Some advice needed please :)

I apologise in advance if this is the wrong place to post this

I used the PCT service to bring Zimone over to Shattered Hand on Monday because i really liked the sound of your guild. I brought her from a PVE server, and basically ive never played on a PVP server before, and apart from farming for epic mounts in the past, i dont have much PVP experience at all.

I guess i didnt really realise just how much different it would be, or think it through properly. Im just wondering if any of you can give me any advice about playing on this type of server. I guess there must be some kind of etiquette to follow?


Every time an alliance player attacked me yesterday i was either in the middle of, or just finished killing a mob, and i didnt have full health or much mana. When that happens to you, do you just try and run away, or do you stay and fight even although you know its a no win situation? Do you tend to just avoid playing in areas where there are any alliance, or are most of you playing in groups?

If you see an alliance player do you go out of your way to kill them? or do you just ignore them and hope that they dont attack you first?

I decided to be really brave last night and attacked a Draenei Warrior, totally forgetting that i had Res sickness and she killed me so no doubt i was a laughing stock in her guild chat.

Sorry to ask so many questions, im really enjoying the guild and i'd really like to stay here on the server. I dont want to move back to a PVE server once the cooldown finishes, but at the moment im feeling a bit lost lol

Well I enjoy pvp server, even if I get ganked for hours xD
The worse thing which happened to me the other day is when its a alot higher level ganking you "/

I myself never gank a player and by gank I mean when they are at low hp/mp or fighting a mob etc, if they are I wait for the mob to die or even help them kill the mob let them rest and then attack them
Specially with my paladin becuase I have alot of confidence on it as they are pretty strong at this level at least (:

Generally when i am in a area allys can attack me and even more so a area that is known to have alot of ally players in and gankers etc (mainly STV) I am always checking around, even when fighting a mob il be swinging the mouse around to see who and what is around me and incase anything comes near me.

Also checking the combat log, at least with the old combat log you could see "so N so gains steath" so that gets you alert, or if ever you see a name in the combat log but you cant see them, do /who "the name" and if it doesnt come up, its a ally...

Some ally players will gank you no matter what, some will be fair to do, some will even help you quest but then again some will help you quest and then kill you.

So its really hard to judge whos nice and who isnt, who you can trust to not kill yuo if you start attacking a mob etc.

As a mage depending on what class the ally is you could frost nova if they are in range, both the mob and ally or if that isnt possible or fails, blink to get some range and polymorph the ally (unless its a druid in a beast form which cant be poly'd) then you can finish the mob off, poly them again maybe and then eat and drink.
Obviously this isnt always possible though
You can also craft those mana gems cant you, save them for a time like this maybe to help with mana,and always carry hp/mp potions maybe?


Might be good checking offical mage forums to look for tips against certain classes or something.
As Frost spec most melee (cept for druid again) should be pretty easy for you as they normally get frostbite to the ground all the time
I remember on my mage I found druids dead hard, but that was my 1st character so was more of a newb back then ;]

Worse comes to worse you can just poly them and run xD

Hope this helps abit.

Zimone wrote:I apologise in advance if this is the wrong place to post this

Here is perfect - no worries

Zimone wrote:
I used the PCT service to bring Zimone over to Shattered Hand on Monday because i really liked the sound of your guild. I brought her from a PVE server, and basically ive never played on a PVP server before, and apart from farming for epic mounts in the past, i dont have much PVP experience at all.

I guess i didnt really realise just how much different it would be, or think it through properly. Im just wondering if any of you can give me any advice about playing on this type of server. I guess there must be some kind of etiquette to follow?

Only your own etiquette, there are no hard and fast rules.

Zimone wrote:
Every time an alliance player attacked me yesterday i was either in the middle of, or just finished killing a mob, and i didnt have full health or much mana. When that happens to you, do you just try and run away, or do you stay and fight even although you know its a no win situation? Do you tend to just avoid playing in areas where there are any alliance, or are most of you playing in groups?

Depends on the situation - if I'm obviously at a disadvantage and I think I'll have a good chance of getting away I'll make a break for it - if not - unload everything I can on them and hope they screw up enough to get a kill.

