PVP Mage Spec Frost Options in Cataclysm, what should i cloose?

 

So you’ve recently hit 85, done a couple of bg’s or tol barad, and your getting a bit pwned. What spec do i choose?

Yeah this happened to me today, I know you cant ding 85 and be super leet straight away, well im my case i may never be, but hey i can dream (or practice). Went to the Auction house and bought up all the PVP Craftable Blues ended up with about 900 res and butt all spell power. So now im hitting like a wet sponge and getting wtfpwned quite often. Also the dam mobs are kicking my ass, even in tol. what the hell am i doing wrong? I think it all comes down to gear and maybe spec 

I have found two frost specs that are quite decent. but really you need the gear to back it up, and you have two options really, get pwned in battle grounds for about a week or two, or alternatively fall asleep playing all the PVE content to get the DPS gear, and lets face it resiliance for a mage, really? i guess it all helps, but we are squishy and should really be playing keep away for most of the time anyway, not like we can just stand there and take it for long  .

Check out the Full Post Here : So i dinged 85 on my mage, now what? PVP Spec Options for Frost Mage

Tempest's Cataclysm Mage PvP Basics Vid

This Post comes via Tempest's Cataclysm Mage PvP Basics Vid.

So i am still leveling my mage at the moment... however its always good to see someone elses point of view when it comes to PVP. Found this one on the wow forums, looks like a two part series should be a good viewing. I have re-arranged the original post source to include the vids, i know it was hard work ;) but hey makes for easier viewing and readage. The following vids and skill all belong to Nighttempest im not trying to claim any of his glory just promoting some good cata mage pvp skills ;) Check it out:

DISCLAIMER: I don't claim skill! I just happen to know what I'm doing (half the time).

Anyways out of sheer boredom I decided to make a mage guide I managed to get some good clips (all of it was filmed in one day other than the scene on the docks vs the boomkin and warlock which was 3.3.5), so I decided that I should probably put them to use... anyways it's a 2 part movie just read the description, and it takes a while to load in from youtube since its popup so you can get the full quality.

As long as I don't waste your time completely, and you guys get at least ONE thing out of it I'll be happy.

Part 1

• Movement/Kiting


• Lining Up Burst


• Simple Exercises to increase your mage skill

Part 1 is essentially a very slow, very chill movie starts from the very basics of everything, and ends with some silly exercises of me doing stupid crap in IF. Anyways you can at least enjoy the music if nothing else. (WARNING: I was a "bit" drunk for the last bit of part 1 since it was the end of the day so expect some weird screen shaking.)

Check out the full thread Tempest's Cataclysm Mage PvP Basics Vid for part two of this video series.

PvP Disc Priest Guide from the wow forums

Just a few (many) good disc priest tips i copied from the wow forum here, good read. Thx to the original post by Synikul.

I have largely noticed that within these forums and the AJ forums there doesn’t seem to be a comprehensive guide for priests that goes over the basics. I see a lot of bad advice given by mediocre priests (and by no means am I saying I am amazing) that don’t know what they are talking about.
For that reason I want to make a guide just going over the basics of a discipline priest, sort of like the raiding guides that are at the top of these forums.
So that being said lets begin.

Two Disclaimers: First, I might have made mistakes, I am writing this waiting for a lab that’s 4 hours away and since I am in the middle of the JHMS Library, I am not putting that much research into it, so just correct me and it will be fixed. Second, I am not going into complex strats for 2346 vs Euro (haha) etc… it’s just the basics of what you need to know to begin PvPing.


First let’s go over our STRENGTHS and WEAKNESSES

Strengths:
Disc Priests are the only class that has offensive AND defensive dispels, as well as the only healer class with a MD that can remove Bubble and Ice Block.
Disc Priests have many abilities to reduce damage instead of constantly healing.
Disc Priests have Mana Burn which can force players to play defensively (ex: using it on mages) or allow you to flat out OOM the other healer allowing for a fairly easy win.
Disc Priests have very good defensive spells such as Pain Suppresion.
Disc Priests have strong offensive abilities that combined with trinkets, power infusion, lightweave procs etc.. can allow for quick switches that combined with a DPS can do a lot of damage.
Disc Priests have AOE heals, Single Target heals, HoTs and Divine Hymn which heals for a lot and out of LoS.
Disc Priests can fit in every bracket very easily.

