Skip to content

Proving Grounds

A Warrior Proving Grounds Guide – Raging to the Gold

Arms and Fury Warriors will both be able to handle the Proving grounds with little, if any, change in techniques or gear. Stats, gems, etc. willbe the same for both specs.

As you may know, one of the requirements for LFR (Looking for Raid) and for random heroics in the Warlords of Draenor expansion will be a Silver Achievement in the Proving Grounds. One might guess that the reason for this is all the complaining about “the bads” in both of those groups. Anothing might be the “insta boost to 90” system that WoW has implemented, which people feel will flood the world with boobs who have not the slightest idea of how to play their characters.

So, with that in mind, I’m putting up a series of guides on how to get that silver achievement (and higher level achievements) in the Proving Grounds. Some classes and specs will find it easier than others, but everyone should be able to do it.

The Proving Grounds have three areas of expertise:

  • DPS/Damage – where you, all by yourself, have to destroy all opposition
  • Healing – where you and your team work together to destroy all opposition. Your team is, ahem, not necessarily highly skilled.
  • Tanking – You tank and burn down all opposition. You will have a healer who you have to keep alive.

After Silver you can go onto the Gold achievment and then Endless. This is where you fight wave after wave until you get bored of the whole thing. Gold has ten waves, ending with a boss type Sha. Silver has eight, with no major boss.
Read More »A Warrior Proving Grounds Guide – Raging to the Gold

Fire Mage Going for the Gold in the Proving Grounds

A Silver Achievement will be required to enter Looking for Raid (LFR) and for random heroics in Warlords of Draenor, coming “on or before” Dec 20, 2014. The Warlords of Draenor expansion pre-order has just been announced and along with it comes an “instant 90” token.

Hopefully this page will help you Fire Mages to burn you way to that silver and beyond. (Also see our Fire Mage DPS and Fire PvP pages and our Mage leveling guide if you’re not yet 90.)

How do you get to the Proving Grounds? Just ask your trainer. What are the rewards? Just the achievements and possible bragging rights.

Proving Yourself: Gold Damage AcievementThe big weakness for Fire is getting enough Crit to allow enough Pyro procs to do the damage. It might be helpful to pray to the Fire Gods and offer up sacrifices to be able to get some crit streaks. While this page won’t help with the prayers it will lessen the need for them a bit. Fire can get the Gold and can make headway through at least a few of the Endless Waves. Yes, Frost might be better for the PGs, but where’s the challenge in that? 😉

Read More »Fire Mage Going for the Gold in the Proving Grounds

Blood Tanking the Proving Grounds, Going for the Gold

Human Death Knight, ready to be provenOne of the better ways for your Death Knight, or any other tank, to learn tanking skills is through the Proving Grounds, introduced in patch 5.4. It’s a safe place to experiment with rotations, dealing with multiple targets, reforging to get the most out of your gear, and so on. No one will know whether you took one try or 100 (or more) to get your gold achievement.

If you can get at least a silver achievement on your Death Knight (or any other character,) then you’ve probably got a clue.

In fact, Blizzard agrees that the Proving Ground is a good test and it looks like they are at least considering making the Proving Grounds a requirement for random groups in Warlords of Draenor. There were some recent interviews with Blizzard Devs on this topic.
Read More »Blood Tanking the Proving Grounds, Going for the Gold

The Proving Grounds – Training Without the Pain

So you’re a new WoW player, you’ve leveled up a bit, maybe even to 90, can handle the mobs you’re running into, and so decide to enter a random dungeon (because you’re brave, or foolish.)

Oops.

So you get the group that want to clear everything in 8.3 minutes, skips the looting, and his hardly tolerant of people who can’t quite keep the pace or who don’t perform exactly the way the group demands.

This is what the Proving Grounds are for. The Proving Grounds (PGs) are there to help you train yourself, or prove yourself, in a series of encounters of increasing difficulty, without the snide remarks. No worries about being punted from the group.

All you have to do is be level 90 and be able to get to Kun Lai.

Personally, I think all my characters will be giving it a workout. If only to get used to a new set of abilities after playing some other class for awhile. This should be far more useful than the target dummies.

The Official Word on the Proving Grounds

Read More »The Proving Grounds – Training Without the Pain