Totem & Ankh - A little PVP, Shaman-style
WoW Blogs - Totem & Ankh Shaman Blog
It’s a treat to sit down at the Totem & Ankh and have time to breathe and reflect on all things wonderful and shamtastic. The best part of being a shaman remains all the incredible ways we can experience the many facets of the game.
Over the last week my guild and I have been working to do Ulduar 10 hard modes for the Glory of the Ulduar Raider (10 player) achievement which includes the Rusted Proto-Drake as a reward. We’ve also partnered with another guild to get some Icecrown Citadel 25 player progression, which has gotten us to 9/12 bosses with just Blood Queen, Sindragosa and Lich King left to do.
With Cataclysm looming – and I’m not one of those who anticipates it– I’ve been trying to get as much content explored, enjoyed and ACHIEVED as possible before certain areas get destroyed. Every raid reset, I’m back in Zul’Gurub going for the Swift Zulian Tiger mount. I’ve gotten exalted reputation with the Zandalar tribe just by going into ZG 2-3 times a week and just killing the mount bosses for the last 15 months. About a month ago I got the raptor and I love him, so now it’s just the tiger.
One of the little side projects I’ve had going lately is PVP. I’ve always enjoyed it, even back in the olden days when I brought my holy priest and was totally clueless, following a protection warrior friend around and keeping him alive. Oh, the bad old days of single specs, when gold was so dear most people didn’t respect on a whim! Now, I feel fairly confident going into most battlegrounds with Savoire and I’m trying to get my PVP set together. I still don’t have a PVP spec. Mostly, I go in with my raid restoration spec and follow someone around, usually a friend who does have a PVP spec, and heal him and anyone else in range. This works pretty well, and since he’s a rogue, one of our favorite strategies is me pretending to look sneaky in Ghost Wolf form while he’s stealthed. Of course, I’m still visible and some ally comes along to do me in, and he comes out of stealth and surprise! Bye bye ally. If there is more than one, a well-timed hex saves the day.
I’ve been crazy about Wintergrasp, trying to go when I can. On my server, we are hugely outnumbered by allies, something like 15 allies for every 1 horde player, last I heard. It could be worse now. Tenacity is not much help. However, we can frequently pull off a win in the very late hours of the night, around 3am server time, and even outnumber the allied forces. As I’ve been collecting honor, I’m trying to improve my gear and have a nice set for playing around in. I know that it will all be meaningless once Cata hits, but the experience and fun still makes it worthwhile.
So what does the come-lately shaman do for PVP prep? First off, if you don’t do anything else, use totems for pvp. I usually use tremor totem, searing totem, cleansing totem, and grounding totem. Occasionally, I’ll pop earth bind totem instead, but I have more trouble with fear in most cases than I do with needing to restrict other people’s movement. I know stoneclaw totem is really valuable, but since I’m not specced or glyphed for it, I tend not to use it. I think if I were doing arena, it would be a must.
Make sure you try to do Vault of Archavon on 10 player and 25 player every week if you can. I can’t always because we get WG so rarely and usually in the middle of the night, but there is some nice PVP gear if you’re lucky to have it drop and win the roll. Toravon especially has some nice items.
When choosing between spending honor on items with mp5 versus crit, which should you choose? I almost never have problems with mana unless some shadow priest is mana burning me and then I pop a mana tide totem once the pesky priest is dead – or sooner if the situation is dire. So I choose the crit items. I also like to have a little bit of hit where I can to help with the hexing and frost shock, but mostly I go for stamina and crit when looking at comparable gear and gems. Early research shows that mp5 is more important for arena matches, but in my experience in battlegrounds and Wintergrasp, lack of mana hasn't been an issue.
I head over to the pvp quartermaster. I bought Wrathful Gladiator’s Pendant of Dominance, which has crit. I want to replace Conqueror’s Worldbreaker Headpiece next. I’ve got Relentless Gladiator’s Mail Helm in my sights. I have the Emblems of Frost to buy it, but I like using honor points and arena points to buy my PVP gear and I don’t have enough arena points. I decide to spend my EOF on the helm. Now I have the 4pc set bonus, which is very nice. With the set I have a +100 resilience rating, spell power increased by 88, and the cool down on my grounding totem is reduced by 1.5 seconds.
First pvp in my new gear and we win Wintergrasp, so that’s a big YAY! J In Arathi Basin, the shorter cool down on my grounding totem has saved me more than once. Nothing seemed to help in Strand of the Ancients, so I guess I’ll just have to keep trying. I think the best way to describe my venture into Warsong Gulch is “painful”.
I still have some gear to upgrade. My shoulders need to be upgraded next and I’d like a new trinket. If I can get some arena points through the random battleground queue, I’ll use those and honor to upgrade my shoulders. The soft cap for resilience is 1414.5. I had been aiming for 1000 but as I get close to it, I think aiming for 1414.5 is better and within my grasp.
I need to research a lot more. I use arena junkies and elitist jerks for much of my pvp research. I want to know all the best enchants and gems for my new gear. I may even get some glyphs to switch out for when I do pvp. Since I have my inscriptor alt, it won’t be a big drain on my funds to switch glyphs for a day of pvp and then back for raiding. There are even pvp specific macros and addons that could come in handy.
Considering gemming, I do have a jewel craft alt who can help me play with different kinds of gems. Early research shows that gemming for resilience and spell penetration might be the way to go. As always, I’ll keep posting about my research and changes.
There is so much information out there and I want to pvp somewhat casually, as another aspect to the game which I enjoy rather than totally serious and out for blood.
Last Updated on Monday, 11 October 2010 22:50 Written by Savoire Monday, 11 October 2010 16:01