Seconded: the difference between “all PvE gear” and “wrathful back/wrist, furious body/legs” was night and day in battlegroups. I went from 7-20 deaths per random BG to 0-5.
The resil you have will have a cumulative effect – one piece of PVP gear won’t do a lot but once you hit… about 800-1000 resil, you really notice the difference. That’s listed in the defense section of your character stats.
Also, you can buy Wrathful with honor without needing an arena rating now. This is as intended, Blizzard isn’t fixing the fact the tooltips still say you need an arena/bg rating for Wrathful to buy it. The shoulders are the exception, I’m not sure why.
One good thing about the patch: It helped restore some WG balance to my little server so now we can have it more than once a week at 3AM. 
And HMMM to the candy buckets and stuff. I’ll have to do those on my pally (who just dinged 75) and see how high he can get before it’s over. I know I’d love to get him some gear from HH.
Speaking of pally, how are you other pallies doing since the patch? I’m still trying to find a good layout for my putative rotation as ret, haven’t even gotten into prot yet.
I did all the candy buckets last night, which thankfully wasn’t anywhere near as hard as hitting all the Elders. You get 6.63 gold per bucket at level 80; by the time I finished, I was up about 350 gold total.
I’m glad there’s two weeks to the holiday. I got this feeling the RNG is just going to screw me over. I was able to get 4 trick-or-treats done last night, and I got 3 tricks and only 1 treat, the toothpicks. Given that I still need to obtain a mask, wands (at least so I can possibly trade with someone else for hits), the squashling pet and the Hallowed Helm, I’m feeling a bit at the mercy of the game.
It didn’t help that I tried to hop on to do a quick TOT this morning, and naturally couldn’t log on due to maintenance. :mad:
I don’t know about the ret rotation, but I’m certainly enjoying the new prot tree. Threat isn’t a guaranteed thing anymore, which adds a nice challenge and an extra dimension to gearing – I didn’t care much about hit and expertise before 4.0, and now I find myself reforging some of my avoidance to threat in order to keep my groups from getting insta-squished. It makes gearing decisions a bit more meaningful (as opposed to all EH/avoidance all the time), and my damage output has increased considerably for trash packs – I was putting out a ridiculous 13k dps on Marrowgar trash last night and had no issues holding threat against the AE dps (heroics are a different matter, but they die too fast for it to matter).
None of my Ret experience is real world yet, so take this with a grain of salt (training dummy only) :
The rotation takes a little getting used to, and it feels weird so far for AE…like, I’m forgetting something since I don’t have a button I’m hitting. Here is what I’ve worked out so far :
Single target : CS - Judge - CS - Holy Wrath - CS - Zealotry - CS - TV - CS - TV (etc)
Basically, prioritize TV over everything else (it did about 25% of my damage on the dummy). Throw in Judge / HW whenever able, and hit Exorcism when it procs, but TV or CS aren’t ready
AoE : Setup Seal of Righteousness, CS - Judge - CS - HW - CS - Zealotry - CS/DS spam. Consecrate just isn’t worth using anymore.
I’ve found my paladin to be unplayable after the patch. It seems to be some kind of framerate issue that I can’t find any help on. I normally run with about 400 latency with 60 fps. Whenever I land some of my abilities, for holy, judging/aura switching. My framerate drops down to 10 or less. For prot it’s most of my abilities. I thought it might be a graphics problem, but it didn’t seem to change whether I had everything cranked up, or completely low/off.
Oddly enough, my mage has 0 framerate problems with any spells/abilities.
I haven’t heard of anyone else about having problems so I’m not sure what’s up. I put in a ticket, but I doubt it will help. I thought maybe someone else somewhere would be having the same problem.
That’s what I felt like too when I practiced. I felt like there was something I should have been hitting, even though I was already busy juggling CS, TV, and Judge. I did 4000 DPS on the dummy though, which is about right for mostly 232 gear. I bet I could do even better if I got rid of the macro I tried that linked Zealotry and Avenging Wrath together; Hammer of Wrath is badass enough that it’s something you want to use during AW, but during Zealotry you don’t want to hit anything but CS and TV.
On the way to Ashwood lake yesterday, I saw a yellow exclamation point, so I swooped down (near Grizzlepaw) to see what was up, and it was some chick making a reference to Worgen, but to do the quest, I needed to be in a group of at least 2.
Also, for SFG (blinking talents icon): I checked all my specs and they are filled as are my glyph spaces…
So where do we go to begin the Halloween quests?
Thanks
Q
Quasi - dumb question, but at the bottom of your talent page, lower right corner or thereabouts, there’s a button that should say something like “Learn” or maybe “Approve.” Did you press that button to confirm your talent choices? You also have to talk to your class’s trainer again to pick up some new skills.
There is also a cold weather trainer available in River’s Heart in Sholazaar Basin, that central area that all the rivers flow into.
I’ll check when WoW is back up. Did the trainer thing, I know. Thanks, FH!
Q
That’s probably part of my problem. I don’t use those much (or at all, really) in PvE, so they’re not "second nature. Also, my “1” through “=” hotkeys are all bound to various attack abilities (well, “1” is my bubble), so I’m not really sure how/where to bind these stuns and such. So they’re sitting on unbound buttons that I have to mouseclick, and since I’m using my mouse to move and steer I’d have to stop moving and steering to click them… OTOH, the other pally I kept finding myself fighting wasn’t using those abilities either.
As for “chasing” my opponents … it’s not so much that they’re “herding” me, it’s that they’re literally running around in little erratic, unpredictable circles and never stop moving. Which is one problem I have with video game PvP - it’s ridiculously unrealistic in that nobody in the real world could fight that way. I’m pretty much forced into constantly reacting in order to make sure I’m facing my opponent, instead of being proactive.
That’s probably a lot of it - I didn’t even start PvPing until level 80, so a lot of these guys had a big headstart on me in gear acquisition.
My nelf hunter was getting 6000XP per bucket at level 68, dinged 69 after a few buckets, and was getting 6150XP per at that level. My level 75 warrior got close to 10000, I think. Three of my toons leveled up just from candy buckets, two of them on their first bucket 
My point was that, having played for nearly two years, I’m pretty familiar with the very fundamental idea that I need to be facing my opponent to land an attack. I thought my question was pretty straightforward, but perhaps it would be better rephrased as, “What is the trick to keeping my opponent in front of me so that I can hit him with my special attacks instead of running in circles and hoping my autoattack will go off when I’m in melee range and facing him? Because they’re managing to hit me over and over and I can’t seem to get any of my special attacks to go off.”
Basically, I’m not a hardcore PvPer and I was asking “how do I do what they do”?
Of the basic 5-piece set (helm, shoulders, chest, legs, gloves), I’m wearing 3 pieces of Furious (iLvl 232) and 2 pieces of Relentless (iLvl 251). Most of my “off-set” pieces(bracers, belt, etc.) are iLvl 245 Relentless as well. I think I’m also wearing the iLvl 264 Wrathful cloak, but I’m not sure, and unfortunately can’t check until the servers come back up in another hour. My Resilience is at 858, I think. Found a vendor with a sweet PvP 2h axe, but not sure if I can buy it without Arena Rating.
Part of the reason I don’t have more of the higher-level PvP pieces is that I really don’t PvP much. I mainly want the PvP gear so that I have a better chance of surviving long enough to get the holiday achievements that require doing things in BGs. So most of my Honor Points have come from doing the WG weeklies and exchanging Stone Keeper’s Shards (which appear to have gone away with the patch, which really irritates me because when I entered WG to exchange them between battles the day before the patch, there was a gang of Horde camping the fortress courtyard and I couldn’t get to the vendor to make the exchange - I’m hoping they were automatically converted with the patch, but I don’t know), and I used Triumph badges to purchase several pieces. I didn’t spend Frosts on PvP gear, because my priority for those was upgrading my PvE gear. Still, I would like to become at least competent at PvP; I don’t hold much hope of ever excelling at it.
I ran heroic DTK on my ret pally yesterday, and topped Recount at 3998 DPS I’m really starting to get the hang of Holy Power and Templar’s Verdict.
Anybody else notice that they seem to have upped the drop rates on the Crystallized Life/Shadow/Fire off the relevant elementals in WG? The last two times I’ve gone in there to farm Crystallized Life (to make Moonshroud cloth), I’ve cleared the area and come out with 40+ Crystallized Life. The Living Lashers seem to be dropping it almost as consistently as the Mature Lashers now.
Hallow’s End candy buckets: Is it just me, or is the bucket in Astranaar glitched? I visited it on both my level 80 paladin and my level 32 shaman, and neither of them could get any candy from it. My paladin got it last year, but she got all of the buckets last year and that didn’t stop her from getting candy from any of the other buckets this year. I also noticed that all of my Alliance toons (the ones I checked, anyway) who are high enough level to quest in Ashenvale have credit for that bucket (in the achievement window) whether they’ve actually visited that bucket or not. It almost looks to me like either Blizzard was aware that the bucket was glitched and just automatically gave credit for it to sufficiently-leveled characters, or else it’s the achievement that’s glitched, giving inappropriate credit so that bucket’s sitting there saying, “Hey, you already visited me! No candy for you!”
Anyway, my paladin got most of the holiday achievements last year; all she needs for the title now is [G.N.E.R.D. Rage] and the helm for [Sinister Calling].
Well not to give you another l2p noob answer but basically the only answer is practice. You learn to do what they do by doing it a lot. Also in case you aren’t make sure you are using the mouse to move, not the keyboard. Getting hits in and not letting the other guy hit you back is basically what pvp boils down, this coming from a former Grand Marshal.
And that’s just it - I can’t figure out what they’re doing so that I can practice it.
Your first problem is that you’re clicking buttons with your mouse instead of facing the other player and using your hotkeys. You’re going to spend 98% of your time holding down the right-mouse-button. The only reason for left-click is targeting a totem, pet, or the next guy.
The second problem is that you’re chasing people around in circles. That’s probably a result of using a PvE-rotation or maybe just a misunderstanding of WoW combat. The single most important thing in PvP is to gain control. If you watch a competent fight, you’ll see that the winner opens with something to instantly gain control. You see this from rogues popping vanish so they can open safely and warriors using charge or shockwave. The idea behind the opener is that you want your opponent to defend against your plan to kill him. If you watch a mirror-match duel, you’ll notice that the winner generally wins with ton of health left or, if it is close, one player did a ton a damage with only a sliver of health. That’s from the dominant player having control after the opener (or a re-engagement) Being in control is so strong, it’s the reason for the escape/peel mechanism arms race in WotLK.
My general plan as an affliction warlock would be to open the fight with a death coil, which allows me to cast haunt without worrying about getting spell-locked. After haunt is in the air, I’d start kiting. While kiting, I’d apply/refresh dots and launch nightmare procs. If they use a CD to catch me, I can teleport and fear then start over. If they catch me again, I can HoT and start over. If they catch me again, I can fel dom in a succubus. This is all just a general plan, of course. What’s your plan?
The third problem is that you’re a paladin. Paladins are a healing class because they have no good way to open. As a ret paladin, most fights will be decided on whether or not you can heal through their damage enough to last until you can burst a kill. This strategy is pretty weak though, since it’s vulnerable to you failing to do enough damage, them doing too much damage, or you getting CC’d at a critical moment.
The fourth problem is that you’re running BGs, which have too many people. One uncontrolled free-casting caster will gib an entire group.
Oh yeah, obviously no clicking abilities in pvp.
Er, I specifically said I am using my mouse to move and steer, and using hotkeys for my abilities.
ETA: Thus, I need to find available (unused) hotkeys to bind these other abilities to, since all my current hotkeys are bound to attack abilities.
But you’re clicking on things, you can’t move and steer while you are clicking so by the time you do that your opponent already moved away.
Yes, but you’re currently set up to mouse click your stuns and interrupts which is what they were zeroing in on. Stuns should be your openers, and interrupts can be vital to prevent the other player from getting that cast-time ability off.
What you could do is create conditional macros that switch between Attack1 and Stun1, and then place them on your number row, say, the 1 key.
For example:
#showtooltip
/cast [mod: ctrl] Hammer of Justice
/cast [nomod] Templar's Verdict
Then you can press Ctrl-1 whenever you want to stun someone, and the rest of the time it’ll use TV. You also have… umm. Rebuke and Repentance although I suspect Repentance only works on mobs.
To elaborate a bit on what Palooka said: I would open with a stun, then smash them from behind (hopefully you have enough HoPo) with burst damage to chew through as much health as you can before a) the stun wears off or b) they trinket out of the stun. Theoretically, this positioning will force them to have to react to what you’re doing – and you should try to keep jittering backward and forward unpredictably so that they can’t predict when you’ll be in range.
Oh – If you have a pvp trinket, that’s another item that you should keep keybound so you can hit it. (Experienced PVP’ers will often try to fake you out to force you to use your trinket, then re-stun you with another ability.)
Last I knew, Repentance works on players but only for 6 seconds. Don’t know if that changed with 4.0.