Considering PvP...

[Gimlion]

With my guild transfered off-server a good while ago, and not having that many friends on-server to raid/dungeon with, I've been considering PvP more and more.

What I want to know is best specs, gear/stat suggestions, and what to do/avoid in certain situations and BGs.

Anyone who puts in helpful input will be greatly appreciated.

[Acherontia]

If you're a hunter, now is a great time to PvP. Even in PvE gear, you can wreak an utter ton of havoc. I'm seeing all specs pretty evenly as well, perhaps not quite as many SV as the others, but I think they all must be doing fairly well.

If you want PvP advice--what is your previous PvP experience? So we have a starting point to help from!

[Gimlion]

Well... I used to do BG's alot while leveling (back in Vanilla). That's about it. I've had several PvP friends, and I'm sure I understand the gist, but I've heard PvP is a lot of specifics that can make or break a performance.

[Acherontia]

My strong recommendation is to look up a good hunter PvP guide for your preferred spec, then. There's two hunter PvP guides stickied in the WoW EU Hunter forums, one of which is labeled for beginners!

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/874791/

That said, some random stuff I've learned:

The whole idea in hunter PvP is to avoid taking damage while dishing out heavy damage yourself. Spec for Entrapment and defensive abilities like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Chimera (for BM), Survival Tactics, & Hunter vs Wild (basically anything with reduced defensive cooldowns, more snares/roots, stamina).

Hide in bushes, on roofs, whatever, but always watch your pet's pathing--if you're BM and try sniping from a roof, your pet will be stuck up there with you and you're crippled. But the point is, try & stay unobtrusive. If you try hunter PvP in the thick of things (like I tend to do, lol >.>), chances are you'll get focused and destroyed pretty quickly. (Note: if your pet DOES get stuck somewhere, and you're in combat, click Follow manually and the pet should teleport to you, allowing you to send it after the enemy.)

Obviously you want to get some resilience gear asap, but don't worry, hunters can be pretty strong even without gear if you play them well--your entire goal is to dish out damage while not getting hit, so if you are doing it right, it isn't as painful as trying to play, say, a warrior with no gear. That said, better gear certainly does make a difference down the road in scoring kills! Full raid-geared hunters can kill someone in a silencing shot, but they go down mighty quick when focused, too.

Macro /focus and bind it, and macro both offensive and defensive abilities to be cast @focus with a modifier, if possible. This way you can one-keypress focus a friendly healer to provide Master's Call/Spirit Mend/Roar of Sacrifice support, or focus Scatter Shot an enemy healer while burning down a dps.

#showtooltip Spirit Mend
/cast [modifier:shift, @focus] Spirit Mend; [nomodifier, @target] Spirit Mend

^ is an example.

Bind as much as you can--I don't know if you're a clicker or a keybinder, but macroing and binding everything is a must, really. Hunters have more abilities than any other class I've played, so binding everything can be tough, but it really makes a difference in performance.

Protect healers. If you have one that's tossing you a bubble, throw a trap under him when a rogue opens. One of your greatest strengths as a hunter is the ability to peel, so use it to help the healers out, and they will reward you by keeping you alive.

Feign Death to drop an enemy caster's target (as an interrupt!), or to make a warrior who's about to charge lose his target & spend precious seconds finding you again. Drop Snake Trap with Entrapment on a melee, then feign and run off; they will have to target you past the snakes, which is irritating at best.

Tranquilizing Shot works WITHOUT breaking cc. If you find yourself 1v1 versus a healer, paladin or frost mage, CC them if you can and then purge off everything before you open (and open starting with a focus regen shot). This means that when they pop Avenging Wrath etc, you can purge that straight off without having to chomp through trash buffs first.

Disengage can be used to avoid fall damage if used at the bottom of a fall while in combat. It can be used to pursue your enemy (by spinning, disengaging & spinning back to face your target) and can also be used to get back onto a ledge if you get knocked off of it. You can also deliberately jump off of a ledge if you're being chased closely by a melee, and then disengage back as soon as you're in the air--and sometimes the melee will have jumped after you, and you'll have the high ground with them falling or trapped below. I suggest lots of practice using Disengage to simply move about.

If you don't have DoTs on you, you can trap + bandage up. Have First Aid maxed, if possible, for hunter PvP. You won't often get a chance to do this in the heat of a bg, but when you can, it can be a lifesaver.

