Razer Naga Arena Update

So I finally figured out a way to put my Razer Naga to work for me. Like most arena beginners I am a mouse clicker. This in any other scenario would not be a bad thing; however in the arena where every split second counts it’s a huge disadvantage. Most of the time I have been taking my eyes away to look at my bar to see what items are off cool down to click my opponent dances away from me. This takes a big bite out of the dps I could be pouring out.

As I mentioned before I do not find the thumb button pad of my Naga very accessible. The first 2 rows are pretty easy to reach but you will need great thumb flexibility to get to the 7-12 buttons. What I ended up doing is this. I put my dps cycle talents in priority order in my action bar mapped to the button 1-5. So first is the Hammer of Wrath, then Judgement, then divine storm (I place this above Crusader strike cause I use the tier 10 shoulder and gloves in the arena for the amazing 2 set bonus), then Crusader Strike and finally exorcism. I then created a macro in my Razer Naga to press the 1-5 keys with 1 MS time apart. I associated this with my mouse scroll up wheel. This allows me now to concentrate and give chase to my targets while mowing them down by scrolling my mouse wheel up.

I also created a macro that chains my dps trinket with avenging wrath and hot keyed it to the F1 key. I created another Razer Naga macro to use this macro and associated it to the mouse scroll down option. Finally I placed my Hammer of Justice in the F2 hotkey and I macro’d it to the scroll wheel press.

Final result is I can chase my opponents without ever having to press a single key to perform my immediate dps cycle, trinkets, and/or hammer of justice. Now do not be fooled using  a similar setup to mine will not make you an arena king. Knowing when to use your burst coordinating with your partner(s) is still the secret to success in the arenas. What this setup allows you to do is concentrate more on your opponent than on the key you will press next.

Remember retribution paladins are not the top of the food chain as far as dps go. We can dish out disgusting amounts of BURST dps but as far as damage goes we can easily be out dps’d by other classes. It is our utility that makes us viable in the arenas we wear plate, our hand of protection, our hand of sacrifice and salvation, divine sacrifice, divine shield, divine protection, our ability to toss a heal or two in a pinch, our two interrupts (HoJ and repentance) our beautiful buffs and our Mana replenishment abilities. Know how to use these and you will find yourself being successful and in high demand.

As always if you have any questions or comments feel free to use the comment link feature below. 

Q&A with Vhalken from Moonguard

Last post you got a status update on my results of the first week of season 8 2v2 bracket. Sure I know that was a page turner for all you aspiring gladiators wanting to follow in my footsteps… Yes in case you are wondering I am being facetious. However today I bring you a brief Q&A on a very accomplished paladin. His name is Vhalken from the Moonguard server within the Emberstorm battlegroup. In the first week of the arena he has achieved a rating of 2048 with a record of 173-21 and managed to land his 2v2 team to the overall rank of 24 within his battle group, making him the most accomplished retribution paladin within Emberstorm. We had the great pleasure of having him answer a brief Q&A session on his opinions of season 8.

Pamedielin: Congratulations on your success in the first week of the 2v2 arena bracket. What combination has proven the hardest since the Resilience and healing changes?

Vhalken: I would have to say hmmm.... This is a tough one since resilience and healing changes really changed the game, we have a lot of grief with the mage, discipline priest combo. Restoration Druids are fore sure back on their throne as kings of the arenas.


Pamedielin: What’s your strategy when encountering the above mentioned group?

Vhalken: Well the thing with our composition is that even though we play very well and we may at times outplay that counter composition sometimes we just can’t win. While most compositions can play their counter comps, say retribution paladin-rogue (I played retribution paladin-rogue last season to a rating of 2200) with this compostion we had counter teams and if we outplayed them we generally could overcome them. We generally go for the mage and if we keep our crowd control perfect on the priest we usually end up winning that way. We also make an abrupt switch onto the priest when pain suppression is on the mage.


Pamedielin: So as retribution paladin how do you balance resilience vs. strength?

Vhalken: Well, this is a cool question for me because I have actually considered going with resilience gems this season. I have always gemmed for strength because we get so much out of strength. On the other hand I think we get enough resilience from our armor alone. A lot of retribution paladins out there will disagree with me. I have seen some pretty high rated retribution paladins gemming all resilience this season. I think I am going to keep stacking strength until I can obtain some better trinkets.


