I had the chance last weekend to get a lot of PvP in. I love Wintergrasp so I played it every chance it was up. Alterac Valley was the holiday weekend battleground so the new speed runs in there were actually a bit of fun (i.e. Alliance didn’t totally suck… all the time… ) and quite rewarding. I will admit I miss the older style 2+ hour battles, complete with summons elementals to push forward, but with the honor per hour I got this weekend I can’t complain too much.
I ended up being able to complete my PvP set. In doing so I did some more research into death knight PvP numbers and tendencies, through both Elitist Jerks and checking out the top rated death knights in the Arena Tournament. I ended up changing my gear approach a bit from my last posting, going not so much full defensive in the gear selection.
Let’s start with the numbers. On the Arena Tournament server I got some averages from death knights in the top rated teams. For those who don’t know a feature of the Arena Tournament realms is you start at level 80 and you can get whatever top end PvP or PvE gear, gems, and enchants you want at no cost. Before you jump on this realm you should also know there is an additional service fee (i.e. real money) and restrictions by Blizzard, as the realm is designed for series PvP competition only. The beauty for us here is that these players can have any gear item they want, which gives us a great insight.
The average PvP stat numbers were:
- Health: 20,000 to 26,000
- Resillence: 560
- Attack Power: 3,000
- Crit: 20% to 25%
- Hit: 5%
- Spell Penetration: 130
Their gear was very uniformed as well, with only a few exceptions:
- [Valorous Scourgeborne Helmet]
- [Bladed Steelboots]
- Trinket with Attack Power
- [Darkmoon Card: Greatness]
- Everything else Deadly Gladiator
Now keep in mind these are arena players, which is different from us battleground/Wintergrasp players. Outside of arenas you are more alone even though you have more team mates (how often do you get debuffs removed by others?) and it isn’t one on one so much as just group clashes. Plus I don’t arena, so I’m not going to get all the Deadly Gladiator gear. But the numbers work out close enough between arena and battlegrounds to still make this information useful. So, I redid my own PvP gear setup to be mostly defensive, but with some offensive items thrown in as well.
My PvP Gear
[Titan-forged Plate Helm of Triumph]
[Deadly Gladiator's Pendant of Triumph]
[Valorous Scourgeborne Shoulderplates]
[Deadly Gladiator's Cloak of Victory]
[Titan-forged Breastplate of Triumph]
[Deadly Gladiator's Bracers of Triumph]
[Hateful Gladiator's Dreadplate Gauntlets]
[Titan-forged Girdle of Triumph]
[Deadly Gladiator's Dreadplate Legguards] (Vault of Archavon drop I got, Hateful pants are same setup)
[Titan-forged Greaves of Triumph]
[Hateful Gladiator's Band of Triumph]
This setup gives me a bit more resilience than the arena death knights have, the average health, the low end of the average attack power (not bad for all solo gear), just a bit below average crit (I made it my weakest stat since it is the least valuable), and of course I’m hit capped and have all the spell penetration I need. Playing my last couple of games with this setup I did note my damage was better while my survivability was about the same, even though I had less health and resilience than before.
I went with Titan-forged over Gladiator gear one, because it gets me the hit cap and two, because I can buy them with [Wintergrasp Mark of Honor] and save the honor for Gladiator gear to fill the other slots.
I stuck with [Medallion of the Alliance] to keep my resilience above 560 and because I can’t count on someone else freeing me from crowd control. Escape Artist only works on roots and snares, not polymorphs, sap, mind control, etc. Humans can dump it for a different trinket since Every Man for Himself covers everything.
My PvP Talent Build
I switch this in for my normal DPS build only if I’m going to be doing heavy PvP for a few days. Otherwise my DPS build does fine for the occasional Wintergrasp game.
The point spread is standard and unholy is reported to work better for most than frost for PvP. However I did move a few points around for my personal preferences. The cookie cutter build is actually this 0/17/54 setup. The Scourge Strike glyph can be swapped out if desired.
There is no rotation with this setup. Rotations don’t work in PvP, players just aren’t as cooperative as mobs. Get your diseases on the target, then just go from there.
by Mental_Knife, on May 13 2009 @ 9:45 am
What are your thoughts with PvP in blood spec? I’d like to read more about why PvP’ers tend to go unholy vs. blood.
Total Comments by Mental_Knife: 2
by Chris, on May 13 2009 @ 8:24 pm
Thanx a lot m8!
helped A LOT with the enchant mess out there.
You can also see this post as a general guidline to hit/crit.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=534914&topic=48055845
keep up the great work!
Total Comment by Chris: 1
by Dedbitt, on May 14 2009 @ 12:57 pm
Mental_Knife – I never saw any good blood PvP builds. Unholy and Frost are what are used almost exclusively by the high end arena death knights. My guess would be the self healing utility of blood isn’t worth it with a healer on the team so they want the other utilities and non-physical damage of the other trees. In a pure battleground setup (especially with Alliance healers not healing regularly) that argument would have less weight. I’m sure a viable blood PvP build could be put together using from frost or unholy PvP utilities as well, it just isn’t competition in the “pro” market.
by Mental_Knife, on May 14 2009 @ 4:25 pm
I see, thank you. I’m building up my PvP gear set at the moment, resilience is low. In fact I still have quite a few blues and greens. I’m using a blood spec I put together, it’s focused on damage output only rather than the defensive/healing talents in the tree. I only run battlegrounds or Wintergrasp and spend most of the time in Blood presence. My gear is set up for high crit, then hit, then Str/AP. I really like the big crits, I’ve found that it induces panic on my target and makes killing them that much easier.
Interestingly, more often than not I am the highest, or near the highest damage and killing blows on my team in the BG’s. It confuses me because my gear is so lame but I am going to go with it for now. I am pretty sure that it wouldn’t fly so well in arena, as you mentioned. Thx again.
Total Comments by Mental_Knife: 2
by ICE, on September 13 2009 @ 9:26 pm
0/17/54 what about the other 20pts?
Total Comment by ICE: 1