If you're 1v1 versus a healer, feel free to use your scattershot as an interrupt even if they've got DoTs on them; you can pop it right as a heal would finish and then just continue nuking.

Anti-Stealthy Tips: Watch enemy AREA buffs! By this I mean, if a priest is running toward you, look for Leader of the Pack (the orange/black bullhorns icon) or Master of Subtlety (gold and black ninjastar-ish thing) on them. This will immediately clue you into whether there's a rogue or feral druid stealthing up to you. Keep flares down as much as possible, and if you're guarding a base while mounted, be ready to click off your mount so that your pet can get some hits in if you get stunned by a stealthy while mounted. I'd stay camod slightly away from the flag or base, with traps laid on the node. When a rogue CloS-es, stun or scatter it and immediately reapply Hunter's Mark the second CloS is off--and Serpent Sting it, and Flare in the direction it's facing, just in front of it.

Lastly, depending on what spec you choose to PvP as, here's some pet options; bear in mind that you want a Cunning pet for the most part, or even Tenacity, unless you're BM going for heavy, sustained damage. Even so, a Cunning pet is good for a low-resilience BM hunter due to the Roar of Sacrifice ability.

MM/SV:

* Spider: Ranged root.
* Monkey: extra Scatter Shot.
* Crab: melee root, added bonus of Intervene.
* Bird of Prey: Disarm.
* Gorilla: Interrupt.
* Bat: Stun.

BM:

* Spirit Beast: Heal/damage bonus (my favorite by far)
* Devilsaur: Mortal Strike/damage bonus (close second)
* Silithid: Ranged root, +stamina bonus
* Chimaera: Near-constant ranged snare

Which you choose will, like your choice of spec, depend on your playstyle and preferences! Speaking of which, I had a blog post ages back about BM PvP, so if you choose to go BM, check it out--it goes into a bit more depth. Clicky!

I'm sure there's an absolute ton of stuff I'm missing, but these are the basics that come to mind. I can't really speak for MM/Surv PvP, so I won't try If you choose to go BM and have any questions shout and I'll try to help, otherwise I'm sure there's MM/SV PvPers on the forums somewhere

[Gimlion]

Holy... Thanks!

Some pets I was thinking though:

Shale Spider
Wasp
Croc
Warp Stalker
Rhino (Does their punt work in PvP?)

[Acherontia]

Holy... Thanks!

Some pets I was thinking though:

Shale Spider
Wasp
Croc
Warp Stalker
Rhino (Does their punt work in PvP?)

Shale Spiders are good if you're low-resilience BM, but later on I'd suggest something with higher damage. I do see them around, though, and if you are low resi, the Roar of Sacrifice & Intervene are quite useful. Just bear in mind that the Shale Spider stun will be on a diminishing returns timer with Intimidation.

Wasps have the same issue, ditto bats; stuns are probably the most prevalent PvP cc, so if you are BM and have yourself & a friendly warrior on the same target, chances are your wasp stun will hit an Immune.

Warpies & Crocs have snares rather than a spider/silithid's root. Warpy's is ranged, with a lower uptime iirc, and is a magic effect I think (?), meaning that it can be resisted via CloS or cleansed, or affected by Mage Armor, etc. Also, you have enough snares, in all honesty, as a hunter; a Warrior can still Charge you when snared, and a Rogue can still ShS, meaning that a root is generally more welcomed. But try it, & see what you like!

Rhino's Horn Toss DOES work for PvP, but it's extremely finicky. The pet will often reposition itself and knock the enemy the wrong way, or simply not use it (I've found myself jamming the button to no avail) even if full Focus. If you do choose to use the Rhino, I'd suggest keeping Bite on the bars so you can keep an eye on it, and make a macro to toggle Bite off at the same time you use Horn Toss. Rhino is also Tenacity, like the Shale Spider, so while it has some added defensive skills for you, the damage will be much lower.

I also forgot to mention Core Hounds--their casting-speed debuff is often overlooked. That + Widow's Venom can wreak havoc on healers who need to actually cast, and being able to pop Bloodlust in battlegrounds is fun

Long story short, though, if you are BM, I'd strongly recommend starting with a Silithid and then graduating to a Spirit Beast once you're geared. Otherwise, a Spider and Monkey (I hate the monkeys, but they are still very popular for PvP) are good options.

[Acherontia]

Macros, Binds & Addons
(Or, "Some More Crap I Remembered")

Macros

/focus [nomod]
/focus [mod:shift, @mouseover]

This will Focus your target, or if you hold shift when pressing it, it will Focus your mouseover. Hugely useful.

