Step into the Arena

Hey guys!!

So, I know I haven't posted as frequently as normal these last few weeks, I've recently embarked on a journalism course and have been settling into a routine with that where I can balance that writing with my blog writing. I am just about all set up now though so hopefully I will be able to manage my time well enough to post more!

For this weeks blog I am going to be talking PvP, this will include, Battlegrounds, Arena, a short guide on gearing up and how I have found building. I have been doing PvP as a mistweaver and REALLY enjoying it, it's sent me a fresh new challenge and I've really learned more about my monk and her utilities. So, as always, grab a brew, and I shall attempt to impart my PvP learning so far.....


Where Do I Begin? 

The best way I found to get into PvP if you have never dabbled in it before is random battlegrounds. please note, these are A LOT more enjoyable if you have a group of friends with you, even though you can have a max of 5 people per group, it's far less stressful if you're with friends. There are a good few BG's that you can join, whereby you will either be fighting for map control, flag captures, or on some occasions, storming the enemy base and killing NPC's. In these BG's you will mainly be earning Honor points for your faction, you can earn as many of these as you like in any given week but you may only carry 4000 at once. You can also pick up Conquest points but only 150 for your first win of the day and 75 therafter, these are easier to pick up in arenas with a reward of 180 per win. The Honor points will be used as currency for the last seasons gear, so at the moment, that is the Grievous Gladiators set. This item set is 522 ilvl, and a pretty nifty transmog if I do say so, with some very pretty shoulders that have a blue serpent animation.The Conquest points are currency for the Prideful gear which is 550 ilvl, you can only earn 1800 per week unless you do rated BG's in which case the cap is 2200. Your cap will increase the higher your Arena rating/BG rating. There is no maximum amount of conquest points you can carry, unlike the Honor.

Gearing up.

The Mistweaver gear will often offer you a choice of two pairs of stats, either spirit and haste, or crit and mastery, they will offer other options for neck pieces and trinkets. 
Important note: as of the latest season beginning, you can currently obtain the latest Prideful gear from the Celestials, you can get the neck, boots, belt, back, wrist, legs, rings and gloves. It's entirely up to you whether you want to wait out weeks of farming all this or you can go the safer route and purchase the 522 gear with the honor from your BG's. The reason I say safer route is that if you were to start collecting gear now, you must bear in mind that most people already have full sets and you will suffer quite badly in BG's with no gear. 

The best order that I have found to collect gear in is as follows:

Trinkets: The Medallion of Cruelty (Extra Crit) Medallion of Tenacity (Extra Stamina) or Medallion of Meditation (Extra Spirit) first as it will remove any CC abilities once every two minutes, which is invaluable when you're a monk and already have nimble brew to get you out of trouble.Pick up your second trinket after this, again you will have a choice, you can either have a passive which will grant you int procs, or a useable one which will either grant int or stamina whenever you need it. The two trinkets together will grant you 5280 resilience.

Gloves: Gloves are incredibly handy as they have their own little bous when you equip them, for example, "Your roll/Flying serpent kick will now free you from snare effects"

Set pieces: Pick these up in whichever order you can afford. The set bonuses for mistweavers are; 2pc gives you 500 PvP power and when your renewing mist is dispelled you gain a stack of mana tea and 4/5pc grants you 1000 PvP power and when you use your thunder focus tea, you become immune to all silence and interrupt effects for 5 seconds.
  Weapon: You can purchase your weapon(s) when you have earned 7250 honor points for the season, so keep an eye on how much you have earned and make sure you get your weapon as soon as possible, you may find that you get it after 2 set pieces.

Non set pieces: Boots, belt cloak and rings.

As I mentioned earlier you can obtain Honor from BG's. If this is not your cup of tea you can also convert justice points into honor (250H for 500JP). The other thing you can do if farm your relevant factions 3 PvP mobs for 250 Hp each, once a day. For Horde, these are in Krasarang Wilds at Lions Landing, and for Alliance they are in Krasarang again at Domination point.

So, what stats do I need? 

