Hello and welcome to Karma's Pvp guide. I hope to provide some tips here that will help the beginning (and perhaps advanced) pvp minded priests to get an edge.

Any comments, questions, corrections will be gladly accepted. Or a sticky.



Priest pvp

So you want to melt faces as a shadow priest eh? At level 70?
Here are some basics to get you started.
Keep in mind you should develop your own playstyle, so these aren't rules as much as guidelines. (PotC?)

Gear.

There are a lot of arguments here, but i'm going to go with the general ideas here.

1. Stack stamina.
I mean stack it like you were a main tank for Kara.(or whatever) 12 stam gems and warlock gear are your friends. You'll be amazed at how well you can survive what used to wreck you if you have a few thousand extra hp.

2. Dmg, not crit.
Now this is a hot topic. I'm not saying crit is bad, i'm just pointing out that as a shadowpriest, you only have TWO spells that crit. That's not usually a justifiable excuse to stack crit, especially because in reality, even a well geared priest is going to only crit for about 2.5 + when they do. It can be better to rely on a mind flay doing a lot more damage, or a dot destroying your opponent.

3. Tailoring.
At the moment, frozen shadoweave and other tailoring items can really make a difference, and are not impossible to obtain. It's a valid goal for the time being. The Unyielding Set (especially the waist) and the Battlecast Set (especially the legs). Both of these are BoE, and easily obtainable. These sets also contain their fair amount of resilience, which is extremely nice for PvP.

4. PVP gear
Some would rather stick with the "generic" High Warlord/Grand Marshal/Gladiator stuff. It's good gear. The seargent's heavy cape, the pendant, and others are nice. If you're just starting out look into the blue level 70 stuff even. Also, There are good rewards from Halaa and other places, including some cool pve items from other places. You're really looking for stamina, dmg, and resiliance.
Now, to the fun stuff.

Clicking/Binding

To all you pvp clickers out there? You're NEVER going to be as fast and effective as someone who learns to use keybindings. Learn it, live it, love it. I know, I used to be a clicker, and have seen the light. I don't care if it's painful, learn to bind and use that keyboard. It WILL HELP drastically.

Movement

After you've learned how not to be a clicker, it's time to learn to move. Strafing and moving away from your opponents is a definite advantage to use. Running backwards is a bad deal. As a priest, you wear cloth. This means that rogues and warriors (and some shamans and druids and paladins) can be your biggest nemesis. Getting away from them is really good, because they (obviously) can't hit you unless they are close. Practice on NPCs! Get just in range, cast a few spells, and learn to run away and cast your dots, etc, as you keep moving away.

Ever had a rogue run around all your casts? You have to learn not only how to avoid this, but also how to do this as well. My recommendation is to learn to hold that right mouse down, and move with other keys like w a s d, and use keybindings as WELL as the two mouse button run in addition. Running through a mage's frostbolt is almost as good as silencing it. And making sure every one of your casted spells go off is invaluable. Practice practice practice.

Training

Despite what people think or say on this forum, you CAN and will kill every class in the game effectively if you learn 2 play. But you need to learn how. If you're in a battleground? Use the kill/dmg board to find the best player in the bg, and go after him. Go after classes that are hard for you, say rogues or shamans. Find the best pvp'ers in your guild of each class and duel them till they want you to /gquit. Attack two people at once, see how well you can do. You may lose every time, but if you learn something, you become more lethal.

LOS

Line Of Sight. This is really important to learn. No one can hurt you if you can line of sight them. This means getting something inbetween you and your opponent. Using line of sight effectively is one of the most important battle skills a priest can learn, especially against other casters. Learning how NOT to let them have it is another skill. In arena, this can mean the difference between a resounding loss and a easy win.

The mental game.

Wow, like many other games/sports/disciplines is a MENTAL game. Getting inside your opponent's head and learning to predict what they are going to do can give a huge advantage. This means looking at combat logs, after wins/losses and learning to observe what your opponents are doing on the fly, and how that affects each fight.
It can be really helpful to play another class to get it's ins and outs down, but sometimes you can't or won't or whatever. Being observant about other class abilities will put you in a class of your own so to speak. For instance, It's much better to silence a Unstable affliction cast than a corruption, because you can't dispell the unstable without really getting hurt. Knowing when a rogue will cloak of shadows, or when a mage is most likely to counterspell you can give you that victory that we all desire.
Also, something that you really really ought to do is turn on blizzard's enemy cast bar. Learn to watch it, carefully at all times. It will save you, and allow you to learn and advance your mental game.

In addition, controlling the playstyles of others can be another tool of the mental game. Being focused, and understanding your own class can lead to ways to 'fake out' or trick others. Like for instance, using rank1 shadow word pain on rogues or frost mages to make them initiate a cloak or block. ????? Beginning to cast a spell you don't intend to use in order to force a mage to counterspell you, using a disc spell when you think you're going to get counterspelled in order to leave your shadow tree open, etc etc. Going into detail here would take forever, so i'm just going to leave it at this:
If you want to truly be leet, learn to think and play at the same time, and come into every battle as fresh as your first one.

