[Prot-PvP] Crash Course in Arena PVP, for the Tournament

[Digren]

Thread title moderated in accordance with sticky guidelines -Baelor

Last night, I dropped down $20 and signed up for the arena tournament to earn my armored murloc pet.

I have never played any class or spec besides protection paladin. I only PVP when I have to for achievements or to earn noncombat pets - and I usually do Alterac to tank the PVE bosses or act as a flag runner. I have never, ever, played an arena match.

After discussion with my two teammates, we determined that having me go with known abilities as prot is the best option, compared to me trying ret or holy or some other class. We don't expect to win much, but we do plan to try our best given the circumstances. (Trying to win is a requirement for the pet.)

My teammates will be a PVP-savvy restoration shaman (who also could be a DPS DK), and my wife, a warlock (who has been affliction 90% of her life, but plans to try demonology for the tournament).

What do I need to learn?

Spec: I will review the specs posted in this thread.

Stats: How much crit reduction should I have? I'll likely mix PVE prot and PVP ret gear, unless I should go one way or the other. How much hit rating and expertise are required against same-level humainoids? How high do I push crit rating versus strength for uber shield slams?

Role: I've thought about going into each match healing, just long enough to attract attention from a rogue or other sucker who can waste time beating on me. Or I can try to get people to waste a PVP trinket removing my shield snare. But really I expect to be useless. What other things can I try?

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I have to play 200 matches, starting next Monday. If we would somehow win 20 of those, I'd feel like I'd put in a good effort given the circumstances.

[Zironic]

You won't really be able to hide hte fact you're prot, your tiny tiiiny mana pool means they don't really care if you heal, you'll be oom anyhow.

Your main use is probably beating people up and proper use of divine guardian/hand of sacrifice/hand of freedom/judgement of justice.

[dekort]

you pretty much just want to be a harasser. find the healer and distract/interrupt him as much as you can. bubble your allies. toss a heal if needed. AS the high mobility classes, or if your allies try to kite someone. I don't generally try to be a big damage dealer, but more a nuisance that lets my teammates do what they do best.

[Panzerdin]

My honest advice is to spec Holy.

[dekort]

My honest advice is to spec Holy.

that's what people told me, too. I imagine it is probably sound advice, but I tried it, I failed hard. I'm just not cut out for holy pvp, I guess.

[Digren]

My honest advice is to spec Holy.

I've considered speccing holy, and letting the shaman play a DPS DK instead. The problem to me is, in that circumstance, I would be the number one target for opposing players. And, frankly, I don't think I'll be very good at surviving as holy while being attacked. I assume that learning how to stay alive while being attacked by players is a PVP skill, and I have no expectation that I have the skill.

[Zonzede]

When 3.1 rolls in, Prot will be a stronger harasser than it is now. Sustaining mana for damage and a the team's Sacred Shield will be far easier with a 100% uptime on Divine Plea, and we also get a Silence tied into Avenger's Shield. Healing at the same time is just going to be worthless though.
In addition, while other classes are being moved away from proc stuns, ours (seal of Justice) is being embraced and buffed. Targets will go immune quickly to be sure, but it may be enough to do your job.

As for damage... Prot's damage isnt good, but dangerously bursty. It is still trivial for a healer to heal through our sustained damage, but with our flurry combo of disruption (AS, HoJ, SoJ procs) you can drop one who let himself low to heal his teammates. The same can be used while your team focuses him or another member.

You are still Protection, and you need to do that. Keep Sacred Shield on your allies. Use your hands often (Protection, Freedom, and Sacrifice). Divine Guardian can save the day. CLEANSE.

[Digren]

When 3.1 rolls in, Prot will be a stronger harasser than it is now.

Aye. If the tournament used 3.1 code i would be much happier.

The shaman plans to instead work up a DPS DK spec. He's asked me to develop a prot/holy build. The idea will be that I try to maintain as much of the survivability of prot while boosting my healing capability as far as possible. I'm open for suggestions.

[Zironic]

I've considered speccing holy, and letting the shaman play a DPS DK instead. The problem to me is, in that circumstance, I would be the number one target for opposing players. And, frankly, I don't think I'll be very good at surviving as holy while being attacked. I assume that learning how to stay alive while being attacked by players is a PVP skill, and I have no expectation that I have the skill.

It's not horribly complex, mostly because there's so few things you can actually do.

Generally it just involves casting freedom on yourself and running in circles around a pillar while desperately trying to cleanse wound poison so you can holy shock yourself.

Once you go into low hp you just bubble.

The trick for winning is having teammates that can kill atleast one member of the enemy team before bubble ends.

[Extermi]

The problem is that right now, Prot does not have the mana to sustain any kind of DPS. Any team that is not brain-dead will ignore you. You can of course wear holy PvP gear and toss in some heals, but you will do no melee damage and the heals will be sub-par and mana-inefficient.

My advise will be to go ret. If you are used to positioning and meleeing, its not so much different and will feel more natural than watching health bard. Ret, in its current state, is quite reasonable in the Arena.

Extermi

[Dane]

Ok...completely off topic, but related to the tournament.

I just want to make sure, cause the wife and I have thought about doing this. You just have to enter/participate to get the pet/title, correct? Or is it limited to a certain ranking?

[Zironic]

Ok...completely off topic, but related to the tournament.

I just want to make sure, cause the wife and I have thought about doing this. You just have to enter/participate to get the pet/title, correct? Or is it limited to a certain ranking?

afaik 200 ranked games.

[Mokko]

Pet is 200 Ranked games

The title is placing in the top 1000

[Digren]

To get the pet only, it is 200 games during the qualifying period, which starts around March 11 and lasts four weeks.

There are warcraftpets or similar channels on each tournament server, per www.warcraftpets.com , which can be used to find teammates with similar interests (pet only or winning record).

The rules do indicate that you must try to win to qualify for the pet. That means you can't walk in and stand while being killed 200 times. I would like to win ~20 games, as my personal goal, out of the 200 played, and at least put up an effort the remaining 180 times.

To get the title, you must earn a certain ranking during the tournament. I don't hope to achieve that.

[Digren]

What about hit rating, expertise, crit rating, strength, attack power, resilience? Do I even worry about the first two in PVP? What are the caps against same-level opponents?

I see optimizing gear as something I know how to do anyway. Even if I don't have the skill to execute, I can go in with gear in my favor. But I don't know the parameters for that optimization, and I didn't see them anywhere straight-forward when looking for them last night.