Continuing where we left off, the charts below shows the armor upgrade going from S2 to S3 for the Mage, Warlock, and Shadow Priest.

- All the Mage Arena pieces have +Armor on them again to counter the Armor Penetration but at the cost of many Int points. The Vengeful Chest is just disgusting at -6 Int and much weaker stats than the Head and Legs. Even through if you upgrade all your pieces, you end up with +4 Int, that’s hardly something to look forward for. On a plus note, Mage did get overall the highest DPS increase with 45 more Spell Crit and 41 more Spell Damage. Their new Gloves bonus is a nice change to help landing Polymorphs, I guess Blizzard really wanted to make them a CC > burst class.

- Nothing exciting here, just over all big stat boosts, 645 more Mana, 510 Health and 50 more Spell Damage. The Int increase doesn’t mean much for Warlocks who never runs out of MP anyways but the HP and Spell Damage are solid upgrades. Note the shoulders gained another 3 Spell Hit, putting it at 16 Spell Hit Rating while the other classes don’t get any at all. Again the Chest piece makes no sense and will obviously be the last piece for everyone to pick up with it’s gimped stats.

- At first glimpse, it would seem as the Shadow Priest got the biggest upgrade of all being able to utilize the extra 43 Int (their Glove bonus was also changed to match the Holy counterpart after people pointed out the obvious imbalance). However upon closer examination it was very interesting that the Warlock Dread set seems to have much better itemization than the Shadow Priest counterpart. So why does Warlock deserve better stats allocation than Shadow Priest?

S3 5 piece total stats:

So would you trade 5 Int and 13 Resil for 18 Stam, 26 Spell Damage and 16 Spell Hit? I would.

Overall, after factoring in the Armor Penetration from S3 Melee gear, Mage has gained a couple percent of damage reduction while Warlock and Shadow Priest lost some and I doubt we will see S3 chest piece from these 3 classes anytime soon.

On a side note, just saw this on patch note:
Cheat Death (Subtlety) chance to trigger increased to 33/66/100% and now also causes the rogue to take 90% less damage for 3 seconds when the effect triggers. This effect cannot occur more than once per minute.
Sounds pretty interesting as an attempt to make Rogue less of a focus fire friendly target. You only give up 4% AP for it in a CB/Prep build.

Tags: Mage · Warlock · Priest · Articles

12 Responses to “Season 3 PvP Armor Upgrade Part 2: Cloth DPS Casters”

1. Critickle Says:
   October 22nd, 2007 at 7:17 pm

   I don’t really understand why you think people wouldn’t get the chest. Why is it so bad?

   And really, for people who already have the full set, doesn’t really matter the stats of the chest, it just matters how much increases. and by the looks of the chart, chest seems to gain equal compared to others.

2. Ziss Says:
   October 22nd, 2007 at 8:18 pm

   It’s weaker than the other 2 1800 pieces (Legs, Head), and even weaker stat gain/arena point comparing to Gloves and Shoulders. People will get the Chest, but it will be the last of the 5 pieces.

3. Mushya Says:
   October 22nd, 2007 at 10:55 pm

   Haha! More Sub upgrades for the rogue *sigh*..

   That was the most interesting part of the article in my eyes. Besides knowing the the stat upgrade my squishy classes get ;]

4. Tanakh Says:
   October 23rd, 2007 at 1:03 am

   I agree that the warlock set have better stat allocation than S Priest. But the whole “Warlocks never runs out of MP” really gets me.
   While I know warlocks with healers (99% of em) never run OOM, in arena the only team that gets 10 or more games a week its my 2v2, and I 2v2 with a affly/destro hybrid spec and a fire mage, that means the iteligence buff its one of the tastier for me.

5. Deztro Says:
   October 23rd, 2007 at 4:19 am

   As a cb/prep rogue speccing hemo 30/0/31 playing a seal fate version of it I do not think that I can afford to drop seal fate for the new Cheat Death.

   I do not see that many rogues that will spec it. It is a great buff, but the talent points are to deep in I believe to cause to much of a fuss. A buff never used is a buff still I guess……..

6. pandetta Says:
   October 23rd, 2007 at 9:18 am

   Where is the destro set for locks?

7. Tanakh Says:
   October 29th, 2007 at 5:13 pm

   Oh my god, I just 2v2 with a pally (first time with a healer) and now i get the “Warlocks never runs out of MP” and the “Warlocks are OP” in general.

   He is a new alt 70, with a lot of blue stuff, with no PvP experience or items, and compared to my regular partner (a fire mage with exellent gear and experience) it’s a lot easier to win, even being this our first day at arena. It just makes me sad being forced to leave my favourites builds to win.

   Sorry if this comment its a little late, just felt it was needed to post an update.

8. Charlie Says:
   November 7th, 2007 at 12:48 pm

   I still don’t understand rating the warlock dread chest lower than the legs. Granted the base stats are a little bit lower, but with three in 36 additional stamina or (matching color slots) 5 damage, 18 stamina and 12 resilience or some other variant, that difference is overshadowed.

   The chest seems weaker than the head but stronger than the pants. How are these pieces stats being weighted?

9. Opportunist Says:
   November 7th, 2007 at 1:40 pm

   The Felweave (warlock destruction) is superior to dreadweave in S3. The minor stamina differences (around 500 from full-dreadweave to full felweave) and miniscule resilience difference cannot compete to the extra ~10% spell crit coming from felweave.

   It will definitely be the gear of choice for casual pvp/pvers as well, because you can take it straight from the arena and instance with it without a terrible hit to your dmg.

10. Stogggggggggg Says:
    November 26th, 2007 at 12:42 pm

    My dear God, aren’t warlocks OP enough? Locks will not understand until they make another 70 character that gets TORN APART by a warlock. NERF LOCKS.

11. Grimace Says:
    April 16th, 2008 at 8:28 pm

    Your an idiot… warlocks have already been nerfed. You have plenty of means to break fear as it is, especially rogues. I cant kill warriors and rogues. This should be called world of roguecraft. go bitch about nerfing rogues… they get buffed and we get nerfed. I cant even hit a rogue. I just kneel down on one knee helplessly for the duration of my hit points… then they go and give every rogue spec cloak of shadows! even better! now he cant be feared at all either! You sir are a moron. sounds to me like you dont know how to play your own character…or maybe u just roll a drood

12. Issac Maez Says:
    January 29th, 2010 at 12:27 am

    Great site here man, thanks. Can’t wait for the new growth, Cataclysm. Knowing Blizzard though I would not be shocked if it was released in 2011!

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