Matticus,
First off, I want to commend you on the very nice extensive blog you run, a lot of great resources and discussion. I have an issue and am seeking some general advice and maybe to stir up some discussion. I am currently in Iraq right now BUT i get about 3-4 hours of playtime with acceptable latency. I have a 70 Druid that I just recently (1.5 weeks) re-specced to healing due to feral frustration and a noticable lack of heals on my server. Right off the bat I hooked up with some friends (2 mages+1 hunter) and have been doing BG’s to get honor and marks in order to attain some of the PvP epics.
I’ve been doing some research via blogs to find out some easily attainable gear to help my healing and survivabilty in PVP and eventually to start up some daily instancing. I thoroughly enjoy healing and I’m going to stick with it but I can’t make the decision to PVP or PVE as my main concentration.
Right now, i am trying to do a little of both and i dont see it going anywhere fast. What im looking for is to be able to PVP/Arena grind and get myself in good shape to be a full time raid healer once i get back to the U.S. where i will have ample time to dedicate to raiding. My overall question is: Am I wrong to assume that PVP gear (since it’s mostly a solo endeavor aside from arenas), is probably the best route to achieving pre-Kara quality gear? And are there any other resources out there that might be able to lend some guidance to an undecided healer? I know my question is most likely un-answerable and is mostly self chosen, but I’m just looking for suggestions, thoughts, or guidance.
Thank you,
Jordon
P.S. Whats up with all of the ?‘s instead of “‘s
Wow, I had no idea my blog was being read overseas. I salute you, sir, even though I’m from Canada. Thank you for the kind word =)!
Now, let’s get to business.
I know there are a lot of players who recommend supplementing raiding gear with some PvP Gear to help increase their survivability. Either that, or they’re unable get access to any kind of raiding gear because the population on a server is ridiculously low.
I definitely think DPS classes benefit with a mix of several PvP pieces. As a Priest, I have even added the [item]Veteran Mooncloth Bracers[/item] to my Priest raiding gear list as suggested by you readers (You know who you are).
As a healer, would I recommend going all out for arena gear just to be able to start raiding in Karazhan?
No, I would not.
Remember that PvE gear is tailored differently than PvP gear. Even though the healing or spelldamage increase may seem similar, the difference lies entirely in stat distribution.
PvP gear has a ton of stamina allowing you to withstand and deal serious firepower within a limited amount of time.
PvE gear has added longevity and endurance so you can deal firepower over a longer amount.
It’s like comparing an A-10 to a Spectre gunship. The A-10 comes in, drops its payload, and speeds off. The Spectre just flies circles above an area protecting it’s assignments.
It’s all about endurance.
If you want to raid, stat collecting raiding gear. PvP gear isn’t going to help you much at all because it lacks important stats like mana regeneration. Five minutes into a boss fight and you’ll be OOM (after innervates and potions).
What I can recommend is this: Start arenaing and get a few points under your belt. Keep doing this for several weeks. Meanwhile, if you don’t have a good set of bracers, hook yourself up with a Vindicator’s Kodohide Bracers.When you feel ready for Kara, start running the lower level of it a few times to help gradually build up your pieces. If you’re having trouble getting Maiden’s Shard of the Virtuous, put the Arena Points to good use and grab the [item]Merciless Gladiiator’s Salvation[/item] (S2 heaing mace). That should take you anywhere between 4 – 8 weeks.
How will you know if you’re good enough? Refer to my Minimum Kara Requirements for classes. Alternately, I’m sure Phaelia, Karthis, and Big Bear Butt can help you get in the right direction as they’re both Druids and far more familiar with what you’ll need. Well, the latter two are feral. But I like to randomly link to bloggers anyway.
P.S. The ?’s occur due to a CSS oversight on my part. Will be fixed when my new layout goes live. Hopefully it will be up before Christmas. Basically, what happens is WordPress interprets my apostrophes and quotes in a weird fashion.
And godspeed, Jordon.
I found pvp gear to be good temporary gear while waiting for something better.
