The Warlocks Den - WoW Warlock Discussions

Arena Introduction
Version 2.0

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Hello all

This is for those of you who think of starting some arena matches soon or have already started but do not perform well and start loosing fun. I am well aware that there are many players who are no dedicated PvPers and do arena mainly to collect pts for an epic weapon but there is no reason to accept a 1300ish ranking just because of that. If you want to do arena then you can get at least a 1500ish ranking even if you miss the equipment and pvp-dedication. Give it a try and read the below tips, they will probably help you to perform better.

1) The Ranking system
The arena system is different from the “normal” PvP as there is no honor to gain. In the normal PvP you will get more honor by simply playing more, skill is not important as long as you are willing to spend huge amounts of time in it. In the arena system the spent time is not important, you will get points only based on your ranking.

Tuesday night
Once a week, at Tuesday night you will get points based on your ranking of that day. So if you had a ranking of 1700 on Sunday but then lost a lot of games and have only 1500 on Tuesday then you will get the points only based on the 1500.

In order to get points you need to be in an arena team, this can be 2vs2, 3vs3 or 5vs5. You can be in all 3 teams but only the best ranking will provide you with points on Tuesday. To get an idea about the calculation you have to understand that the 5vs5 gives full points, the 3vs3 only 80% of it and the 2vs2 only 60%.

Example
Lets assume you play in all teams and have the following rankings:
2vs2 1600 – 345 points
3vs3 1500 – 301 points
5vs5 1450 – 357 points
As you can see, in this week you would get 357 points, provided by the 5vs5 ranking even though it is the lowest of your rankings. At this point you should note that the point calculation is not linear, it raises faster after 1500 which means that a ranking of 1600+ will be what you want to get many points. 2vs2 may give less points than 5vs5 but its probably more easy to get a decent ranking as a beginner and its lot of fun to do with an RL or in Game friend.

To check yourself you can use Arena Point Calculators like this.

New team
When you create a new team then you will start at 1500 ranking and fight against other teams in the same ranking-area. When you win against someone with the same ranking you will get 15 pts, when you loose then you loose 15 pts. When fighting someone with a higher ranking you will loose less points on a loss but win more on a win. The lowest loss I ever had was 4 pts, I think our opponents were several hundred points higher in ranking, the biggest gain was 31 pts, here also the opponent ranking was probably much higher than ours.

Minimum fights
If you want to get your points on Tuesday night your team needs to fight at least 10 matches. Your character needs to take part in at least 30% of the fights. So it is possible to put more people in teams and cycle them for all to get points. I you for example play 5 fights with a priest friend 2vs2 and then switch with a Hunter who does the other 5 fights with the priest then all 3 of you will get the same points. The priest will not get more because he did more fights.

It will also not matter how many fights you did as long as your team did 10 at least. If you have a ranking of 1400 after 100 fights in this week or a ranking of 1400 after 25 fights in this week does not matter – you will get exactly the same points.

2) Equipment
Ok, so you want to start your first arena match and have no PvP equipment yet – that is no problem, don’t forget that all started like that. Equipment does make a difference but it is not that huge in the lower rankings. When you start fresh you will have a 1500 ranking and struggle to keep it, so the opponent teams are in the same ranking-area and it is unlikely that they will all have full PvP-epics. It is possible to tune yourself for PvP a little bit without too much struggle, just by some careful planning.

Important Stats
When you typically come from PvE then I assume you have put your main focus on spell damage, maybe +Hit and +Crit also. This needs to change for PvP, your focus should be different here.

1) +Hit is still useful but only +30 (3%), everything above is quite useless. Note that some talents can make even this redundant.
2) +Crit can still be useful for a non-Affliction spec but it should get a lower importance.
3) Stamina should have highest importance, even more than spell damage
4) Resilience is good to have, this is something which is typically 0 on PvE equipment. For high-end PvP teams with 2k+ ranking you will notice they all have Resilience maxed to the cap of 500 but I can assure you this is not a must for beginners who fight a 1500 ranking. Just try to get Resilience if possible but don’t think you will loose all fights just because you don’t have any.

Honor Rewards
Many of you will already have some Honor from normal PvP, this is good as you can gear up for PvP with the honor rewards. But be careful, do not spend your precious honor on useless stuff, plan your equipment with care.

1) Do get yourself the Insignia. This is most important – it costs only like 3k honor and going into arena fights without the insignia is just suicide and a waste of time. Different from normal BGs where you don’t care for being cc’d for some time it means you loose in arena if you cant counter it. You imagine you get sapped by a rogue and then both opponents hammer on your partner while you cant do anything for 12 sec – the game is lost. But now you have the insignia, wait for the right moment to use it, followed by DC on the rogue and a fear on the other one – Bam, your team is back in game.

At this point it is worth mentioning that you may want to work on getting the better version of the Insignia soon – the Medallion . The Medallion does not only provide 20 Resilience but also lowers the cool down from 5min to 2min which is a big advantage.