Pamedielin: Why a Shadow priest?
Vhalken: This is my best friend and I have the greatest synergy with him.


Pamedielin: What kind of hardware are you running?

Vhalken: LOL I am running with the most ghetto keyboard and mouse you will ever come across. I am using a Compaq Presario that I bought back in 2005 and run World of Warcraft in the lowest graphic settings. I am planning on acquiring a new computer soon.


Pamedielin: For our fellow aspiring retribution paladins out there what UI add-ons would you suggest?

Vhalken: I wouldn’t know personally as I do not run with any add-ons or any UI mods. I only use Ventrilo. I enjoy playing this way I like keeping track of my own cool downs I find the extra work required on my part very gratifying. My partner does run some add-ons and I usually leach of this information from him when he communicates with me over Ventrilo.


Pamedielin: In your opinion for beginning ret paladins with less than a 1500 rating do you recommend loading up in strength or resilience? That is to say low level PVP gear or high end pve gear?

Vhalken: If by low level PVP gear you mean deadly or furious gladiator I definitely would recommend PVP gear. I began the last season in full deadly gladiator gear and ended up doing well. Gem and enchant for strength.


Pamedielin: We noticed you are using a full PVP set and not substituting the tow tier ten pieces for the two set bonus. What’s your reasoning for this?

Vhalken: I really do not have access to good PVE gear. I think I would benefit from the two set bonus for tier 10, however I like my admiring my pretty PVP gear.


Pamedielin: Do you see retribution paladins benefiting from the resilience and healing changes this season?

Vhalken: Yes and No. We could barely kill healers last season but when it comes to the arena it helps us because we used to be very squishy. I find with this change I can beat warlocks (my nemesis class) a little easier. We will have to wait for the rest of the season to see how it plays out.


Pamedielin: Any last word for beginning paladins out there?

Vhalken: I would have to say adapt to the changes. There will be more nerfs as no matter what happens people will complain about paladins because they can't beat us. Regardless to how they nerf us don't give up. Even if we go back to our pre-Burning Crusade selves there were some pretty awesome retribution paladins back then. I haven’t always been a 2000+ rated arena player. It was a very slow start and then it kind of clicked, so no matter what don’t get discouraged I am sure with some patience and experience you will all achieve your arena goals.

/y Vhalken Punch!

We thank you Vhalken and wish you the best of luck in Season 8. To all my readers out there did I miss any questions do you have any questions or comment feel free to leave me feedback in the comment section below.

Season 8 first week result 2v2 bracket:

The first week of the arena season eight is finally over. This is my first time participating in the first week of any arena season. It was an exciting and challenging week. The changes Blizzard made to resilience had an interesting impact on how the matches panned out.

Our game time this week was very limited as I had unexpected visitors stay with me. After two days (five hour of play time) in the arenas and 48 matches we managed to end up at an overall rating of 1100. This came to a disappointment to us as we wanted to end up near 1300-1400 but it’s definitely a modest start.

In case you haven’t heard in this recent patch all players within the battlegrounds and the arenas have received a buff to in effect double the benefits of resilience’s damage mitigation except when the damage comes from a critical strike. Also they have decreased the effectiveness of all forms of healing by 10%. This includes heals from items such as Healthstones and potions, however, it will not affect defensive shields or auras.

From my observations resto druids have become the arena gods. Their mana regeneration rate combined with the mechanics of their instant heals plus their heals over time plus the resilience changes have made them very hard to kill. We had several fights where after killing off on of the enemy opponents my partner and I spent 8-10 minutes coordinating all our abilities in order to take down some pretty talented druids.

Resto shamans definitely fall in the above mentioned category but due to the finite nature of their mana they are not as hard to take down. However we encountered a Resto Shaman + Rogue team that took us 19 minutes to defeat. Resilience buff definitely aided powered up rogues a fair amount.