Race abilities.

Use them. Use them often. Perception is dynamite. So is shadowmeld and stoneform. If i could count how many times shadowmeld has gained me a kill, or allowed me to escape to pop out of form to heal......
Also, if you're a troll, shadowguard against rogues can be amazing. It can proc blackout and stop that stunlock.

More about shadow

Ok, so you're a shadowpreist. What are the general tendencies you should follow?

1. Keep yourself buffed.
Fort, innerfire, and shadowprotection are INVALUABLE. It takes a lot of mana to cast them every time you die, so keep water on you at all times. I usually rez, cast all buffs, drink up, then go to fight. If you are paying attention, you'll find that especially innerfire is quite effective in fighting melee classes.

2. Get dots up FAST.
Especially if it's a class that can't remove them. (mages, warriors, druids, etc. ) Get that VE up after your first dot. It's much better than blasting or deathing off the bat, cause when your squishy butt starts taking damage, those VE heals make all the difference in the world.
Getting dots and ve's up on multiple targets increases the amount you get healed. I get about 135+ back from my dots, ticking all the time, and with two or three targets dotted and ve'd , that's a very very significant amount of healing that is also killing what you have dotted.


3. Shadowform.
I'm of the school that you don't come out of shadowform unless you really have to. It takes learning to play like a mage or a lock, who cannot heal themselves. I would recommend only coming out of shadowform if your opponent is cc'ed, and you have lots of mana to heal yourself, or if you can get LOS. Keeping constant damage on an opponent not only heals you, but also produces blackout procs, and above all, damages the opponent. And you can't heal someone to death alone.

Specs

I hesitate to even get into this because everyone is going to tell you something different. I use a heavy shadow build, but that goes down to improved mana burn in
disc due to it's utility in arena.(In 5v5, i use this more often than any other spell) Despite my loathing of crit for priests, I also have the shadow power talent 5/5. The really critical things for pvp are arguably silence, form, touch, improved scream, improved VE, misery, and blackout. Go with what works. (If you are shadow, and reading this, and pvp, and don't have mindflay, reroll. Seriously.) Other pvp holy and disc specs? I would go to the armory and look up high ranked teams and their priests, and take a gander.

On to the real deal: Class matchups.

Here i'm going to go over some basics. For those more advanced players, you might find this boring, or argue some points. This guide is more tuned to the recent 70 noob who wants to melt face. But read on, you might find some tips worthwhile.

First the basics.

Melee Classes

They hit you to kill you. Hunters, Warriors, Rogues, Shamans (sometimes), Druids (sometimes) etc. etc. Aside from Hunters, these classes get right up in your face and smack you to death. With the exception of hunters, you want to stay as far away from these classes as you possibly can.

Hunters

The ranged melee class. They can be quite deadly to a priest when well played. They are probably going to get a Hunter's mark up on you, which you can dispell if you get time, but a good hunter is just going to keep it up fyi. Hunters CANNOT use their most powerful ranged attacks if you get too close, so getting up in their face most of the time is a big plus.
They also have pets, which most of the time for pvp purposes are fast attack speed cats. They delay and interrupt casts, which can be really irritating.
When facing a hunter of a typical spec, you're looking to dot the crap out of them, and get up close so you can fear and neutralize their ranged dps. Try to save your fear for getting close, because often times you can fear the pet and hunter off you with the same shot. Even if the hunter trinkets out of the fear, the pet will have to take the whole duration.
The meanest things here imo are aimedshot, scattershot, imp concussive shot, silencing shot, and viper sting. Aimedshot can really, really hurt. If you can prevent this attack it's a good idea. . I wouldn't mana burn them tho, it's not a good idea. Also, some hunter are BM spec, which means they can enrage their pet and themselves if need be, going red and preventing any kind of fearing. This is why I often fear hunters early on in a fight, because once they pop that ability, the pet isn't coming off you.
Some hunters will be able to stay right out of your max range, and still attack you. They have a longer range than we do, and they will send the pet in to mess you up. In these cases, sometimes it's a good idea to run away a bit and KILL the pet. This is ONLY if you can't get to the hunter, and they are relying on the pet to kill you. If you can do dmg to the hunter, do it. He dies, and the pet will go too. Fearing the pet off you so that you can avoid the interruptions in spellcast is also viable, especially if the hunter knows how to kite well.
Innerfire and Shielding constantly here are clutch. Getting your dots of first is a must. But don't try to outlast the hunter. Even OOM, they still sting quite a bit.
Some other tips, hunters often lay a icetrap right by themselves when they begin to attack. Since you are going to try to run in on them, you have to mentally try and remember/predict where that trap is, cause 1v1 getting trapped is GG. I'm going to go so far as to say most hunters are noobs so often you find them laying a trap and standing still. so don't run right up to fear, stop short. Running up to one side, or around the back of them as you approach is better than charging straight in. Also if you spring those snakes, fear is a must.
One final thing, smart hunters will wait for your big cast and interrupt it by feigning death, which will bounce your target off them. Don't be fooled, macro a target last target and wreck them, cause they just gave up the initiative.