2) Do buy only those Honor rewards which take non-arena-gear places. The arena gear will be available for head, chest, shoulder, leg, hands, weapon – so don’t waste your precious honor on a normal PvP-head. The honor-rewards are great for waist, wrist, feet, neck, finger, trinket, back.

Other equipment
There are some pieces of equipment which are can be done by professions or come from NPC vendors which can be useful to you. A complete listing would be too long here and the list will be dynamic, you will find it in Appendix A at the end of the Post.

General equipment improvement
Well, I assume that you have only limited Honor when starting your arena career and obviously you will have 0 arena points. So you need to find other ways to improve your gear – in general I would advice to exchange the weakest parts first. Lets assume that you did some raiding and got some T4-items…keep them and use them. Yes, they are no PvP-gear but why exchanging them now when you have only limited honor and maybe use some green crap on other slots? Look for the weakest parts first – for example when you wear a green cloak of the sorcerer still, then replace this one with the good PvP cloak using the honor you have while keeping the PvE epics for now.

Also look out for Stamina-gear and replace those items first who have no Stamina at all. You should have about 10k HP at least to do some arena fighting, especially when you have near no resilience in the beginning. Of course you will now and then meet a lock who does good in arena with less HP simply because he is very skilled – but you have to ask yourself, are you that skilled too? On the long run you should aim for 10k-12k HP and as much Resilience as you can get up to the cap of 500. But no worries if that takes time, you can get good rankings even without Resilience, up to 1800ish or so I would say.

Enchantments and Gems Well, needless to say that all your equipment should be enchanted and slotted with gems as best as possible. Looking out for +Stamina and +HP makes sense for both, a list of usable gems and enchants can be found at Appendix A at the end of the post.

But one gem is especially worth mentioning and that is the meta-gem. Try to get yourself a head-piece which does have a meta-gem-slot. That is true for almost all blue and epic head-pieces and it gives you a valuable weapon vs Rogues/Warriors. The meta slot can be filled with a Powerful Earthstorm Diamond which offers 5% stun resist – I strongly recommend to not miss that one.

General comment on Resilience
The discussion on the importance of Resilience for PvP is a long one and you will find as many opinions as there are Locks out there. Thus I will just provide you with the basics of it and you can decide yourself if its worth to concentrate on it or not.

Resilience lowers the chance to get critical hits from your opponents. 40 Resilience lower the chance by 1% up to a max of 12.5% at 500 Resilience which is the cap.
Resilience lowers the damage you get from critical hits.
Basically all successful 2k+ arena teams have maxed out Resilience.

Personally I would advice to give Resilience a high importance when you play in a team with a Healer. Same as in PvE it makes it much more easy for the healer to heal you when your HP go down linear instead of in bursts due to your opponents crits. If you play in a pure DPS team on the other hand then Resilience seems still useful but maybe not being the most important stat any longer. You now rely on bringing down the first opponent fast to be able to win and Resilience is not going to help you, especially if its your team mate who is attacked first while you just get the CC.

3) Add-ons and Macros
This one is most important for you – I also made the mistake of ignoring it at the beginning of my arena career and it was a bad mistake. Just think of PvE and raiding and how useful things like KTM, CTRaidassist or DeadlyBossMod are. Did you try to down Gruul without DeadlyBossMod – then using it and suddenly the fight was so much more simple? It’s the same for PvP – Add-ons and Macros will make your life much more easy and give you the edge over you opponents. You can decide not to use any but your opponents will do so and this will cause you to loose many fights which is unneeded.

Examples
For example there exist add-ons that show you your opponents class and race as soon as you move the mouse over them. So if you just got a quick mouse-over on your opponents before they hide behind a column you already know what they are and can discuss your primary target with your partner which is a big advantage.

Another example would be a macro that makes your pet kill Shaman totems in an order which you want by just pressing a button. Needless to say how much better that is than trying to target totems yourself, giving the pet-attack command and then switching back to your primary target.

For me I found it very useful to get a sound warning as soon as Shadow Trance or Backlash proc – in the heat of battle I sometimes missed it and a lost instant-shadow bolt can make you loose a fight. Now I get a sound-warning as soon as its active and Boom – instant shadow bolts for the win.

Very important to note at this point is the “Focus-command” which allows you to focus on a primary target and easily switch back to it after targeting something else. You can use it to time your CC on a focus target while blasting on your primary one.

There are many many more useful situations in which add-ons and macros do give you an advantage – make use of it. Your opponents will do it and if you ignore it then you waste a good resource.

A list of recommended Add-ons and Macros can be found in Appendix B at the end of this post. There you will also find a small introduction on how to write your own small add-on if interested, its not as hard as it seems and coding-interested Warlocks may want to give it a go.

4) Communication
Lets assume now that you did gear up for PvP as best as you could within your limits. You have some add-ons installed and know how to use their basic functionality, maybe even some macros. But it could still be that you start loosing fight after fights – and the reason for that could be bad communication.