Interesting enough mages who in my opinion where over powered in the previous arena seasons proved to be some what crippled by these changes to arena. With their offensive damage effectively reduced by almost 50% and their heals received down to 10%, mage burst DPS has become quite survivable and in my opinion are still quite squishy. Sure their resilience effect is doubled but they still remain clothies with 10% less incoming heals. My partner, a resto druid, was able to withstand the effects of a mirror image with out kiting or breaking LOS. Prior to this season mirror image was a death sentence to him as well as for me despite wearing plate. Additional for us the damage mitigation from paladin frost aura remained untouched, further lowering the incoming dps from frost mages.

This brings me to the first advice for retribution paladins in season 8. Once you encounter a mage in the arena be sure to:

1. Turn on your frost aura. This cripples the incoming dps from frost mages and also gives you a good chance to resist the ensnaring effect of their frost bolts and frost nova.
2. Switch over from seal of vengeance or seal of command to use seal of justice. This gives your judgements and divine storm a chance to stun the mage for a second or two interrupting the spell they are currently casting, further reducing their effective DPS on you.
3. Make sure that whenever possible you keep hand of sacrifice on your partner. This means that when the mage polymorphs you any damage your partner receives will break you out of the polymorph effect.

New Hardware update:
It’s been very hard for me to stop being a clicker. I now mix mouse clicking with the additional buttons and macro functionality of my Razer Naga. Whenever possible I force myself to use all my spells by using the 1-12 thumb button functionality(see my previous post) however the downside to this that I am still keeping my eyes on the toolbar to see when my talents and spells are available. For this upcoming week I will try to find an addon that best helps me overcome keeping my eyes on the toolbar. This will hopefully free up my sight to effectively chase shamans and druids on the run. Please as always suggestions and comments are always welcomed.

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Arena Hardware

Problem:
So in season 7 we had a modest amount of success (for complete noobs that is). As we climbed up the ratings I began to notice that I spent way too much time looking at my action bars and not enough time looking at the action itself. In other words I use my mouse to click on the action bars instead of hot keying and use these hot keys without taking my eyes of the action.As a direct result the more skilled players would dance around me and by the time I looked up to see what was happening I spent too much time idling because you can not hit a person that is behind you. Chasing someone and attacking at the same time also becomes a problem in this scenario.

Solution:

After reading several articles on-line I realized that the hardware I was using was working against me. I was using your standard 2 mouse + scrolling wheel mouse. By most arena player standards this is not a good choice. Which if you think about it makes sense. Most players navigate with their left hand and attack using their right hand. So wouldn't it make much more sense adding more buttons in your mouse to attack with? So after doing my research I went out and bought the Razer Naga mouse pictured to the right. This mouse runs for about USD $70.00 and featured 12 buttons on the left side of the mouse to be accessed with your thumb plus two more buttons next to the left click button plus your traditional 2 buttons and scroll wheel. Problem solved right? Not quite... As it turns out there is a big learning curve before you can get used to using all 19 buttons in this mouse. The 12 buttons for use with your thumbs (to me) do not feel very ergonomically accessible. I can access the first 2 rows but the last two seem very difficult. I am sure its a matter of practice. I will post more on this as I get used to the buttons. However one immediate benefit from this is writing custom macros and the ability to bind them to any button. I wrote a HoW spamming macro that I binded to my scroll wheel. Once my opponent is at 30-40% I hit this button and remain attacking him knowing that once he dips below 20% the macro will immediately finish him off with a Hammer of Wrath the second its available.

Setting up your User Interface to take advantage of this mouse also takes some time. As soon as I feel like I have mastered this mouse or come up with a solution worth sharing I will let you know. I do encourage you to leave me some comments on this mouse or any other that you use and your experiences with them.

Once I get used to this mouse I will look into using a gaming pad such as the Nostromo by Belkin or any other that may improve my success in the arenas.

Burst Cycle

So in the last post I spoke a lot of the burst cycle. Here is what this looks like for me. Make sure that when you go into your burst cycle your opponent has already used his/her trinket and/or used his paladin bubble. If you are targeting a death knight never use this when he has anti magic shell or his anti magic zone otherwise you are likely to miss your stun and/or other abilities.For shamans make sure his grounding totem is not out or you will likely miss the stun on him as well. Additionally have your partner focus fire on your target while keeping your target's partner CC'd as much as possible.