Warriors

There are a ton of complaints about warriors on the forums. I'm telling you right now, they aren't all that. I LOVE fighting warriors, they die fast. No, really, they do.
If you so much as smell a warrior, get a shield up. Asap. Your first two spells are vamptouch/SW:p followed by VE. Unless i think the warrior is not thinking at all, I DO NOT move after they charge me, unless i get a useful fear off.
Something to note here, warriors if they have even one brain cell, when fighting a priest will go bezerker stance. This means they cannot be feared, or if you do get it off, it won't last. Smart warriors will have this stance up before they even get to you. Now, you can tell they went into it due to the red face that shows above the head. (if you see them switch to the crosses, that's the time to fear. ) They have a charge and an intercept, and those abilities stun. That's why i don't move after they initially get to me. A lot of pvp warriors have mortal strike, which drastically reduces healing. That's why coming out of form is real real bad. You NEED that 15% dmg reduction. Also, getting low on health is a death sentence due to execute.
So how to deal with it? Get that VE up and deal damage like crazy. This is another advantage to staying still unless you're real sure of your ability to get a few yards away, because it helps you to stay focused on not letting the warrior run around your casts. If they run around so much as one, you will probably lose. Do as much damage as fast as you can, using SW:D early on so it will be up again at the end. Flay like crazy in between cast spells like it's going out of style, and keep dots up for sure. Remember the shield you put up at the beginning, because as soon as possible get it back up.
Now, if you get charged, and just as you come out of stun you see that 'zerker stance go up, fear right then. You're not going to get a full fear off, but often times there is a delay between them popping zerker stance and the game registering it. That first fear can be critical.
They have one good interrupt, the shield bash. They can also pummel you in zerker. It doesnt last long, so it's not too bad. Spell reflect isn't used too much (unless the warrior has real skills, and just happens to be prot) but learn it's animation and keep an eye out.

Rogues

This and Shamans can be our greatest threats. Rogues come in a lot of styles. Some are stunlockers, some do amazing damage. They suck for us, any way you slice it.
Your first order of business? PVP trinket. If you don't have one by now, quit reading this guide right now and go pvp until you can buy one. Trinket is your best defense against a rogue. They don't have a lot of hp, but it doesn't matter. They can interrupt everything and then once more over and over again. The trick here is to trinket out of a kidney shot, and fear THEN shield immediately. You need to use that time to get your dots up, especially touch, pain, and VE. Then it's a waiting game to come out of stun again.
A lot of times rogues are really stupid. If they aren't you're probably going to die unless you have 10k plus health. But, if they are dumb, and you didn't get stunlocked off the bat, one of my favorite tricks is to use sw:p rank 1 and death them, and they will see the dots and cloak waaay too early. (By the way, a smart rogue isn't going to cloak until about 40% or below against a priest) If they do cloak early, it's gg for the rogue. Your next set of dots, coupled with a single mindblast/death will probably be enough for the dots to kill him.
Other than a trinket, your most valuable thing against a rogue is your innerfire. So again, it comes down to getting that damage reduction in form and with innerfire up.
One more thing about stunlocking. When i'm locked out, i am already spamming my next spell. Truly spamming it. Sometimes all you get against a good lock rogue is a millesecond when you are't completely hosed. So don't just sit there frustrated, develop an attitude of "im going to kick the crap out of you, even if I have no mana and five hp. "

Caster classes

These guys use mana, whether they actually use it or not. The can be a hybrid melee class that heals, or a pure caster, but in both cases it adds a much different element.

Other priests

This is a cakewalk if you have improved mana burn. In fact, since they can dispell all your dots, you might as well not cast anything other than mana burn (and silence and dispell and fear) unless they are fully feared. There is another school of thought here, which is to out dps them, be one step ahead, which is fine. If the priest in question has no skills. But if they do, you're going to find yourself out of mana, and helpless.
This doesn't go so much in BG, when multiple people are around, but sometimes it can be the same. Most priests are going to run up and dot you, then prepare to silence and fear and blast. Your trick is, especially if it's one on one, is to silence before they do, dispell yourself and start burning like crazy.
I'm also going to mention something I do to all casters all the time that nobody seems to think of doing to me. If you get that early silence off, cast a spell, then time it so that right as they are about to have that silence wear off, go fear them. That all adds up to a lot of time they can't do crap to you.
Remember, dispelling a dot is better than mana burning, cause that in effect just burned them for whatever that spell cost to cast. A lot of priests out there just don't think about it, and blow a lot of mana dropping all their stuff on you right away, and blowing

