PvP Guides on Icy Veins - What do you want us to cover? (25 replies to this topic)

I just want basic ideas of how the other classes play.  Give me the basic spells and the cooldown spells used in PvP.

Sample:

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Subtlety rogue:

The Very Basics

- will start in stealth and either silence (garrote) or stun (cheap shot) you out of it
- combo points will be built using basic builders - backstab if he can get behind you or wants extra damage, hemorrage for faster combo points
+ when rogues have enough combo points, they will do one of a few things
- use eviscerate for a good amount of damage
- use kidney shot for a (up to) 6 second stun
- use slice and dice, a personal buff which gives them energy faster
- use recuperate, a personal buff which gives a minor (1% / sec) heal
- use rupture, a minor bleed which makes the rest of their moves do 20% more damage.

Play Style

Offense

- rogues generally will need to have 2 buffs rolling to be dangerous on their own in a sustained environment.  Lining up for a kill means starting Rupture, Slice and Dice before starting the big damage sequence.  If a rogue has been out of combat for a while, you generally won't be in too much trouble if you have decent PvP gear.

- the big damage sequence happens when the rogue can stack the following conditions:
  - you don't have a trinket
  - rogue has slice and dice on himself
  - rogue has rupture on you
  - shadow blades is off cooldown
  - shadow dance is off cooldown.
In this scenario, the rogue can land a 6-second Kidney Shot (stun) on you, and with extra energy from slice and dice, extra damage from rupture, extra combo points and damage coming from shadow blades, and the ability to ambush from shadow dance, you will be hurting.

CC

- rogue cc's come in the quick cooldown, long cooldown, and stealth varieties:
  - quick: gouge - 15 second cooldown, 5 second disorient that breaks on damage (except the rogue's bleeds/poisons if he talents for it).  Usually has to happen from front, but some rogues may glyph this to allow it to be done from any direction.
  - quick: kick - 15 second cooldown, a basic interrupt.
  - quick: kidney shot - 24 second cooldown, variable time stun, 2 to 6 seconds
  - quick: dismantle - 1 minute cooldown, 8 second disarm
  - long: blind - 3 minute cooldown, an 8 second disorient that breaks on damage (except the rogue's bleeds/poisons if he talents for it.  Glyph will also clear dots on target).
  - long: smoke bomb - 8 second AoE "pillar".  Cannot cast spells into or out of it.
  - stealth: sap - 8 second disorient, breaks on damage.  Only useable when target is out of combat.
  - stealth: cheap shot - 4 (5 glyphed) second stun
  - stealth: garrote - 5 second silence
  - stealth: distract - turns your character which ever way the rogue distracts you to.  Only useable when target is out of combat.

Defense

Rogue defenses come in a few flavors: passive, CC, healing, and cooldown
- passive devenses come from having a parry chance inherent to being a rogue, and a high dodge rate
- CC defenses are shown above.  With a decent array of CCs avaialble rogues are decent at stopping damage before it happens
- healing comes from recuperate.  This used to be a MUCH stronger ability.  As it is, rogues can use it, but it's not nearly as important a priority or helpful as it was in cataclysm
- cooldown abilities used in PvP:
- combat readiness (up to 10% damage reduction stacking another 10% each hit until a max of 50%):  When a rogue pops this, don't touch him unless he's at a teeny amount of health.  Let it wear off after 10 seconds and then beat him down.  Visible effect = red swirling stary-things around rogue.
- evasion: Dramatically increases dodge chance.  Ranged/spell stun the rogue or attack him from behind.  Visible effect = transparent look to character model.
- cloak of shadows: spell effects won't affect the rogue.  Rogue can use this defensively to maintain his health, or offensively to avoid most CCs while tunneling a target.  Visible effect = shadow-form-like effect on character model.
- vanish: immediately stealths the rogue and prevents all damage for 3 seconds.  Visible effect = "none"

