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Gearing for PvP Combat

When participating in player versus player competition too often players undervalue stats that keep you alive (such as resilience and stamina) and overvalue stats that get you big crits (crit rating, Attack Power, or Spell Damage). Now obviously players still must maintain the ability to damage their opponent, and be able to do it rapidly enough to kill them. You also have to realize that if you're dead then you can't kill anyone!

It's really tough trying to PvP with less than 10,000 health these days, and if you are just starting out and you don't have any gear at all you may be down around the 7,000 health mark. Also remember that players that live longer tend to get more honor per game and per hour. If you stay alive longer you receive more honor since you are around for more kills.

The next part of this blog will tell you how to get your gear up so you can compete in arenas and battlegrounds, today let's talk about what stats to look for when gearing your character.

Resilience - What it means to You in PvP Resilience accomplishes three different things currently in World of Warcraft and with the coming of Patch 2.4 will accomplish four things.

1. Reduces the chance you are critically hit by all attacks. For level 70 players, 39.4 resilience is a 1% decreased chance you are critically hit by any attacker.
2. Resilience reduces the damage of all critical strikes against you by double the amount of critical strike chance reduction. So for every 39.4 resilience critical strike damage will be reduced by 2%.
3. Resilience also reduces the amount of damage you take from Damage over Time effects. DoT effects are reduced by the same amount as the decreased critical strike chance. So 39.4 resilience will decrease DoT effects by 1%.
4. NEW in 2.4 - Resilience will also decrease mana drain effects by the same amount it reduces critical strike damage. So 39.4 resilience will decrease mana drain effects by 2%.

As you can see, resilience is an extremely powerful stat for all PvP players. It not only decreases the chance you are hit with a critical strike but also the damage from critical strikes and DoT effects.

Let's break this effect down with math real quick.

• Player 1 - Zero Resilience
• Player 2 - 200 Resilience
• Player 3 - 400 Resilience

Assume incoming damage of 1000 every 2 seconds with a 33% chance to crit, meaning every third hit is a critical strike before factoring in resilience. Incoming critical strike will cause 200% damage before resilience factors in. Lets calculate the average DPS a player will take from this simplified attack sequence.

• Player 1 - Will take 667 DPS
• Player 2 - Will Take 624 DPS, a 6.3% decrease over no resilience.
• Player 3 - Will take 587 DPS, a 12.0 % decrease over no resilience.

While this does not sound like much this is only incoming damage from one player. The more players you add, the more damage you will be mitigating with resilience. Think about this against a 4 DPS 5v5 team and how much 12% decrease would be, and how much easier it would be for healers to keep you alive.

Resilience is an extremely valuable stat for all classes, 400 resilience is the generally accepted norm for high ranking PvP players and should be everyone's goal as they start to gear up for arenas and battlegrounds. For players just beginning to PvP 250 resilience is a good point to shoot for. Until you have reached 200-250 resilience most of your enchants and gems should revolve around stamina and resilience.

Note that resilience critical strike reduction is capped at 25% which equates to 492 resilience. You can still continue to mitigate DoT effects and critical strike damage but not critical strike chance. As of right now it would be extremely difficult to reach this point without over sacrificing for stats.

Stamina - What it means to You in PvP Stamina is also an often undervalued stat. Stamina, however, is not quite the powerhouse that resilience is but should not be overlooked. Too often I find players trying to PvP with less than 10,000 health, which generally does not go well for them. When I attack a player on the battlefield and see their health go to nearly half after an auto-attack and a Hemorrhage I tend to remember their name and class.

They are a very easy kill, and I target them every chance I get. There also the players that have 14,000 health and high resilience, these characters take forever to kill. These players I avoid if at all possible, they simply take too long to burn down, especially if they are a healing class such as a Discipline Priest or a Restoration Druid.

The standard for a player just starting to PvP is 10,000 hitpoints. Until you reach 10,000 hitpoint all your gems and enchants should revolve around stamina and resilience.

How to Value Stamina and Resilience versus Damage increasing Stats Many classes use a rating system to balance out stats so they are comparable by a standard value. An example of this system is Agility Equivalent Points, which is the system rogues use to evaluate gear options. This system takes all stats, including resilience and stamina and uqates them to a value based upon 1 agility point. Here is a listing of values for the most current rogue AEP system.

1 AEP = 1 Agi = 1.4286 Sta = 1.5385 Str = 1.6667 Hit = 1.5873 Crit = 1.5385 AP = 1.6667 Haste = 1.5385 Expertise = 6.6667 Arm Pen = 1 Resil

This means that 1 agility is valued the same as 1 resilience and 1.4286 Stamina for a rogue wishing to PvP. This system is great for ranking gear, lets use a gear example to display how this works.

There is a similar system available for all classes, and this can be used as a great way to evaluate gear.

Giving up Too Much Never give up too much for resilience or stamina. For example, don't forfeit 60 Spell Damage or 40 spell crit in order to gain 15 resilience or stamina. This is far too much damage to sacrifice in order to gain a small margin of survivability.

Realize that you much still damage the enemy to beat them, so remember to keep enough damage and attackpower or plus healing to prevail in the battle. All the resilience and stamina in the world will not save you if you can kill anything!

Rating Buster Addon Another good tool for evaluating gear is an addon called Ratings Buster, this addon will break down all your stats into percentage values. This is a great evaluation tool for all classes.

You can see it lists all the extra benefits of agility or resilience, it also has a very nice comparative aspect. This allows you to compare any piece of gear with an equipped piece of gear, it will show you what you gain or what you lose. This allows you to quickly make decisions on gear that would be an upgrade or not.

The Ultimate resource for PvP! Check out Spugnort's PvP Guide, find out how to dominate your opposition in every facet of World of Warcraft PvP from duels to arenas.

AP - It's been eight years since the re-count of the 2000 Florida election, but Jim Dobyns is still living with chads. One waited for him when he went to clean the top of the microwave. He found another by the coffee table. And when he was petting his cat recently he plucked one of the manila-colored flakes from its fur.