Weaknesses:
We die very quickly once our shields are down. If you don’t get a peel (your partner doesn’t get the DPS off you via whatever means of CC etc) you will probably die soon.
We are not very mobile, meaning we don’t get much opportunity to drink.
We have terrible mana regen compared to other healers.
PvE gear does next to nothing for us, unless you are human and can use the Solace of the Fallen.
All we have is fear. Once that is gone, its up to your partner to help you.

Now if you look at that list you might think, yay, dpriests are super strong. But remember, the two weaknesses I outlined are huge weaknesses that you have to overcome to do well. We are very partner dependent because of our lack of survivability, a terrible form of CC and mana regen is one of the most important stats in arenas. That being said, we are a very viable class, with a decent learning curver and one that is very fun once you get a hang of it.

SPECS

Specs:
60/11/0
Strong Defensive spec
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bxIbuhGqRcsffRtbht

53/18/0
Smite Spec
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bxIbuhGVMcosfktbxtc0b

57/14/0
Ref Shield + Armor Spec
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bxIbuhGiRcosfRtbhtc

60/11/0
Ref Shield - Defensive
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bxIbuhGiRcRffRtbht
Ref Shield - Defensive

GEMS
On gems, always gem for things that you find will benefit you the most. There are no set "sockets" unless you are in full PvP s7 gear and have no PvE gear.
Blue: If you are a tailor and have the back enchant (keep it), then you probably have to pick up spell penetration from somewhere. You can gem 25 spell pen, or 12 sp 10 spen to fill this socket and gain offensive power. If you are new to PvP and lack stamina (PvE gear) you can gem 30 stamina, or 12 sp 10 stamina. If you need res and stamina, you can gem 12 stamina 10 resilience.
Yellow: You can gem 20 resilience. You can gem 12 stam 10 resilience. If you feel you are doing well on the defensive end you can gem 12 sp 10 resilience.
Red: You can gem 12 sp 10 resilience for a good balance. You can gem 23 SP to gain offensive and some defensive stats (spellpower largely helps for offensive abilities though).
Top end priests that have 900 or more resilience, and around 24 to 25k hp will generally start gemming spellpower. Remember, priests are a strong healing class because we can contribute in quick switches to get kills!

Meta
Grab one of two gems. Either the spell power stun reduction (I recommend this one) or if you went for hit 12 hit 12 crit on your boots grab the spellpower minor speed meta. Once you get to the point where games are decided by how much you get drinks off/how much mana you retain/efficacy of heals/damage you should grab the 21int/mana back gem.

Now lets go over little tips that can improve your game on various classes.
A lot of these are obvious but its still things that are good to know.

TIPS
First, Shadow Word: Death can be used to get out of any CC mechanism that breaks on damage. This includes Sheep, Blind, Frost Shatter etc. Basically, if (for example) a mage is sheeping you, stopcast your spell and SWD him. The spell will hit him, and then rebound and do damage to you. If you time it so the damage hits after he sheeps you, you will break out! Find a mage friend and practice this. Its very necessary on mage teams.

Second, Divine Hymn takes you out of combat. It also works out of LoS. So you can go behind a pillar, DH to keep your partner up, and then immediately drink.

Power Infusion lowers your mana cost and increases your casting speed. This has two big effects. First, you can res your partner in 5 seconds by power infusing yourself, bubbling yourself for the 45% haste increase and then res’ing. Second, you can get fast, mana efficient mana burns by popping PI. Finally, you can get relatively mana-cheap dispels by using it. That’s why you will see top priests using PI at points where they are not even casting heals or burns.

Bubble stealth partners to make sure they don’t get popped out with things like Desecration. As long as they don’t take damage they should remain stealthed.

Make sure you chain Gargoyles and other undead creatures when fighting DKs. This includes Lichborne. By chaining the gargoyle and then going LoS, you will not be getting hit for 2k every cast.

GLYPHS
Major glyphs:
Pain Suppression – This is a must for it allows you to use it when stunned. A lot of times kills on you will happen when a rogue stuns you, or a ret repentances you etc.. If you can pop PS, that lets you not become a quick kill.
Penance – Reduces CD by 2 seconds. This is fairly self-explanatory. The more penances you can cast, the more likely you are to survive (or keep your partner up).

Now this is where you have a choice.
If you play an offensive comp (where you do a lot of damage when you switch to someone) then you want to get the Glyph of Smite. A lot of times when I play Priest Rogue, we end up fearing the opposing healer when he doesn’t have a trinket up and then we both DPS the kill target. With MB/SWD => Holy Fire, Smite I can do a lot of damage.

