pvp mage equipment/ enchant/ gem choices

[nietmakkir]

hi there i currently play a fire spec mage, i spend most of my wow-time pve-ing, but did *used* to enjoy bgs (despite what anyone says; fire in pvp = pure crazy fun )

the problem i have on my server is as soon as you hit 80... no-one runs bgs anymore so i was looking at getting into arena, nothing serious, just me & afew guild friends messing around, but i would still like to not lose *every* match :]

so i've got afew questions, first off; which spec? i'm not *quite* nutty enough to think straight-fire would be a good choice (for 2v2 or 3v3), but is arcane still the king? and would it be worth going far enough into fire to get dragon's breath & blastwave? [oh, i will prolly be running with a warrior/ dk, and maybe a paladin/ druid)

secondly; what gear? so far i've got (sorry, not sure how to link :s) the deadly gladiator's silk handguards (lucky voa drop ;p ), savage gladiator's silk raiment, & about 30k honor. when pvping, i tend to use mage armour *alot* (seeing as i tend to pvp in the same gear i pve in - lots of intellect, not much stamina. so is it best to aim for a complete pvp set? or should you keep arount some pve stuff for the haste/ int? also, should you use pvp trinkets? i've heard conflicting things about wether it's worth having the break polymorph at the expese of sp?

and lastly; how should you gem/ enchant? should you gem straight resilience? or throw in some health there? or sp? so yeah, basically i have no idea on gemming/ enchants here :s

so uh, sorry about the massive post, but any help would be greatly appreciated, cheers :3

[Brudish]

Gem for stam and res, use molten armour for crit as you wont need mana regen in arena, just try and get any pvp gear you can, even the tailor amde one is a good start

[egonomic]

Use sp/crit gems and resil/stamina gems. Depending on what spec you are, you can't really go wrong there.

I'll agree, fire is hella fun for pvp, in arenas I think It's got the highest damage and you can down someone pretty quick if you use all of the stuns right (blast wave, db). If you can through a LB on a rogue, they should be pretty screwed ( depending on your partner(s)). I'd recommend a sheep, fireball, db, fireball, blastwave. If you've got Lb on the guy after the sheep, It should go off and you'll get your hotstreak proc. This isn't recommended, but if you want to go haste and get 704 (-1sec), you can do 0.5 sec cast scorches. They crit for a decent amount and can possibly procs a lot of HS.

It's good, you just have to master it to do well. Frost is the best spec for arena. You can cc like hell and can still have a decent burst with shatter combos. Arcane burst got nerfed since 3.09, but it's still pretty good. Go for some spell penetration and mainly sp enchants. If your frost, you can cheat and use some pve gear because your more of a tank spec. It gives you a lot more sp, which is needed as frost. Depending on who your facing (melee, ranged) use molten or frost armor.

[extrudedcow]

Ergonomic, that's not how haste works. You would need 6558 haste to make scorch that fast.

Frost is currently the dominant spec in arenas, but arcane still does alright if played well.

As far as gear goes, avoid the savage gear if you have PVE epics to use instead. Stick to deadly gear if you can. Hateful gladiator gear is fine if it's dps stats are similar to any other gear you have. Resilience isn't that great; it's good to have, but you're already in trouble if something is beating on you. The pvp trinket (the cc breaking one) is very useful, I would recommend getting it if you don't have it.

[nietmakkir]

thanks all ok, i'm thinking fire if we decided to do a 3v3, arcane if 2v2.

all of my equipment's from hcs (one of the easons i'm getting round to arena; waiting for some more guildies to catch up ) but pretty much all best-in-slot, so i'm guna be fine with about half of it, but thinking maybe replace the other half with pvp stuff, depending how the stats look

aout gemming for sp/ crit, seeing as most people *i assume* would end up with high amounts of resi in arena, would it be worth jus abandoning crit all together & aiming to get as much haste as possible? although anoyingly the pvp gear all seems to pretty much be stacking crit, so i wouldn't wana waste the stats already on them...

and enchants i'll stick with pretty much my pve stuff; +sp, icewalker etc.

EDIT: oh! also, does anyone know the hitcap to hit a lvl 80? the a b c thread seems more geared t'wards pvs stuff : / just alot've my gear atm (*cough* spellscalpel/ kirin tor offhand *cough*) is aiming at +hit, so obviously i'd like to swap out as many excess ones of them as posible.

[Amnamos]

Frost/Arcane is the way to go. You want half and half PvP/PvE gear. You want to gem for SP/Haste. Get at least 80 Spell Pen. I would stick with between 400-500 resil. 2 piece Tier is a must.

