PvP For Skills
Taurack has some excellent points in his why you should PvP post, which I really recommend reading.
His main point is, even if you’re a dedicated raider, you should do battlegrounds from time to time, and for the most part I agree.
The problem with 90% of PvPers is that they dont know how to PvE; they don’t understand aggro, they’re not geared toward PvE.
Gear is of course not the best, since PvPers often lack enough hit rating or some other stats, however I do believe you will teach a PvP player how not to pull aggro quite easily - just let him die a couple of times.
PvPing is a different game all together, hence it will force you to use other skills/spells, it’ll teach you to LoS (line of sight) quicker and better and it’ll teach you how to use some spells in new ways, or get you using them period.
One of the things I learned from PvP is warlocks don’t only have Curse of Shadows and Curse of Agony. For example, in Magister’s Terrace, instance which is unfortunately going to be nerfed soon, I find Curse of Tongues extremely helpful vs. those caster mobs, and there’s plenty of those. Most warlocks I meet in battlegrounds, and even arenas at <2000 rating, don’t use CoT - it is without doubt the best curse warlocks have, even versus mages: sure, they can remove it, but it still takes one global cooldown from both you and the mage, but your DoTs can tick in that time, while he won’t be damaging anyone. Against paladins, shaman and priests it’s… maybe even a bit overpowered.
PvP also greatly increases situational awareness. PvEers are horrible for getting tunnel vision, they stare at the boss, stare at their buttons, they’re trying to execute their rotations…
One of the reasons I find PvE boring is because it’s so damn predictable - with all the addons available, you pretty much know what the boss is going to do each second of the fight. Sure, you can guess when that mage will Ice Block or when the paladin will bubble, but every fight in arena is completely different and a lot of things can go wrong and unexpected. A paladin buddy of mine is always wondering why he can’t get past 1600 rating, and doesn’t really listen to my advices: I often tell him to get rid of Healbot for PvP, it’s an awesome addon for PvE healing but he barely even know what’s going on around him most of the time - he just stares at those bars and nothing else. You need to learn how to bind your keys (upcoming post here) and watch what’s going on around you. Megan wrote a couple of good posts about tunnel vision awhile back, I recommend reading both posts.
Addons like Proximo or Afflicted can also help a lot, if you’re trying to do arenas get them.
On any given day, I’d rather take a PvP player in a raid or instance than someone who cleared half of Sunwell, obviously not because of the gear, but because I know he won’t panic if the tank dies, because he will know how to line of sight casting mobs (again, Magister’s Terrace really shines there), he will react quickly with Ice Block or Vanish, or know how to chain fear, or even seduce and fear and banish (again, MgT) in the same time without whining; a PvP specced druid who will HoT up your tank and Feral Charge into mobs to break heals, or cast Cyclone or Hibernate when needed.
The list goes on, there’s a bunch of stuff you do in PvP which are taken for granted in arena environment, but learning it will without doubt make you a better player.
And a question for you now: do you prefer doing instances with PvP geared players or PvE? Did a PvE player ever surprise you with something?
For PVE, often the tank being dead is the end of the encounter, I don’t want a pvp player who successfully kited maggie around for 30s, that just slows the whole wipe recovery, tank death isn’t always fatal, it just doesn’t help in most cases to try and fight on since you will likely have a lot of dps above the offtank unless they are delibrately staying below him (threat caps etc).
PVP from a tanks perspective is completely pointless, I learn movement from tanking, I learn to avoid stuff, I learn to watch my health, watch the raid and co-ordinate. I have virtually no pvp abilities, I can’t apply threat, my armour, health etc are of no value vs casters, its more of a game of snap for a tank than an experience. Of course I could go dps, or healer, but thats not why I play. My warlock is slightly different, she gets some of the stuff you are talking about, but any good pve player already knows how not to step in fires, heck paying attention to the boss and keys is pretty much muscle memory, they have attention to spare. What does suck in pvp (and more so arena than bgs) is that half the specs are useless and a lot of the time it comes down to a lol-fest. Rogue appears, death coil, comes back, fear, voidwalker, howl of terror, succubus… everything can be broken very easily, there is no easy way to break into arena, most of the fights end faster than you can really care to see, rogue stunned you, gg, warrior stuns, fears, gg. Of course you can get around these, but 90% of the stuff a pvper learns is useless for pve, I am not going to get charged and slain like that, thats why I have a tank, he taunts, builds threat, I maintain cc dps etc, pvp and pve skills are pretty exclusive because of that core difference, the threat and tank.