If you play a defensive comp (where you mainly heal) or your partners are bad at peeling and you have a lot of trouble keeping yourself up, go for the Shield Glyph which heals yourself when you use shield, or the Glyph of Inner Fire which increases your armor gained.

Your minor glyphs:
Glyph of Shadowfiend- when it dies you get 5% mana, this helps for people who kill your sfiend (some do.. why who knows?) or for when a druid cyclones it, it glitches or it gets stuck in desecration. At least this way you get some mana.
Glyph of Levitation- I use this for dispel protection. Did you throw out that fear ward, and that priest is rushing at you to fear and dispelling you? Hit this to make sure he doesn’t get it off. This is used for when you know the priest is about to come fear you, don't spam it to protect everything lest you go OOM.
Glyph of Fortitude- Often purges/dispels will take off PW:F. This is a lot of health... you should always keep it up. This makes it efficient.
Glyph of Shackle Undead- Good for DK's .. but thats about it.

GOOD MACROS

Chaining Gargoyles!
#showtooltip Shackle Undead
/target Ebon Gargoyle
/cast Shackle Undead
/targetlasttarget

Mouseover Dispels
#showtooltip Dispel Magic
/cast [target=mouseover,exists] Dispel Magic; Dispel Magic

Stopcast and SWD Sheeps etc!
#showtooltip Shadow Word: Death
/stopcasting
/cast Shadow Word: Death

Shadowfiend (if you target an opponent it targets them!, if its your partner, targets their target)
#showtooltip Shadowfiend
/cast [nopet,harm][nopet,target=targettarget,harm] Shadowfiend
/petattack [harm][target=targettarget,harm]

Anything can be extended to mouseovers, flash heal, penance etc.. just replace dispel with that spells name =)

DISPELS
Some people don’t know what they can dispel, and that’s a huge thing to not know considering its our strength. I will outline what you should dispel on every class when you face them.

Paladins:
Blessings: Dispel these once. If they keep reapplying, don’t worry about it. If they don’t ( a lot don’t) you just took off a huge buff.
Sacred Shield: Looks like your bubble but cooler and more golden. Always, always take this off. It not only helps their healing, it absorbs a lot of damage. Take this off themselves or their partners.
Bubble(Divine Shield): Mass Dispel this. It makes them immune to all damage.
Repentance: If it is on your partner, dispel this. Its basically like a hammer that stuns you/partner for a few seconds.
Hand of Sacrifice ( will be on their partner): Dispel this as it shares damage and if you are CCing the pally, then their sharing damage can break a CD like blind or sheep.
Divine Plea: If the holy pally is not protection specced then dispel this. However DP reduced the pally's healing in half, so if you have the pally OOM and you are about to put out a lot of damage on their partner, let them have it.

Shaman:
Ghost Wolf: Dispel this, it’s a magic buff and they will use this to get away from your partner or to help peel if they are DPS.
Earth Shield(or any shield): Dispel this, it heals them every time you hit them and if you they put it on their partner they might survive your fear -> DPS chain.
Flame Shock: Dispel this quickly, its going to lead to a hard hitting, insta lava burst. Be warned when you dispel this they will get a haste increase so be warned that you need to move out of the way when you do this.

Druids:
Innervate: Single handedly the MOST important spell to dispel. Make sure you are dispelling the druid when he starts to go OOM, because he will cover his innervate with other spells that you can dispel to protect that innervate. You must take this off as soon as it is up.
HoTs: Dispel most of these, esp on your kill target.
Thorns: Dispel this, it can do a lot of damage on whoever attacks the kill target.
Mark of the Wild: Dispel this, its resistance to magic can allow them to resist fear, mind control etc.
Entangling Roots: If its on your partner dispel it. If its on you because they are running to innervate, get it off quick.

Mage:
Ice Block- MD this depending on the situation. If you are killing the mage and he uses it to survive, go for the dispel. If its just defensive to get rid of a blind or something, don’t worry about it, you could do better things with that time.
Focus Magic – Extra crit for the mage and the person it is on. Its got to go.
Sheep: Get it off your partner
Int- Extra intellect, also must go =)
Ice Barrier: Protects against a lot of damage, you need to take this off quickly
Anything that freezes you (Nova, Frostbite Procs, Ranged Nova) – This opens you up for a Deep Freeze so dispel it fast.
Chill Effects- If the mage is the kill target you need to dispel these fast or else he will kite you forever.