I don't know what you mean by best in slots...

http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...t&n=Akallabeth

But basically you will not be able to get very far until you get better gear. You don't have the gear to have the burst mages need to stay competitive in arenas. Stacking stam/resil will be pointless. Unless you want to just run around and let them beat on you hoping the other 2 can kill them.

If you would learn to read you would realize they said it's from heroics and is best in slot... from heroics. Now I know reading isn't your strong suit, but that's ok.

Also you don't need to have super amazing gear to be able to burst someone down. No you won't be getting high ratings, but I don't think that's what the OP's intent is. Of course you just assume that the OP wants a gladiator title right now and you feel the need to laugh in their face and tell them that their gear sucks so they can't.

On topic....

Frost will have the best survivability which may help you being less geared unless you know the tricks of arcane or the (fewer) tricks of fire. Realistically just spec how you want, focus on haste/spellpower in your gear, stay at 5% hit if you can, and buy more pvp gear as you can with honor. I think with any pvp spec (though I haven't looked at any "cookie-cutter" fire pvp specs) you'll want to pick up imp counter spell. Magic absorption is great for reducing incoming spell dmg an is pretty easy to pick up. Arcane can be the easiest to play and can give you a good amount of burst without having to try too hard. With arcane you can either go into fire for impact, or into frost for icy veins - whichever you prefer. If you get IV you can use the glyph to help get away from melee and pair IV with AP to get some more burst out of it. Slow is really nice in pvp too, and missile barrage procs are really useful for burst. The only problem you'll find if you're arcane is that it is very easy to run yourself oom pretty quickly, so you need to be careful with that.

Best of luck!

[nietmakkir]

the reson i play wow is to spend time with a social guild of people i enjoy playing with... yes i could pug naxx, but i would rather run it & wipe 100 with friends, than run it wipe-free with pugs and widen the gap even further between me and people that work even longer hours on non-wow-things.

as i said originally, i don't plan to do well in arenas. crazy as this may sound, i actually *enjoy* playing wow :O i enjoy bgs, even with the horde ruling on my server atm [i'm alliance] i still play them, it's something i like to do. i don't expect to get a good rating out of arena, or do nothing but pvp all the time, but i would like to spend afew hours each week trying out a side of wow i haven't had the chance to experiance yet.

that being said, i'd prefer not to get one-shotted *every* match, and seeing as i've never arena-ed before, i thought i'd post asking for some advice. i've had some great replies, especially on the gemming front, so thanks to all for that.

without getting personal, the little amount of value people seem to put in heroics has been the cause of alot of wipes (that's right, people do indeed wipe on heroics) that i've been on. people ding 80 and immediatley assume they're ready for hc raiding, so alil hol pug should be easy, right? or azjol nerub? heroics are there to bridge the gap between normal instances, and normal raids.

for the record? <-- female here. i consider it politer to refer to someone as 'they' unless i know their gender, but then again this is an mmorpg forum, so i don't expect all others to do the same.

anyways, back to topic. i was concerned about mana with an arcane build, but am thinking maybe arcane/ fire will be more enjoyable for my style of play than arcane/ frost, but i'm def. guna try out a frost build for afew matches just to see what all the fuss is about & to get a feel of whether i'm needing that survivability, or if more damage is where it's at. 5% hit should be pretty easy to maintain, i was worried it would be closer to 10% or something :S so i'll have a look-sie around for what gear i could swap out for more sp/ crit/ haste. also, am i right in thinking arcane is fare more haste-wanting spec? or in arena would the bursty-ness still be wanting as much crit as possible? thanks again for the helpful replies

edited for rage-lessening/ sleepy-spellings

[Ryft]

I think Arcane is more of a SP gearing type spec, but with the ABarr coeffiencty nerf Im not 100% sure about that.

GL whichever spec you decide to go for. My Mage is 72 and I want to try fire in pvp. I just hope I live long enough to enjoy myself...

[nietmakkir]

lol it can get alil challenging when people realise where all those fireballs are coming from... but it's quite funny how unawares some player are, they just keep swinging away at that tank-spec warrior whilst you pelt em with firey goodness :]

...and i just realised i totally put mage armour instead of mana shield in my op >.< meant to say i use mana shield alot anytime someone realise where all the hurt's coming from, but this tends to drain mana pretty quick if you can't frost nova/ blink pretty quick : /

[Felblood]

I like the fact arcane blast doesnt give away your position hehe..