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 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 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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This is what happened:
I used Divine Sacrifice in 2on2 Rated ( EU ) while playing with my hunter mate. During the duration of Divine Sacrifice, the opponents killed the hunters pet, which caused me to take like 88k damage ( obviously insta-gibbed me )

http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/3620/divinesacrifise.jpg

I can not confirm, that this also works with Warlock-Pets or Deathknight-Pets. Could be useful in 3s though, since there are a lot more Hunter/Paladin/x Comps.

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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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by C. Christian Moore

The alliance have historically had worse PvP racials than their horde counterparts, but this might have changed in WotLK.

Remember back to a time when race changes didn’t exist. In vanilla WoW and The Burning Crusade, players had to reroll or deal with the racials that they originally chose, even if those racials got nerfed or buffed. These racials were also far more imbalanced than they are today, which added insult to injury for certain race / class combinations.

Dwarf

Stoneform: Activate to remove poison, disease, and bleed effects; +10% Armor; Lasts 8 seconds. 2 minute cooldown.

This racial is a shadow of what it once was. Pre-WotLK, this racial would give a 8 second immunity to poison, disease, and bleed effects. The difference is enormous — removing a 50% healing debuff in Wound Poison for an 8 second window allowed the dwarf to receive some massive heals. The racial was also on a three minute cooldown, but most PvPers will tell you that the shortened cooldown does not make up for the 8 second immunity. Dwarf priests and hunters had a much easier time surviving against rogues in The Burning Crusade, which is probably the reason the racial was nerfed for WotLK.

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by C. Christian Moore

Tauren

War Stomp: Activate to stun opponents – Stuns up to 5 enemies within 8 yards for 2 seconds. 2 minute cooldown.

This might just be personal bias, but I absolutely love War Stomp. It’s a racial that is often under-utilized — I see PvPers trying to use it defensively a lot of times. This thing is nothing short of an extra stun in a kill-target lockdown repertoire. It can also double as a silence to interrupt healers.

While War Stomp isn’t strictly better than Arcane Torrent, it comes pretty close. War stomp has a .5 second cast time, but works on everyone (silencing melee doesn’t do that much). The .5 second cast time can actually be a benefit, as you have more time off the global cooldown once the ability affects your target.

For an active racial (as opposed to a passive racial), it doesn’t get any better than War Stomp.

Endurance: Base health increased by 5%.

Because it’s only base health, this isn’t a big deal. If someone can tell me exactly how much hp this is, that would be awesome.

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