Sidenote: If a macro isn't working, especially a shift-one, with the keybind you have chosen... Make sure it's not bound to something default. I spent ages trying to work out why a shift-v-bound macro wasn't working only to realize that it was, by default, bound into some nameplate crap, so I had to UNBIND that in the default keybinds before it would work.

Scatter Shot:

#showtooltip Scatter Shot
/cast [nomod, @target] Scatter Shot
/cast [mod:shift, @focus] Scatter Shot

Again, I can't get online so I'll have to double-check this one later, but this should scatter shot whatever you have focused. In conjunction with the Focus macro, you can mouseover-focus a healer and then scatter shot them without ever dropping your current target. You can do the same for Scare Beast (think feral druid or resto shaman in wolf form--which, incidentally, you can dispel with Tranq Shot), Concussive Shot, Silencing Shot and just about any other ability.

Do the same with friendly ones, like

Master's Call:

#showtooltip Master's Call
/cast [nomod, @player] Master's Call
/cast [mod:shift, @focus] Master's Call

This macro will use Master's Call on you when pressed, OR on your focus (say, your personal healer) if you hold the modifier (in this case, shift, but you can change that). You can use this macro with Spirit Mend, Intervene and Roar of Sacrifice as well.

If you have damage-increasing racials, try to bind them into a trinket for maximum burst:


#showtooltip Blood Fury
/cast Blood Fury
/use UBER EPIC PVP TRINKET OF 2 MINUTE COOLDOWN DOOM

Then you can Bestial Wrath and eat the world.


**

Binds

Again, make sure nothing you've chosen to bound is bound by default already. >.> For a hunter, you will need to save bind space. You can use Shift and Ctrl to modify a bind. For example, I have Serpent Sting bound to a mouse button, and Cobra Shot is a shift + the Serpent Sting button. My "OH SH*T" buttons are all bound to 2, with modifiers. On my Undead characters, my Will of the Forsaken is a shift-modified PvP trinket bind.

I would at least bind anything that you use in a given fight. If you are a clicker, try starting with just a few basics, like Arcane Shot, Kill Command and Deterrance. Add one or two every couple bgs. Practice on training dummies (this is much more helpful than it sounds, and gets your brain to remember and automatically reach for the ability's binds). I bind all of my shots (including scatter & tranq), feign/deterrance, flare and traps. You can bind any pet ability, bind master's call, and then run out of keys & mouse buttons and break your monitor. Enjoy!


Addons

I get all my addons at Curse. These are my PvP-specific addons; I have more for PvE or for UI-neatening.

* Battleground Targets - shows a neat, configurable list of battleground enemies; I have this set up to show, at a glance, class, spec, hp %, and name--grayed out if they're out of range. You can click the nameplate to target the enemy, as well. It's invaluable!

* Bartender4 - to set up binds (makes keybinding very, very fast & easy!) and neaten up the UI. Just remember that when you're setting this bastard up, LOG OUT to save your settings. If you finish setting everything up, and then crash before you can log, it'll lose everything

* JS' Hunter Bar - nice & very configurable hunter addon which shows all your cooldowns, HP, focus regen and more, along with a freezing trap timer. One of the best things about this addon is that it also informs you of what you've purged with Tranquilizing Shot (I configure this to send this info to me in whisper, rather than spamming /bg ).

* Stalker, Spy and/or Paranoia - these three addons do much the same thing, but they're often outdated; I think Stalker's the current best. They are for World PvP; they will pick up enemy player names and display them in a clickable list. Some of them are colored by class; some show the enemy player's last ability + target. They will warn you when a rogue/druid stealths nearby. Stalker can only be found at SourceForge; I'm not sure if Paranoia even exists anymore.

* ZoneDefense - for World PvP, again. Configurable; shows you "attack" messages from around the world (i.e. The Crossroads is under attack! even if you're in Silithus, etc.). Right-clicking and left-clicking the messages will give you a /who of the zone and show you a map, although the latter bit seems a li'l busted atm.

* Gladius - if you arena. CC/DR timers, clickable nameplates/cast bars for arena. The default Blizz one isn't terrible anymore, from what I've heard, though, although I don't use that.

* DeadlyBossMods - DBM has a Battleground Timers module. This will let you know how long you have until certain AV bunkers or AB nodes are taken, how long until the next ctf-map Focused Assault stack arrives, and so on.