Communication between you and your partner(s) is the most important thing to win a match. You can be complete epic-geared with capped resilience, but if you and your partner do not have a plan and tell each other what you are doing then you will loose even to a green-wearing team if they just have a good plan and talk to each other.

So I strongly recommend the use of team speak, skype or a similar tool for communication. Chatting while doing arena-fights is not really a viable option. Best of course is when you play with RL friends, I have a RL friend who does 2vs2 with me and sometimes we meet for an evening, drink some beer and do matches while sitting next to each other – there is excellent communication and that already makes a big difference. I noticed our ranking going down significant on those weeks where we do not manage to meet in person and even more so when we cant make skype work or have too bad voice quality.

Having a basic plan
As mentioned before it is very useful to identify your opponents as soon as possible to know their abilities. But still, if you just start discussing what to do while the other teams rushes to you then its too late already, you will loose. So make a general plan before it starts.

Lets assume that you and a friend start a 2vs2 DPS team. Then you may encounter other DPS teams or DPS+Healer teams. So its good to agree on a general strategy before the fight starts. For example you could agree to always burn the healer down first while trying to cc the other opponent. So as soon as you identify one of your opponents as a healer you can start your damage without needing to start a discussion first. Especially vs healer-teams coordination is everything. If you start DPS on the healer while your partner starts DPS on the DPSer then your opponents will die only from laughing and you have lost already.

So do yourself a favor and have a basic plan like this for example:
1) Kill healer first, use cc on the DPSer
2) If healer is a paladin, then kill DPSer, try cc on Paladin
3) If 2 DPSer kill those first who could change to healer (Druid, Shadow Priest)

This is just an example but you should setup something like this with your partner before queuing for the matches. For bigger teams like 3vs3 or 5vs5 its getting more complicated of course but you could still set up general rules like putting the MS-warrior on healer while you cc their main crowd-controller or whatever else. Better have a bad plan than no plan at all.

Escape abilities
Be aware of some classes to have escape-abilities. When you do 2vs2 for example, and stand against hunter/mage, whom would you target first? If your choice is the mage then you have most probably just lost the match. Almost all arena-mages are frost and have the iceblock as escape-ability. So they wait till you wasted lots of time dotting him up completely, then he uses his iceblock laughing at you with all dots removed while you have to switch target and start at zero again. All the time the hunter damages you and the mage will just join the fight again as soon as his cool downs are back. If you would target the hunter first who has no escape-ability then he will go down first and then its 2vs1, you win. This is just an example but it should give you a general idea, especially DPS-teams decide the fight in the first 15 sec or so. You kill an opponent quick and win or you fail to do so and loose.

Other examples of classes with escape abilities are Rogues with their cloak of shadows or Paladins with their bubble. Be aware of those abilities and work them into your strategy.

5) Team composition – just make the best of it
Well, many experienced PvPers will point out that the team composition is one of the main factors in winning or loosing a match and probably they are right. But hey, we also play for fun so if you want to do a team with your friend(s) then do it, no matter what class they play. As long as you do not expect to get a 2k+ ranking, all teams can be made work.

But the important thing is to know your partners abilities, especially the key-abilities which have a long cool down. You need to coordinate at least those if you want to have a chance to win. Lets look at an example:

So me and my Shadow priest friend decide to kill the healer first when encountering a Healer+DPS team. I have DC as a powerful weapon, he has a silence. So we a target the healer, I start the fight with DC and he with silence – we loose cause we are stupid. Better agree first that he will use the silence as soon as he is down to 60% HP and shouts out when doing it. I will then use my DC several seconds later and suddenly we win.

Every class you play with will have some sort of key ability which can give your team a big advantage. Coordinate those abilities and you double your efficiency. For you as a Lock the skill DC is the most important one. It will interrupt a healer or get a melee class off you – don’t just use it headless without plan. Make your partner aware of it and ask him what special he has to offer, make a plan to coordinate them.

6) Talent Build
Your talent build can have a big impact on your team loosing or winning the fights. I will not give any build advices here but instead recommend to the arena newbies to just try many different builds. I was always Demo in PvE so I started with a solid FG build, however I could never really get a good rating. So I read in forums that an UA-build is best with a Shadow priest who is my partner. I tried and failed, we still didn’t increase. So I just gave destruction a try and suddenly – boom – we increased by 150 points. I was surprised myself, I never saw me as a Destro-player but from that I learned that you just should give all builds a fair chance and see which one suits you the best.

Of course there are some favored builds which are used by most 2k+ arena teams. You will for example not see many Destro-builds in 2k+, but why should that bother you? If you just started and want to defend your 1500 ranking, then why trying a build just because its successful in the 2k+ ranking? In that high ranking fights there are real experts fighting which use a lot LoS and Resilience, all things which you will meet rarely in the lower rankings. So your build can indeed be different and still successful. I really advice to just use what suits you best and when you really make it to 1900 then you can still switch to another build which handles Resilience and LoS better.

