So i want to take PVP seriously and I want to main one class and get really good at playing that class. I have tried copying the exact build of a top player who has a lot of experience and that does work in that it is easier in knowing what talents to pick. I feel that doing that though restricts your knowledge of the class and experimenting of different talent builds. When I try to learn a specialization on my own though i don’t really know how to start a rotation or how to burst correctly. I only plan on doing PVP at max level because thats what I enjoy. I have also watched guides on Youtube which does help. So my main question i have for those of you who are serious PVPers’ is this
How did you learn your main class rotations, roles, spec details? How do you consistently keep improving? Did you use guides or trial and error?
Have pushed lots of specs to 2.4 and have to relearn every time. The best way is to honestly do a bit of PvE. Nothing serious, can be solo content, but really focusing on maximizing your damage in that setting. Delves work just fine. Find a PvE fight that aligns with your aim you want to tackle and check out the logs of a good player. Look at their ability count, stat prioritization, talent choices, etc. Doing PVE on my frost mage really helped push my damage higher on PvP. Just seeing how many times a mage used flurry with spike and how many frost lances they used on a fight really helped me to grasp what I needed to focus on.
Copying builds can be tough and unless you really understand your talents, it can be pretty useless as well. A ton of weight can be placed on a single talent and if you’re doing it wrong, you could be losing out on a substantial amount of damage. Guides, streams, etc. are all fine to a point, but you still have to have a foundation. So really take the time and read all the talents. Look at those top builds and see what see why they may have gone one direction vs another.
There is going to be trial and error for sure. Keep logs and using addons like details to get proper damage break downs helps. If your aim is to say hit 2.4 in blitz, you can honestly ask some basic questions here to get direction. While you might have a general role you fill, every map is going to be different and depending on what rating you’re playing at, your responsibilities might change as well. Knowing that is pretty crucial to gaining rating. I see it with players ALL the time. The ones that refuse to sit or refuse to help the FC or whatever. Being a clutch player that is looking for the gaps to fill is the most important thing, regardless of what you think your main job is.
Just as an example, I hate sitting nodes, but I get it. When I’m my hunter, I’m really good at it. As boring as it can be, I have won lots of matches simply because it was me sitting and not someone else. Like if you see there is a mismatch and you’re the player that peels out first, that will win you games.
I do a little bit of both. I’m definitely always down to take pointers from more skilled players, but I often try different things myself. If I like the things I try, then I’ll keep doing them regardless of the meta.
Do you find this helps? With all the PvP modifiers I find the PvE builds are usually pretty different from the PvP ones… I’ll usually do some delves in PvP spec I guess 
Quick disclaimer: I am no pro.
The basic answer is just practice. I’m an altoholic who likes a variety of content. However at the end of the season I find I climb the fastest and highest when I play the same spec in the same content without swapping. So I’ll usually pick what I’m enjoying most and play that for end of season pushes. Like I climbed higher last season on rsham than anything else because I enjoyed it and played it consistently (despite it being a kinda lower tier healer).
So just play the same thing in the same content to some extent. Gl on your push. Ultimately just have fun.
You can still play the PvP build, but you’re practicing your rotation in a more predictable setting. In PvP, you’re constantly having to contend with CC, defensives, range, etc. So treat the mob you’re going up against in the same way you might treat a player. Especially if you’re focusing on AOE builds, there will be a lot of overlap with the PvE talent choices.
Aim here is just to get your rotation down. PvE is going to give that chance 10x what you could ever accomplish in a bg, shuffle, or whatever you want to improve in.
In the past, I would even go further. In a couple cases I would just level a character from level 1. Slowly adding abilities so I would really get the feel for it.
This is a really good and important tip. Understanding your class without the PVP pressure.
Also finding a playstyle that you enjoy. Many of the top spec might not match with my preferred style. There are abilities I hate using and they might be #1. So I figure out how to be good in my own playstyle.
I will look at what the top players are doing outside of those specific abilities, I make my own talent builds, but I get inspired from top players.
So yea, first understand your PVE abilities, then add PVP abilities. Most class and spec are similar with one another.
The main reason I don’t simply copy paste a build is because I don’t have that players Macro/UI/Keybinds so just having a pre-built talent doesn’t help me at all, and I’ll be lazy and avoid reading the talents. Where if I build the talent tree myself, I’m forced to read every node and make decisions based on my playstyle.
For Play Style, do you like more active/passive buttons? More utility? Glass-canon? Hybrid?
Step 1 build your own talent, step 2 tweak it and test it on target dummies/PVE.
A great tool for this is wowarenalogs.
You can search for games that have your spec and get a whole damage / healing breakdown. It shows how many times they pressed each ability. There’s a ton of useful info you can sift through. It even has an overhead reply feature that shows you the position and ability use / important auras on players throughout the match.
A lot of it is just hands on experience. Repetition. Play poorly and improve one small thing at a time. Record your games and watch them to see what went wrong.
The other big thing is learning other classes. Knowing your own class is probably less than half of what it takes to be a solid player. Even just leveling a class through dungeons will give you valuable insight into what their big cooldowns are so you know when to run, kick, trade defensives, etc.
Play some games, see a player just destroy everyone, look at their damage breakdown in details. Armory them or reach out and ask them about their class.
If I haven’t played a spec before or for a while I’ll breeze through a guide at 2x speed lol. Or even just looking at raid / M+ DPS guides because they highlight key talent interactions which gives a nice jumping off point.
Practice !
I’m of the opinion of doing both as well. I do look up top players on murkio for stat priorities and builds, even on that you get some minor variations.
Do I always play the optimized Talents? Not always it often depends on the play style and how it works for me. I prefer to practice on my own and sometimes I go way off the “recommended” and play totally different. Some Examples: On my shaman I am full haste and run totemic with the Storm Conduit PvP talent and spam chain lightning for reduced cooldowns. Or on my disc priest I do VW atonement healing and focussing on heavy damage output vs a shield spamming oracle. on my evoker I’ll often run Aug over Dev. Etc.
I’d say find a playstyle that works for you and use guides / top player builds as guidance.
A majority of the time the builds top players use have already gone through the trial and error of figuring it out on your own so most of the time their builds are pretty good.
Not every time cause sometimes they switch it to match some niche scenario that they are in but as a general rule they are usually playing the best build.