I wear the pvp neckpiece and ring. My neckpiece and one of my rings were not very good (both blues, ring was a rep reward, honor hold honored maybe?). Buying the pvp items gave me two easily obtainable upgrades.
Nonsense, Paladin’s S1 is better than any Karazhan epic, and S2/S3 is arguably better than Justicar.
I have full S1/S2 and I have +1750 Healing and 26.7% crit chance.
As a Paladin, yes, I agree there’s some PvP pieces that are better then the stuff you can find in raids. But Jordon’s a resto druid. I don’ know a whole lot about druids and gear, but I don’t think their PvP gear is as… geared as a Paladin’s.
And S2/S3 is also comparable to T5/T6 equivalents. I don’t see why Jordon here should spend 2 – 3 months PvPing to get gear just to start raiding. Which was his original question.
Is PvP gear good for fillers? Yes, absolutely. They’re great for upgrading those blues. But don’t go as far as getting the entire S3 set just to start raiding.
Slightly off-topic but…
*waves from across the big pond in England*
I myself like to pve feral, and pvp resto. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t swap those roles every now and then. The druid PvP gear is excellent in raids, and as for lacking longevity, I disagree. I’ve feral dps’d through vashj in SSC and Kael in the Eye, and also healed those fights in 100% pvp gear. On the druid sets at least, we have tons of stam, int, +heal, and mp5. The only thing lacking is spirit, which I have tended to think of not being AS an important stat in most cases. As a tree druid, I’m mostly rolling lifeblooms/rejuv’s on the tank, throwing a lifebloom here and there on the raid, and thus, for the majority of fights, I’m never outside of the “5 second rule” for the extra spirit regen to kick in. Alot of pve resto gear leans more towards spirit than mp5, which can be helpful when you innervate, or you have the chance to spend alot of time out of the 5sr. However, I’ve found that for the most part, I’m fine on mana and myself and the other druids mostly use our innervates on the priests or shadow priests.
With raid buffs in full PvP gear I hit about 1700+ healing, 11k mana, 13k HP, and over 200 mp5 (while casting!) which means that I can keep a rolling stack of lifeblooms on the tank while REGENERATING mana. The extra hitpoints is a bit overkill, but there are ALOT of fights where people need a MINIMUM 8k hp unbuffed to be able to survive.
Now, you are asking about Kara, and I’m talking about SSC/TK. You definitely don’t need full epics to do well in Kara. Some easy things to obtain are the 3 Windhawk LW pieces (the + healing and the +dmg STACK on those pieces, so well gemmed they are very nice for healing). Exalted Sha’tar healing mace, Hood of Primal Life (crafted BoE) aren’t too hard to obtain either. There is a lot of good stuff that can be picked up by farming up mats or doing some heroics that will get you geared for PvE content. But if there are some empty slots, PvP gear works just as well. However, if you want to survive in Arena, AND PvE, I honestly say the PvP epics will be let you do both with no problem at all.
*gasp* I have readers from England!
Thank you all for your comments, also, Matticus you should keep all of your apostrophes as question marks. It adds character and its a nice touch.
Quick note here:
I can’t say for anyone else, but for Druids, the PVP helm / Legs are amongst the best pieces of gear (outside of T5) for entering Hyjal. Druid PVE gear ignores Spirit completely and gives healthy amounts of MP5, which serves as a nice supplement to all the spirit gear running around. Granted, I’d have preferred a rainbow INT/STAM/SPR/+HEAL spread on all of my gear, but it’s always nice to have MP5.
It’s kind of like your argument about picking the Staff VS MH/OH to help the raid. In a lot of cases, you can utilize PVP gear as equivalents, or slight downgrades to their PVE counterparts so that your raid can get more T5 passed around. I have every piece of non-set leather healing gear from SSC / TK, and I have two pieces PVP where you can’t find any solid pieces (Helm has to wait until Guise of the Tidal Lurker from BT, and pants wait until… sometime later). Incidentally, PVP healing mace is a slight downgrade to Lightfathom Scepter, but a lot less DKP 😉
good stuff good stuff, I am only trying to get rid of some of my quest and AH greenies really. Im just having a hard time researching what gear specifically to get and where to get it, the computers i have to use block “just about” every website related to gaming. I can check on my personal computer, but i’d rather get every moment of my 3-4 hour WOWNESS time playing and not researching. If anybody has had to do this or knows some good resources or specific items, i promise to give you my Gift Of The Wild buff next time i see you.