7) Cool downs and Consumables
As you have noticed by now, arena-fights are a bit different from the “normal” PvP as you know it. This also goes for so-called “Consumables” – to make it short you can not use any at all. In arena-fights it is not possible to use any Potions, Elixirs, Engineering-Bombs or any other item which would be “consumed” in the process. Thus you can not get any advantage by having endless money to fill up on Potions and Elixirs before each fight.

As for abilities which have cool downs like Soulstone or Death Coil for example, the general rule is that all abilities are allowed which have a cool down of 15 min or less. This means that you can use Death Coil but not Soul Stone. Note that some classes who have a rez-ability without cool down can rez dead teammates if they manage to leave combat undisturbed.

8) Stones, Stones, Stones
Being a Warlock is a lot about stones – we have many of them and all seem to have some use. In arena fights this is not true for all of them.

A) Soul Stone
As explained before we can not use any ability with a cool down time of more than 15 min. As the Soul Stone is on 30 min, we can not use it in the arena.

B) HealthStone
These ones are great, you can create them for you and you partner(s) in the battle preparation time before the fight starts. If you fight with another Lock in team then I would strongly suggest to put a different number of talent points into the HS-talent. This way each party member can have two big ones. In addition to that you can of course also provide additional small ones. Usually 2vs2 DPS fights are over too quick to really use 2 stones which have a 2min-cooldown, but in bigger teams or Healer+X teams this will be useful.

C) FireStone
To be honest I personally do not see too much use for it in arenas. In levels 30-50 I used it when leveling for some fun and that extra DoT but in Level 70 you will most probably find a better item here. Maybe its useful for full-fire-specced Locks.

D) SpellStone
This one is the source of many discussions among Arena-Warlocks. Using the SpellStone or a good wand – both will have disadvantages and advantages. I will simply sum them up and let you decide if you want to use it:
Advantage:
Dispels Silence on usage – this is so great and the reason why I personally use it. Being in a DPS team I rely on killing one opponent fast – if I am silenced for 6 sec without any chance to remove that then the chance of loosing because of this is very high.
Removes DOTs on usage – when fighting other Dot-Classes then its an obvious advantage to be able to get rid of all DoTs.
Disadvantage:
A good wand will have good stats.
A wand gives you the option to get rid of Shaman totems quick.
When silenced a wand can still do the bit of DPS which you may need to win.

9) Battle Preparation
So you entered the arena and the fight will start soon - now its time for the battle preparation. The preparation time before the gates open is 1 minute, make sure to make good use of it. You can cast all spells during this preparation time without having any mana-cost or need of SoulShards. So you can make as many stones as you like, don't worry about the number of shards in your backpack.

What you should do at least in the battle-preparation-time:
1) Summon your pet (do this first so your partner gets the chance to buff it).
2) Make Healthstones for you and your partner(s).
3) Make a Spellstone for you if you plan to use it instead of a wand.
4) Buff yourself with the armor-spell of your choice.
5) Buff yourself, your partner and your pet with all buffs available, these will be "Detect Invisibility" and "Unending Breath" - this is important as purge-protection. Shamans for example can purge positive buffs from you but they can not choose which one. So if they purge Detect Invisibility and Unending Breath from your partner while his Fortitude stays in place then this is absolutely worth it.
6) Tell your partner to also buff you with everything he has for the same reason, purge-protection.
7) In case you got some buffs which increase your maximum HP like a Fortitude make sure your partner also heals you to make your current HP = max HP.

In general, do not waste too much time when entering the arena - one minute is not too long, especially if some of it is taken away from you due to long loading times. As you can see in the list above there are a lot of useful things to do, you should not miss them.

Have Fun
So now you are ready to start – you have done the best to gear up a bit and more HP than ever before in your PvE days. You have some add-ons and macros installed and know how to use them. You and your partner play on team speak and you have a general strategy on whom to attack first when the fight starts. Both you and your partner(s) know each others key abilities and you have talent builds which feel comfortable to you. Nothing can go wrong now, just go out there and have fun.

