1)     Bauble of True Blood (H): http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50726

Drops off Blood  Queen Lanathel 25man Heroic Mode.

This is in my  opinion the best trinket u can aim for resto.

Bauble of True Blood
Heroic
Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277 
Equip: Restores 86 mana per 5 secs 
Use: Instantly heal a friendly target for 7400 to 8600.

Why is this the best Trinket u can obtain? You can use it while you’re under the effect of a Silence and even if  you’re interrupted. The heal can crit and has 1minute less CD than the Battlemaster Trinket and you can use the effect on your teammates.

2)     Bauble of True Blood Non Heroic: http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50354

Drops off Blood Queen Lanathel 25man.

While its use is the same as the heroic one, it has 10mp5 less.

3)     Sollace of the Fallen (H): http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47432

Drops off Lord Jaraxxus in Trial of the Grand Crusader 25-man.

Heroic
Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
Requires Level 80
Item Level 258 
Equip: Increases spell power by 168
Equip: Each time you cast a spell, you gain 18 mana per 5 sec. for 10 sec. Stacks up to 8 times.

This trinket is preferred by some Resto druids because you can keep the stacks up with offensive spells such as cyclone/roots and insect swarm/moonfire. Plus the more spellpower you have , the better.

18×8 Equals 144mp5 if u manage to keep the 8 stacks up which shouldn’t be hard since you should always keep a Rejuvenation on Yourself.

4)     Sollace of the Fallen Non Heroic: http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47271

Drops off Lord Jaraxxus in Trial of the Crusader 25-man.

Equip: Increases spell power by 150
Equip: Each time you cast a spell, you gain 16 mana per 5 sec. for  10 sec. Stacks up to 8 times.

16×8 equals to 128mp5 if u manage to keep the 8 stacks up which shouldn’t be hard since you should always keep a Rejuvenation on Yourself.

5)      Purified Lunar Dust : http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50358

Obtainable with 50 Emblems of Frost.

Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
Requires Level 80
Item Level 264 
Equip: Increases spell power by 179
Equip: Your spell casts have a chance to grant 304 mana per 5 sec for 15 sec.

Since the proc is only for 15 seconds u have to divide 304/4  because it has a 45 Second internal Cool down.  And it would leave you with constant (this is an approximation) of 76 mp5.

If you can’t manage to get one of these trinkets for your  team, I’d suggest you to use the Battlemaster trinket.

If you have any Questions regarding Restoration Gearing post below and ill get back to you.

Thank you all for supporting Arena Pwnage and good luck to Talbadar, Novoz, & Diziet this weekend.

Team Arena Pwnage finished second place in the World of Warcraft Arena Regionals and will be attending BlizzCon 2010 in Anaheim, California this October to compete in the World Finals. 

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/rf10/index.xml

We also want to wish team Arena Pwnage luck at the MLG  tournament scheduled for August 27th – 29th in Raleigh.

http://www.mlgpro.com/pro-circuit/2010/

So, today, we’re going to learn about target switching — how to recognize it and how to avoid it.

The best way to strike at your enemy is when they are alone. You will be able to concentrate all your damage onto one person, and you’re surely able to swiftly kill someone in a 3v1 situation! So the best target switch is if someone runs out too far out by themselves! There is nothing threatening about a warrior that charges across half the map to get to you, if you just all attack him at once chances are he will die. That is why positioning is so important and why pillar use is important. The best scenario to kill someone in a target switch is to have them come to you!

The other kind of offensive target switches are when your opponent does the opposite of charging to you — when they pull back. So let’s say your team strategy is to try to kill a druid. That’s all good, but if they run behind or really far away, you can’t really get to them. So what you should do is quickly pick someone who is not running back, and everyone damage them. This is very useful because you make two people at once play defensive, the person who you were originally attacking and the new target.

The third type of switching is the most difficult but most skilled. Let’s say it is an even match and your two teams are ducking it out, trading blow for blow, evenly matched. So the best way to switch is when someone uses a defensive cooldown. There is no point pounding that druid when he’s got barkskin, or the warrior with shield wall up, or the hunter who has got a row of hots on them. Learn to recognize buffs that are defensive cooldowns and call quick switches off those targets. There’s no point in casting a lava burst into a rogue that has just blown cloak, but by switching to that mage you might put their whole team off balance and make their healer confused.

With excellent target swaps you are surely more likely to land kills.