Other Tips

- Use Gladiatorlossa or other mod to let you know when a rogue invokes shadow dance and/or shadow blades.  When he does this, he is looking to put a hurting on you.  The other common use of shadow dance is to be able to use CC on many people at once.  Since shadow dance allows him to use stealth moves out of stealth, he can cheapshot (stun) multiple people in a row without the normal cooldowns.
- Rogue openers are more dangerous than they were in the past due to the first talent tier.  Nothing special to know about in particular, look at that tier if you're interested.
- If a rogue has a ranged interrupt, he doesn't have the combat readiness damage mitigator or damage debuff after stuns - those are mutually exclusive talents.
- If you see a rogue casting feint a lot, he probably has feint talented, meaning that he's taking 30% less damage for 5 seconds every time he casts it.  If this happens, see if you can pump damage into him after a stun/cc where you know that the 5 second reduction has worn off.
- the following are mutually exclusive:  Shadowstep (teleports to a friendly or enemy target) and Burst of speed - breaks roots and/or acts as a sprint.  Can be chained as long as rogue has energy.  If you see him teleport, you're free to root him and feel safe outside of his cooldowns.  If you see him break roots, you're safe using Z-axis barriers.
- the last tier of talents for the rogue are all relatively interesting/valuable, but for a basic guide on rogues, you won't play too different regardless of which they took.  For advanced play, it absolutely matters.
- Fairy fire is the rogue's bane.  Long-lasting dots are pretty close to being that bad, but faerie fire is horrible.  The best ways to piss off a rogue are:
   - Use Faerie Fire
   - Use bleeds
   - Long lasting dots
   - Kite him (especially since cooldowns are longer now and mobility is worse than in cata)
   - Make him regret his talent choice.  If you see him breaking roots a lot, use Z-axis obstacles to taunt him.  If you see him teleporting, continuously slow and root him.

==========================

It's a pretty bad guide, and I'm sure it's filled with misinformation like exact cooldown times and similar stuff.  And I'm sure I suck at rogue.  But if I had a cheat-sheet like that for every class/spec done by a person who was actually decent at his class/spec, I'd feel much more comfortable in PvP, especially since MoP changed everything around.  Again.

Edited by rivlel, 15 October 2012 - 07:26 PM.

Thread Resurrection in Progress.  (Input cast time bar here)

Just about every information guide only addresses Max strat.  i.e.  The most damage or healing in whatever spec.  They usually do not take into consideration the other specs people might have fun playing, but need help to maximize the spec.

My suggestion would be to have a thread in either the pvp section or in the class section with a link in the pvp section on how to play gem, reforge, enchant each spec in each enviroment.  That would mean 6 threads per class.

Rogue
Combat PvE and PvP
Assassination PvE and PvP
Subtelty PvE and PvP

I know this is a lot of work with all the classes, but maybe enlist help from those in the forum community.

Thank you for your consideration.

I'm going to necro an old post since I didn't even know it was discussed at some point...

Man PvP guides would be great but I reckon it'll take alot more work than the PvE guides simply because of the amount of variables.

I'd Suggest looking into Arena Junkies and using their guide templates for ideas. The main things people want to see is what to reforge, hit, expertise etc. For instance most clothies have 4% dodge (I think, CBA to check), so melee / hunters should reforge expertise to 4% then stop. Spell Pen is a thing of the past, but that was at some point the most common question.

Macro lists, mouseovers macros, focus target macros, CD macros particularly to stack stuff that isn't on the GCD. Along with an explanation on how to use them ofc.

After the basic stuff, listing viable comps for each class, along with the stupid abreviations and a small explanation would be good (KFC, TSG blablabla).

General specific arena tips on LOS, tricks etc... For instance in Ruins of Lorderon as a DK (or any class with similar AoE) you can run straight to the tomb if you are up against a stealth team and drop DnD. I've broken alot of Rogues, Ferals, RestoD's, Mages out like that.

Viable RBG comps for all specs. For example (I haven't done any RBG's this season) Feral, Arms, Ret etc really struggled to find any sort of RBG team in 4.3. There were viable teams that ran them, for instance one of the highest rated players in the world was running Ret in 4.3, but just about every numbnut and his grandma wanted to roll a dotcleave for 3 simple reasons, 1.) It worked 2.) It was infamous, everyone knew it. 3.) You could be half brainless to do it, just dot, los, cc.

Mandatory addons such as Gladius / BGT ? Juked and how to configure them.

The list goes on... x)

Another good one would be to have, for a beginners guide, what gear is best to be picked up first in order to best suit your needs as well as the best ways to initially obtain Conquest Points to obtain better gear and be stronger overall in PvP, followed with the basic macro's you'll want to have for each class, strengths and weaknesses, how to better understand them and work with them as well as to better defend yourself against your own weaknesses.

Those would be really good ones to start off with, as well as comps for each class and what works and what usually doesn't work.

Hey when is the pvp guide going to be available?

We started working on the PvP guides and I would like to take your wishes and suggestions into consideration. I will not give you an ETA on the PvP guides, but now that you know we are actually making them, this is your opportunity to give us more input.

If you are a proficient and competent PvPer confident enough to explain your class/spec in and out, contact me or Damien; At best with a link to your main character in the Armory and a short summary of your PvP relevant activities thus far. You don't have to bring excellent writing skills as your knowledge is far more valuable, but they are a strong plus nonetheless.

Although we already have contributors for Windwalker Monks, Discipline Priests and Rogues, we would like to get in touch with as many people as possible to receive more input. So don't be shy if your class is already covered.

Edited by Marco, 03 May 2013 - 06:45 PM.