September 11, 2007, 04:21 AM	#1 (permalink)
Tannenbernie Character Info Powerbernie 70 Human Warlock Runetotem Euro PvE Guild: Shadow Ops Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 22/5/34	Re: Introduction to arena fights Appendix A - Equipment 1) Armor There are some pieces of equipment which are not sold by the PvP Vendors but can still be useful to you. Tailoring Unyielding Girdle Very good and even worn by PvP pros with very high arena ranking. One of the very few Profession-items which has Resilience on it. Battlecast Hood Battlecast Pants These two items come as a set with decent stats. For tailors they offer a set-bonus "Increases the chance spell pushback and spell interrupt will be resisted by 5%". The big problem is that the head piece does not have a meta-slot, thus its not possible to use the Powerful Earth Storm Diamond with it which is a major drawback. I would advice to use the set only as Tailor, if you are no Tailor then only use the pants. *Engineering* Nigh Invulnerability Belt This one has a chance to backfire - if it happens then you will gain a debuff which will cause double damage to you from all sources which in fact kinda insta-kills you when this happens in arena. Still, the chance for a backfire is about 10% and if you use it only when you see the fight turns out bad and you would loose without it then its worth trying. I still use this item and its the most useful of all engineer-items in my opinion. Goblin Rocket Launcher This is an ok filler for an empty trinket spot. Most PvE trinket which add damage on use are kind of useless in PvP. The Rocket launcher offers 45 Stamina which is very useful, the attack of the rocket itself is only situational. If your partner is under heavy fire while you are ignored as the opponent team tries to bring him down quick then the launcher shines. It will stun its target for 3s which is excellent considering that your other option "Fear" is quite useless vs. most classes which can simply make themself immune to it. Destruction Holo Gogs These are ok head pieces for PvP - they miss the Resilience which a good Arena-reward has but the other stats are very good. It has the meta-slot which is kind of mandatory and the additional stealth-detection can be useful in many fights. Auchindoun Spirit Shards Seal of the Exorcist This ring is one of the best which you can get for PvP, most of the high-end arena pros use it. It is one of the very few NPC-Vendor items which offers Resilience. To get it you need to kill Bosses in the Auchindoun dungeons while your faction controls the PvP area of Terrokar. in this case each boss will drop Spirit Shards - you can buy the ring for 50 Shards. 2) Enchantments In this section I will propose some enchantments for the different slots of your PvP gear. While +Damage was king in PvE this is not the same for PvP, here we should look more into the +HP and eventually the +Resilience section. Being in team with a healer will make Resilience more important, in a pure DPS team you may want to look out more for Sta. Please note that the discussion on perfect arena-enchants and gems will never end, so I will just propose the obvious ones but this is surely not the absolute and only solution. *Head* Lesser Arcanum of Constitution - 100HP Hodoo Hex - 100 HP, 18 Damage Glyph of Power - 22 Damage, 14 Spell Hit Personally I would recommend the Glyph of Power if you are revered with ShaTar. 14 Spell Hit is already half of what you need so you can choose other gems/enchants on other slots, also 22 Damage is a lot. Hodoo Hex is excellent of course but it requires you to go to ZG and kill bosses there, something which many people will find not easy to do. The lesser Arcanum of Constitution is the logical filler if you cant get your hands on one of the other two. *Neck* I have no knowledge of any neck-enchants at this point of time. *Shoulder* Zandalar Signet of Mojo - 18 Damage/Heal Greater Inscription of Discipline - 18 Damage/Heal, 10 Spell Crit Greater inscription of the Orb - 12 Damage, 15 Spell Crit Looking at them the differences are not that big. Best one would be The inscription of Discipline, but you have to be Revered with Aldor here. The Zandalar Signet comes next on my list and should be easy to get, you can probably buy 15 Bijous cheap in AH. The third one goes with revered Scryer - its still a good enchant to have when you have the reputation. Chest Chest - Major Resilience - 15 Resilience Chest - Exceptional Health - 150 HP The 150 HP on chest are probably the best enchant for a starter as you need to get as many HP as possible. *Cloak* Cloak - Major resistance - 7 all resistance Cloak - Spell Penetration - 20 Spell Penetration Both are valid options, the Spell Penetration will probably be better as you will fight many