2k mana . And, another great technique: If they have half a brain, they will dispell any shield you put up, but if you see them casting a mind blast, get a shield up right then. Also, unless you are fearing stay out of fear range. That way when they start running at you, you're aware of what they are about to do. Trinket here is also invaluable. Mana burning goes double for a disc or holy priest. I mean seriously, what are they going to do, heal you to death?
Something else I want to mention: If you are a shadow priest, fighting a shadow priest? Get the hell out of form. It's not going to help you. A quick renew and mending can mean a lot, when you're trying to burn a priest. You aren't going to burn more in form. Priests that fight priests in form are for lack of a better word, noobs. Only the absolutely best geared priests can dps you down before you know what to do, so forget not healing yourself. You're most aware of what a priest can do, so this is when you can use that mental game to it's best effect.

Mages

Glass cannons. They can really output a lot. Smart frost mages in particular can be quite irritating. But they have very little hp, by comparison to most other classes.
I like to silence mages right off the bat just like I do a priest. It prevents that first sheep often, and gives time to get dots up. (dont forget to fear them if it's a good opportunity when the silence wears off, remember?) After that wears off, they are probably going to pom pyro firebolt you, so as soon as you take damage get that shield up. Spam it when sheeped like you would against a rogue. Then, it's again not the worst idea to stay in form, but when I drop below 50% against a mage, sometimes I will come out of form to heal. Some mages you can outlast, like a priest, even mana burn. But some mages do too much damage for that, and heals might be a waste of time.
Frost mages can iceblock out of your dots. This is when one of our best spells comes into play, mass dispell. YES YOU CAN MASS DISPELL iceblock. Keeping dots up on a mage really really hurts them. You gotta be quick tho. It's a lot of mana to use to miss, or to have them see you casting it and then pop out before you finish the cast and bolt you.
Also, one of the worst interrupts in the game is counterspell. If they catch you casting something, it's going to lock out that whole spell tree for something like 8 seconds, which is an eternity. This is another reason to be out of shadowform. Time to lol smite, or (and yes I really mean this shadow priests) starshards if you are a nelf. (stop laughing at me. It's not like you are going to cast any spells while that shadow tree is locked out, you might as well do something) Put it on your bar, and quit making fun of me. What's truly funny is to kill a mage with starshards when your shadow tree is locked out. That is hilarious. Seriously tho, you dont even have to come out of form to use it. Put it on the bar. For real.
Be aware of the blink. Good mages use it to run around spell casts, and if your camera isn't zoomed out far enough, you can be left thinking they disappeared. Mental preperation, mental game. Expect suprises.
You can dispell all those dots and vulnerabilites they put up on you too, and I would recommend it. Against frost mages, it's also a good idea to try and cc the pet, cause that elemental stings. Sometimes it can take too long to kill it, but sometimes that's the winning move. Depends again on your situation. If you find that you are losing a lot to frost mages with the pet out, give a shot at killing the pet and see if it helps.
A somewhat advanced technique has been brought to my attention, which is to SW:D a mage right at the moment before his sheep goes off. If correctly timed, the damage you receive from SW:D will come right after you get sheeped, thus breaking the sheep. This can save you from that sheep, or if you miss, the sheep ought to heal you to full, negating the negative effects of the damage you take. Something to keep in mind.

Paladins

Plenty of hit points, big arse heals, and boxes of defenses. And, believe me or not, really well geared paladins can do burst damage. A lot of it. (Don't think so? i got hit for 8k by a paladin once. ) Most paladins are even easier than fighting a priest tho. Despite a couple of stuns, they are very vulnerable to mana burn and silencing/fearing. Really really no use to be in form again, imo, in a 1v1. In a battleground or arena tho I rarely come out.
Just like a frost mage, you can mass dispell that bubble. It's also again really critical to do it really fast. Just like a rogue, sometimes a rank 1 shadow word pain and a mind blast can make that bubble come, but less often with paladins, because they have more health. But unlike a rogue, these guys can dispell your stuff too. So it's better to blast, death, and flay against a smart one to make them bubble, rather than dot them up, which they will just get rid of fast. I just typically mana burn them endlessly and mass dispell. Same story with an early silence. Holy paladins unless they know how to time those stuns are really quite a joke.
But, against a well geared pally, I have seen something happen to priests that can lose a battle. Pallies get mana back when they crit heal. I've seen tough paladins be burned almost to death, but the priest will make a mistake thinking that almost burned out is enough. Then the paladin gets a couple crit heals, is back to full health, and has some extra mana to boot. This can be deadly. They have fast fast heals, so really burn the crap out of them, not just almost all the way. Thier primary method of damage is melee, so make sure that innerfire stays up too.

