Returning to Game

Playboy

Hi all. Just want a bit of advice/help. I played DAoC for about 4 years and moved to WoW during open beta with my guild. The Guild was very pvp orientated so it was a rush to 60 and straight to pvp. Most of us hated pve so we avoided raids like the plague and focused on getting the pvp gear. Now nearly all of us were disappointed by the pvp (this was pre AB) in WoW and most of us quit the game and went our seperate ways .. some back to DAoC, some to guildwars and some to Battlefield etc. I went back to DAoC for a while but I'm bored to death of it and I've lost interest in BF2 and BF2142. So I decided to reopen my wow acct and give it another go but i have to admit I'm completely lost. I'm guildless and have been spending my time in AV and AB (Alliance suck at WSG for some reason) trying to get HP to buy the PVP epic gear.

So my questions really are;

1. What is the best PVP spec for a mage? (I'm a gnome)
2. Do people run opted groups for AB, AV and WSG and how do I find more information on best grp setups etc.
3. As a mage what is my role in PVP and PVE .. that is what is expected of me by my party members?
4. Can I get away with avoiding raids or do i need to go for leveling in the new expansion and getting the best gear?
5. Where can I find more info on the best tactics for my class Vs. other classes. Hunters and warlocks seem to destroy me everytime.
6. Anyone here play on burning legion Alliance? What server do most peeps here play on .. I would consider getting my character transferred if there was a friendly Irish guild willing to take me. I'm on a pvp server atm and afaik you cant transfer to another pvp server .. is this right?

Thanks!

Ivan

1. Best PvP spec currently (imho) is 40/11/0 or 41/0/10.
With 40/11/0 You have all the burst of Arcane power, Prescense of mind/Pyroblast combination fo ye olde 3 minute mages combined with some ridiculously good Arcane Missiles. Depending on spell damage you can crit for ~1k+ with missiles and still throw out a 4.5k pyroblast once every 3 minutes.

Come level 70, 40/0/21 will be the way to go. With double frost nova, frostbite, shatter, ice lance and ice block, combined with all the other previous goodies I've previously mentioned... mages will be quite powerful.

2. For "pre-mades" as they are called, most people just group with their guild for voice coms/class balance. You will get the odd random PUG premade which will pretty much suck just as much if as if you were joining solo, perhaps even more so. As the majority of people who join those pug premades either suck or have crappy gear, or both.

3. Mage role in PvP is pretty easy actually. Snare/root the melee classes. Crowd Control the priests/paladins. Counterspell the other casters where appropriate and then just general ranged dps.

4. Now is actually the perfect time to restart playing WoW as all gear will be reset over the course of leveling from 60-70. All the gear people spent the last 2 years or so collecting, is made redundant in a matter of weeks. For an example, by level 63 you will replace most or all Tier 1 items with better gear. By 65-66 you'll have replaced Tier 2 items and by level 67-68 you'll replace Tier 3.

The PvP gear at 70 (Arena and whatnot) blows the current PvP gear out of the water. The only point being the better your gear now, the quicker you can level up to the point where you can start replacing gear.

Once everyone is 70 again for a few months, it'll be back to the same old PvE/Raid grinding. Though to a much lesser extent, or so I'm told.

5. Probably best places that I can think of is here and the class or PvP forums. Though the official forums are generally plastered with annoying crap, you can, occassionaly, gleam some useful info there.

6. You can transfer from PvP to any other type of server, but you cannot transfer from a PvE to a PvP server. So basically, be sure of any decision to move off a PvP realm as its one way.

Also, I'm afraid the majority of us play horde here, though I'm sure there will be several who are alliance...

But anyways, good luck with it all and welcome back

Chavster

Regardless of what blizz say WoW is a heavilly PvE oriented game. Playing wow just to PvP can and will lead to disapointment. The only way you can get some enjoyment in pvp is to get into a guild and a solid premade team. As you have already discovered alliance pugs are shockingly bad in AB and WSG! Even then it get's boring extremely quickly..

As to your questions:

1. No idea, never played mage or alliance to 60. (I bet your char has pink hair )
2. I'm assuming opted group means a premade team using coordinated teamwork. The answer is yes and tbh pretty much any combination of classes with any combination of specs will win 99% of their games as long as they use some basic teamwork.
3. The mages role in PvE & PvP is to deal damage and to crowd control. Specific info on specs/roles/gear etc can be found all over the place check out the official forums and Google.
4. There is no need to raid in the expansion. I'm a part of the closed beta and can honestly say that current epics are replaced pretty quickly. The best example I can think of is the the quest Weaken the Ramparts This q is available in the very first TBC area in the very first TBC instance. The rewards are comparable to current BWL epics eg these. If by 'raiding' you mean 5-man instances then you can avoid them but as in the current game the better quality gear is found there. I haven't pvp'd too much tho, all the new areas have pvp objectives but I haven't seen much action around them. There's one (?) new BG but haven't been in it yet.
5. Official forums and google is your friend. WoW pvp can be quite rock-paper-scissors oriented. Locks & hunters are quite hard to beat as a mage afaik.
6. People on pvp servers can transfer to other pvp servers and also to pve servers. However if you transfer to a pve server you have to stay on a pve server forever. You can't transfer back. Also there is a 6 month cooldown on transferring so be sure to get it right!