Similarly, there are really two ways of recognizing target switches

If you’ve got yourself feared all the way out of position to the other side of the map, you’re likely to be a target for your enemy. They will see that you’re all by yourself and focus their fire on you, and you’re going to be helpless. However, sometimes you might even wander out yourself behind out of LoS of your healer or just really far — so you must watch out for that. You don’t want to give your opponents too many opportunities to fight you when the balance of power is in their favor. So, be careful not to run too far.

The other way to recognize target switches is to look at buffs and debuffs. If a priest is purging someone randomly all of a sudden, or the warlock is starting to put dots — the target switch is incoming. Be sure to position your unit frames somewhere not too far from you so you can recognize based on buffs and debuffs when there is a target switch that is going to come. And of course, even if you aren’t a healing class, you can do something about this. I often wind shear, hex, thunderstorm and earthbind totem just in time to save my teammates from taking any damage at all! It’s as satisfying to land that extremely high damage target switch onto your opponents as it is to cast a few well placed interrupts to stop the opposing team dead in their tracks.

Holy paladins have always done exceptionally well in the 5v5 arena bracket since the start of arena. There are many reasons that holy paladins have done well, and mainly for their ability to put out the best heals in the game, while also having the best defensive spells ( Hand of protection, Divine Shield, Freedom, and Sacrifices). While the 5s bracket can often be frustrating to find partners, its still one of, if not the best brackets for holy paladins. Anyone, that has the chance to get on a active 5s team, I would strongly suggest trying the 5s bracket. Lately, I’ve been able to join a great 5s team, and I’ve been able to pick up a ton of knowledge on the bracket. I will share what I have learned with you all.

First, I want to talk about the “most” viable comps that include a holy paladin in 5s.

I think first and foremost the best comp you can run, is 4 dps and 1 healer. The best is most variation of the 4 dps would probably be 4 caster dps. This can be destro lock, ele shammy, mage, shadow priest, holy paladin. It can really include any types of casters. But I would try to make sure you always have a destro warlock and ele shaman. I run a 4 dps on my 5s team, and we run rogue, ele shammy, destro warlock, mage, hpally, it’s a bit different than most 4 dps comps, but it’s a great composition.

 THIS IS THE GANG:

Some more comps that are viable, are the old burning crusade comps, known as, 2345 which stands for ele shammy, warr, mage, disc priest, and holy paladin. 2346, which is the same as above, but substituting the mage with a warlock. You can run a triple melee cleave team, death knight, warrior, ench shammy, holy pally, disc priest, I would suggest. Also, another popular comp. would be triple healer, which is usually marks hunter, ua lock, disc priest, holy paladin, resto druid or resto shammy. You can also substitute the marks hunter and warlock for a dk and warrior, or a hunter and prot pally.

As a general rule for 5s, if your not running 4 dps, than you want to heal with a disc priest. They offer the best synergy with holy paladins. All 5s is, is about synergy of the comp. If the comp is good, and the players are coordinated and committed, running 5s can be more enjoyable than any other bracket in some cases.

Next, well move right into how to play the 5s match.

  5s can be very intense to heal, and often seem impossible. Its very important to make good use of your cool downs. In 4 dps comps, you will almost always blow aura mastery and divine sacrifice off the bat to avoid getting far behind. HOLY LIGHT SPAM, is not a bad thing and often is very needed in 5s to survive. In fact, In 4 dps, I would almost say, don’t flash of light unless your target is 90 percent or higher. Just holy shock on cd, and holy light.

Healing in a 3 dps 2healer, or 2 dps 3 healer team can be much easier to manage. In this comp, mana will be much more of an issue. So I would suggest divine pleaing early and trying not to waste much mana.

The most important factor in 5s as a holy paladin, is your positioning. If you can manage your positioning well, you can avoid a lot of cc.

Tips for healing in 5s:

a) Make sure you always have beacon on yourself, this makes sure you don’t get behind in heals from dmg onto you by your sacrifice. It also, makes it a lot harder for teams to swap to you.

b) I’ve always stressed using sacred shield as your first global, but in 5s, and only in 5s, use sacred shield as your 2^nd gcd if someone is low. Meaning, if there taking dmg heal them, than at the end of the cast apply sacred shield.

c) If your running 4-dps, blow aura mastery and offensive cool downs(Bloodlust) very early into the match. Also, blow your sacrifices early.

d) Always, start the match off with crusader aura up. This will allow your team to get the edge in positioning. I have a macro and its, /cast Crusader Aura /cast concentration Aura. Just press once to go to crusader, than once back to concentration as you dismount.

e) GEAR for haste in 4-dps. GEAR for mp5/intel for non 4 dps comps.

