Tuesday, January 15, 2008

PVPing for PVE


While I enjoy Pvp on occasion, it’s not usually the first thing I think of when I log in to Wow.  I generally think of the next 25-man instance we have going or what we can do for the next boss.  I double-check if there’s anything I need from any 5-man instance or badge gear.  (Okay… I used to check for those last two, but haven’t had an upgrade there in a very long time.)  When I do decide to PVP, it’s usually for the fun of the actual game, not really for the honor or arena points.  That’s just how my mind works.

But as a raiding anything, you really need to look at all your gear options, including Pvp gear.  It’s probably not going to replace all of your Pve gear, but it can certainly help to supplement it.  There’s a lot of great stats in the Pvp gear that can be used in Pve.  You generally have some + hit or + spell hit.  Resilience doesn’t do anything for you in Pve, but the stamina stat, which is generally quite plentiful in Pvp gear can be a huge help for your Pve gear.

“But I’m a ranged caster;” you say, “I don’t need stamina.”  There are many encounters where you need a certain amount of hit points to stay alive because you will get hit.  Furthermore, you can have the highest + dmg in the world, but if you can’t stay alive to use it, it means squat.  So, just like any stat, you have to determine how much you need, and then plan your gear accordingly.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you all go out to get your Season 3 gear so that you can raid Black Temple.  You can’t do Pve in straight Pvp gear and vice versa.  What I am suggesting is that while drops are random, there may be items that you can purchase through honor or arena points, that will be almost identical to that drop you’ve been waiting for, or maybe even better.

While I will continue to run arenas and battlegrounds with my friends because I enjoy it, I’ll also take a look at the gear as well to see if there’s anything I can use to help me out.  I’d suggest you do the same.

p.s. I replaced my Nathrezim Mindblade with the Merciless Gladiator’s Spellblade with arena points I forgot I had laying around.  I lost a big of crit, but I’m pretty sure it was an upgrade all around.

2 comments:

Rob Dejournett said...

I don't know about you mages, but for us hunters one of the best weapons in the game is the S3 2H axe specific for hunters. A steal at 1000 arena points. But I think i'm almost at the end of pre-kara gear (while doing kara to shade). I finally replaced my green chest piece last night for the S1 chest.

Anyway what i did want to say that PVP gear is substantially different for hunters at least. It really focuses on +agi, tons of +sta, not much in the way of +int or other attirbutes. And S1 gear totally lacks +hit. You'll have to gem for that.

Whereas for the typical PvE gear, there is much more of a 1:1:1 ratio for agi/int/sta, and usuually decent mana/5 or +atk power, and usually a +hit in there somewhere.
You have to really think about the gear itemizations, but they are quite different. So you don't want to go overboard with PVP gear, but it certainly helps. For me that gear has been a sidegrade from blues in terms of +atk, but usually will have gems and the huge +sta and armor makes me a much more durable hunter.

Jimbogun said...

I can thing of one situation where mage PVP gear would rock, the mage tank situation in Gruul's.

Agree on the hunter gear. It's definately a different game for hunter's, but they still come in handy.

While it may not be the best, I still find myself switching to the hunter PvP gear in raid situations for survivability (Shade pretty much hit's everyone at least one time for 7-8K, Huntsmen does a random charge)

I also find PvP epic's easier to get since it eliminates randomness of drops and likelyhood of getting a raid. (My hunter is my alt)

I thought it was funny when the other day I was in a battleground and someone refered to PvP gear as welfare epic's. True enough.