Always try to bear in mind that in some zones (STV, Hillsbrad for two examples) you should always keep something in reserve because you *will* get jumped.

Zimone wrote:
If you see an alliance player do you go out of your way to kill them? or do you just ignore them and hope that they dont attack you first?

Depends on the mood I'm in a lot of the time - *but* - if you get the drop on them you have more chance of coming out on top. Other than that 'it's all in the reflexes' (film quote, hug as a prize for anyone who gets it)

Zimone wrote:
I decided to be really brave last night and attacked a Draenei Warrior, totally forgetting that i had Res sickness and she killed me so no doubt i was a laughing stock in her guild chat.

.... or they were impressed with the size of your balls..... either way you should be pleased with your performance for yourself, other peopl's opinions are largely irrelevant

Zimone wrote:
Sorry to ask so many questions, im really enjoying the guild and i'd really like to stay here on the server. I dont want to move back to a PVE server once the cooldown finishes, but at the moment im feeling a bit lost lol

Stick it out you'll be OK . The trick with PvP is.... practise practise practise practise practise practise and determination - there are no foregone conclusions and you *can* win every fight you find yourself in.

And besides that - the only other factor is how much fun you get out of it, after playing for some time on a PvP server (this is my first also) the rest of the servers have their colour and brightness turned down (another paraphrased film quote but no prize for this one). Personally I watch a lot (and I mean a *LOT*) of PvP movies from warcraftmovies.com, it's a good source of figuring out tactics.

and never, ever - Ever - EVER! apologies for asking qestions - that's why we are here

Ah you're a mage! nice - if you have any specific questions feel free to ask. I'm no genius but I've had a fair few encouters, some of which I came out on top - some not.

Ganking is the downside of PvP servers, the good thing is you can do it too. I only gank sometimes, lately haven't done that at all. If you don't wish to fight an alliance player, a good way to show this to them is to do a "/wave" or "/hi" emote to them or help them kill a mob.

Another thing which you'll eventually learn to do automatically is to look around all the time and be ready for attacks. For example I try to save my war stomp if someone happens to attack me, so I can gain the upper hand.

As a mage, a good thing to know is that you can get out of roots and STUNS with blink. This includes frost nova, entangling roots, shadowfury, cheap shot, kidney shot, all that kind of stuff. If you see a warrior coming right at you, a good way to prevent him from using charge is to use counterspell. Counterspell can be cast from further distance than charge, so their only hope of catching you is to use intercept which you can blink out of and run away

It gets better when you get more used to being cautious and when you learn to play your class better (I'm not saying you're bad!).

Oh and another thing: Duels! Duels are you friend, they are a safe way to learn to play your class in friendly 1 on 1 battles. If I remember your level correctly, I am quite much higher level than you but I can put some lower rank spells on my action bars, remove windfury enchants from my weapons and go easy on you if you want to practice against me

Yet another thing you can do is get information about the other classes. When I started WoW, I kept rerolling for a long time (over a year), so I learnt quite a lot of all the classes which helped me in situations like ganking because I knew what the other classes are capable of doing.

and never, ever - Ever - EVER! apologies for asking qestions

And remember this

Thank you all loads for your advice! Im glad i asked now

I dont even have my combat log on show, so thats the first thing im going to do when i get home tonight.

Im also going to start making sure i carry health/mana posts with me at all times too.

I respecced to Frost last night before i logged off, so im hoping it'll make things a little easier for me. Usually by the time i get a pyroblast off im a gonner

I'll also start being more aware of my surroundings too, as its something thats never even crossed my mind before. Most of the times i got killed over the last couple of days could probably have been avoided, if i'd been paying attention to what was going on round about me, rather than just focusing on the mob i was killing.

It didnt even occur to me that i could use Counterspell to stop a warrior from charging

Thanks guys, tis much appreciated

Wait a sec... Combat log Woot!? Oo who uses it anyway^^ other than checking who made you whipe

Zimone wrote:It didnt even occur to me that i could use Counterspell to stop a warrior from charging

Thanks guys, tis much appreciated

I didn't know that either tbh

Frost is a very good control spec, it might not be so much front-end damage but the increase in survivability can't be ignored. So many toys

Go to Warcraftmovies, download pretty much anything by Vurtne, Noone, another movie called 2on2 and some other guys who's names I can't remember off the top of my head, oh and the 'I suck at PvP' movies (yes that's the title of the movie) .