Soon, hopefully I will have a video showing myself playing in 5s so you guys can pick up on some of the positioning stuff. Also, look for a later blog about positioning in 5s not only as the pally, but as a team.

The gates open to nagrand arena.   You see a Lock Ele Shaman Druid on the opposite gates.  They quickly make their way across the map to the pillar opposite you.

Partner- What do you want to hit? Shaman?

You:  Shaman is good, but they take———-SHADOWFURY

The warlock comes in following with a howl, and the wizarding begins.  You are taken down and left broken and confused.  This is a typical scenario for many new teams that begin playing together.  Having a basic strategy for setups is essential to building a good team and maintaining consistency on beating opponents.   You never want to have the above scenario happen.  I will provide a few thoughts on how to develop plans that will work for your team. 

Analyze and apply the strengths of your comp and make up for the weaknesses.  If you are playing Rogue Mage Priest, your strategies are going to revolve around bursting hard with the priest and making deadly swaps that leave the opponents wondering what happened.  They are not going to revolve around winning a mana war or having your priest act as if he were a paladin.  That would not play to the strengths of the classes that you are playing with.  If you are prepared immediately with a target early on, you will have a much better chance than trying to formulate a plan on the fly.  Here are some tips in making strats based on your teams’ strengths:

- You want to create as much pressure and momentum early on as you can.  You should be picking a target you know you can hurt, and you need to work around targets you know that you can CC to blow their trinkets, and allow your CCs to stick and not be cleansed off.  For a cleave setup, a typical starting target would be a clothie except for frost mages.  Warlocks and priests are prime targets.  However, for a caster team, warlocks and disc priests are not always the prime starting target.  Have this worked out what your starting target is based on this information for ALL the common setups you will see.  

-A switch or swap target is equally good to have a plan of action for.  Often you will want to have a plan to switch to a target when they have a small chance of escape.  This usually means when a cooldown is blown and is unavailable, or a pvp trinket.  This does not mean I am discouraging teams from making on the fly calls to swap to a target in bad positioning or anything like that, however if you have a basic outline of a strategy for the team you are facing, you will be more prepared to deal with the teams strategy against you, and you will be able to make smaller on the fly decisions that you will need at the higher levels of arena.  I also want to say that a swap is very situational, and just because a trinket was blown does not mean that you should instantly swap to the target.  You should wait for the right positioning and time to do so based on what cooldowns you will have up. (ie:  A ret or prot pally will often need a Hammer of Justice to make a kill swap.  A hunter will need aim shot up, a mage will need deep freeze, warlock shadowfury or coil, rogue vanish cheap or at least a kidney etc. ).

-Knowing when to tunnel and when to play smart; the lines of when to tunnel are often blurred in this wonderful expansion based on a number of factors.  PVE gear, the other teams gear and experience, and the comp you run, and positioning of the target of your tunnel vision are all things to consider when deciding to ride something into the ground.  Some teams use this more than others.  Often a cleave will tunnel a warlock all game into the ground.  Or a hunter team will ride a mage, a RLS or RMP may ride a healer often, a wizard cleave might tunnel warriors pretty hard.  The effectiveness of these strats are often fine, but you will want to always have a way to get out of what you are doing.  An on the fly swap or a setup on a target you made trinket should be available in case you are unable to force the cooldowns and stay on the target you want to take down.    Tunneling or zerging a target, often a healer has become a bread and butter strat for many comps, however you do not want to take this literally.  As it’s a viable strategy, you still should have a backup.  I would never encourage a team, no matter how faceroll or zergy to just rely on a tunnel vision strat.

-Finally, when formulating a strategy, you want to also consider the opponents typical strategy they will use against you.   This is going to come with more experience playing lots of comps, and as you play more against the same people and play more games as a team.  You should try to have an idea of what the other team is going to target and swap to, and be prepared to deal with that.  If you are playing against an RMP as a resto druid or shaman, and you are blinded early in the match, expect to be swapped to hard and have your team know that they will need to help you with that when it occurs.  Plan your positioning around this.  Try to make it hard for the rogue and caster to get to you quickly, have earth shield or hots rolling on yourself. 

