Adventures of a Pally and 4x Death Knights

[Ualaa]

Day 14 & 15: AB Weekend.
17 Games Played, 11 Wins, 6 Losses, 64.70% Win Rate.
Playing in a mix of Arathi Basin and Random Battlegrounds.

Juds & the Gnomettes have discovered the Conquest item vendor...

Juds added: Necklace.
DK's added: PvP Shoulder Enchant, Conquest (Hit) Ring.

Juds: 4,683 Res, 389 iLV, 147K Health, 111K Mana, 01/17 (Conquest).
DK's: 4,548 Res, 389 iLV, 145K Health, 01/17 (Conquest).

Checking the in-game calendar, next weekend is Eye of the Storm... which judging by the random battleground is very winnable as a boxer.
Essentially run around to any base held by the other side and kill them... once it caps, repeat even if you abandon it.
Following that tactic, most of the games we held 2 extra bases, fluctuating between 2v0 and 3v1.

The next week is Alterac Valley, which will be rather nice.
The weekly Conquest Point cap is 1,650 from battlegrounds...
Which is 32 wins (100 for the first, 50 thereafter) or fewer (100 for the first, on each day) of the bonus honor BG or a random BG.

[Ualaa]

Days 16-18: Eye of the Storm Weekend.
21 Games Played:
-- Eye of the Storm x19, 13 Wins, 6 Losses, 68.42% Win Rate.
-- Random (Warsong Gulch & Isle of Conquest), 2 Wins, 0 Losses, 100% Win Rate.
-- Overall: 21 Games Played, 15 Wins, 6 Losses, 71.42% Win Rate.

Juds added: Conquest Trinket (SP on Cast).
DK's added: Conquest Trinket (STR on Hit).

Juds: 4,738 Res, 390 iLV, 147K Health, 02/17 (Conquest)
DK's: 4,603 Res, 390 iLV, 145K Health, 02/17 (Conquest)

Still streaming all of the games, on Ualaa

The new game, is to cap Conquest points each week.
I will need three EotS/Random wins today, to cap for the week.

Should have primary slot weapons in three weeks, which will be a substantial upgrade especially for the DK's.
The Shield for Juds is cheap enough to have the following week, but the DK's will need another week after that for their second weapon.

Aside from Strand of the Ancients (which requires the use of vehicles to succeed... and with my team comprising a large enough percentage of my faction to negatively impact our win chance), every random battleground is winnable.
Ironically, now that I'm fairly geared, the smaller scale BG's are more successful than the larger scale; I'm perfect in Warsong Gulch... as 50% of my team is coordinated and geared, but still just under 50% in AV and IoC... as 12.5% of the "field".

With Conquest points for upgrades, the pace has slowed to an average of one piece a week, or sometimes a tiny bit slower than that.

[dancook]

I like what you've said about WSG, I've avoided 'randoms' so I didn't get it - so I've missed out on CP bonuses.

The EOTS weekend has really geared my guys, most up to about 4k resilience now.

Now that I've rekindled my love for pala+dks I might get PVE gear and setup for raiding too. (Tried it in PVP gear, with PVP spell priorities and failed hard..)

[Ualaa]

I'm tempted to go:
- Tank (Feral)
- 4x Elemental

Or possibly 3x Elemental and 1x Resto.
Or maybe 3x Elemental and 1x Demonology (Pally, 3x Elemental, Demonology was my primary team in BC/WotLK and cleared all 5-man heroic content except Oculus).

Not sure I want to get into the PvE grind again.
But I do want all/most of the teams to be 85th, before MoP goes live... and that's five more toons leveled up from 80th.

[jjggvysdff1]

Dungeons and Dragons afternoon/evening... so didn't start to play until midnight or so, so technically this was Sunday morning, but I'll call it Saturday since I've not slept.

Almost six hours of play.

6 Wins, 10 Losses, 16 Games, 37.50 Win Percentage.

[Ualaa]

Originally Posted by jjggvysdff1

Dungeons and Dragons afternoon/evening... so didn't start to play until midnight or so, so technically this was Sunday morning, but I'll call it Saturday since I've not slept.

Almost six hours of play.

6 Wins, 10 Losses, 16 Games, 37.50 Win Percentage.

What's your team comprised of?
How is your pvp gearing?
Were you running EotS, Random, or something else?

[Ualaa]

If you're 80th, you want to be 85th.
Unless your team is specifically for "twinks" at a given bracket.

You can get there via questing, instances, or pvp.
The choice is yours; I almost always quest to level, and do little questing beyond that.
Either of the three will work, as will any combination.

For PvE (instances), you'll likely need a legitimate Tank and either a Healer toon or three of your DPS being able to heal in their DPS form.
If you have a Tank capable toon and a different Healer capable toon, you'll be able to use the in-game looking_for_dungeon system, even if both are DPS spec'd characters.