* Grid - This is my "friendly BG unit frames" addon, but you can make do with the default if you're not a healer.

* MikScrollingBattleText - Configurable scrolling battle text replacement which also alerts you to cooldown completion. You can set it up like powerauras to alert you to certain procs, as well--for example, my priest has her Power Torrent proc set up to ping a sound through MSBT for Shadowfiend timing.

* Healers Have to Die - Simply puts a red cross next to the name of enemy healer nameplates. Configurable; spams the hell out of your chat window unless you configure it. Will also change your teammate healer's roles to healer automatically if you're leader.

* Tidy Plates - Adds cast bars & buff/debuff timers beneath name plates. VERY nice addon & configurable.

Here's a pic of what my UI looks like. This link shows which UI elements belong to which addons. Healers Have to Die isn't shown, since there were no healers )

Also, on a related side-note--once you have the basics down, if you enjoy PvP and you're wanting to improve & learn some tricks, look for good videos on Warcraftmovies. Watching experienced PvPers--well, if a picture is worth a thousand words, a good PvP video is worth a hundred pages of PvP guides!

...I really wish WoW was up. Sorry for the omgwtfspamwallsoftext, but hopefully some of this helps!

[Gimlion]

That is a wall of text I'm not sure my eyes will handle at 1:16... But I'll read it tomorrow.

My final question for now is this: It's possible to trade Valor and the other PvE badges for Honor, correct? IE, I could still grind out dungeons to earn Honor while I'm trying to work on gear.

[Bonita]

You can do Justice Points into honor and I believe Valor Points into Conquest Points.
Think its like 300 JP = 275 Honor

[Gimlion]

You can do Justice Points into honor and I believe Valor Points into Conquest Points.
Think its like 300 JP = 275 Honor

That's what I was wondering, thanks!

I also decided to buy myself a set of Dragonscale (blue PvP craftable), seeing as I had a ton of spare coin that I had no use of it that I can foresee, and cash is super easy to make in this game...

I'm gunna look through the forums you posted Ach, but by chance, do you have a quick link to your/the popular BM PvP spec so I can avoid digging?

[Acherontia]

Sure! This is mine:

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/n ... /secondary

There's a few choices you can move around. You could move points into Pathfinding, but as I have the guild perk, I didn't bother. The main "must-have" talents are the Survival ones and all the cd-reducing ones in BM.

[Gimlion]

My current 5 for PvP pets are as follows:
Vicegrip, my Karkin specced for PvP/Surviving
Thirios, my Molten Core Hound specced for raiding damage, probably will be used for quick burns.
Zircon, my Magria specced for a combo of Damage and Surviving.
Gemini, my Nuramoc specced for PvP
Luna, my Deth'tilac specced for PvP

I've yet to download any of the Add-ons yet (hell, I haven't even updated the ones I use atm for 4.3...), nor make any of the macros, but me and my friends have some Ultimate Frisbee soon, so these will have to wait until later. Thank you very much for the help Ach!

[Acherontia]

My current 5 for PvP pets are as follows:
Vicegrip, my Karkin specced for PvP/Surviving
Thirios, my Molten Core Hound specced for raiding damage, probably will be used for quick burns.
Zircon, my Magria specced for a combo of Damage and Surviving.
Gemini, my Nuramoc specced for PvP
Luna, my Deth'tilac specced for PvP

I've yet to download any of the Add-ons yet (hell, I haven't even updated the ones I use atm for 4.3...), nor make any of the macros, but me and my friends have some Ultimate Frisbee soon, so these will have to wait until later. Thank you very much for the help Ach!

Just out of interest, why are your pets specced for both PvE and PvP? Don't you have dual-spec? (You can have a PvE spec and a PvP spec, and your pets respec when you do!)

Anyway, good luck!!

[Katzbalger]

I haven't PVP'd as BM since WOTLK, it's effective in low-rated PVP and very strong against other hunters in 1v1, however MM's superior cd's, abilities and less reliance on pet makes it the spec of choice for high end. VS a BM hunter in the Ring of Blood for example, you can just jump off the bridge and a hunter's pet will run all the way around and down the ramp, pretty much negating it for a good few seconds. MM's ability to scatter, trap, monkey blind, silencing shot, readiness, scatter, trap, silencing shot can lock out a healer nicely, if you're really going hard some top arena players go in with multiple monkeys which allows you to abandon pet and summon another monkey, the pet ability cd's are on each pet, so the fresh monkey will have another monkey blind and RoS to use.