Shamans.

If any well played class really gives me a problem, this is it. (i've got a shaman in my guild that can on occasion just makes me look like a noob). Plenty of spell interrupts, totems, and of course, FROSTSHOCK!!.
Just like a hunter laying traps, shamans fight around those totems. They hurt you, heal them, increase thier dps (in some cases a whole lot), get rid of your fear, and absorb your harmful spells. They will often purge off all your buffs, then smack you for a few thousand hp before you can react. So, draw them away from those totems. A single wand usually drops one, but unless you know which is which, you might just be opening yourself up to get pwned.
Shamans have a ton of utility. I've seen resto shamans that could heal through my best dps. I've seen other shamans whose spellcasts crit for huge amounts. Other shamans hit you as hard or harder than a warrior. This means fighting a shaman can truly be a learned experience. I can tell you one thing, often times shamans have somewhat less hp than other classes, making them vulnerable to nuke, and sometimes even less mana, making them vulnerable to burn. I wish i could give you a better guideline than this, but really, it truly depends on the individual shaman. (Anyone that wants to revise this section, please do and post it, if it's good i'll include it)

Druids

Another class with utility. But if a druid fights you in bear form, it's usually GG for them. Usually you get druids that act like rogues, or like mages, or like healers. But they have no silence. Instead, it's cyclone city with a smart druid. They also can't get rid of your dots, so get them up early yet again. Saving your silence is great here, cause mostly you're going to get someone in cat or bear trying to claw your face off, and there is a pretty significant delay between them coming out of form to heal. Also, if they do get heals up, dispell them off the druid. Sometimes it's cool to mana burn them if they stay human etc, but not always.
Something brought up to me is also that if you can SW:D right before a cyclone, you won't take the damage from your shadow word death. A useful tool, and your death cooldown will be ready soon after you come out of cyclone.
If you do catch them oom, they can and will innervate themselves, and that's another good time to dispell them. So, in conclusion, treat them like whatever class they are imitating, and make sure you dispell them plenty.

Warlocks

Difficult fights, against well geared- well played people. Nether protection/backlash specc'ed locks can be the hardest class in the game for a priest to kill. Affliction locks can wreck you before you even realize dots are up, and Demonology locks have pets that make me cringe.
Learn what unstable affliction is. If you dispell this, you're going to die. It does sick damage and silences you. If this isnt up on you, dispell like crazy. Many specs of warlocks do all the damage in dots. Dispelling them can be really really important here as well, especially if it's a netherprotection lock cause in that case, you need to dispell them after every spell you cast. (yes, seriously. You'll just see all your spells just saying 'immune' as they land) Against locks with that doomdude out, kill it fast, it's his whole dps in many cases. Felhunters can wreck a caster, and they eat buffs which heal the felhunter, who's hp pool can be really significant. (A quick advanced tip: if you ever find yourself having to kill a felhunter, click off all your buffs. ya rly)
You're going to get feared alot, unless the lock is braindead. But they too, cannot remove your dots. Get dots up and fast. I do not silence a lock off the bat, because there are too many things you gotta get rid of/be worried about. Many of a lock's spec abilities depend upon a buff on themselves, so it's a good idea to silence and dispell the things that really can kill you. If they have a succubus out, kill it and kill it fast. A mindblast/death combo ought to do it. Be aware that a warlock with a voidwalker out can sacrifice it to gain invulnerability, and can sacrifice a succi etc.

Also, trying to outlast a warlock is in most cases impossible. I wouldn't mana burn one either, due to lifetap. (Remember, guidelines, not rules.) You are in a race here to kill him before he kills you. So dps is the rule.

Battlegrounds

Here's some general strategies for bg's that can help you be successful.




Arathi Basin

The first five minutes of this battleground are the most important. I'm going to go over two particular ways to win, one is a five cap method, the other is a grind out win, both are classic strategies.
The BS/Mill rush five cap.
This is a premade strat, and usually makes for a very quick win. You need good healers, one really nasty warrior, and a rogue who is good at locking someone out and has good eyes at minimum.
You want your nasty warrior and some kind of hybrid healer (shadowpriest, druid, shammy) to go down to the mine and take it. If they meet any resistance at all, they are to delay the cap of the mine as long as possible. That means backing off the flag sometimes.
You're rogue should go cap stables, and be ready to reinforce mill or mine as needed. He needs to see an incoming on stables a mile away, and if things go well, he won't have to be there for long.
Your remaining twelve people should be split between mill and blacksmith. You want two healers and three of your best dps to go to blacksmith. YOu're trying to take it, but failing that just stay alive long enough for mill to reinforce you. Seven people, one of which is a healer, is going to mill.
Your objective is to delay mine and bs, smash right through mill right off the bat. speed is key here, because you want to cap mill and move to bs BEFORE FARM CAPS so that they must reinforce from trollbane hall. This is a huge advantage. If you can so much keep them from capping bs by the time that mill collapses back to bs, you'll probably take that node easily. Now you have usually two outcomes: One, they sent a lot of people to mill or bs, and those people are dead or locked up there, or they sent a lot to mine and they are locked up there or they took it (hopefully not).
At this point you ought to have stables, bs, and mill capped, with one person guarding stables and mill. Their whole team ought to be rezzing at trollbane or farm, hopefully you've done it fast enough to not have a rez at farm yet. If you're really lucky, and your two man team capped mine, then literally everyone collapses to farm, this should produce a five cap. If you havent capped mine, you talk to your two who went to take it and see whos there and send reinforcements that match, while the remainder of your team (minus one left to defend) assaults farm and waits for mine to send reinforcements. Your defenders really have to be on the ball due to the fact that with this strat, it's going to take a while to reinforce, and is risky.
This strat is based on a usual two to four horde rush to mine, and an attempt to take bs. This annihilates mill and gets bs almost every single time, often at the cost of mine, which is easily taken from bs once it's capped. from that point, it's easy to assault farm from mine.

