This Is PvP! Kinda
“Dear BRK, I’m a total noob to pvp. I am looking for advice on how best to kill squishies and others. I tend to shy away from pvp because I am not sure how to modify my playstyle from pve to pvp and be viable. I am not arena bound by any means, but would like to get into BG’s and wouldn’t mind being able to help capture and hold places like Halaa, the fortifications in Hellfire and the like.
“I am a BM, based on the BRK tried and true pre-kara spec, but I rely on shots (arcane, steady, & aimed) + stings (serpent, viper, & scorpid), some traps, and bestial wrath/kill command alot. My shot rotation is…well whatever I can to kill the mob (by no means efficient or probably most effective) Can you help? Tzin & Snowmeow”
As many of you know, at one time BRK was completely PvP-focused. This was more than a year ago, pre-Burning Crusade. A lot has changes in this aspect of the game since we devoted ourselves to the art of PvP Huntering.
But we still have a few thoughts.
BRK’s Top Ten General PvP Recommendations
1. It matters not as much what your spec is, but how well you learn to play your spec. A Survivalist hunter in greenies who knows how to use his spec will do a heck of a lot better in PvP than a blue’d BM hunter who pops Bestial Wrath and just stands there.
2. Accept losing and dying as Learning. For a hunter, dying in a raid is a sign that something went horribly wrong. In PvP, you can do everything right and still kick the bucket. Terrain, your opponent’s class, your buddies, anything can cause you to die. Analyze your deaths and learn from them.
3. PvP is not rock-paper-scissors, but recognize your strengths and weaknesses. And we don’t mean class-vs-class, either. Some hunters get blown away by warlocks. We crush them. Some hunters think Paladins are easy pickings. We loathe the little coachroaches. Our speciality in Alterac Valley used to be the Squishy-Healy Killer. We would target priest, charge into the enemy’s lines, and try to take two priests with us at a minimum. We loved it. Perhaps you are a warrior-kiter; that’s loads of fun and makes them very, very angry.
4. Arena PvP is not Battleground PvP is not World PvP is not Raiding. In our current incarnation, with 9000 health and zero resillence, we would be considered uber-undergeared and a liability of a glass cannon in any PvP situation. Our 1000DPS in a raid does not mean anything in PvP, and that’s no lie. Our shot-rotation is going to be worthless when line-of-sight issues and stun effects are introduced.
To truly perform in PvP, we’d have to respec and focus on stamina and resillence for a long time. If we decided to roll that way, we’d die over and over again as we accumulated honor and tokens and PvP gear. So we’ll say it again; don’t sweat dying.
But speaking of respecing, there is no Best BM PvP Spec. There are good and not so good talents, but your playstyle should be enhanced by your talent spec, not the other way around.
5. Read, study, and ask questions. There are a lot of really knowledgable PvPers out there. Some of them even share their ideas and tactics. Become a sponge and absorb what they have to say.
6. If you want to get “welfare” PvP epics, that’s cool. Everyone has to start somewhere. But if you want to get an 1800 arena rating, you’ll need help. Teammates, baby. Just like in real life, a bad teammate will spell doom for your PvP career. Do not assume that the raid leader or guild master is your best choice for a teammate. Do not for a second discount girls! Do not discount the guild-mom! Do not discount the raider who has problems following directions; he may be a PvP-savant.
And do not discount the fact that you may be the worst player on your team.
7. A BM hunter has a temporary IWin button, a MM hunter has big crits and Silencing Shot, but a quality Survivalist hunter in decent PvP gear may just be the hardest thing to kill of any class or spec, period. You have another choice besides BM and MM, folks.
8. Kiting and jump shots are no longer optional. Graduate these schools ASAP. This includes mouse-running and camera control experterise.
9. Arcane Shot, foshizzle. It dispels loads of stuff. Dispell, dispell, and dispell some more. For PvP, getting the 5/5 in Improved Arcane Shot is not unheard of. Yes it does loads of damage, yes it costs lots of mana, but the Dispell effect alone is tremendous. Pretend it’s called Dispell Shot and just happens to do damage, too.
10. Aimed Shot, sweetcakes. It’s our own Mortal Strike, reducing healing taken by the affected target by 50%. Learn when and on whom it use it. Slapping it on a warrior who’s at 85% health is a waste. Wait until he’s maybe at 30% and about to get that Big Heal. It makes your opponents healers waste mana and time.
So did we just tell you how to pwn in PvP? Not really. But it should generate a lively discussion as well as, hopefully, start to wrap your PvP-noobish mind around the fact that PvP is a totally different game from raiding. One day’s research and one email to a blogger isn’t going to get you ready; you’re gonna have to work at it.