You can check out my gear by clicking on the link over “70 DRUID” in the 3rd line of my original E-mail. I dont mean to sound like a beggar, I have 3 70’s but i still have nothing for End-game exp. Thank you all in advance
Jordon
In regards to paladin gear, I found that at the t5 level, my Merciless Gladiator was ALMOST as good as t5. However, there was one thing that made me take a step back and look carefully. I was surviving well, never running out of mana, and yet I was low on healing. It was after a few moments of thinking that i realized something important: i forgot that the +healing equiv was terrible.
After I started getting more raiding gear, that evened out. After purchasing my s3 chest piece, and comparing it with the rest of my gear, I decided, “Yeah, I am just sticking with raiding gear fore raiding.”
The only thing, pvp wise, that I may infest in, is the weapons.
And readers in Portugal as well. 🙂 Great info, thanks!
Whoa, guys from Iraq, England, Portugal. I wonder if there’s anyone from the eastern hemisphere.
Not only those countries, Belgium as well. You’re quite popular overhere in Europe heh …
Anyway, back to topic. I am just starting out playing WoW (Lvl 29 Night Elf Hunter) and I find myself spending more time reading the forums to learn about the game than actually playing WoW. I was recently taken by a random player to a BG (AB).
I have not yet done any raids. Reason for this is that I have a rather demanding job, which allows me about 2 hrs of playtime per day only. Nor do any of my friends play WoW, and I find it difficult to approach people and to ask them to take me with them on instances, as my skills obviously aren’t quite well yet, and I don’t want to hold them back. This results in my char being in greens completely, I have about 50g and I need to do a lot of farming in order to be able to purchase my mount when I hit lvl 40.
All of the above makes it difficult for me to really feel like I am progressing in the game, and therefore learning that PvP offers the ability to upgrade to some blue, and eventually epic gear is looking very tempting. Perhaps I can ask you guys this questions though : Would it be a good idea to use eg lvl 60 PvP epic gear to run lower instances to slowly obtain the correct instance / raid gear ? Or is that frowned upon, or perhaps even simply not possible ? For a solo-er as myself it seems like a good plan to first learn my char, and upgrade my gear to a lvl where I could be of some service before I go along with people, and annoy them to death with my ‘noobness’.
I’d appreciate any comments or suggestions.
Neekuh
Europe – Burning Blade PvP
Off topic again …Hello from South Africa 🙂
And France By the Way.
I’m quite agree with Phaelia and other comments thant were posted, PvP gear is actually > or >= as pre kara/kara stuff, due to the enhancement of the arena stuff. The gear you can found with honor points and arena points (S3) is actually as good as T4/T5 if correctly gemed and enchanted, imho.
Hi… Canada here eh?
I’m a holy priest in full PVP (Gladiator’s Mooncloth) except for a few trinkets. My heals are +1800, MP5 is 125 and I have 9000+ mana and 10k health. I also have double armour of most priests and I can heal Kara and Heroics just fine. My 2 cents.
I wish this was the truth, but in actualy fact PvP gear just has really really good stats all round. Sure it does’nt have the absolute best for endurance, and endurance is good for raiding, but it does have “decent” endurance, enough to get by as most classes as you can always gem for regen. Also I would never say that stamina is a bad stat for raiding. In BC raiding there is a huge amount of raid damage from all mobs in many different forms. Having alot more stamina than PvE gear gives you, as an individual, a higher chance to survive this raid damage and give time for any incoming heals. In some cases having PvP gear makes certain fights much easier to heal and survive in, and is a must for warlock tanks which are needed for a few select bosses!
Not to mention you can gear PvP gear much easier as an individual or with a few friends or a rolling pick-up group (replacing members as they leave), rather than fixed group with fixed classes needed. Its quite an advantage!