MOGS

MOGS Starter Guide to Cataclysm PvP for Warcraft

Cataclysm is upon us, and the new Arena season has begun. Those who just got Cataclysm over the holidays are working on leveling through the new content to 85, and those who got it on release are more than likely already there (I know I am!). At 85 you’re presented with a couple of options of what to do with your character, take them hardcore PvE, hardcore PvP, dabble in both because you’re a hardcore player, or dabble in anything you can get your hands on for you play the game casually. I’m going to focus on the hardcore PvP aspect, and how to get your fresh 85 started for end-game rated battlegrounds and arenas.

Currently there are 3 new tiers of pvp gear that you’ll have to mix and match until you’re in full purples. There’s the crafted ilevel 339 set, which can be created by a friendly 525 skill level tailorer (Fireweave, Emberweave sets) leatherworker (Bloodied sets, which include mail sets), or blacksmith (Bloodied, Ornate sets). You can purchase all of these on the Auction house. The cloth pieces generally go for 300-750gold, the mail/leather/plate pieces go for 500-1k gold (on occasion a shoulder or chest will be 2k). I highly recommend that you pick up at least 2-3 of these pieces (pick them all up if you can afford it), for this season’s honor grind is one of the hardest since vanilla WoW. Being a restoration druid I personally grabbed a couple of the Emberweave pieces along with the Bloodied Wyrmhide to mix and match to achieve the desired itemization along with the resilience. Currently Resilience is your strongest stat in PvP, Blizzard changed it so it now effects ALL damage you take, rather than just reducing the chance to be crit and crit damage. So even if you are wearing leather with a couple of cloth pieces, you’re better off with the resilience than trying to stack PvE gear (unless you’re a dps class and you aren’t being trained 24/7, then toss in some PvE pieces for the exra damage). Once you’ve acquired all you can spend on, jump into some BG’s and begin the grind.

With the current honor point system, honorable kills are only worth 1 measly honor, while a win will net you a bonus 45-90 honor (daily nets you 90, from there on out it’s 45 bonus honor per win), if you lose you get stuck with 15 bonus honor. This system essentially forces you to win to make any kind of progress on your honor grind. With chest/legs/helm costing 2200 honor it can take quite a while until a piece is obtained.

The trick to shortening your honor grind is to watch your Tol Barad timer, and make sure you queue for it everytime it’s up. Tol Barad is the new “Wintergrasp” where you fight to take control of an island. Tol Barad is extremely favored for the defense and if your faction has it, there’s a good chance they’ll have it all day. It can take anywheres from 15-30 minutes max (depending if they down any towers) and if you win nets you a tasty bonus of 180 honor (then another 95 honor for the weekly victory quest). Since Tol Barad enters players from each faction on a 1-1 ratio, matches can extend up to 100v100, thus that 1 honor per KB can finally rack up. If you follow the zerg wave of players (whether your offense or defense) you can net anywheres from 90-150 extra honor during the Tol Barad from those kills. I’ve managed to obtain around 350 honor from a single Tol Barad including the weekly and winning the Tol Barad.

For a dps class I recommend picking up the most costly honor pieces helm/chest/legs and get those out of the way and you benefit more from PvE off-pieces than healers. For healers I recommend picking up 2 main pieces to get the 2 piece 400 res set bonus then replacing all pieces of gear that don’t have resilience on them first. After you are in your full resilience set that’s a mix of crafted and honor gear, you can start to replace the crafted gear with the honor pieces.

After you’ve acquired a decent amount of gear (should be around 1.5-2k resilience), I recommend you start an arena team as soon as possible (any size will suffice). Currently conquest points are easier to obtain than honor points and right now the lowest cap for conquest points is 1343 points per week. If you win at least 5-6 matches, you’ll quickly cap your conquest points for the week. Epic items start off at 1250 conquest points for off-pieces and go up to 3400 for 2-handed weapons, and 2450 for one-handed. So essentially within 2 weeks and 12 wins in arenas you can have an epic one-handed weapon, or an epic piece of gear of your choice.

Essentially after creating an arena team, and farming honor approx 3-4 hours a day for 2 weeks, you can have an epic weapon, the full honor set and be prepared to head into the competitive arena and rated battleground scene. Currently I’m rocking the epic weapon, and 2917 resilience on my restoration druid. My 3v3 team (Shadow Priest/Frost Mage/ Resto Druid) is going to be starting our hard arena grind later this week and plan on frapsing some matches so you can check them out and watch our attempt for glad this season. Enjoy the honor grind for it’s the last one you’ll have to do.

Questions or Comments? Drop me a line, Jon@mogs.com. Happy honor farming!