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Dude, my two friends and I did Arena last night and we fought this team whose hunter would shoot, but never send her pet. My guess was that she was SV spec, or maybe MM, but saw no signs of a TSA or Aimed Shot QQ up. Anyway, we fough the same team a good 5, maybe six times and each time, no pet attack. We won every match, but they were rather close.
My team is: Nocturneus ((Me) Feral Druid), Furbiesfubo (Hunter) and Wrathreaper (Rogue)
Their team was this Hunter I mentioned, a well-geared Warlock and a Healadin.
Well, we did a few more matches and sure enough, the same team surfaced again. She FINALLY sent her pet and used Bestial Wrath. We were all laughing because all this time, she was a BM hunter and only after the 6th match did she use her Pet. Crazy. (Btw, we won that one too)
Anyway…
As far as things to do in PvP, I suggest that every PvPer make one of their first purchases the Insignia/Medallion, preferably the Medallion since it has a 2min CD and gives +20 to resilience rating, but that’s almost 17k honor. The insignia is around 3K.
This is very timely advice, BRK. I’m starting up a 5v5 arena team to farm points for that sweet, sweet S3 axe, and I’m trying to accumulate important bits of info. I may not like pvping, I may suck at it, but the gear is too much of an upgrade to pass up.
My 5v5 is as follows:
Me (pvpnoob BM spec)
Holy Pally
Demo Lock
Sub Rogue
Shadow Priest
Would any of the following commenters have any insight into our class balance and how to put it into best effect?
don’t forget the often overlooked value of feign death in pvp. any time you are targeted or are at about 1/4 life, FD. it drops you as a target from their screen and if they don’t pay attention, will go on to the next target. then after a second or 2, pop back up and pwn them. I am continually amazed how often I fool OTHER hunters with this tactic.
BRK. come on man. do you have to add to the already way to long topic of “WELFARE EPICS”. I know that they are definitely easier to get. but coming from me, a lowly MM hunter who does both PVE and PVP. the PVP set takes a super long amount of time to get enough to be viable. Im at 322 res now. but it took a huge amount of time and work and yes, dying, to get the set i have.
good post though, I enjoyed reading it as i do everything on this site. keep up the good work.
Inquires may have better luck on the BRK forums, there are several threads dealing with arena and PVP. Not sure but that 5v5 combo sure looks good! Its a real struggle at first to get the PVP gear. The best bet is to look over your gear list, and plan upgrades to season 1 stuff first. Hit AV as much as you can until you get HP for the upgrade. With luck your upgrade will require AV marks too. If not you will have to play/lose other BGs. On our server Alliance doesn’t win much AB, WSG, or that other one that i never play. We win 90% of AV though. Even if you lose and do decent, the honor is good enough. But maybe your server has a particular BG that your faction dominates in.
Finally note that you will perhaps lose alot when first trying arena. Our 2v2 team went something like 0-40 at first until we got down to a bracket where other similiarly skilled/geared players were. Now we win at least half of games and its much more enjoyable. So dont give up, you’ll still get your arena points even if you go 0-10. Eventually you’ll figure out winning strategies to help you. Consider respec, I always respec MM for arena, the concusion shot is too huge to miss.
On welfare epics. PVP epics are NOT easy to get. Nor are they meant to suplant T4 raid epics. They can get you in the door of Kara, though, to get those. Do not go into kara with a full set of PVP gear and equate that with well-geared. You are not. You are minimally geared, and still should be fine. Look forward to opportunities to get gear to increase your dps/healing in raids. As a serious raider and PVPer, neither set of gear is easy to get. They are probably about equal in the time commitment scale. It probably takes me 20 hours of PVP to get a piece of gear. I raid probably 10 hours a week, but often I wont see an upgrade. So it’s a toss up. If you are a new 70, by all means try to get that S1 and S3 stuff if you are looking forward to raiding. But don’t mistake PVP gear for PVE gear, they are very different. (except maybe for tanking). We had two warriors leave the guild because they couldn’t understand that their full set of PVP gear meant they should be knocking on Prince’s door as a DPS spec. Nope, doesnt’ work that way.
“Their team was this Hunter I mentioned, a well-geared Warlock and a Healadin.”
Hey! That might have been us!
Well, not really. I always send the pet in.
Last night was my first time ever in an arena. The warlock that went with me is fairly new at it. The healadin has been at it for a while.
A few observations:
1) I suck. But hey, I’m a noob to the arena so I’m allowed to suck for a little while.
2) the team is okay with this. Everybody is of the opinion that it is going to take some time to get our strats down. My guild is cool this way. When things go wrong we don’t point fingers. We learn, we help out, we get it done right.
3) do I have a bullseye taped to my chest? Geez they went after me first. Then again, I was fighting from the front. The lock is too squishy to and we are not putting our healer out front even if he is in plate.
Remember, aside from wasting pots, dying is the quickest way to go from 0 to full mana.
Also get in Premades. Even if you have 0 resilience, if you hold your own, you can usually get back in the group another day. Resilience is overrated, give time anyone can get it, some people will never become skilled.
“#6 - Do not for a second discount girls”
Amen to that. A couple of our key players in my guild are all chicks. And if you think for a second that girls can’t PVP… Braids (a.k.a The Notorious M.E.G) will rip you a new one with every class in the game, INCLUDING your own.
But, lucky you, she runs the BRK Pee-Vee-Pee forums. So be nice and bask in her wisdom
I’ve rolled a hunter (Dwarven Engineer to boot! Woo Guns!), and while I’m not leveling him quickly, he’s getting my attention every once in a while. Maybe it’s just me but… are jump shots really that hard? I was doing them at level 8 or 9 while kiting Ice Trolls in Dun Morogh, just to try it out (I think it’s a blast BTW).
get gladiator xbow and as many pvp items as you can, both arena or honor rewards, without at least 200 resiliance you’re very weak on BGs at the moment, with 100 or less resilience you prolly die in 4-5sec against any pvp geared player (any class), it doesn’t matter that you have 1800AP or 30% crit, every pvper will crit on you for huge damage, and you can’t kill anyone if you’re dead
I myself don’t use medallion/insignia, it doesn’t do much good in BGs, sure you can kill that rogue that tried to stunlocked you, but you’ll be with 30% or less HP left and any next encounter will be lethal to you anyway, pop BW and hope his evasion is on cool 
I use AP/crit trinkets insted
but grinding pvp gear in battlegrounds is very, very boring and frustrating at times, since all fresh 70ties are there to get first purples… I don’t blame them off course for being there, but some are stubborn and don’t listen to advice…
some tips:
* encourage ppl not to capture IB graveyard in AV, at least not till oponents have at least 1 more they can spawn at (FW is not at option here, you don’t want them to spawn there)
* go for 3 bases in Eye of the Storm and ignore flag, you’ll win if you hold those 3 and try to zerg 4th
* don’t go all defensive if you have 3 bases in AB, pick on theirs to weaken their offensive
* if you are protecting flag carrier in WSG - do not try to kill every FC attacker, slow them down insted so your FC can get to safety of your base, you can still lay a lot of hurt on them with arcane shots, quick stop for multi, and vipersting that caster/healer
One of the blogs in BRK’s list to the right is Critical QQ. I am proud to say the blogger is a guildie of mine.
He’s a mage that spent a great deal of time PvPing in his early WoWing. I think he still is in the BG’s every time I see him on line.
Anyhoo…He has a lot of good posts in blog archives. A lot of them are, of course, from a mage perspective; but, he has some good hunter info there too. The all around knowledge he provides has helped me understand what’s expected of me before I walk into the arena to face off against another player that wants to best me as much as I want to best him/her.
BRK Forums - PVP Section
http://www.bigredkitty.net/forums/index.php?board=7.0
Elitist Jerk Forums - PVP Section
http://elitistjerks.com/f38/
Get to reading!
Could you explain mouse-running and camera control experterise?
Thanks
share your knowledge to continue a timeless tradition
welcome come to my blog!!
Darned Warrior Kiters … They make me soooooo mad. The depressing thing is that about 1/3 of the hunters I come across are this
which means that when I see a tasty looking hunter I have about a 33% chance of becoming frustrated and dead … this doesn’t stop me from charging headlong into battle screaming “MORTAL STRIKE B%@&#”. That was until I had to respec prot 
/cry lots
Warlocks are just so OP
I do a fair amout of PvP and imo for hunters it breaks down like this:BM=squishy killer, MM=silence healer sit back and multishot often, SV=trap and sleep. Now for me I like the 30mm/31sv build, you get scatter shot, wyvern sting, deterance and traps…Try to kill me now lol. Put the 5/5 in the SV tree to increase your health (can’t remember the talent name) add in as much resiliance as you can, and you won’t have a problem holding your own in PvP. Right now I’m speced BRK BM for raiding. Another thing I would like to add is that raw AP>raw Crit in PvP, since everyone has gladiator gear now. I try to keep a nice balance using agi/ap/crit gems and agi/ap enchants.
There’s only 2 differences between PVE and PVP
1) The mobs have a completely random AI, some may not look so bad, but rock your socks. Others you swat like flies when they get annoying enough.
2) You have to minimize the damage you take (as you rarely get a dedicated healer) while maximizing your DPS, preferrably while moving.
another site to check out is http://www.pvpscene.com, it gives alot of good info.
and as megan said check out the BRK PVP board and Elitist Jerks PVP board.
Almost all Hunters i have seen for PVP run scorpids for arena and quite have a boar or dps pet in battlegrounds.
Yepamedna - Every successful 5v5 team I have ever seen has had 2 healers. Also, Resto Druids rock in Arena because they can shift into cat and stealth out, and pop out when needed for healing. Also, remind your Pally(s) that they can use their own bubble, plus they can put Blessing of Protection on another teammate to stop a physical barrage. It’s great for protecting casters from rogues and MS warriors.
On the note of Feign Death in PvP. This ability is particulary fun to use when you see a little gnome mage target you and charge up his Pyroblast. Start shooting at him and calmly wait until his casting is almost complete, quickly feign to make him cancel his spell, and finish him off.
“10. Aimed Shot, sweetcakes. It’s our own Mortal Strike, reducing healing taken by the affected target by 50%. Learn when and on whom it use it. Slapping it on a warrior who’s at 85% health is a waste. Wait until he’s maybe at 30% and about to get that Big Heal.”
…No. Keep it up there with rapid fire/abacus/whateverthehellyouuse. It has a 10 sec duration and a 6 second cooldown. Healers are going to be pumping out heals at 85% too, youre not going to get em to 30%.
@Messyah: 4 DPS and 1 healer teams are successful too.
Oh, and survival hunters arent as hard to kill as SL/SL locks or holy pallies.
Hmmmm speaking of “welfare epics”
Look at the T4 shoulders next to the season 1 shoulders now available via reg BG’s…aside from the set bonus from T4….thats all i see thats worth a crap. I chose the PVP ones….which were NOT easy to get by any means…Alliance sucks and BG’s period.
Gogey - I don’t doubt that 4 DPS and 1 healer can be successful, but I’d be surprised to see them consistently beat a 2-healer team, provided both teams were equally geared.
Gilther - Alliance may seem like they suck, but it may just be your battle group. My server is over-populated with Alliance, almost 7-1 ration. BUT, the other servers in my Battle Group are overpopulated with Horde. So, in the end, the ratio works out to 5-1 Horde vs. Alliance in our battle group.
Now, when we do pre-mades, we kick serious arse. I hate when I go into BGs and no one is on voice chat. At least with our pre-mades, we’re all there and vocal and that makes it easy to swarm at any point in the match.
Messyah
You could be right! While I am no PVP star, I try and cooperate..and help…but some people just don’t bother…..yes I want to whore as much honor as I can, but it is still nice to win.
Premades…..that be the way to go!
I just don’t consider PVP epics as welfare. It’s good gear and time consuming to get. Yes is pre/kara lvl stuff, but sometimes you have to run Kara several times to get just one drop…depending on what drops/class…point/bid system. I’m in a very good guild….love these guys but you dont always get your drop and if it does drop you might not win it. That’s life…thats the game. Supplementing your gear with PVP epics is not bad at all. Count the hunters you see in a couple of pieces of S1 or better….the S1 xbow is 82.something dps…..I dont consider that a welfare epic. True the “stats” might be lower….but right out of the box it out dps’s the steelhawk…a Kara item. So, unless you wield the Sunfury or better….that xbow is a good choice….especially if you cant get the drop…or your guild has trouble with Prince…etc. Go look at the S3 bow/gun..etc….those things just flat out rock. 93 dps? Who wouldnt want that. The 1800 personal rating….bah…F that.
Now, by all means I’m not saying a full PVP’d out toon will lay down the law in a raid. Raid gear is usually superior but until you get to that point in your WoW career…or guild progression…etc..why not PVP a bit and get some decent gear….and maybe learn some teamwork…which…maybe, just maybe could help in a raid…i dunno
I will say that I am not impressed with Hunter T4. I have the helm. In the bank. My goggles are better. T4 shoulders…..pass. T4 gloves…pass. S1 shoulders..yup…hopefully gauntlets of the dragonslayer Sunday…T4 legs..pass…. Voidreaver Greaves/Camo badge pants….thats what I want. ATM I currently wear Legs’ O Beast Mastery. Rip Flayer Legs in the bank……
Now…T5….mmm who doesn’t want lightning bolts flying around your shoulders!
I think our set bonuses could use some work. My .02 though.
The reason they are called welfare epics is because you can do next to nothing to get them. Yah, yah, you worked hard and spent lots of time to get the honor for the gear, you deserve it. But I afk’d in AV, I lost every single AB I’ve been in, and I don’t have a single HK in WSG. Do I deserve the same gear? Welfare Epics.
One should be able to target and kill AFK’rs…both alliance and horde…erasing all honor/marks earned that month and then the guilty individuals account banned for rest of said month.