Perspyro wrote:Always try to bear in mind that in some zones (STV, Hillsbrad for two examples) you should always keep something in reserve because you *will* get jumped.

I find this is a big one. I can destroy NPCs quickly if needed, but at the cost of my mana bar. If i'm in places like STV and lately Tanaris (since a lot of the quests are close to the neutral city), then I tend to drag my fights out by mostly using the mana-free Auto Shot and pet damage, and only using mana-costing abilities sporadically. Even if they do wait for you to finish the kill, not everyone will let you drink like Rawrrz.

As for fighting people? Depends. I won't back away from people, but some days after getting repeatedly one shotted by passing 70s, I get frustrated enough to gank lowbies of my own.

Yesterday, I was drinking after a fight and a similar level Alliance Rogue appeared behind me, poked me, giggled, and disappeared again. I flicked Track Hidden on to keep an eye on her, but yeah, it seemed rude to become the aggressor after she could have killed me anyway.

Zimone wrote:
It didnt even occur to me that i could use Counterspell to stop a warrior from charging

Their Charge abilty can only be used OUT of combat, using counterspell puts them in combat (:
though if they have enough rage and are in or switch to zerker stance they can use Intercept with is like charge, but costs rage, can be used in and out of combat and also stuns you for 3seconds (:

Rawrrz wrote:they can use Intercept with is like charge, but costs rage, can be used in and out of combat and also stuns you for 3seconds (:

... but can be blinked out of unlike charge.

And the 3 second intercept charge can be blinked out of

You said by the time you got pyroblast off you were dead. Did you use pyroblast in PvP? In front of their face? Do not do that, ever, unless they are polymorphed and you are at maximum range! In PvP you must try to 'kite' your opponents (do damage to them while avoiding getting hit yourself), this is usually done by holdin the right mouse button down and pressing A or D to strafe sideways while blasting instant cast spells in their face like fire blast and cone of cold.

Note that polymorph regenerates your opponents HP to maximum and it does that FAST, so polymorph should never be used in the middle of combat unless they are casting some spell you definetly want to avoid and even then you should IMMEDIATELY break the poly with a fire blast!

Kadath wrote:Note that polymorph regenerates your opponents HP to maximum and it does that FAST, so polymorph should never be used in the middle of combat unless they are casting some spell you definetly want to avoid and even then you should IMMEDIATELY break the poly with a fire blast!

.....or they caught you with your pants down and you need time to Evocate/bandage/wait for cooldowns to time out....

....or there's more than one of them......

... or it's a warlock/hunter with a pet you want to get rid of first (ok not so likely - but possible).....

....or you just want to get away....

in summary, use polymorph to put you on a more even playing field when at a disadvantage like pretty much all of the Frost mages non-DPS spells

*everything* is subject to situational assessment, the trick is to have a plan i the first place.

Perspyro wrote:

Kadath wrote:Note that polymorph regenerates your opponents HP to maximum and it does that FAST, so polymorph should never be used in the middle of combat unless they are casting some spell you definetly want to avoid and even then you should IMMEDIATELY break the poly with a fire blast!

.....or they caught you with your pants down and you need time to Evocate/bandage/wait for cooldowns to time out....

....or there's more than one of them......

... or it's a warlock/hunter with a pet you want to get rid of first (ok not so likely - but possible).....

....or you just want to get away....

in summary, use polymorph to put you on a more even playing field when at a disadvantage like pretty much all of the Frost mages non-DPS spells

*everything* is subject to situational assessment, the trick is to have a plan i the first place.

Ooh. Such wise words.

