PvP Champions

[Quark]

So Blizzard announced the top players from each faction on each server during thier PvP contest. I know no Stormrage player is suprised to see Midnight there.

More interesting is a post on the main forums compiling the classes of the winners. At the time of this post, the compiled results are:

Druid 1
Hunter 4
Mages 20
Rogues 22
Priest 2
Shaman 3
Warrior 5
Warlock 1

Not much of a suprise for the top two classes, but the gap they have on everyone else is suprising. Paladins don't even have a single victor it seems. I m also suprised there don't seem to be more shadow priests up there, considering how people talk about their PvP power.

[oldmandennis]

Not much of a suprise for the top two classes, but the gap they have on everyone else is suprising.  Paladins don't even have a single victor it seems.  I m also suprised there don't seem to be more shadow priests up there, considering how people talk about their PvP power.
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Well, this contest was complete before battlegrounds. The main ways to get CP? Gank from steath, and TM furballs where a mage shines.

Shadow priests are supposed to be uber in duals, not general PvP I thought. Don't know because mines only 20 though.

[Metrocube]

Shadow priests don't have stopping power. They're like a .22 caliber handgun. Sure, eventually the other guy bleeds to death, but it takes a while. On the other hand rogues and mages are like Dirty Harry's .45 magnum. A fire/arcane mage can kill me in 7.8 seconds (yes, I timed it).

[Skandranon]

Not much of a suprise for the top two classes, but the gap they have on everyone else is suprising.  Paladins don't even have a single victor it seems.  I m also suprised there don't seem to be more shadow priests up there, considering how people talk about their PvP power.
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These numbers are skewed, though. They're based on about eight weeks of open-field, no-battleground PvP and one week of battlegrounds. In open-field PvP, soloing damage classes naturally do the best, since cp are awarded based on damage proportion. A rogue getting a single Ambush off and running already has guaranteed himself about a third of the cp from the kill whenever the target gets finished off. In huge 40v40+ exterior battles, teaming up doesn't really matter, because there's no real strategy - just kill whatever crosses your sights. Given that rogues and mages excel at this role, it's utterly predictable that they're at the top.

The introduction of Battlegrounds will certainly shift these numbers. A rogue and mage team would die horribly in Warsong Gulch, and I doubt they'd do very well in Alterac Valley either. The cp rewards from accomplishing BG goals far outstrip the cp from simply killing targets now. I expect we'll see more discipline/holy priests, druids and shaman making their way up the ranks now, especially since having one or more on your team dramatically increases your chances of winning in Warsong.

[JustAGuy]

The introduction of Battlegrounds will certainly shift these numbers.  A rogue and mage team would die horribly in Warsong Gulch, and I doubt they'd do very well in Alterac Valley either.  The cp rewards from accomplishing BG goals far outstrip the cp from simply killing targets now.  I expect we'll see more discipline/holy priests, druids and shaman making their way up the ranks now, especially since having one or more on your team dramatically increases your chances of winning in Warsong.
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Still, you won't see any Paladins at the top. Us poor blokes practically have no DPS. We're seriously hard to kill, but from my experiences in Warsong Gulch, I haven't been much of a contributor in the way of kills, or team-friendliness. I can cast a heal, and consecrate to prevent rogues from stealthing, but that's about it. If an enemy rogue decides to ignore me and go straight for the flag carrier, and if I've used my stun already, there's not much I can do about it. My heal cast is usually followed by "not in line of sight" or "too far away".

What's the use of being practically unkillable if you can't kill anything yourself? I suppose that's where the balance of the class is. Shucks.

If I'm in a group, I may as well not even attack. I'm practically a heal-bot/un-polier/one-stun-gunner; that is, I can heal, I can cleanse, and I can stun one person. If I stun the wrong person, I've wasted my only real team contribution. Healing, you might say, would be my primary contribution, but it never works out that way. Lets see you actually complete a heal spell in time when a mage or rogue is being double or triple teamed because they have nothing to fear from you.

Phew, sorry for the mini-rant... My point? I'm not surprised that there are no Paladins in the top tier. I doubt you'll ever see many, if any at all.