     I have tested a number of different builds, first off I went with my usual PvE build of all the crits and ints, with hardly any spirit. Needless to say in PvP, as soon as someone sees you chugging Mana Tea, you're going to get interrupted, especially in arenas. With the luxury of my tea being on hand whenever I needed it removed, I went for a higher spirit build so that I would not oom so quick. For battle grounds I run Spirit>Haste (to 3145)>crit>mastery. 
    However, upon stepping into arenas I discovered something totally bonkers....Mastery becomes useful. Actually useful is a lie, that stuff is the absolute tits, its FREE healing, that your team can run through at their leisure. Funnily enough when people actually WANT to stay alive, they WILL run through them, unlike in PvE where you can finish a fight with 100 little bubbles left, which I swear dps run around. 
    For my arena build I still like high spirit as mana tea becomes very hard to drink, particularly if you're doing 3's. I then run Haste (still to 3145) Mastery>crit. This seems to serve me enough spririt for minimal Mana Tea consumption, and enough damage to help my team out. 

Arena - being more than just the helpful healer. 

    As a Mistweaver you can bring some really nice utilities to a team. While you don't have any fears like priests and no major stuns unless you talent it, you have one thing a lot of healers don't. Damage. Particularly in 2's, you can help out massively by helping your partner with dps.

Talent choices: 
I go for; 
Tier 1 - Tigers lust, this is really nice for yourself or your team mates, particularly against frost mages.
Tier 2 - Chi wave is pretty much my default choice, a cheap, spammable multi person heal and damaging spell.
Tier 3 - This one I tend to switch between Ascension and Chi Brew depending on what I am against, if it's high damage (warriors) I like Ascension for the extra mana regen.
Tier 4 - Ring of peace is again my default choice, the leg sweep is nice if you're against a full melee team and you get targeted, but the RoP is more valuable as you can put it on your team mates to save them from damage and also silence healers if they are targeting them, as I play with a warrior partner I find this talent to be the best choice for us, although it may not be so useful if you play with a ranged partner. The charging ox wave is nice if you are against a full ranged comp but it does need aiming and sometimes in the heat of the moment it can miss and you've essentially wasted a CD.
Tier 5 - again this is situational, if I'm up against high physical DPS its dampen harm, however, against magic damage dealers like Warlocks and Mages, Diffuse magic is alot more beneficial. I have not actually tried healing elixirs but my personal preference is to have a controllable CD.
Tier 6 - I switch these two between RJW and Xuen, 9.9 times out of 10 I will take Xuen, but on the odd occasion I like to take RJW for rogues.

Glyphs:
Life cocoon, being able to cast this while stunned can mean make or break if you're CC'd and your teamate is in trouble.
Surging mist, the less you have to target heal, the better.
Fortuitous spheres, really useful if you fall below 25% hp yourself, they can heal for enough to keep you alive without having to use a GCD.
All these glyphs are major, as the minor ones are not really helpful in any way.


Macros which have found useful. 

These are the current set of macros that I use:

/cast [target=party1] Detox - Targets your part member in the first frame slot and detoxes them. 
/cast [target=party2] Detox - as above. Note: As I now use decursive I don't find myself using these all that often anymore.

#showtooltip
/cast [target=party1] Tiger's Lust - Frees your first party member from snares and roots.
#showtooltip
/cast [target=party2] Tiger's Lust - As above but for your other party member.

/cast [target=party1] Ring of Peace - Puts RoP on your first part member
/cast [target=party2] Ring of Peace - You see where this is going....

/focus - This is the shortest way to set focus on whatever enemy you like.

#showtooltip
/cast [target=focus] Paralysis - Casts paralysis on your focus target, bear in mind you need to be close enough to do this.

I shall endeavor to make some videos of arenas at some point, I'm trying to enjoy my spells like my healing spheres as much as i can while I still have them ;)

If any EU players fancy coming to Arenas with me then shoot me an invite on my battlenet which can be found in my contact page. If anyone has found themselves no longer on my friendlist I do apologise, my account was hacked a few weeks ago and I seem to be missing a few folk!

Oh, and here's a pretty thing I won on a random Firelands run :D