PvP specc?Follow

Dear fellow mages, I have been grinding some relatively good PvP gear over some period of time and am now sitting at 9.8k unbuffed HP, 369 resil and 779 spelldamage (still lacking gloves and ring-enchants) I do PvP as a frost mage and am now experiencing, that I cannot down any decent geared healer.

10k+ unbuffed HP and somewhere around 400 resil just make them too tough for me to bite through before some of their buddys come or I go oom and die. I cannot stop resto druids from running, even if I want to. And their shapeshifting doesn't seem to cost too much mana compared to their resto-manapool. I feel, that this somewhat lowers my usefulness to arena teams a lot, if I cannot even take out the healer. I have even seen that we went for the healer with 2 frostmages, and didn't manage to get him down, and I can tell you the other mage was A LOT better geared than I myself am (and I'm full epic).

I don't know, probably I just need better gear and more skill, but I cannot see why any really serious team should take me, when there are some classes, that will dps more in their PvP- specc and even do it as long as the healers mana can keep them alive.

Also I have some trouble to find a good arena setup for me in 2v2 (the easiest one to find and maintain), after seeing some video about 2.2k rated all-mage-team for 2v2, I even tried out that, but we usually die before we can nuke those f'ing uber healers because that BM hunter Is just pumping arrows up our asses while we chase some unrootable healer through the arena.

It might all be different when I hit 400 resil+ and can find some 3v3 team of the same quality, but I also don't see why they should take me, when I can be outdamaged by many of the classes in their PvP-gear and speccs, while some of them are even useful to drain the enemy healers mana...

All in all I'm so far not too convinced of the frost specc as some other mages seem to be for PvP. Has anyone tried fire in serious PvP out since IB became available from trainer, and is it worth it, or is frost really the only option we got?

I could imagine, that Dragon's breath;scorch; Fireblast; blastwave; silence;2x scorch; freeze and IL spam could seriously harm some of those annoying classes, but thats just theory to me and I'm also afraight that all those nice firespells have a quite low spelldamge coefficient (.13 for the aoe and .45 or so for scorch)

So what would you recommend to a mage who will soon hit 400 resil and 800+ SD? -stay frost and get better team and skills, or try fire or some other specc?

Thank you, I appreciate every qualified anwer I get, because they are all useful in a way.

Question is: will this build perform good versus the classes I have most problems with? I hope it will, because I'm afraight to sacrifice the stuff thats really performing good against some classes (Frost for rogues, shammys, warriors)and not really getting anything better for the classes that I have problems with as frostmage.

IMO whats missing most of the time is some additional lockdown ability, to prevent that saving heal from my enemy, like rogues who stunlock **** down. Thats why I thought DB was gonna help, but the additional damage output I could gain from your build is also appealing.... Well, Probably I'll just get some more enchants, a nice MH-OH combo (since they are giving more SD then a staff) and try out some builds for myself.

I was mainly asking, because I thought I was probably out of touch with whats going on, and some of the highest rated mages suddenly use Fire or deep arcane or something else, just because some classes have become a real pain to fight. Just making sure Not everyone is like: "didn't you know that O.o this build is now muuuuch better..." ^^

Well first off: I'm not saying we lost EVERY fight we ran into, but it was never enough wins with any setup I tried to actually constantly rate up over the 1.6k rating.

Reason why I do not try to burst down That "sucky geared mage"? Well probably beacause my burstdamge is looserlike in arena situations where its too hard to use shattercombos with frostbolt, so with pain supression and the 1.6k priestshield I might end up getting owned. On top of that I must say, that I rarely meet ANY really sucky geared team in the past.... many seem to consist of s2/s3 geared guys who wanna get some record-rating in like one week, and those ruin our rating...

Well I tried 2v2 with disc priest, shadow priest and mage +me. Also a hunter, but he kinda sucked. 3v3 with mage, shammy and me; and also 2x Rogue + me; and also holy pally, rogue +me

As I said I might very well grap the PvP trinket for 400+ resil and search for some non- 2v2 team that has 400 resil+, this might make a nice difference to my previous 250 resil+ partners in the past(The other mage had 2 s3 and 3 s2 pieces and kinda 430 resil or something like that). But all in all I do not think that all my partners sucked, since the s-priest had some nice damage gear also...

Only thing is that some setups are just terribly hard to beat... hunter stands in the middle, shoots mana drain shot-thing at our pally, warlock dots our team up and mana-drains, we chase their Resto and get stopped by the lock who just prevents the drood from getting stunlocked by the rogue by fearing it and shooting some deathcoils.... end of story: healer oom, their healer: not even scratched because I just couldn't damage hard enough and was unable to stop him, we loose.
To stay fair it has to be said that these also were some of those geared teams trying to get their rating up fast.