[Skandranon]

Still, you won't see any Paladins at the top. Us poor blokes practically have no DPS. We're seriously hard to kill, but from my experiences in Warsong Gulch, I haven't been much of a contributor in the way of kills, or team-friendliness. I can cast a heal, and consecrate to prevent rogues from stealthing, but that's about it. If an enemy rogue decides to ignore me and go straight for the flag carrier, and if I've used my stun already, there's not much I can do about it. My heal cast is usually followed by "not in line of sight" or "too far away".
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Paladins make excellent flag-carrier support. Granted, they aren't good for adaptable roles; paladins are fairly mediocre on the attack and simply can't hunt an enemy flag carrier at all. However, a friendly flag carrier either under attack in your base or on the way back can certainly benefit from your heals and stuns. They'll have to get through you before they can get to the flag carrier, and you're a tough nut to crack. Blessing of Protection is powerful, too, if there's a priest around. Priest heals flag carrier (probably a warrior). After some futile whacking on the flag carrier, the enemy forces shift focus to the priest. Bam, BoP. The resulting befuzzlement is usually enough to stop an attack dead. Also, Hammer of Justice is one of the few ways to really stop a power-sprinting rogue, ghost wolf shaman, or travel form druid. I know whenever I'm in the Gulch, I appreciate good paladins backing me up.

[MongoJerry]

If I'm in a group, I may as well not even attack. I'm practically a heal-bot/un-polier/one-stun-gunner; that is, I can heal, I can cleanse, and I can stun one person. If I stun the wrong person, I've wasted my only real team contribution. Healing, you might say, would be my primary contribution, but it never works out that way. Lets see you actually complete a heal spell in time when a mage or rogue is being double or triple teamed because they have nothing to fear from you.

Dispel, dispel, dispel... how many times do I have to mention it? The paladin dispel spells are the most powerful in the game -- beating priest dispells, because they include poisons like crippling poison and even things you wouldn't expect like warrior fears. A paladin can dispel almost all the methods the other team has to slow down a flag carrier and they can dispel all kinds of crowd control and damage dots (eliminating most of the dps generated by priests or warlocks in the opposing party) in a general battle.

Oh, and repeating your quote to emphasize:

If I'm in a group, I may as well not even attack. I'm practically a heal-bot/un-polier/one-stun-gunner; that is, I can heal, I can cleanse, and I can stun one person.

Yes! That's it exactly. You're learning! There are three kinds of paladins:

1. Paladins who realize their main role is to dispel, heal, and stun an important target. Any damage done by this kind of paladin is considered by him/her as gravy. This is a good, possibly fantastic paladin who understands that he or she is playing one of the most powerful classes in the game and knows how to use it.

2. Paladins who try to dps and stun primarily and only heal and dispel secondarily. As a Horde player, I laugh at such paladins. While his or her team is frost nova'd, sheeped, feared, entangled, and hit with slow poison, that paladin is trying to whack me with a hammer? :o "Go reroll a warrior, you noob!" is what I think when I see that.

3. Paladins who run up to a group of 20+ players, Divine Shield, do their paltry aoe that does no damage, and then run back. What I think of the idiocy of such paladins cannot be expressed well in family company.

[MongoJerry]

My main surprise was that there were so few hunters in that list. I partied up with Cragb, a hunter who was the #1 cp person for Horde on Tichondrius for the longest time. He had to take a couple weeks off, so he lost his top spot in the rankings, but until then, he was the undisputed king of cp on the server. We would roam in groups of five and hit the stretch from Kargath through the Searing Gorge through Blackrock Mountain, and if the pickings were slim, the Burning Steppes. The idea was to stay in a small group so that the cp's were concentrated, avoid the Hillsbrad Foothills battle where diminishing returns quickly built up, and find a place with a steady stream of high-level opponents coming through. We were fighting mostly groups coming to Blackrock Mountain or Alliance groups doing the exact same thing as us. The small party battles against organized groups were really fun. In general, we'd hit a group, and then keep moving constantly over and around the map, never keeping to one place.

Now, Cragb was fantastic at this, and so many hunter abilities were crucial. Track humanoids made it so much easier to know where to go to find fights. Whenever we didn't have a hunter in our party, we always ended up spending so much longer roaming around trying to find someone to fight. In addition, all the hunter anti-rogue abilities were great, as we would always hit those areas where we knew that Alliance rogues loved to hang out at -- and we'd always rack up extra cp's doing that. But even when we did join the Hillsbrad zerg, Cragb and the other hunters I played with, would rack up massive numbers of kills, since they could aim shot crit people from a 41 yard range and just keep a barrage of fire going.