teams with good shadow resistance. Priests for example can buff all team members with Shadow-Res and with Spell Penetration you can counter this. *Arm* Bracer - Spell Power - 15 Damage Bracer - Fortitude - 12 Stamina 12 Stamina is probably more important than 15 Damage here. *Hand* Gloves - Major Spellpower - 20 Damage Gloves - Spell Strike - 15 Spell Hit Gloves - Knothide Armor Kit - 8 Stamina Here you should go for the +Spell Hit if you do not have 30 yet, else 20 Damage will be fine. The option to take +8 Stamina is there, but taking 8 Stamina over 20 Damage is personal taste only. I would think Stamina being about double as important than Damage, but taking 8 Stamina over 20 Damage would exceed that. *Finger* Ring - Stats - 4 all stats Ring - Spellpower - 12 Damage These enchants can only be used by an enchanter - if you are no enchanter then you can not get your rings enchanted. *Leg* Leg - Mystic SpellThread - 25 Damage, 15 Stamina The Spell Thread exists in different versions, there is also an epic one. So if you have no money problems you may want to go for the epic version which has slightly higher stats but costs several hundred G. *Feet* Boots - Boar Speed - 9 Stamina, minor run speed increase Boots - Fortitude - 12 Stamina Do not underestimate a boost in run speed increase. Its personal taste but I prefer a bit more speed over 3 Sta. You should at least give it a try and see how it works out for you. *Weapon* Weapon - Major Spellpower - 40 Damage There seems to be no valid alternative to this enchant for your Weapon. 3) Gems Please find a list of useful gems for PvP in the list below. To make the decision on which gems to take be also aware of the socket-bonus and the meta-prerequisites. All meta-gems have prerequisites which need to be fulfilled to become active. Your layout should keep that in mind so you don't loose this important gem-effect. All armor pieces with gem-slots offer a socket-bonus which you will get when you put in gems of the correct colors. Multicolored gems can fulfil these requirements. So if a piece of armor offers you a socket-bonus of +3 Stamina when you fill both blue slots then this will also become active if you fill in a green (blue+yellow) and a purple (blue+red) gem. The following list shows you some gems which you can easily get in the AH as they are crafted by Jewelcrafters. They are all blue but there always also exist cheap green versions if you are low on money. Use WoWHead to browse through possible gems. *Meta* Powerful Earthstorm Diamond - 18 Stamina, 5% Stun Resist (Crafted / AH) Mystical Skyfire Diamond - 5% on spell cast, next spell cast in half time (Crafted / AH) Meta gems are very very powerful, make sure you have a head piece which does have a meta slot. Only head pieces have meta slots at this moment in the game. I personally would prefer the Powerful Earthstorm Diamond, especially for beginners who need to gear up on Sta. *Red* Runed Living Ruby - 9 Damage (Crafted / AH) As the only useful red gem is a +Damage gem I would advice most new arena-locks to use orange or purple gems instead if you really want to have the socket bonus. *Yellow* Great Dawnstone - 8 Spell Hit (Crafted / AH) Mystic Dawnstone - 8 Resilience (Crafted / AH) Sublime Mystic Dawnstone - 10 Resilience (unique-Equipped, Halaa PVP reward) Spell Hit is useful if you don't have any yet in your other gear, up to +30. Resilience is very powerful especially if in team with a healer. If both does not match for you then I would advice on using green or orange gems. *Blue* Solid Star of Elune - 12 Stamina (Crafted / AH) Stormy Star of Elune - 10 Spell Penetration (Crafted / AH) The Solid Star of Elune is pretty much the best beginner gem to have - huge upgrade on HP to make up for otherwise not so Stamina-intense gear. If you are already happy with your HP you may want to increase your Spell penetration which can be useful vs. certain teams (like Warlock/Shadow Priest DPS team). *Orange (Red + Yellow)* Veiled Noble Topaz - 5 Damage, 4 Spell Hit (Crafted / AH) Not the best for beginners gear but if you only miss 4-5 Spell Hit and would get a Socket bonus by using it, why not. *Purple (Blue + Red)* Glowing Nightseye - 5 Damage, 6 Stamina (Crafted / AH) OK gem for beginner, compromise between Stamina and Damage, probably good choice for heavy Affliction locks. *Green (Yellow + Blue)* Steady Talasite - 4 Resilience, 6 Stamina (Crafted / AH) Radiant Talasite - 4 Spell Crit, 5 Spell Penetration (Crafted / AH) The Steady Talasite is a nice combination of Stamina and Resilience, absolutely ok to use, especially when in team with a healer. The other one would be only advisable if your gear is already very good on Sta. __________________ Powerbernie Human Warlock Das Solare Imperium - DunMorogh (Euro PvE)