When I see some team like that I'm just thinking that with my current specc I wouldn't have a place in this team, because I cannot do some cool mana-drain, and in exchange for lacking any really useful abilty I also do lame dps, because I rely on crits, who get all nerfed by resil, and also many guys are unfreezable or just outheal my attempts to nuke them down fast... Thats why I thought Frost is so weak compared to some other class- ablities that there must be a stronger specc for arena...

BE AWARE HOWEVR: I do not think frost sucks in PvP in general, in the wide spaces of BGs and 1on1 I own many guys, and I do not feel looserlike at all.
Just that you don't think I'm some stupid whiner. I'm just of the opinion, that some classes just have some really unfairly useful stuff for arena compared to me. In BGs I can beat most classes exept some of the hardest ones for mages (I'm just not uber enough for some guys), but in arena I just see my lower dps, my CC that'll break on any damage and encountered by 1 million abilities and items in the game and still only last 10 secs at best if nothing is done about it. Also my lacking ability to get enemies oom or nuke healers. But just as I said: probably its just some problems with my skill and gear+ the ones of my partners, so I think I'll try taking the whole stuff to the next level with a thought-through team and better gear.

I know exactly how to play it, and I'm telling you it's terrible for PVP, especially duel dps 2v2. What happens when you need to target switch? Oh that's right, you can't, you have a fire dot on the target. What happens when you need 4 seconds of silence on a druid? You can't, no imp counterspell. You have no interupts, you don't even have dragons breath.

Saying "under 1900 it might be good" has no meaning, because different battlegroups are vastly different. Come on my battlegroup, the second you form an arena team you're fighting people in season 2 and 3 gear. Last season's gladiators from my server are barely hovering around the 2k mark right now. I'm talking SL/SL locks with resto partners in full season 3 gear. Warriors with skillherald and a resto partner. Right off the bat, at 1500 you have to learn how to fight geared resto druid/hunter/warrior/warlock teams.

Theres no room for bad specs/bad gear or bad setups. You'll get walked all over down to 1100 then you'll still face the occasion team of rivals who force their ratings down on purpose, only to bring it back to 1850 to sell some scrub a season 3 rating for 1000g. This isn't season 1 anymore, arena is ruthless.

Look mate, I have no idea what rating you are on, or what you are exactely talking about. No offense, but I tried CCing healers several times. The tactic you are proposing sounds in theory good to me, IF: the healer is no paladin; the other dps is smart enough to attack you, meaning you won't CC the healer, he will heal->you won't get healed->you die->your rogue is 2v1; The healer is no resto drood, who is for me un-CC-able; The enemy team consists of exactely what I was mentioning: 2 good dps-ers who are survival monsters like hunters, when you will look your hp bar after 15 secs of the fight, and will be like: "how in hell did this happen", while your rogue sits in frosttrap. That are those scenarios that made me think: I'm not very much worth for arena-teams in this specc/gear, there must be something missing.

When we fight 2 hunters for example, I must say, I DO worry about my dps, when they both go all red, deal for some reason more damge than mages and are suddenly not controllable at all, not even with my "uber CCs". When I do even less dps than normal in this case beacause they remain unfreezeable, I do think that doing more DPS is an issue right at this point, just because IB won't last long enough, and healers cannot outheal them when their mana is drained....

Soloing, and BG-PvP is all fun, but when it comes down to it I just thought I was missing something ´that made mages "so strong in PvP". But it somehow seems to me, that mages can rule BGs if they are good even against every other class, and loose arena, no matter what skill and gear. THIS is what made me think some other specc might be good.

BTW, didn't players get immune to shep after 3 tries? Making it impossible to interrupt heals when CS is on cooldown? Just a thought however.

But just as I said: before I start some big whining-session, starting to review all that I do not like about other classes, I will grap myself a 400 resil+ arena team and try find some good setup for me as a frostmage and then we shall see, if noone wants me I know why :P, they just got stuff straight.

*edit* So if your rogue cannot beat some s3 warrior, who is reflecting the occasinal spells you toss him back to you (so its nearly 1on1) he sucks and needs replacement... Whats your rating again? I mean I wouldn't like to get kicked for being unable to dodge 3k overpower- crits and those goodies, while I do like 200 dps...

Edited, Feb 6th 2008 6:08pm by Groarr

You didn't study that 2v2 mage video enough, they always go for the DPS first while controlling the healer. Thats just how arena works, and it's why bad teams stay low rated and good teams can rise to the top. It takes lots of communication, teamwork, a full understanding of DR's, quick thinking, LoS and so much more.

Mage/mage isn't quite ideal but it can still work well.

Just know that sheep will go 10s / 5s / 2.5s / immune, then 15 seconds after the last sheep it will reset on a target.

Lets say you sheep a priest, he trinkets, your partner sheeps again (this one is 5 seconds, no trinket), then sheeps again when that wears off (2.5s). Thats 7.5 seconds of doing nothing, more if you count the first sheep he had to trinket. Follow this immediately with an improved counterspell, then your partners, theres another 8 seconds.

You need /focus macros, you need to dps in the right spot. You need to keep healers in your LoS and know when to use frost nova offensive for shatter combos vs. defensively to keep someone from ducking behind a pole. You need CC timers so your 3rd sheep hits the millisecond the 2nd one wears off.

Now it might be a pally who will bubble out of sheep and heal uninterupted for 10 seconds, but so what? Both of you ice block when the pally bubbles and start again. If pally blessing of freedoms the teammate, spellsteal it.

In that video theres an example of fighting pally teams and it was pretty sweet what they did. Good pallies will throw up blessing of sacrifice when they're getting chain sheeped. Any damage breaks sheep, BoSac redirects some of the target damage to the paladin. So the mages spellsteal the pallies partner to grab that BoSac, then immediately click it off themselves so when they take damage, they won't break their own sheep. It seems simple but that part made me go "OH SNAP" when I watched it.

Edited, Feb 6th 2008 9:59pm by mikelolol

Thanks a lot, first time I actually get really useful tips for playing, rather than getting flamed, after criticising something.

Seems like you are totally right, the part I forgot was teamplay... And probably also some wrong tactics I used here and there.

Also It might be, that we gave up after some teams that were so hard that we were nearly annihilated (the mage and me). If I recall right it was a few resto-druid teams, followed by 2 BM-hunters and a dual rogue team 2 times in a row, and the normal losses. Also some good geared pally+ warrior, where the pally just ran around the cover, and the dazing shout from warrior+ bubble+ BoF made it hard to impossible to get control over the fight. When I review it I must say we probably gave up a little early, but it was really all in one row, and I must say, I wasn't too eager to drop my rating even more.

We tried getting TS, but somehow my microphone doesn't work, so I was just able to hear my partner, but he couldn't hear me.

1on1 I actually don't really have problems, well good geared BM-hunters will kill me in like 90% of the cases, and resto druids just run away, without me being able to do anything, but apart from some classes who are really pretty hard, they need to be really good geared and skilled to be challanging for me.

But the bottomline is: teams composed of the really hard classes ( resto-druid;BM-hunter;Rogue) are usually winning us, especially druid-teams.

I will try studying those classes better, and also try finding a nice rogue, This will probably help. But does anyone have any thoughts on those really hard teams? I mean CCable teams are not the ones concerning me most.

Situation I love most: IB and cold snap on CD, trinket also. I get cheap-shotted->I think: what a noob and blink->shadowstep, backstab-> sheeping try-> kick-> 15 secs of waiting in stun for death. There are various versions of this happening, also without 3 CDs
Or: Resto-druid as healer->simply unfair... I mean just for the record: use mainly instants, unCCable for mages, don't need to mount to run away from anything, can outheal raid-bosses. Not saying unbeatable, cuz there is still the chance of their players having a stroke, or their PC crashing, but this way they might still fall on their keyboard with their head and still outheal me -.-
Or: 2BM-hunters enter the arena, traget me, cuz my gear looks worse-> stand on the spot and nukenukenukenuke-> I watch my HP-bar and think: nerf hunters...

Just a thought: Is it possible to out-dps BM-hunters by just popping elemental, pop trinket and AM+ fireblast until dead with the help of some waterbolts, and Iceblock when it gets too bad?

There is allways a way to beat another player . even druids ***** up . some druids think they are so good that thei burn their mana to fast. but never the less you can beat every other class if you know how , and in 2 vs 2 teamwork is the key.


Just focuse on controling a target . if it means you need to waste all cds to keep him from doing what he is suppose to then do it .

All you need is to learn by watching how other classes play and look for a weakness

WEll first of all as a mage . rogue is your best partner. so nuking the druid is allways an option. atleast for me .

Most druid teams got a warrior dps simply cc him and nuke the druid . he cant outheal and run from a mage that can slow him silence and a rogue with stun effects . no druid can escape that.