Priests:
Bubble- Dispel that immediately, its our most important spell for keeping ourselves up.
Renew- Falls under HoTs, which much immediately go.
Grace- Increases healing, and covers more important spells, so dispel this.
Fort- Like a said, it’s a lot of stam so dispel that.
Fear Ward- Most important thing to get off in priest v priest matches. That fear is where you get a kill on their partner. For this reason, it’s a bad idea to buff FW on yourself at the beginning of a match. Its going to disappear fast.
Shadow Protection- Resisting fear = you lose, so make sure this goes off.
Divine Spirit- Taking this off makes our dismal mana regen even worse.
Fear- Dispel this off your partner

Warlocks:
Fear- Dispel off your partner
DoTs - Dispel those you can, leaving the curse (which you cant dispel) to allow you to bounce Prayer of Mending around.
UA Locks- If the lock is UA (Unstable Affliction) you want to make sure you dont dispel his DoTs, as it will silence you. Bouncing PoM should keep you up just fine, you may want to take it off if you start getting mana drained.

Hunter:
Black Arrow- Increase damage, and deals shadow damage so you have to get it off. (Special thanks to Healzalot for correcting me)
Freezing Trap- Get it off on your partner or whoever they are trying to CC

Death Knight:
Chains of Ice: Ugh, such an OP @#_$#@, make sure you get it off your partner or yourself.
Diseases: Dispel these off quickly. Cure Disease is your friend.. spam it.

SUMMARIZE OF DISPELS
Dispel anything that slows your partner. Dispel anything that slows you. Dispel anything that can lead to a burst chain (shatters, lava burst etc). In arena if you don’t know what happened to you, look at your combat log, find out what happened and ask someone you know that is good at that class what they think happened. If you see that priest do a 5 sec res ( which you should know all about by now) ask a priest how it might have happened.

Good Mods:
Gladius: One of the most important mods you can have as an arena player. It puts a ton of information about your opponents on a small informative series of bars. Its good to click on the "show target" icon that allows you to see who your opponents are targetting! This can tell you who they might be focusing, when a burn, charge, or sheep might be coming at you

Less wow more Other boring stuff and junk, Some Crazy ass Multiboxing action

I know, i havent posted in freakin ages! but im still here doin stuff. although less wow stuff and more other stuff these days.

Anyway, seeming as almost 50% (yeh thats just a guess...) of the wow population has quit, or at least seems to have on my server, not much is happening these days with anything. The PVP queues last for like 11 minutes, as im guessin everyone is now queuin for the PVE dailies and heroics. Eh what can u do eh, play something other than wow?

I login to the hunter or priest and queue for a wsg or ab, and wait 10 minutes and by that time im already bored of waiting and log back out. Maybe its just my server or something, idk.

Saw this dude playin (I Have No Friends Cleave) the other day, he can actually manage to be #1 in arena, by multiboxing 5 chars. Dam... Grabs 5x DPS all on one comp and just goes and pwns ppl.

Yay i got my Challenger title back, what class to play now?

Well it seems that they stuffed up the titles this season and have given back arena titles even if you didnt really earn one this season, which means i spose it will be taken away again soon. So ill have to go back to the good old Blood Guard title. Ah well something different i spose.

Now i have to just pick and stick with a class! what class to play these days, I just cant decide. Hunters are going well now in arenas, ranking up fairly high. Although the popular character chart on sk gaming seems to be changing every dam week/day almost.

As if druids are second least popular class now... they still seem to be doing fine, but i guess its all relative to the top 100 classes anyway rather than the over all pvp, but still gives an indication to the popular or overpowered classes for the moment i think. Interesting to see that the warlocks are climbing back up again and warriors are obviously doing well now but not quite on the same level as the paladins. ;)

So what class to play:
I still like playing the priest the most at the moment i think, healing is quite fun in pvp as disc. and usually live a while as well. Hunter is ok as well, but i have a tauren and its just too dam big, and i would faction change to go to a be but then it would end up costing me, lets see ($30 + wait 60 days + $30) or i could move my alience 70 hunter over to horde, but then i have to grind the last 10 levels over again, is it worth it just to roll a BE. Probably not. DK i just cant get the hang of DK's not sure why just not my thing really. Rogue is also a pretty large learning curve, but idk.

Makes it even harder now that i dont have a lot of time to play these days, real life seems to be (and should be) taking a priority over all game playing shenanigans, so must pick a class and stick to it. Just which one to choose dam it.

Loosing Interest in wow

Its been a weird week for me really, i havent logged in to wow at all. I have been busier with other things like life than normal. But I dont seem to be missing it at all.

