All Dressed Up

With nothing to tank.

3.2's on the horizon, and as such, I have little to no motivation to do much of anything PvEish. When the patch drops I'll probably be wanting to hit some heroics, but right now it seems a little pointless.

That explains my recent PvP adventures. I log in, do some auctioning, maybe do the cooking and fishing dailies, try to run at least one WG, and hit some BGs to round out the night.

At the rate I'm going, my PvP set is gonna be more purple than my tank set pretty soon.

~*~

Anecdote:

Last night I was doing the "Go get the herb pouches from Horde players....or you can just kill the elementals and stock up on Crystallized Life which you have no other way of getting as an Engineer" quest along with the kill 10 Horde players quest and the other WG PvP dailies that you can accomplish without actually engaging in any PvP. The daily fishing quest was there, too, so I was able to get a chunk of gold and honor in one zone.

Efficiency - I likes it.

Anyhoo, I'm going to the Steppe of Life and stop on my way up the hill to say something in /gchat. All of a sudden, while my chat box is open, some Rogue decides it would be fun to try and stunlock me. I casually delete the text I had written and got rid of the chat box so I wouldn't end up entering "Hey guys I think it would be cool if 52432627252423" in /gchat.

He managed to knock my health down quite a bit, but I popped a pot and Enraged Regeneration and took care of him. Cheesi was watching over my shoulder and giving me some insight into what he might try as I fought him, so with a Rogue advisor on my side he didn't have a chance.

Got 5 of my herb pouches off of him. Life is good.

I encounter an Alliance Shaman on the Steppe who whispers me:

Shammy: There's a rogue hiding around here.

Me: Yeah, I just killed him.

Shammy: Nice.

I'm feeling good about myself, so I go about my business. I don't wanna spend all night on the Steppe, so I round up two elementals at a time: one of the smaller ones and one of the bigger ones.

When I'm on my second or third round of elementals I notice my rogue buddy saw an opportunity to take me out considering I was already in combat and at about 3/4 health. I didn't react fast enough, and he succeeded.

Me: Argh. He just killed me while I was in combat.

Shammy: He did that to me. They fight like that. Should've stayed. Sorry, man.

Me: Don't worry about it. All's fair in Love and Warcraft.

We won the WG that started about 20 minutes later. I made sure to pay special attention to any Undead Rogues I saw running around during the battle in the event that I encountered my new friend.

I hold nothing against the guy. Like I said to the Shaman, all's fair in Love and Warcraft.

In fact, if I could talk to him I'd probably thank him for making my night more interesting.

Prot PvP

Blizzard has, more or less, stated that Warriors, by design, fall into these roles based on their spec:

1. Protection = PvE Tanking
2. Fury = PvE DPS
3. Arms = PvP

So let it be written, so let it be done. The Powers that Be have spoken.

Well, here's the thing. Since I haven't been able to make raids lately due to scheduling, I've spent a good deal of time in BGs and Wintergrasp. As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I made my secondary spec Arms since I just didn't see myself using Fury at any point in the near future.

The problem is, my PvP gear needs some work.

How do you get better PvP gear? You PvP.

So, I've been collecting honor, Stone Keeper's Shards, etc and picking up PvP pieces. Once I get a respectable set, I'll feel comfortable walking into a battleground as an Arms Warrior.

Until then, since the vast majority of my gear is designed for a Protection Warrior, I've been PvPing as a Protection Warrior. I swap out my stam trinket for one with a bit of resilience on it to make up for the fact that PvE gear has none, and I boldly walk into battles ready to sword and board my way to the middle of the damage meters.

My observations:

A lot of people will categorize a tank in a BG as a flag carrier or somebody who is only useful when you need to tank the bosses in AV. While we are certainly well qualified for either, they are, by no means, the only roles we can fill.

As a Prot Warrior, your strengths are exceptionally useful on the battlefield. You're built to be hard to kill, and, whether it's a PvE mob or another player trying to kill you, you are still hard to kill. This, in and of itself, is an advantage in a battleground. If a group of opponents decide they want to take you out, it takes time. That time allows your teammates to do something without having to worry about the group that thinks you'll be an easy HK.

There have been several times when a group of 5 or so Horde have decided to use me as a punching bag in a Warsong somewhere in the midfield. That's 5 less Horde that my flag carrier or flag defenders have to worry about. If I can keep them occupied, it gives my team a temporary power play of which, hopefully, they will take advantage. I don't care about ultimately dying, but if I can stay alive as long as possible I'm helping my team.

The Protection talent Warbringer is so good as a PvP talent that I'm afraid to write about it because Blizzard may nerf it. You can Charge in any stance and in combat. That makes you a terror for an opposing flag carrier. Charge them, tangle them up a bit, and then if they get range on you Charge them again. Don't forget about those pesky trapping Hunters and blinking Mages.