I'm actually surprised that so many mages appeared so high on the list and so few hunters did. I would expect that while mages can kill things fast, the fact that they are so fragile would hurt their overall cp-gain rate. It's just interesting to see how it ended up.

[JustAGuy]

I'm actually surprised that so many mages appeared so high on the list and so few hunters did.  I would expect that while mages can kill things fast, the fact that they are so fragile would hurt their overall cp-gain rate.  It's just interesting to see how it ended up.
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I'm definitely not surprised.

Mages are not as fragile as you think. A well played mage, even in a zerg event, can sustain a fair amount of damage with mana shield. But, that's not what they're supposed to do; a well played mage keeps the damage at a minimum and their opponent at a distance, with cone of cold, frost nova, and the ever-so-stunning flame wave. A combustion + incinerate pyroblast can take down another player quite quickly, so long as the mage manages to get that 6 second cast off. In a 1 on 1 situation, it's pretty brutal to start off with a sheep, then load up on some big damage (combustion/pyro), then cone, flame wave, frost nova, fireball. That's usually all it takes. Throw in a couple more fire balls, a scorch here and there, and you've got yourself a dead target.

Now, that works against everyone except a well played Paladin (most are not). Probably doesn't work against Shamans as well, but I've yet to play one or see a mage go toe to toe with one. Those buggers just seem... Tough.

I've seen first hand what a well played mage can do in a BG, or in a raid, or 1 on 1. It's pretty sick. It's no wonder to me why there are so many at the top. Oh, and blink. Blink is a huge pain.

[TaiDaishar]

Now, that works against everyone except a well played Paladin (most are not). Probably doesn't work against Shamans as well, but I've yet to play one or see a mage go toe to toe with one. Those buggers just seem... Tough.

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Don't forget Druids, they can morph out of poly into bear form, survive huge amounts of damage and then use Frenzied Healing to get back to max health again :)

That's the tactic of us druids against mages, survive their mana pool and they're dead meat

[Brista]

I know both of the top players on my main server, The Maelstrom (EU)

Lukeh (Gnome Rogue) is a terrific player. He seems to mainly be doing Warsong Gulch ctf matches and is part of a terrific team they have going. I've stopped bothering to do ctf in the 51-60 since the Alliance are so good and us Horde are so disorganised and egotistical. Lukeh is the most team-oriented Rogue I've ever seen in ctf, he is either a core part of their deep defence or a core part of their flag-taking team. He doesn't operate in midfield and he pretty well never does anything solo in ctf matches

I had a fun game of tag with him in Ogrimmar. A guildie said there was a Rogue there so I came hunting him with Flare. I managed to tag him with Hunter's Mark once or twice, he paid me back with two or three saps. He could certainly have gone for an HK but seemed to be enjoying our little game. Certainly not a cp grinding robot

Stealth (Horde Rogue) I know less well. He has a very solid reputation as a skilful dueller and the few times I've been with him in open field pvp he seems a sensible intelligent player with a great ability to wreak havoc on the opponents. He's well liked in the faction and was well liked long before either his high rank or his winning this top pvper status marked him out

Both are very different from the 24.7 cp grinder with no personality that one sometimes sees demonised. These guys are at the top because they're darned good players

[lemekim]

I'm actually surprised that so many mages appeared so high on the list and so few hunters did.  I would expect that while mages can kill things fast, the fact that they are so fragile would hurt their overall cp-gain rate.  It's just interesting to see how it ended up.
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AOE CP farming in TM =P

Stand back, Flamestrike/Blizzard. Ice Block if in danger.

[MongoJerry]

AOE CP farming in TM =P

Stand back, Flamestrike/Blizzard. Ice Block if in danger.

And after half an hour, hit diminishing returns and barely get any cp's for all your work. But even then, AOE's never seemed effective in TM, because the mage had to stand still up front, ready to get hit by ten billion dots and/or several hunter aimed shots. The more effective mage tactic seemed to be to know just when the opponent was going to start to run (and people were damn chickens in TM), ride/blink forward and frost nova to root half a dozen people, ice block to make sure you don't die, and then let the wave (hopefully including your own party) sweep over your victims.

However, AOE's *are* effective in Alterac Valley, where neither side is as chicken as they were in the Hillsbrad Foothills area. Your opponents will stand their ground in the face of your barrage and your teammates will actually move forward to engage people and cover your attack. I can definitely see mages racking up the cp in Alterac Valley. I'm just surprised that they did in the weeks before battlegrounds came out. Heck, maybe since the contest included a week of battlegrounds and you get *so* much more cp by fighting in battlegrounds than not (because of the plentiful number of victims and the lack of diminishing returns) that maybe some mages overtook some of their competition in that final week.

[Artega]

Paladins make excellent flag-carrier support.  Granted, they aren't good for adaptable roles; paladins are fairly mediocre on the attack and simply can't hunt an enemy flag carrier at all.  However, a friendly flag carrier either under attack in your base or on the way back can certainly benefit from your heals and stuns.  They'll have to get through you before they can get to the flag carrier, and you're a tough nut to crack.  Blessing of Protection is powerful, too, if there's a priest around.  Priest heals flag carrier (probably a warrior).  After some futile whacking on the flag carrier, the enemy forces shift focus to the priest. Bam, BoP.  The resulting befuzzlement is usually enough to stop an attack dead.  Also, Hammer of Justice is one of the few ways to really stop a power-sprinting rogue, ghost wolf shaman, or travel form druid.  I know whenever I'm in the Gulch, I appreciate good paladins backing me up.
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QFT.

While Druids are the best solo flagcarriers beyond a shadow of a doubt, a Paladin and a Warrior (especially if that Warrior has points into the Protection tree) can run right through an entire enemy team and take very little damage.

Blessing of Freedom, Cleanse, and Hammer of Justice are potent flagcarrier-defense spells, and Holy Light is a reasonably efficient method of healing. If the Paladin comes under fire, he can simply use Divine Shield or Divine Protection to become either totally or mostly immune to enemy attacks, allowing him to heal and support the flagcarrier with impunity.

In pickup groups, I would much rather have Shamans; after all, how hard is it to Frost Shock the flagcarrier and spam Earthbind Totem and Grounding Totem?

In an organized group, I would take a Paladin over a Shaman any day.

[JustAGuy]

Don't forget Druids, they can morph out of poly into bear form, survive huge amounts of damage and then use Frenzied Healing to get back to max health again :)

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My Druid is only 34, so I've yet to see his full potential be realized. I can't wait, though, I just love his versatility. I played my first BG with him last night, and despite being horribly under-level, it was great fun to "hibernate" those shamans and opposing Druids. Hibernate the shaman, root the warrior, and that's two chasers out of the picture.

I went toe-to-toe with a 38 Orc Warrior and was safe for the entire fight. Entangling roots made the poor guy helpless. The only thing I had to worry about was my quickly drained mana pool.

The only thing in the BG that was a consistent pain was frost shock. Damn Shamans...

[Skandranon]

Blessing of Freedom, Cleanse, and Hammer of Justice are potent flagcarrier-defense spells, and Holy Light is a reasonably efficient method of healing.  If the Paladin comes under fire, he can simply use Divine Shield or Divine Protection to become either totally or mostly immune to enemy attacks, allowing him to heal and support the flagcarrier with impunity.[right][snapback]82407[/snapback][/right]

I even forgot about Blessing of Freedom. That, in my mind, is as powerful a spell as there is in Warsong Gulch. The majority of ways to stop a fleeing flag-carrier are roots and snares; as a matter of fact, the paladin's own Hammer of Justice is one of the few ways that isn't. Mages can't do anything to stop the flag carrier after he's been BoFed; neither can shamans or druids. The ever-popular charge-hamstring also doesn't work.

With a couple paladins and a priest supporting a warrior flag-carrier, the Horde will have a very tough time indeed getting their flag back.

[The Gnu]

  Heck, maybe since the contest included a week of battlegrounds and you get *so* much more cp by fighting in battlegrounds than not (because of the plentiful number of victims and the lack of diminishing returns) that maybe some mages overtook some of their competition in that final week.
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I actually was leading on our server the week battlegrounds entered the game, but lost the lead during the first week of battlegrounds. I was mainly running Alterac Valley, while he played Warsong Gulch. :lol: (damn that unbalanced bonus-honor!)

By the way, I play a mage; he plays a rogue. I know I was ahead since we are good friends and always compare CP over the weeks. :P