For PvP, I would suggest wading in once you reach the desired level.
Mostly play the 40-man games, like Alterac Valley or Isle of Conquest.
In AV, it is a PvE race and everyone is on foot (playing their characters).
In IoC, you use vehicles often and those vehicles can rape a very geared boxing team fairly quickly, but the vehicles are only used to get the gates down in the opposing keep before they get yours down; once the gates are down, its a PvE race against a boss.
Accept that you'll die a lot, and initially solo characters (very geared ones) will solo your team repeatedly.

The PvP starter set is an option.
Early in an expansion (prior to the first content patch), I'd say definitely get this as it is half way to being Honor geared, and thus a substantial playing boost.
At this point (in the third set of PvP gear since the expansion launched), the starter set gets you something but very little.
I'd personally just play games... whichever game you win in the most, between AV and IoC or if you don't mind the extreme hate directed your way... you can play 10/15 man games for whatever the bonus honor game is that weekend.

Purchase honor gear, until you have close to a full set.
Initially the priority will be:
a) a two-minute click to remove loss of control, "PvP Trinket".
b) a two-piece set bonus for your class (bonus resilience and often a useful buff, as the two-piece bonus).
c) Gloves, if the bonus is useful for your spec.
d) Enough sockets to activate the "Meta" gem in your Helm, and the Helm as soon as you have the sockets.
e) Weapons, for melee toons once they've spent/earnt the minimum number of points in the current PvP season...
f) Anything else, each is roughly as much of a boost (per cost) as the other items; if you're playing Frost DK's, prioritize the items with Blue Sockets first because those get you the Spell Penetration blue gem sockets...

With full Honor gear, you can run heroics in PvP spec and with PvP gear.
It won't be pretty or fast, but it is doable.
If your goal is heroics, run battlegrounds and convert Honor to Justice Points and buy PvE gear with the Justice Points.
Just get the Honor gear first, so you're capable of winning at least half of almost every battleground, which gets you Honor points faster.

If you're not going for PvE stuff (Justice Points), buy Greater Celestial Essences with your Honor Points, and sell them on the AH.
On my server, I'm making around 1,500-2,000 gold a night/day, just from PvPing.

I've lost interest in the PvE aspect of the game during WotLK; which means, I have not entered a single Cataclysm dungeon yet.
In BC/WotLK, my PvE team cleared all heroic 5-man content except Oculus; I was running 1x Prot Tank, 3x Elem. Shaman, and 1x Demo Warlock.

[Ualaa]

Day 19: AV Weekend - Friday February 10th, 2012.
30 Games Played, 20 Wins, 10 Losses, 66.67% Win Rate.

Juds added: 2nd Conquest PvP Trinket (Click, +Spell Power)
DK's added: Conquest PvP Cloak.

They're optimistic that a second piece of Conquest gear can be earnt this week.
At 1,200 of 1,650 Conquest Points, for the week.

Interestingly enough, the average iLV did not increase despite moving from a 390 iLV to 403 iLV in those slots.

What can I say, AV weekend.
Faster queues than normal, for AV.

I had the option of either a half day at work, or the entire day off; given AV weekend and not needing to be up early, I choose to have the day off.
Ran games from 6:30am onwards, with a few breaks.

Honor can buy PvP mounts, which I don't especially care for.
It can buy Greater Celestial Essences, which sell for a decent amount on the Auction House.
It can also be converted into Justice Points, for PvE gear; I'm getting tempted to get a decent PvE tanking set on one of the DK's, purely to give the option of being the tank in AV and IoC (we've lost several games where we burnt two towers before they burnt two bunkers, because we had no tank...).

The Honor Points seem to come quickly, now that I'm not watching them...

[Ualaa]

Day 20: AV Weekend - Saturday.
16 Games Played, 10 Wins, 6 Losses, 62.5% Win Rate

Juds added: Conquest Healer Ring.
DK's added: Conquest Necklace

Juds: 4,815 Res, 391 iLV, 148K Health, 111K Mana, 04/17 Conquest.
DK's: 4,647 Res, 391 iLV, 146K Health, 04/17 Conquest.

Looks like no more upgrades for a while.
Next week is WSG weekend, which has been very boxing friendly since gearing up (100% win rate, so far).
Following that, we have SotA weekend, which sucks balls boxed... 0% Win Rate there; so will be doing Randoms that week.

Should be able to add Weapons for both Juds and the DK's, during the SotA/Random's week.
And IoC is the following week, which will be Shield and another 1,250 item for Juds or the off-hander for the DK's.

Still won a lot more than we lost... but the losses were annoying.
As soon as either side has two bunkers/towers, they have the ability to win by engaging if they have enough people south/north.
But even with three towers burnt... had some games where people sit around waiting for a tank.
Just annoying...

Overall, a good weekend.
Got the Conquest Cap in 1.15 days of PvP.
Honor became a lot of Greater Celestial Essences, which will sell for 15K or so; up to 60K exclusively from PvP.
Tickles got her Wrecking Ball, so all four have that now.
Even had an appearance from "Yourareacheater" who created a toon on my server to chat.

[nmadafeoajead02]

Couple of questions... Are you able to do heroics? Also, what would you suggest I do to start gear-wise. Imagine I'm level 80 on the whole 5x team and I'm heading into 85. What should I do to get started with gear? PVP craftable?