Frost Mage PvP: 103 – Gearing for PvP

Now that you have and understanding of some of the basics of Frost Mage PvP, and know what stats to aim for, you need to gear yourself for PvP. But where to start?

In Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard has given players many ways to obtain PvP gear. The obvious way is to PvP. Participate in Battlegrounds, Wintergrasp, or Arena. You can also get them with badges obtain from dailies!

This is written during Arena Season 8: April 22, 2010.

Honor Points

The basic currency for PvP is Honor Points. You receive them by killing a player of the opposing faction. The best way to get honor is by going into Battlegrounds: Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin, Eye of the Storm, and Alterac Valley.

Queue into any of these Battlegrounds from your Character’s Honor tab (press H), and start farming those Honor Points. Make sure you win at least one Random Battleground a day for that extra bonus honor! Not only do you get extra Honor Points, you get Arena Points as well!

You can also get Honor Points by completing the Weekly Wintergrasp Quests that are available in this PvP zone. So make sure you do them every week also!

Remember: The max honor your character can hold is 75,000 Honor Points. If you are getting close to the cap, make sure you spend some of it before continuing to PvP so more.

Furious Gladiator Set

Non-Set Wrathful Gear

Non-set Other Gear

The Personal Rating is the rating you have in your 2v2, 3v3, and 5v5 teams. This is different than your Team Rating, especially if you have many different players in your Arena Teams.

Wintergrasp Mark of Honor

These mark of honor you get from… GASP- Wintergrasp! You receive 3 Marks for winning a WG battle, 1 for losing. You have to actually reach at least Rank 2 during the battle to receive full credit for winning the match however. If you don’t, you may only receive 2 or even 1 for a winning match.

Wintergrasp isn’t a Battleground that you can queue from your Honor Tab. You have to queue directly from a Battlemaster at any of your capitals, or actually fly into the zone in Northrend.

Also, there is a 2hr 30min timer in which the faction which wins the match, will have control over the zone. At then end of that timer, the battle will begin again. So there may be a chance that your faction won’t have control of Wintergrasp for many many hours.

Wintergrasp Gear

Stone Keeper’s Shard

These shards you can obtain by killing any bosses in any Northrend Heroics Dungeons while your faction has control over Wintergrasp. You can also obtain them by completing the Weekly quests that are available in Wintergrasp.

Chances are you have a ton of these shards just sitting on your character begging to be used. Now that you are PvPing, you will have many uses for them now!

Stone Keeper’s Shard Items


Relentless Tuna!

Emblem of Triumph

An optional way to purchase Furious Gladiator gear is by doing Heroic Dungeons. So yes, you can PvE to get PvP gear this way! You have to start somewhere right? If you mainly PvE and want a way to start getting PvP gear, this is the way to go.

This way is much better than jumping straight into Battlegrounds with just whatever gear you happen to have.

Furious Gladiator Set

Emblem of Frost

Just like the Emblem of Truimph, the Emblem of Frost can also be used to purchase PvP gear. The PvP gear that is available with this emblem is also a step up in tier as well. You will be able to purchase Relentless Gladiator Gear!

Relentless Gladiator Set

Arena Points

Arena Points are… well points you get from participating in Arena Matches. You can get 25 Arena Points by winning a Random Battleground, but you only get in once per day. So that’s more reason for you to win at least once a day.

The points you get is determined by your Arena Rating for your Arena Teams. If you are part of multiple teams, the points you receive will be based off the team rating which will give you more points. You only receive Arena Points for being on a team at the beginning of the WoW week (after server resets), based on how well you did the week before.


“1337″ Ratings!

You can calculate how much Arena Points you will get based on your Team Ratings on WoW’s armory page HERE.

If RATING = 1500 -> POINTS = [.22 x RATING + 14]
If RATING > 1500 -> POINTS = [ 1511.26 / ( 1 + 1639.28 x 2.71828 ^ -0.00412 x RATING ) ]

Penalties:
2v2 teams earn 76% of the points of a 5v5 team with the same rating.
3v3 teams earn 88% of the points of a 5v5 team with the same rating.

If your team rating is under 1500, you will receive at minimum, the amount of points you would if you were 1500 Rating. So the best practices to farm Arena Points is to be in a 5v5 team, and play at least the minimum required.

All the big boy PvP gear are purchased with Arena Points, and almost all of them will require a Personal Rating of some sort in order to purchase them. The Personal Rating required will vary between each item.

Remember: You are only eligible to receive Arena Points for a team if you participated in at LEAST 10 matches AND 30% of the total team’s matches for the week.

Relentless Gladiator Set

Wrathful Gladiator Set

Wrathful Weapons

Any extra or left over Arena Points (like on last day of the season) you can purchase [Commendation of Bravery] for 100 Arena Points each.

Next I will cover Gemming and Enchanting for PvP.


Tagged as: , , , , Season 8

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