There is much to this topic and often comp specific strategy guides can help you out with this if you want to know more specifics on what you are playing.  However, if you use the information here to make your strats, you will guaranteed see improvements in play and ratings than if you are just figuring things out as you go along, and you will see much more consistency in your win loss.  The top teams in the game have multiple strategies and ideas for the teams they fight against, and get extremely specific.  This is only part of why they are great teams, but an important part.  I will end with proof of this. 

Arenapwnage’s Talbadar recently wrote on a blog,

“We have kite paths planned for all maps and try to make as much use out of Thunderstorm, Silence, Psychic Scream, and Psychic Horror as possible.”  – On fighting beastcleave vs his comp of spriest, ele shaman, resto druid.

Thanks for reading!  Please leave feedback and use the forums for your class for more specific comp related questions.  Good luck!

Hello this is Beleta, currently known as Mirandasings on Kel’thuzad Alliance.  I have just recently been hired on the arenapwnage staff.  Since they have not released my bio yet I will go over a brief description.  I have been playing resto druid for about 3 seasons, have 2 gladiator titles and earned r1 title last season in two brackets.  Currently playing ret/warrior/druid at 2900 mmr, and also good friends w/ current arenapwnage pro irreplacable.

Addons:

Addons as a druid, very basic addons you want of course is the first of which is

Gladius, a great addon for starting and veteran arena players alike helps you target easier and see cc’s on targets and how long they last for. 

Interrupt bar: Recommend this addon, greatly.  This shows cooldown of interrupts like counterspell and kick.  As a druid knowing when you’re able to free cast is a huge thing, being able to free cast nourishes and cyclones all day is a huge thing.  But knowing when you’re susceptible to interrupts is a key part in losing and winning matches.  There is also a new interrupt bar which also shows CD’s on Clos and deep freeze and death grip and bunch of other things.

Spell Alerter:  An addon that shows you right in the middle of your screen what CC is going and a huge arrow pointing to which target.  How can you go wrong?

Gladiminish:  This shows you diminishing returns on your CC, stuns etc.  Huge for druid class, the difference between waiting one second and getting a full cyclone on a target compared to cycloning for half duration can be game breaking. 

HoT Addons: There are some addons that show which HoT’s are on which target, i personally do not like them, but alot of people do i feel it just gets to clunky.  If you do like them they’re out there.

Macros:

I’m not gonna go to much into macros, because i did see Spoh released that and to save me some time i’ll just give you a link to that

http://www.arenapwnage.com/2010/03/11/restoferal-macros-part-one/

Your comps (3v3), what should you run?:

These are my most recommended comps to run as a resto druid.

Warrior/Warlock/Druid (WLD):  Fairly difficult comp, requires great synergy between warlock and warrior, I would not recommend playing this right away, as if your team members aren’t up to snuff it can get pretty exhausting.

Ret/Warrior/Druid: Comp I currently run, its a very fun comp but also fairly difficult.  With this being s8 and the absurd amount of wizard cleave and rogue/lock/healer comps it can be difficult.  This comp you may want to run prot instead of ret.  Prot paladin has weaks and strengths, obvious strength they can basically never die, they do alot of sustained damage with a big burst every 30 seconds (being avenger’s shield).  I would def say Prot/warrior/druid can get you to 2200, of course to get higher you’re going to need ret utility, such as freedom out of stuns Art of war procs. 

Lock/shaman/druid (LSD): As far as difficulty goes I would say this is probably the easiest comp a druid can run.  3 classes that are hardest to oom, do really good damage, have great cc, have bloodlust, have great heals.  I would recommend this to any beginner or anyone struggling in arena. 

Mage/Lock/Druid (MLD):  Difficult but tricky.  In this comp the warlock should be destruction.  As far as wizard cleaves go this is the least popular.  Although, this comp does have 3 great cc’s each one not affecting the other classes diminishing returns it can be sticky if communication is not great, having all the cc’s is fine but if they’re all overlapping each other it becomes useless.  Also having two interrupts is important to have that communcation or you might just end up wasting those. 

For all these comps the druid playstyles are very different.  One example, when you’re playing w/ any warrior you always want to stand close enough to where he can get an intervene off on you, far enough to avoid cc’s.  (Which for a druid will always be 24 yds., since the only cc that can affect a druid the closest is just 24 yds.) 

These are the comps that I would most recommend any beginner or struggling player to run.  Not saying that they’re the easiest thing in the world to run, but probably the easiest to pick up and learn quickly.