Legend:

• HoJ = Hammer of Justice
• AW = Avenging Wrath
• CS = Crusader Strike
• DS = Divine Storm
• HW = Hammer of Wrath

Starting out PVE vs PVP gear...

As I have mentioned before I began in the arenas towards the last 4 weeks of Season 7. When I began I didn't have any PVP gear except for the Insignia of the Alliance, which later I found out was useless as humans have a racial ability that shares the same cool down as the trinket, which like the trinket will break most forms of Crowd Control.

So I began a 2V2 team with a restoration druid. Throughout the first week or 2 I used my PVE gear. I had lots of tier 9 and a Tyrannical Beheader that I obtained from the last boss in the Pit of Sauron. My resto druid partner had most of the BG set and therefore had around 700 or so resilience to my whooping big fat zero. We both expected this to be a catastrophe and to our surprise the first week we made it to 1000 arena rating.

My point in sharing this is the following, do not let the lack of resilience gear shy you away from the arenas. As a retribution paladin you can get away with using PVE gear as you work your way up the arena ladders. You will find that if you have decent PVE gear you will be able to hover around a 1200-1500 rating while you get PVP upgrades.

Because we wear plate you can get away with PVE gear in your earlier stages of the arena. In fact in my honest opinion I recommend it. Having greater DPS in the pre 1300's  brackets can be useful until you acclimate to your partner.The key here is know your role!

Much like in PVE ret paladin's role is to provide great amounts of burst DPS and to provide the team with great utility. These utility includes but is not limited to: providing your partner with hand of salvation when he is stunned or snared, provide emergency healing when needed, provide your partner with sacred shield to offset some of the incoming damage to him/her, etc...

It is because we are a BURST DPS class that it is important to know your role. We do not provide a consistent output of enormous dps but in short intervals if we time it right we can unleash a ton of DPS. So the most important thing you can do is have a clear line of communication with your partner so that you two can act with great synergy when it comes time for your burst cycle.

To illustrate the above point I will give you an insight to a strategy frequently employed by us. I consider my burst cycle ready when my avenging wrath + my DPS trinket + my hammer of justice is on cool down. Once this condition is met I will vocalize it to my partner he will then proceed to tornado our opponent's partner, and then we both unleash hell on the poor soul who happens to be my target. This cycle almost always happens (for us) within 2 minutes into the fight, in the mean time I am doing a lot of DPS and assisting my druid survive the opponent's burst cycle by providing, hand of protection, hand of sacrifice, sacred shield, flash of lights, Hand of Freedom amongst many others.

Getting back to the gear topic, I have noticed that until I had a 4 set bonus of a particular PVP set as a ret paladin it wasn't worth while for me to use PVP gear. In comes Season 8 now and blizzard has doubled the value of resilience in reducing damage done by players. So depending on their current amount of resilience, characters might experience a 10 to 20% decrease in damage taken from other players.

Although we will have to see how this change plays out in my honest opinion I still believe that as a retribution paladin you are still better off with PVE gear until you can get your resilience in the 700+ range.

Is Arena for you?

Is arena for you Quiz!

1. Do you like overcoming seemingly impossible problems?
2. Are you a stubborn individual?
3. Do you have great verbal communication?
4. Are you a compulsive fowl mouth?
5. Are you able to multi-task?
6. Are you unable to take criticism?
7. Are you a good researcher?
8. Does failure intimidate you?

Take your answers to the odd numbered questions for each yes add 1 pt to your score, if you answered no do not add or subtract points to your score. Now Take your answers to the even number questions if you answered yes to any of these subtract 1 point to your score, if you answered no do not add or subtract points to your score.

If you scored 2 or above:
Congratulations the arena is for you friend. You will find the arena a very stimulating and rewarding background.

If you scored below a 2:
You may want to dabble in the arena but be very careful in choosing your partner. The arenas will prove frustrating for you and it may cause friction with your partner.

The arenas are made for the problem solvers. It takes patience, it takes lots of dedication, it takes TONS OF TEAMWORK, and it takes lots of communication. Its important people understand this. The best analogy I can give you of the world of arenas is doing a 10 man raid with 2 people. There is no leeway for mistakes and if you two do not act like a single cohesive unit you will inevitably fail.