September 11, 2007, 04:22 AM	#2 (permalink)
Tannenbernie Character Info Powerbernie 70 Human Warlock Runetotem Euro PvE Guild: Shadow Ops Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 22/5/34	Re: Introduction to arena fights Appendix B - Add-ons/Macros 1) Add-ons Proximo Arenamaster Both are great for targeting your opponents as they appear fixed on your screen as soon as you discovered them once. Note that it may be useful to use Eye of Kilrogg when you and your team-mates have Proximo or ArenaMaster installed. You can scout the area with the eye while your team stays hidden in the start-area. Every opponent which you find with the eye will be available to your team-mates too when the add-ons sync. Nature Enemy CastBar Overall useful in PvE as well as PvP, shows Buffs and Debuffs with timers. Also the cast bar of your opponent which is very helpful in arenas. Quartz Puts the estimated Latency in your cast bar, giving you the chance to counter a bad connection by stopping a spell which is already executed on the server but not finished on your client yet. 2) Macros *1) Focus* Focus is a powerful Macro-Command which allows you to set a primary target. So if you for example scout the arena using Eye of Kilrogg and you and you partner both have the Proximo Add-on then you both get the targets which you scouted. You could quickly decide to keep one of them CCd and therefore put that one as your "focus". When you and your partner then start DPS on the other one you can in between easily get back your focus target for CC or even cast spells on it without loosing your current First Fire target. /focus This will make your current target the focus target. Useful for keeping an eye on the CC (Crowd Control) target while you DPS the FF (Focus Fire) target /cast [target=focus] name of spell Examples: /cast [target=focus] Spell Lock /cast [target=focus] Fear Will cast the named spell on your focus target w/o you losing your main target. /cast [target=player] Devour Magic Will tell your felpuppy to devour magic off you. replace 'player' with the name of your partner/healer to devour off fears, sheep, ice trap, Hammer of Justice, roots, etc. *2) Pet* Pet Macros can make your life a lot more easy since you simply do not have time for all the needed mouse clicks in a fast arena-match Totem Stomper Macro, for clear-cutting totem forests: /petattack [target=Grounding Totem]; [target=Tremor Totem]; [target=Earthbind Totem]; If you have a Hunter or a Rogue on your team, add Poison Cleansing totem in there as well. *3) StopCasting* I love this one for Backlash or Nightfall. When one of them procs then you want to stop what you are just doing and cast the insta-SB instead. You can achieve that by moving to cancel your current spell but that costs time. Using the StopCasting instead will save you that time. Just replace your normal SB with a Macro that has the SB-graphics: /stopcasting /cast Shadow Bolt 3) Your own Add-on In this section I will give you a small introduction on how to build your own add-on. This is not needed to win but for those of you who know a bit of coding it may be some fun. First of all, what is the advantage in writing your own add-on - well the answer is that you can customize it to exactly meet your needs. When you have played around with other peoples add-ons then you have already encountered situations when you were not able to configure those add-ons to look exactly like you want them to look. Another thing is that configuring a big complex add-on till it does exactly what you want might take longer than just writing your own one - especially if you use just a fraction of the functionality of the add-on. *1) Structure* The structure of an add-on is quite simple, you just need to create 3 files. These 3 files can then be put into a new directory which you would put into your interface/Add-on-directory, just as you do it with a downloaded add-on which was done by someone else. The 3 files which you need are xyz.toc, xyz.lua and xyz.xml. You can create and edit them with a normal text editor like notepad if you like, there is no special programming-environment needed. *2) Example* So lets look at an example - you want to create your own add-on which warns you when Nightfall procs. A) Create a new directory in the Interface/Add-on-Directory of your WoW, call it MyAddon B) Create a new file with your text editor, call it MyAddon.toc - put it into the new directory MyAddon C) Create a new file with your text editor, call it MyAddon.lua - put it into the new directory MyAddon D) Create a new file with your text editor, call it MyAddon.xml - put it into the new directory MyAddon Now you have already done all the structure you need - but in order to do something you now need to fill your add-on with some life. *A) MyAddon.toc* This one is very easy, it is the information file which tell WoW that there is a new add-on which has to be loaded at game start. It just contains very small information, look at my example-file: ## Interface: 20103 ## Title: MyAddon ## Notes: First try on add-on MyAddon.xml As you can see the file is already finished with only 4 lines. the 1st line is important as it tells WoW on which Interface version it is written. When a later Patch increases the version then you will see your add-on to be out-of-date unless you simply edit the version in this file here again. The Title is needed as it shows exactly this name in the list of your add-ons when you click on add-ons for your character in the login-screen of the game. Notes are not mandatory, you can leave those if you like. The last line "MyAddon.xml" tells the game to load the xml as this is the real add-on. *B) MyAddon.xml* So now you want to fill your add-on with some life. To do that you will have to fill both MyAddon.xml and MyAddon.lua with some information. The xml-file will get information from you on how to show things on the screen. You can define frames here which will give you the information that you want. Lets look at an example again: <Ui xmlns="http://www.blizzard.com/wow/ui/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.blizzard.com/wow/ui/ ..\FrameXML\UI.xsd"> <Script file="MyAddon.lua"/> <Frame name="PBFrame" toplevel="true" parent="UIParent"> <Frames> <MessageFrame name="MyMessageFrame_Event" insertMode="TOP" parent="UIParent" frameStrata="HIGH" toplevel="true"> <Size> <AbsDimension x="600" y="50"/> </Size> <Anchors> <Anchor point="TOP"> <Offset> <AbsDimension x="0" y="-100"/> </Offset> </Anchor> </Anchors> <FontString inherits="SubZoneTextFont" justifyH="CENTER"/> </MessageFrame> </Frames> <Scripts> <OnLoad> My_load(); </OnLoad> <OnEvent> My_event(); </OnEvent> </Scripts> </Frame> </Ui> As you can see this is no coding, its a simple tag-language. You open a tag with "<xyz>", put in some information and then close it again with "</xyz>". So in the beginning of the code I open "<UI>, within the UI I open a new "<Frame>", within the Frame I open a new "<Messageframe>". Later I open a script-section in which I tell to WoW that it should execute my functions My_load() when my character is loaded into the game and My_event when an event happens. So the question is, where will the game find those functions - they can be found in the lua-file. The lua file was defined by the line "<Script file="MyAddon.lua"/>". *C) MyAddon.lua* So now we already have a Toc-file which initializes our add-on - and we have a XML-file which defines a new message-frame on our screen. But in order to fill this new frame with information we need to work on our lua-file: -- OnLoad Function function My_load() this:RegisterEvent("CHAT_MSG_SPELL_PERIODIC_SELF_B UFFS"); end -- OnEvent Function function My_event() if (event=="CHAT_MSG_SPELL_PERIODIC_SELF_BUFFS") then Spelltext=arg1; if (Spelltext=="You gain Shadow Trance.") then MyMsg_Event(Spelltext); end end end -- Defining Message Function function MyMsg_Event(msg) MyMessageFrame_Event:AddMessage(msg,1,1,1,1,7); end That's all you need. Basically you just defined a function which will get executed at Load-time. This function will register the event "CHAT_MSG_SPELL_PERIODIC_SELF_BUFFS". So now when such an event happens then the My_event-Function is called. This one just looks if the buff you get is "Backlash" - if yes then it will call the 3rd function MyMsg_Event. This one passes the information to the XML MessageFrame which will make it appear on your screen. Congratulations, now you get a Nightfall-Warning on your screen *3) What can I do with that?* Well, the next obvious question is, what can I do with that? The answer is, you can do almost everything, it will depend on your imagination and wishes but also on your skill on coding. The above example is very easy, it can be copy-pasted and will work like that, but it will not be sufficient to replace other peoples add-ons. For me I wanted to have warnings when my Backlash and Shadow Trance proc - this is just an example of course, in total you can react on all kind of events that are fired in the game - like a Pally using his bubble or a Rogue using CoS. You can get information from your target on what class or race he is and so on and on. As a summary I can say that its fun to work on your own add-on - you have the big advantage of being able to let it do exactly what you want but the disadvantage that you need to have some understanding of coding if you want to so something real. __________________ Powerbernie Human Warlock Das Solare Imperium - DunMorogh (Euro PvE)