Thanks for reading everyone, this is just my first article here at arenapwnage.  I would like to go into more detail but i just got home from work and thought that i should release something, since i have seen very little druid content.  I will be releasing much more content about resto druid playstyle, when to heal when to cc etc. etc.    I also hope to begin recording my 3v3 matches and 2v2 matches.  Stay tuned!:)

So I am going to be writing this article for everyone not just the Priest Class. Of course these thoughts on each Class in general are from the mind of a Discipline Priest but I will do my best to cover everything. I am going to be discussing how well these classes handle CC, and damage. As well what you as an arena player need to watch out for from each of these classes. I am going to be writing this in a format of Class Name, Spec -  Then how well they take damage as this spec and what to be afraid of. These are the thoughts that go through my head right after I see what I am facing. I will not be covering all of the classes today but will try to release the second volume soon.

Druid

Restoration – Takes elongated Damage Well unless its from a Melee cleave sort of team Generally if you want to win against this class/spec it is going to have to be on a swap onto them or a swap onto one of the Resto Druids Team members. Warlocks you can use banish on the tree forms of these druids. Watch out for the intense mana game these healers bring to the table as well as the incredible heals. And the capability to handle an early swap with Barkskin.

Feral – A good target to kill  target seeing as it will force him into bear form and the damage will be reduced. This Class/spec does lots of damage. You can tell if the druid is prowling that he is a Feral if you see the Leader of the pack buff on his team members. Watch out for the Berserking this damage can be ridiculous and his ability to use Casts abilities such as Cyclone / Healing abilities instantly( you can dispel this buff the icon looks like a lion with like an 8 second timer).

Boomkin -  A good kill target. Just watch out for the Starfall and boomkins damage can get pretty ridiculous.

Priest

Discipline -  A good kill target depending on what you are playing as and what the opposing Priest is playing. Easy to Train other than spell cleaves. Other than dispel this is the healer with the worst amount of mobility. Watch out for the burst capability of a Discipline priest, and don’t get too close to your team members the double/trip fear can be very painful. Be aware of your position as the discipline priest class has mana burn, yet it is not a common strat in arenas to use mana burn that much any longer.

Shadow – A good kill target, just be ready for dispersion. The thing to watch out for is the amount of Lock out capability that can stack with a Shadow priests partners. The Burst Damage on a fully dotted player can be ridiculous especially when you throw the stun / disarm and Silence into play.

Mage

Frost – A good kill target depending on what you are playing as. If you are a hunter training mages is your favorite thing to do I would assume(this goes for both arcane and frost). Has a good amount of CC but if he has hypothermia then it should be very easy to push the kill over the mountain. Watch out for the insane amount of CC coming out of a Mage the polymorphs the Deep Freezes the Frost novas, along with the Counterspell can make it that if anyone good is behind this class it can be very devastating.

Arcane – Kill this Son of a B@#!$ for playing this spec EASY EASY kill Target if you have at least one Melee / Hunter Damage type player killing an arcane mage is very easy as oppossed to a Frost. Just WATCH out for the insane amount of Damage and the slow, along with everything stated above except Deep freeze.

Warlock

Destruction – A good kill target for Physical Damage teams, but hard for any spell caster teams to kill seeing as they proc a buff that decreases the damage done to them from that tree of spells after they take damage from a tree(Example I hit him with a frost bolt that hits full minus soul link , but now for like 8 seconds or so everything frost I hit him with is reduced a really huge amount). Watch out for the immolate debuff if you have that on you either dispel it or LOS because that means your going to be taking a lot of damage.

UA – A good kill target for physical DPS based teams. Not so much a half physical half caster team. They consistent damage the UA Lock class brings to the arena is pretty ridiculous so just try to swap and kill on of the teamates before it gets too ridiculous. Try not to dispel Unstable Affliction as it will Damage you a good amount and silence you if you see a purple beam of death and you are under 30% health try to get over 30% health asap because you are about to take a lo t of damage.

Paladin

Holy – A good kill target depending on if it has bubble or not. This healer brings a lot of cooldowns to the arena as well as a good mana game. try to force Cooldowns and win after the paladin has used all of them. Nothing really scary about this class other than what the partners of a Holy paladin can do with the cooldowns the paladin is dropping.

Prot – Not really a good kill target. Watch out for the burst capability in a Hand of Justice because when they follow that with an avengers shield things can get pretty ridiculous.

Ret -  A good kill target in general no matter what you play. A good damage and defensive play with the cooldowns but there is nothing truly scary about this class.

Part 1:

Part 2: