Thread: Twinking advice for a pvp noob

So I know that this is about as off-topic as I can go on a gold-making website, but since I come here for all other WoW-related things and I've hit a wall with Google, I'm hoping there are some in here who can give me tips or at least point me toward a good resource.


Like many of you, I've started buying up the sweet 80-84 MOP blues with ilvl 409 and up. Instead of re-selling them right away, I set aside a gbank tab so I can pick off the ones I want for myself while snagging more great deals - and set up rules to auction the rest off later.

My gold-making is an unstoppable force at this point, and I'm excited to turn my attention to other aspects of the game that I've barely broken the surface on. I have a level 80 mage and an 80 rogue I'm pretty set on twinking out to melt face with since the tiny bit of pvp I tried was insanely fun (though I died a lot in my pve gear, while yelling at the alliance and my computer in general).

Now I have both of these toons near 99% XP and before I let them tip over to lvl 81, I really have to decide where to stop them. It seems intuitive that I'd want to be at the top of the bracket, as PVE has taught me that 84>80, and at 84 I can wear ALL of the MOP blues for my class instead of just the 409s. However I keep seeing people twink at the bottom of their brackets, which I've learned has something to do with scaling giving the lower level toon an advantage if gear is otherwise similar (assuming that is correct info).

The problem is, I can't find solid information on how to make the decision of what level to twink them at. Truth be told I'm not even sure what I'm looking for - charts of stats or scaling information maybe? Especially something that is current, as the articles I've found related to MOP are predictions from earlier this year, without any certainty of what changes MOP would bring to pvp.

Anyway I'm clearly out of my element here and I certainly don't want to let them ding and then realize that I shouldn't have, because there is no way I'm going to re-roll and level all over again. Any pointers or site recommendations will be very much appreciated!

I am not a pvp expert, but I recall reading some things that were not intuituve. For example, it is not clear if 84 > 80. I.e. 100 int is more valuable to a level 80 than an 84. 100 hit is 1% at 85 but it takes triple (3.4) as much hit to give the same 1% at 90. I remember someone claiming there were levels where the increased level did not make up for the increased rating increase.

I thought it was levels like 79 (where you are in the lower bracket but wearing the "next expac" gear that most 79s are not) that were a sweet spot for pvp.