When i do play its just the same old repitition over and over again, log in, should i do dailies again, do some more pvp, eh kinda boring. May as well just switch my brain off.

I guess it comes with not being interested in instances, or raiding, and pvp seems to be whatever class is flavor of the latest buff.

My latest char is a rogue, and well i just cant be motivated to sit in bg's and get my ass handed to me for several hundred thousand honor points to get him the gear to do well all over again.

I guess its just wow burn out vs real life at the moment. I have played the new battle ground a few times now, and its ok. Just like an update of AV yet usually shorter and less annoying as i havent played it over a million times yet.

Eh what to do. Even the content patch didnt help. Dam it. Apparently the Current Arena Season of Wow is almost over now, maybe that will re-light my interest. Maybe not, more of the same.

So thats how they get on the Stables Roof in AB

It may it looks ez, but you gotta get the jump timing just right.

Also apparently you are suppost to report people that use this particular jumping skill.

Theed 3 Shadowpriest Arena PVP Pwnage!

Shadowpriest PVP in Arena, not much more to be said. Some srs skill goin on there.



Link to video Details on Warcraftmovies

PvP With Tree 6 - Awesome Hunter PVP

Showing the current state of Survival, before the nerf...


PvP With Tree 6 - Final Volume

3.0.2 Pre WOTLK Spec List - PVP

Here is a few specs that i have found for most classes, I wasted a few hours trying to figure out what too spec, so this saves a bit of time.

Initially on my hunter wikd i specced 51BM and the rest marks, couldn't resist trying out the new BM pets. Now i have too many 65 pets to get to 70, and even though its faster to level them these days, its still kind of annoying and time consuming. And yes the gorilla is a crazy tank even at 65 he could hold aggro on 5 ~65 level mobs in netherstorm, i hadn't specced the aoe dmg reduction though so as soon as the fire breath came out the health dipped quickly, but with that specced. The thing would be unstoppable. My heal pet was ticking for 700 and something. Too ez ;)

Tried a shadow spec on my priest, was a bit of a fail really. But i didnt try it for long. Same old shadow priest assist train action = dead in 5 seconds.

Survival and a Hyena is spost to be great for PVP, i think im going to try a hyena tonight. I already have a 70 bat, and the stun is awesome as its a ranged attack, but i think the tendon rip from a hyena may be even more useful for kiting action.

Druid Balance

Full Balance PVP - Gear Req. (Spell Crit) - 53/0/8

Full Balance PVP - Gear Req. (Spellpower and Haste) - 53/0/8

Druid Feral

Feral PVP build with Omen of Clarity and Naturalist - 0/45/15

Feral PVP Build with Berserk - 0/51/10

Druid Resto

Dreamstate “Restokin” Healing Build with Glyph of Healing Touch - 33/0/28

Full Restoration Build - 5/0/56

Hunter

Bestial Wrath with Aim Shot - Highest Damage PVP build - 50/11/0

Marksman With Improved Pet Rez, should still be best for arena build - 7/43/11

Survival High CC build with Wvyern Sting, SS and Readiness -
0/21/40

Mage

Full Arcane PVP Build with Arcane Barrage - 58/0/3

Full Fire PVP build with new Hot Streak for instant Pyroblast and Living Bomb - 2/59/0

Full Frost build with the new Deep Freeze talent - 2/0/59

Paladin

Holy PVP Build for Healing - 51/10/0

Retribution PVP Build for Damage - 0/10/51

Priest

Defensive Healing Build with Desperate Prayer - 50/11/0

Full Shadow PVP Build - 10/0/51

Rogue

Full Assasination Build for Highest Mutilate Damage - 54/5/2

Classic Adrenaline Rush + Hemorrhage Spec (HARP) - 0/37/24

Full Subtlety Shadowstep Build, probably best for Arena - 18/0/43

Shaman

Full Elemental PVP build - 47/13/0

Full Enchancement PVP build - 8/53/0

Full Restoration PVP Build for best healing - 0/10/51

Warlock

Full Affliction with Soulink and Pandemic for DOT Crits - 50/11/0

Full Demonology with Shadowburn - 5/45/11

Classic SL/SL Build for highest Survivability - 25/36/0

Full Destruction with Soulink - 0/11/50

Warrior

Arms with Sudden Death, Improved Slam and Piercing Howl - 51/11/0

Full DW Fury with Titan Grip , Highest Damage but inconsistent - 7/54/0

Protection PVP with Piercing Howl - 0/11/50