As a Prot Warrior you've been blessed with an amazing collection of abilities that can stun, interrupt, and silence. If you're reading this post as a Prot Warrior, I won't have to list them because you should already know what you have in your arsenal. Just remember that Heroic Throw silences if you spec into Gag Order and Revenge has a chance to stun if you spec into Improved Revenge.

That Heroic Throw silence is golden (cwutididthar?) when you're fighting someone in melee range only to realize that (a) some caster is pummeling you from a distance or (b) there's a nearby healer. Just target the pest, Heroic Throw, and shut them up for a few seconds.

Your stuns can be amazing when you're carrying a flag, too. One big piece of advice I can give you is to learn how to do a jumpshot. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's basically jumping in the air, turning in a half circle, using an ability, then turning back around before you land while never breaking stride. Hunters who are really good at kiting use this a lot and, if you know one, they can probably give you a pro tip or two.

Why learn to do a jumpshot? Imagine that you're running with the flag and you've got a couple of your opponents behind you giving you grief. Jump, turn, Shockwave, turn back around, keep running, laugh when you cap the flag. It's useful and it'll make you look cool.

And, finally, don't forget that fear isn't just for Warlocks. Intimidating Shout can really come in handy.

Case in point:

Last week we had a Pally running the flag. Behind the Pally was a group of Horde. I was a little ways behind the Horde and we were all in our tunnel. I picked a Hordie in the center of the group, targeted him, Charged, and cast Intimidating Shout. They were running around feared while our Pally capped the flag and ended the game.

In closing, you probably won't be topping damage meters. You won't necessarily be leading the BG in kills or killing blows. What you can do, however, is far more important than those things, and that's making a difference in the battleground and helping your team win. As a Protection Warrior, you are well-equipped to do just that.

Into Battle

I've been acquiring mounts for my Albino Drake. I realized that, at 43 mounts, I would only need 2 more in addition to the 5 extra mounts the Argent Tournament provides (400g + 5 Champions Seal's each). It occurred to me that I was very close to being able to afford a war mount from the honor system, and I already had enough marks to pick up the Stormpike Battle Charger.

So, off to the BGs I went. I spent most of the weekend in my Prot build...not doing a ton of damage but enjoying silencing, stunning, interrupting every caster I could get my hands on, and running flags. I had fun and picked up the marks to get the Black War Steed.

Yesterday, I decided that maybe my secondary skills would be better served if I took an Arms PvP build instead of the PvE Fury build I never seemed to use...ever.

I levelled Arms but haven't gone that route since my early 60s and, while there were some things I recalled, I still had to get back in the groove of using Hamstring combos and some of the other tricks PvP Arms Warriors use. I did have some serious fun with Bladestorm, though.

I did receive a lovely whisper that said "You're the worst Warrior I've ever seen. Stay out of the BGs until you learn how to play" (which I addressed with a pleasant "I just respecced Arms after playing Prot for a long time. Thank you for your constructive criticism." This led to a "I was just talking about your Hamstrings and stuff." End of conversation, I returned our flag to the base, we won), but I did much better on the damage meters and landed more killing blows than I ever have. I didn't make as good of a good flag runner, but I was much more effective in one-on-one combat.

I picked up some meh PvP gear to load some Resilience, but I'm planning on upgrading that as I get more honor. I'm also thinking that, when I get some better gear, I may want to give Arenas another go.

It's certainly nice to have something to do when not instancing that doesn't involve doing dailies over and over. PvP can be infuriating, frustrating, and a lot of fun.

Oh, and I did finally pick up the Drake.

Just Beyond My Wintergrasp

Leave it to me to start to enjoy Wintergrasp right when they're about to change it.

I've avoided PvP since Wrath dropped, but I decided to check out WG a couple of days ago. I really enjoy it...the siege engines, the destructible buildings, even the sheer mass of people (despite the lag).

I'd lost my taste for battlegrounds for the most part after I respecced Prot. When 3.0 came along and brought with it the new Warrior abilities, though, I found a small, smoking ember of PvP enjoyment again while waiting for the expansion.

Wintergrasp has an entirely different feel to it compared to other battlegrounds. The farming is great, and the skirmishing between battles spices things up on my PvE server. For example, I ran into a Warlock last night about half an hour before the next "official" battle and picked a fight. There was no one else around, just him and me. I killed him, only to die a few seconds later to his DoTs.

I didn't care that I died. He could have chain-feared me until I dropped dead without laying a single finger on him and I wouldn't have cared. It was a breath of fresh air...a welcome break in the monotony.

I'll probably continue to go there after they convert it to a non-instanced battleground with a queue and such, but I'm going to miss seeing that many people in that small a zone fighting it out.

There's something very epic about it the way it is right now. It's a shame that it's changing.