Lot of stuff covered there, here's one more macro however I didn't see:-

/cast [target=mouseover,exists] Roar of Sacrifice
/cast [@yourname] Roar of Sacrifice

If you mouseover your teammate it casts ROS on them, otherwise it casts on you. As MM you'll almost certainly be using either a monkey or (in bg's/vs double dps melee teams mostly) a spider, both of which are cunning so have RoS available.

[Worba]

You can do Justice Points into honor and I believe Valor Points into Conquest Points.
Think its like 300 JP = 275 Honor

375/250 going either way, but yeah

[pengupuff]

Since I raid primarily as MM, I use BM to pvp. It's a nice chance to get out my shiny pets, and I like the extra stun-break that BM gets me with Beastial Wrath.
It looks like the others have pretty much covered all the ways to get pvp gear. Do your valor/justice conversions, run Baradin Hold, and just pick up pieces as you go. Still, you can totally go into BGs in pve gear and do a TON of damage, just don't expect to live long if someone decides to target you.

If you ARE starting out in full PVE, try to stick with a group; don't go wandering off on your own. And if you ever pvp as BM, a nice little trick for when you're in a tight spot is to line of sight behind a stump or a pillar and just let your pet eat away at your target. Most of the time you can still cast Kill Command, and it's pretty awesome how much damage your pet can do.

Best of luck!

[Worba]

Yeah that sounds like my one BG, where I ran AV or w/e it's called just to rack up HKs for the Halloween achievement; went in wearing all PVE gear, but still managed to do pretty well just zerging or blindsiding people from a distance.

After I got my 50 HKs I kept going for a bit just coz I was in the mood by then... until I got soundly ganked and stunlocked by a rogue (didn't think to use Every Man for Himself, being a PVP greenhorn).

[Gimlion]

My current 5 for PvP pets are as follows:
Vicegrip, my Karkin specced for PvP/Surviving
Thirios, my Molten Core Hound specced for raiding damage, probably will be used for quick burns.
Zircon, my Magria specced for a combo of Damage and Surviving.
Gemini, my Nuramoc specced for PvP
Luna, my Deth'tilac specced for PvP

I've yet to download any of the Add-ons yet (hell, I haven't even updated the ones I use atm for 4.3...), nor make any of the macros, but me and my friends have some Ultimate Frisbee soon, so these will have to wait until later. Thank you very much for the help Ach!

Just out of interest, why are your pets specced for both PvE and PvP? Don't you have dual-spec? (You can have a PvE spec and a PvP spec, and your pets respec when you do!)

Anyway, good luck!!

I run MM as my dungeon spec, so any of my Exotics don't respec with me there. I just haven't had the time to respec my pets (who knew I could be so busy during Spring Break?), and I was posting what my current pets specs were like. I've had Gemini and Luna specced into PvP related builds since I got them, but Zircon, being my third SB I just put points into him taking more damage, then the rest into DPS related talents. Thirios was one of my main raiding/dungeon pets when I would DPS as BM, so he just hasn't been respecced (Not entirely sure how to spec a Fer. pet for PvP anyways), and Karkin I just kinda guessed about what would work in a tenacity build, using some damage reduction and PvP related talents.

In my perfect world... of warcraft, I'd love to have 4 specs available... BM for PvE and PvP, then PvE MM and SV

[Acherontia]

Ahh, I see! I have a BM PvP & BM PvE spec, so my pets are specced along with me, lol!

Regarding Ferocity for PvP, it's not really about what you talent so much as what you don't talent. Don't talent Lick Your Wounds; too often when switching or dismounting from a flyer, the pet will just start channeling that--which in PvP leaves you freaking helpless for the duration. I also don't talent Wild Hunt, just because it tends to focus-starve the pet--you can take Lionhearted, and damage talents, & speed increases. This is for BM, mind; in BM you'll probably want Mend glyphed, so Lick Your Wounds becomes pretty redundant anyway (although you can carry 5 pets of the same spec, dismiss & call a new one if your pet's gonna die, regardless of your spec ).

Sidenote--if you take Heart of the Phoenix, do not use it when there's AoE flying about. The pet will res *where it died,* and it will res at ~6k hp and just die again >.>

[Gimlion]

For PvP, is the Hit Cap the same as for PvE, 8%? Or is it more/less. I'm currently at 6.25%, but I thought I'd be good b/c it says 0% miss for lvl 85