Allowing tanks to pvp successfully and the two become linked, pvp offering fast paced random encounters, pve offering scripted encounters with much tougher requirements (never seen a warrior lol-cleave me for 12K before, but bosses sure do, and then silence for the fun of it :P). Bringing in tanking, some measure of threat would in my opinion make pvp a lot more viable for 1/3rd the classes in the game, and more interesting from the rest, make it maybe position based, your hunter can’t shoot past my tank at the squishie, the tank intercepts the shadow bolt, but there has to be something to make it viable for everyone, and more interesting to boot.
The difference between a pure PVE tank and a tank who also knows his PVP stuff, let’s look at a Warrior:
PVE tank will apply rotations of abilities in a specific manner to maximize threat and mitigation. They are only good for tanking Galv and Drek in BG’s. And maybe holding a flag if the enemy team is mostly made up of Melee.
PVP tank will Disarm an enemy Warrior who just popped Death Wish/Trinket and wanted to beat on a healer/squishie. He will then spam Hamstring and hope Improved Hamstring procs to give the healer/squishie more breathing room before Disarm duration ends.
PVP tank will Intervene a focused teammate and use it to get out of Polymorph (yes, I’ve seen it done there are Warriors who are that fast). PVP tank will also use Intervene as a 3rd positional ability (Charge/Intercept), great for running flags (teammate runs/mounts ahead), getting back into LOS of your healer, or getting closer to a melee who’s on a teammate when your Intercept is on cooldown.
PVP tank will Spell Reflect and kill enemy Spellcasters (my Warrior on Arena 5’s team killed a Shaman with his own Chain Lightning the other day, it took us awhile to figure out who gibbed the Shaman). PVP tank will Spell Reflect to consume Hunter traps.
All of the above are things that you learn inherently through PVP—and then be carried over into PVE encounters, when you Disarm melee mobs who peel away while Taunt is on cooldown, Spell Reflect caster mobs, Intervene for superior mobility and LOS issues. All of the above are invaluable skills for when things don’t go as planned and Plan B needs to work “right now”.
PvE vs PvP toons
I would have say it all depends on the class; For instance my main is a PvP geard hunter which is BM or MM depending on how i feel like playing. I came up doing instances and never pvp’d til i hit 70, the advice i give to all my friends who rolled hunter and are hunry for gear i tell them get into Arenas and into BG’s the gear is comparable with PvE. PvE gear gives me the Mana pool to constantly shoot special shots but the PvP gear gave me more survivability. Going from 9.5k HP to 12 and my crit jumping from the low 20’s to 31% or better depending ont he trinkets. As for DPS, i can hold my own and be int he top3 on a 10 man raid ofr about the top 10 in a 25 man. I have seen alot of warrs that are fury or arms and watched them dropped like rocks when in a fight. Usually due to lack of mitigation or having a pvp mindset. Most start to understand this after they die a few times. Kinda sad they didnt think on thier feet like you think most pvp’r would.
Bubble? Blessing of Sacrafice and freedom… huge cooldowns all round, and I already use them in fights.
Any good warrior tank will already do the things you listed, and a bad one won’t learn them in pvp.
They probably already do that stuff cause they PvP.
Or maybe they do ok at PvP cause they already do that stuff in PvE… who knows chicken or the egg!! I will say though, the very best tank (in some peoples opinion) on the alliance side shandris server doesnt do PvP to my knowledge. Though all the other tanks that i have played with that are really good, do also PvP. Thus..who can say? Cant be proved either way. My opinion though is that some PvP helps out PvE, and prolly not so much the other way around, but I dont do too much PvE sides farming anymore…
I also think Coke is better than Pepsi, McDonald’s french fries are better than Burger King’s, and that green is a prettier color than blue.
Noooooo
Burger King Fries are superior!
First time gonna join PvP-vs-PvE holywar, lol. But it seems you are a bit over the edge with choosing pvp-geared player over someone who has cleared half of the Sunwell.
Maybe in a normal, or a heroic instance it will work (don’t really know since last time I did heroic was ages ago). And this is only for 5-mans, or Kara, and barely ZA. If you decide to go at least TK/SSC, or timed Zul’Aman, I can’t imagine how lucky should your group be to cope with gear requirements of an instance.
In short, starting from certain difficulty level I really really doubt pvp gear can provide enjoyable PvE experience.
You know, PvE gear gives more dps, more healing and more threat. Less healing -> less margin for error, less dps -> longer fights -> less margin for error. And even PvP players who you’re praising make mistakes, since it’s in human nature. This is why some encounters get exponentially harder, the less dps/heal you have.
tl;dr. Brutallus tank even in full S4? Wtfpwnt.