Kadath wrote:Ooh. Such wise words.

hehehe unfortunately not from experience - mostly from the hours and hours and hours I spend watching Frost mage PvP vids

Kadath wrote:And the 3 second intercept charge can be blinked out of

You said by the time you got pyroblast off you were dead. Did you use pyroblast in PvP? In front of their face? Do not do that, ever, unless they are polymorphed and you are at maximum range! In PvP you must try to 'kite' your opponents (do damage to them while avoiding getting hit yourself), this is usually done by holdin the right mouse button down and pressing A or D to strafe sideways while blasting instant cast spells in their face like fire blast and cone of cold.

Note that polymorph regenerates your opponents HP to maximum and it does that FAST, so polymorph should never be used in the middle of combat unless they are casting some spell you definetly want to avoid and even then you should IMMEDIATELY break the poly with a fire blast!

I would use Frost Nova, then Blink out of the way and try and get a pyroblast or a couple of firebolts in, but it takes way too long

Its all trial and error though isnt it, and i guess that's half the fun lol

Well unless you can surprise someone, pyroblast is pretty much useless in PvP. Scorch (along with the scorch debuff, fire vulnerability) is pretty good though, fast to cast and good damage.

Kadath wrote:Well unless you can surprise someone, pyroblast is pretty much useless in PvP. Scorch (along with the scorch debuff, fire vulnerability) is pretty good though, fast to cast and good damage.

This

Unless you are POM/Pyro don't bother with Pyro (in PvP) - you'll be dead before you've flicked your Zippo. From the fire mage movies I've seen Scorch is the staple, along with the Dragon Breath thingy and the AOE Fire thing the name of which I can't remember.

Tbh the easiest way and best way to lvl is to be frost specced (got a lvl 70 mage myself) just start casting frostbolts until the targets is close enough you freeze and blink away and get max lenght betwen you continue to do that


or you can run around like mad and gather all mobs and iceblock then freeze them when all are there blink away blizzard and cone of ice and so on >_>

Spiderspy wrote:Tbh the easiest way and best way to lvl

This is a PvP conversation

Spiderspy wrote:Tbh the easiest way and best way to lvl is to be frost specced (got a lvl 70 mage myself) just start casting frostbolts until the targets is close enough you freeze and blink away and get max lenght betwen you continue to do that


or you can run around like mad and gather all mobs and iceblock then freeze them when all are there blink away blizzard and cone of ice and so on >_>

Hehe i dont have a problem with PVE in the slightest, thanks for the info though

ops sorry my bad >_>

Well ice is still among the best for lvl up AND be able to survive against gankers

well since Fire got a lot of pure nuke damadge that can be released on quite a short time it is what most mages (of my experience) use for pvp but i would say that frost is better, since you can nuke pretty well with frost too not as good as fire ofc but you have a LOT more survival abilitys.

''after ten years drums of WAR thundered again...'' or something like this This is from the cinematics at the start of WoW THIS IS WAR! And joining pvp server means that there's no etiquete or rules (it's all up to you how you are going to aproach it). ''Kill or get killed'' to cut long story short This may sound terrible but...

I used to not attack lower lvls or stay neutral to allys... Few seconds later I was usually tasting the mud (when you give me some mud from STV I can tell from which part of STV it was taken by the taste of it Ganking fest all the time) and running to pick up my corpse. This is of course not a rule and I came accross many friendly ally players on this server.

Generally expect unexpected and be ready to fight or run every now and then. I was jumped when drinking, afk, killing mobs, doing escort quests, and so on... It sometimes boiled my blood but... it's pvp server and if it was for real I can't see orc waiting for some nelf to finish fight with some beast, eat/drink and get ready for fight...

I only hate all the ?? jumping on me and respect all lower levels attacking me even though they are like 3-5 lvls lower then me.

This is probably not very helpful info but that's how I see pvp servers nowdays

when you give me some mud from STV I can tell from which part of STV it was taken by the taste of it

Ahahahahahahahaah, oh wow..

I tend to not gank anyone at all.
I'm happy questing along, without ganking anyone. But...

If i'm attacked whiles't not fighting / not at low health / not afk, then i'll put up a fight and try to win.

if i loose?

I'll probably go looking for that person to get another fair fight. ( Nothing better then having a good ol' fight within a decent player ).

If i'm ganked, then i'll go and return the favour.