I think that limiting yourself to pvp will get pretty bored pretty fast. The social aspect of the game is v. enjoyable playing at pve or pvp with a group of friends is very enjoyable. IMO avoiding pve completely is gonna put a severe dampener on your wow experience. Regardless of what you do tho, getting into a decent guild is the first step. Check out the realm forums most will have links to the guilds that are there, check out their guild sites/forums to see if there are any you like. If you are transferring be sure to do your research first! Create a lvl 1 guy and talk to people in general chat to get a feel for the place. Servers are often 'adopted' by various countries and you may end up among people who can't/won't speak english.

Dubhthamlacht

Restricting yourself to just one aspect of the game is garunteed to kill the fun quickly.

I've always taken a balance between PVP and PVE to keep the game enjoyable.

In terms of PVP, they have changed a lot in the expansion.

new battleground - Eye of the Storm. Similar to AB.

new Arena PVP - this will be the main PVP foucs. Focusing on skill rather the mind numbing time consuming grind that was the old PVP system. Teams will be matched against other teams of similar skill (based on win/loss ratio) to make things even. There will be a ladder per season and rewards for the best team per season. Only a mimimum of 10 matches required each week.

Outdoor PVP - this is something Blizzard have made a conscious effort to promote. There is a PVP town called Halaa where to gain access to certain vendors/Non player controlled characters you need to kill opposing faction players and gain control of the town. They've backed this up with rewards as incentives for doing so. People I've chatted to have said this is a blast.

Regarding PVE - it will all be leveling until everyone reaches 70 then it will pan out similar to what has gone before. But with smaller raids. 25 man being the largest. This will place more emphasis on people being component players with less room for complacancy. The more demanding raids in the expansion such as Tempest Keep raid, Mount Hyjal and SerpentShrine Cavern require the normal 5 man dungeons that people will do to be completed in Heroic (hard) mode as prerequistes. This will sort out the filler from the talented PVE raiders.

Playboy

Thanks for the helpful advice guys! Just one more question .. Would i be better off saving any HP I have earned atm for the lvl70 pvp gear instead of spending it on the current gear? My gear at the moment is kind of sucky .. have some mooncloth pieces still on my char

Playboy

Btw what server are most active people here playing on? Would it be a good time to start a new char seeing as there is a new race? I'm thinking I might be better off starting over so I can learn the ropes again.

Ivan

Personally, I find its down to preference. I prefer to have decent gear while I'm leveling up to 70. But the level 60 pvp gear will be replaced, fairly quickly tbh.

If your gear is really that bad though, you might be better off buying some AB/WSG/AV epics for cheap and using those.

Dustaz

You really need to rethink your attidude to PVE if you want to go down the PVE route. I havent really studied the lvl 70 PVP rewards and/or how easy they are to get, but if you want to stay in the race youll really need to gear yourself up with some PVE gear. The people you will be facing in the battlegrounds and Arena will have good gear and they will be constantly upgrading their gear regardless of honor grind/arena results.

I wouldnt be too worried about your gear at the moment, as has been said youll be getting much better gear come the expansion.

Theres a few irish lads still on Outland alliance side and im sure a few will return once the expansion comes out

Playboy

Ivan wrote:

Personally, I find its down to preference. I prefer to have decent gear while I'm leveling up to 70. But the level 60 pvp gear will be replaced, fairly quickly tbh.

If your gear is really that bad though, you might be better off buying some AB/WSG/AV epics for cheap and using those.

What do you mean by buy them? Can you buy them for cash or only for HP?

Dubhthamlacht

Personally I've been saving my current honor points for level PVP 70 gear rather than get some level 60 gear which will be replaced in 3 weeks time.

sunzz

playboy i've recently rolled on a new server having previously had a 60 mage and 60 hunter. I've re rolled alliance side currently a night elf hunter last night just dinged level 17 there. if you fancy re rolling then pm me, I play alot, a good lot actually

drop me a pm.

Ivan

Playboy wrote:

What do you mean by buy them? Can you buy them for cash or only for HP?

You buy them with honor points, same as the other pvp rewards. However, instead of forking out 12k for 1 epic item you can generally get them for around 4k. I would check it out.

Playboy

Ivan wrote:

You buy them with honor points, same as the other pvp rewards. However, instead of forking out 12k for 1 epic item you can generally get them for around 4k. I would check it out.

Thanks Ivan . you have been a great help .. and thanks to everyone else too!