Now, if you're horde and reading this, the strat can be used as well but not the same way. This is due to the fact that hordeside it's hard to assault BS after you've taken mill cause you have to turn round and go back, instead of just charging right through. So Exchange that for mine and the strategy works pretty similar in reverse.

The other style here is a grind out strat, very easy to follow. Against tougher teams, this is a better idea. It's the crossroads strat.
The idea is to take bs immediately with a zerg, and leave at least three at stables to defend. As soon as bs is capped, zerg mine. Then once you have BS, Mine, and Stables, leave two people at each node, and run the rest of your team to the spot equidistant from the three. (the crossroads) Then you zerg defend whatever comes under attack. Against really tough teams you might want to even leave three people at each node, but if they can swing you well you might have to bring even more to defend.


Warsong

Grab a druid, an elemental shaman, and a holy priest. That's your flag running team. The remaining seven go to the center of the field and hold it. Forget your flag room for now, and send the three in ramp side. Jump in, grab the flag, and run it to middle, and the whole team as a unit hunts down the enemy carrier, and then caps. If they turtle, zerg in as one unit. The seven in the middle should be moving to intercept the incoming team, but stay as close together as possible.
On getting the flag, I find that even against five defenders, often you can snag the flag out from under them if your druid and priest are on the ball. Have the priest jump in the room from the top ramp side, actually grab the flag, and then immediately fear, then DROP the flag, the druid should immediately pick it up and bail out. In the confusion of battle, often times the defenders focus fire the priest, (killing it) but the druid often gets away, most times with the shaman as well. Due to cheetah, he should make it midfield about the time the priest rezzes and makes it there, so you end up with a cap.
There are other ways to go about this obviously, but I find this method really works. Healing wins warsongs.

Av

I'm going to skip this for the most part, but the most effective strat i've seen is a full team zerg down the field, with any stragglers or lost rezzers going to defend. Healing and tanking win these for the most part, it's more of a pve encounter. Make sure you single pull the last adds, and make sure before you do that frostwolf hut is completely tapped.

Eye of the Storm

Eye can be done a variety of ways. I'm going to go over the two cap/flag strat and the three cap inhibition strat. (The four cap strat is fine, but the opposing team has to be very weak for that. )
Go ahead and rush three five man teams, one to each closest base, and five to the middle, then go for flag caps. You have to learn to swing your defenses easily, and for this reason some people prefer capping two bases on the side, but it's all up to you. Remember to hold those two bases, three bases for one team pretty much nullifies even constant flag capping from the single base team.
If you go for this, remember if you lose the middle, but have not capped the flag, just hold it, don't cap it, so that you don't give up a cap needlessly. Wait until you can retake the middle, or until you are going to lose the flag to cap it.
You can also easily cap three bases, then just defend and hassle the snot out of the other team's efforts to cap for an effective victory. Rogues and Druids really shine here, in a stealthed group, ambushing flag carriers.

Spell order

I've gone over this a bit, but now with the new changes to cooldown on shadowword:death, i think it needs a brushing over. A typical
spell order might go something like....

VT -> VE
SW:P
MB -> SW:D
FLAY
FLAY
MB
FLAY
SW:D

As a personal preference, I use instant casts directly after cast spells in order to minimize downtime and 'hide' them so to speak.
Try and mix it up a lot, you never want to get into a mode of having a cookie cutter method of attack. However, using a /castsequence macro can save time, even for a keybind using player.

Playing well with others.

In battlegrounds often it's apparent that everyone tends to forget about the people around them that are assisting them. Just so much as putting up Sheilds on people around you can be enough to win a BG. Also, even if you arent in a premade, learn how to assist off others around you. Make a macro for it! Focusfiring is extremely important.
If you don't know what assisting is, it's attacking the target of your target. (Autobound to 'f' in the blizz ui) I'm not going to go into focus targets here, but you do need to know that in any multiple person battleground or arena environment, it's a game winner to all be attacking the same person. I'm not aware , or have not seen any single healer that can keep a target up with 4 or more dps attacking that person. It's just too much. So even if a team or group is smart, and healing well, you can blast right through it if you coordinate with your other team members.
Most players don't do this, so you be the smart one and target off the people around you.

Something else I want to mention to the shadowpriests, you are going to come into situations in battleground where you see one of your teammates dying to one or more people. IF they are dying slowly, You could potentially be the gamewinner by popping out and healing. For instance, say you run up to defend a BS flag, and there are two rogues on a warrior, and he's at 25% health. Pop out, and get some heals on him, then dot up the rogues. It's a lot easier than running in and trying to blast one down, because even if you succeed it's you vs a rogue, and that is a lot worse than you and a teammate vs a rogue. Try not to think of yourself as a strictly damage dealing class, cause you are not. Sometimes even just dispelling or mass dispelling a lot of targets is clutch.

Some thoughts on Arena

I have found, in my experience that arena fighting is much more varied and challenging than regular battleground fighting or world pvp.
The reason for this is you're always fighting fully buffed, all cooldowns ready enemies, who are usually on vent and coordinated. This raises the bar as far as skill is concerned, and often highlights class differences. Also, a 2v2 is nothing like a 3v3, which is also nothing like a 5v5.

CC and focusfiring are your watchwords here. You get five people feared in a battleground, it's meh. In a 5v5, it's devastating. LOS becomes much more important, so does the terrain you fight on. I think most of the thoughts I have on this would be better suited for an advanced, exhaustive pvp guide but i'm going to lay down some tendencies here for review all the same.

For the time being, mages can trade water and drink in an arena, and rezzing classes can rez. Watch out for this. Also, if you are fighting in blade's edge, having the high ground can mean a victory if your opponent gives it up. It used to be a viable strategy to get up on those pillars, but since they put the ropes there it's much less effective. Watch for people mindcontrolling you off the top, and if you see a valid opportunity to do the same, do it. it's five seconds or more of really nice CC if you get a mindcontrol off and get someone off the high ground.

You should really be on vent. And being on vent means you need to call out all the following things: When you are being focusfired, when you are cc'ed, when someone on the opposing team is casting something nasty, or is low on health, if you see a stealthie, and at the beginning what the class makeup of the other team is. Noticing who the main dps of the other team is can be helpful, as well as seeing spell casts that give away an opposing class' spec.

Learn to recognize gear from portraits. If you see a mage will spellstrike, you're probably looking at a pom pyro mage. (which in most cases becomes your first target). The mage has a water elemental out? You're probably looking at a frost mage, who can be a poor first target for focusfire due to his iceblock. Is it a resto shaman or elemental? You can learn to tell in a couple quick glances. The mental game returns, once again. This will help with another general rule: Find the main healer, cc him, then focusfire on a dps class while the healer is out of the picture.

2v2

Class makeups here for the best teams are varied, but I see a lot of paladin/warrior , rogue/druid, and shadowpriest/lock combos in the upper ranks. If you lose a teammate in a 2v2, it's pretty much GG in most cases, so staying alive is a big deal. Some general tips I can offer without starting up a flame war on the forums are use pillars for LOS. It's really important. Make targetting macros for yourself if you aren't the person calling out targets. IF you suspect rogues, get your back to a wall, it's can keep you from damage and other things. Again, if you don't have your trinket on, rethink your style.
Good choices for shadowpriest partners are sometimes rogues, locks, and nasty dps warriors. In a 2v2, it's usually not an outlast game, especially for a shadowpriest, so get a partner with a lot of dps, and learn how to nuke someone down.

3v3

The makeups here usually center around two nasty dps classes and a healer. Sometimes the games here can come down to an outlast race, so be careful for mana burns and viper stings, etc. Some of the top teams here have shadowpriests as well. Try to stay grouped up as much as possible, while trying to get the opposing team to get LOS'ed or spread far out. For instance, cycloning a healer then fighting while moving back a bit can put the healer out of range, increasing the effectiveness of that cc even more. IN this, and in 5v5 teams, your finger should be hovering over your mass dispell, fear, shield, silence, and SW:D at all times. Be ready.

5v5

Most 5v5 teams are one of the following: Four nasty pure dps classes with a hybrid dps healer, Two strong healers with three strong dps, or two large HP dps classes with three healers.
The reasons are the strategies behind them. Four dps groups try to nuke down one or two people right off the bat, before your healers can react, then mop up the rest. If they can't get someone down in 30 seconds, these groups usually lose badly by running out of mana/cooldowns. Two healer groups are a trade off, and three healer groups are looking to outheal/outlast, then let warriors/rogues etc mop up when you run out of mana.
Mana burn , at any kind of level in a 5v5, is absolutely awesome. For instance, if you are in a four dps group, you kill one person, then turn and burn out the healer. In a two healer group, same thing often. In a three healer group, you might just want to burn right off the bat. This doesn't mean ignoring silence and fear and shield, but mana burn wins 5v5s, end of story.

There are plenty of situations , against certain class makeups and other places where what i've just said about arenas will not be valid. Arena combat is quite sensitive to the player and the makeup, so really without writing as much or more than i've already written in this entire guide, i'm not even going to scratch the surface. So instead, i'd say play a bunch of games, switch up your class makeups a lot, and pay as much attention to your losses and wins as possible. (seriously, of you arena veterans out there, who couldn't write ten pages on just what to do with warrior groups alone?)

FInal Thoughts

I see a lot here the attitude of , ' Nerf this. This class is too hard. How do I fight a warrior? X class is overpowered. "

First off, even if they need a nerf, that attitude gets you nowhere. No one congratulates people in guild chat saying "wow, our priests are really getting destroyed by those rogues. Good job priests! They just need to nerf rogues."

But if you push the limits of your ability and game, you might hear this; "Oh my god, X priest ate that rogue in the flag room! I never see that! wow!"

It's all about practice. The human species has an truly incredible ability to adapt and learn, but most people just leave it latent. If this seems a little too serious for a computer game where you are supposed to be having fun, consider this: I think it's fun to win, and fun to lose as long as I go down swinging. This game wouldn't be any fun if you did nothing but win all the time. It's fun to progress, and it's fun to learn. And it's really fun to run into that rogue/hunter/warrior that used to kill you at will a month ago and melt his face five times in a row.

So if you think a class is overpowered, post away but remember: If you spent the time that you spent whining about it on trying to learn how to beat it, even if it seems hopeless, you'll probably succeed. Do I personally think that warriors are a little unbalanced at the moment? Perhaps. But I don't think it's nearly as bad as people think. Like I said before, I eat 80% or more of the warriors I come across 1v1.

Please remember this, if you remember nothing else in this guide. Skill > all. Skill > gear, Skill > class, Skill > luck.
Learn to progess your skill. The rest will follow. You'll find it not only increases your fun, but increases your effectiveness in PVE as well.
And luck favors the prepared. Make sure you're having fun, and I will see you on the battleground.





And we'll melt face.

:: reserved ::

:: rayserveed. ::

:: reserved ::

Of course it is!

good job !! very detailed and a lot of good information!

This is exactly what I was looking for as I am in the process of making a Priest. Job well done!

I want more! WTF.

This should be stickied.

HMMMMMMM!

:)

Yeah, got a lot more coming. :) thanks for the support. I know i'm biased, but I think we need a sticky for guides like this, i'd have killed for one when I started to pvp.

Also, if you have comments or other ideas, post them below, i'll include them if relevant.

I skimmed over it and seems like a good guide. My only nit pick is Tailoring. True, tailoring has some awesome stuff, especially for PvE. But for PvP, I'd rather stick with the "generic" High Warlord/Grand Marshal/Gladiator stuff. The only exceptions are The Unyielding Set (especially the waist) and the Battlecast Set (especially the legs). Both of these are BoE.

These sets also contain their fair amount of resilience, which is extremely nice for PvP.

Edit: Adding the resilience bit.

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Q u o t e:
I skimmed over it and seems like a good guide. My only nit pick is Tailoring. True, tailoring has some awesome stuff, especially for PvE. But for PvP, I'd rather stick with the "generic" High Warlord/Grand Marshal/Gladiator stuff. The only exceptions are The Unyielding Set (especially the waist) and the Battlecast Set (especially the legs). Both of these are BoE.

These sets also contain their fair amount of resilience, which is extremely nice for PvP.

Edit: Adding the resilience bit.

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I'm going to add this to the main post, thanks. I think a few schools of thought should be added here.

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Q u o t e:
Be aware that a warlock with a voidwalker out can sacrifice it to gain invulnerability, and can sacrifice a succi to gain more dps sometimes.

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Nice guide! However, I wanted to clear one thing up for you. :)

Any Voidwalker can be sacced via a pet ability for a damage shield - basically a PW:S in function.

A Demo talent (21 point) let's you sac any pet for a variety of bonsus: Voidwalker for health regen (2%/4 sec), Felhunter for mana regen (3%/4 sec), Succy for shadow damage (15%), Imp for fire damage (15%), and Felhunter for shadow damage and mana regen (10% and 2%/4). However, I can count the number of good PvP Warlocks that use this talent (in PvP) on one hand.

Two tips for fights against rogues:

1. A rogue may sometimes only use KS with 2 or so combo points to make you use your trinket early.

2. A trinket/fear macro can be very effective

-Animastryfe