Not So Furious Anymore

This weekend I had my first real foray into the world of PvP. Now I've done battlegrounds before, but I hardly consider that to be in the same class as arenas. Now let me just say that I have been and always will be a PvE man. The camaraderie, teamwork, and epic scale of PvE is what I thrive off of.

A Shaman friend of mine and I took the plunge into 2v2s. He went Resto and I went cat-form. Upon discussing it, he did not feel that me being gemmed/enchanted for survivability would impact us too much. I also gave him the disclaimer that I suck at PvP greatly. And, because I suck so bad, I have a tendency to strongly dislike it.

He underestimated my suckiness.

0-8 we went that day before I hung my hat up and moved back into the PvE world. A 10-man Ulduar, to be exact. I daresay I may be done with Arenas until the end of time.

I roll on a PvP server (as if there were any other option), but world PvP (and battlegrounds, for that matter) is such a different beast than Arenas. Maybe 2s shouldn't have been my first foray, since they are so sensitive to mistakes, but I'm content working towards ensuring Yogg-Saron cannot corrupt the minds of Northrend's heroes.

My desire to try my hand at Arenas stemmed from bear's best-in-slot weapon, the Furious Gladiator's Greatstaff. "2200 rating is something I can do. I rock at PvE!" I said to myself. Shoot, if nothing else, I could ride on the coattails of someone good! And then the requirements for the weapon got increased. And now the weapon is nerfed, as of the current PTR build. The only thing that has changed, though, is the agility on the weapon. Where it had 210 before, it has now been halved to 105.

Now Furious Gladiator's Greatstaff has gone from being a great weapon to a good weapon. The stamina is otherworldly, but the agility nerf, coupled with the lack of any other real stats beyond critical strike rating, makes this staff less than desirable for PvE.

At this point, Bears are going to want Twisted Visage, Origin of Nightmares, or Lotrafen, Spear of the Damned. Origin remains our best mitigation staff, whereas I think Visage offers the best all-around bang for the buck. What amounts to about 500 less health between it and Origins, is more than made up for the additional agility. Not having the 800 armor is unfortunate, but the hit, crit, and additional AP all are win.

If Twisted Visage drops for you during a Heroic Ulduar run, do not let a Hunter take it. Fight people if you have to!

Until the next Faerie Fire pull...

-Lushious