October 02, 2007, 07:37 PM	#3 (permalink)
Akasha	Re: Introduction to arena fights The next version of the original Introduction to arena fights. Final touches done today. Please feel free to provide feedback and any additional information. __________________ Whether you're a forum expert, newbie or just want a good laugh... Everyone can learn something from : Posting And You... They're, there, their? Wear, were, where? Test yourself!

October 03, 2007, 10:06 AM	#4 (permalink)
Gritz Status: NOT IN THE FACE!!!! Character Info Gritz 80 Orc Warlock Eldre'Thalas US PvE Guild: Fate Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: Destro	Re: Introduction to arena fights A list of non-BG resilience gear. Mostly Cloth, but the ones that are tagged with Halaa tokens or Spirit Shards come in all flavors. Not a complete list, but a great place to get started. Items marked with a are generally the easiest and cheapest to obtain. Rings: Seal of the Exorcist http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28555 (Spirit Shard turn in) Soulpriest's Ring of Resolve http://www.wowhead.com/?item=27869 (Auchenai Crypts Heroic) Head: Exorcist's Dreadweave Hood http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28759 (Spirit Shard turn in) Neck: Thick Felsteel Necklace http://www.wowhead.com/?item=24106 (JC craftable) Misc Neck pieces http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=10882 (Quest Reward) 1h weapon: Runed Dagger of Solace http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28322 (Botanica drop) Back: Mithril-Bark Cloak http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28328 (Botanica Drop) Resolute Cape http://www.wowhead.com/?item=24258 (Tailor craftable) Wrist: Unyielding Bracer http://www.wowhead.com/?item=24249 (Tailor craftable) Waist: Unyielding Girdle http://www.wowhead.com/?item=24255 (Tailor craftable) or Hierophant's Sash http://www.wowhead.com/?item=27638 (Halaa Tokens) Legs: **Hierophant's Leggings http://www.wowhead.com/?item=27649 (Halaa Tokens) Trinket: Timelapse Shard http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29181 (Keepers of Time - Exalted) Alembic of Infernal Power http://www.wowhead.com/?item=27896#00Rz (Underbog heroic) Compiled in part by Chuin at wowmb.net source: Gear for arena __________________ DPS calc Leveling 10-50 PvE Raiding Compendium

October 04, 2007, 10:58 AM	#7 (permalink)
El Tanakh Character Info Garii 80 Tauren Druid Cho'gall US PvP Profile: Blizzard Armory	Re: Introduction to arena fights I dont know if its appropiate to post the latest Jayna's arena guide here as an additional info, if i offend the OP please tell me to delete it. __________________ Computer games dont affect kids... If Pacman affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music

October 05, 2007, 04:49 AM	#8 (permalink)
Tannenbernie Character Info Powerbernie 70 Human Warlock Runetotem Euro PvE Guild: Shadow Ops Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 22/5/34	Re: Introduction to arena fights Na, ist fine. have read through the guide, a lot of nice infos but a bit hard to read. I think its more directed towards experienced players who plan to reach a 2k rating, beginners will just be too confused. I especially like the macro section, lots of additional good stuff there __________________ Powerbernie Human Warlock Das Solare Imperium - DunMorogh (Euro PvE)

October 05, 2007, 06:34 AM	#9 (permalink)
mezza Character Info mezza 70 Gnome Warlock Magtheridon Euro PvP Guild: Expendable Forces Profile: Blizzard Armory	Re: Introduction to arena fights Good guide! About consumables, you can buy Star's Lament from the PvP-vendors. http://www.wowhead.com/?item=32455 Now, now I want to go home so that I can make my first addon. :-D __________________ Sanity is a full-time job.