almost inevitably, after a few minutes of chatting, the old stereotypes about each class start coming out. They’ll start complaining about paladins having three lives, due to Divine Shield and Lay on Hands. They’ll label any arena composition with a warlock as a “drain team,” even though warlocks are clearly capable of massive burst damage now. If there’s an arena team composition that they don’t like to face, that comp is immediately labeled as cheesy or unskilled.
I don’t really care if warlocks get a bum rap, it’s up to them to convince the public that they can nuke too. What I am concerned about is that rogues have been stereotyped since the earliest days of vanilla WoW, and we need to break that cycle. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I would suggest watching the World of Roguecraft films. These early pieces of WoW machinima firmly cemented rogues as stunlocking gods in the minds of thousands of players. Even now, with Cataclysm putting the final nails in stunlocking’s coffin, we will still be thought of as dirty fighters that need to be nerfed.
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by Daniel Whitcomb
With Wrath more or less winding down and only the Ruby Sanctum before us at some nebulous point in the future, a lot of us are wandering around with full PvE gear and currency tabs full of emblems looking for a place to go. One easy place to let off some of that steam is with PvP. Be it arena, battlegrounds or (admittedly pretty rare these days) world PvP, this article will give you some basic tips to get yourself squared away with the gear and spec you need to start off on the right foot.
This is by no means a complete guide to absolutely every aspect of death knight PvP. This’ll help you get your feet wet and get properly geared, but there’s always more to learn, especially in the dynamic, ever-changing world of PvP combat strategy and tactics. Still, nothing gives you a better start on the road to skill than a good foundation in stats and speccing, so let’s start this up.
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