This morning provided two interesting matches, in which we see some actual learning, evolving, and improvement among an Alliance Battleground PuG. 'Tis a full moon, indeed. (*)
Match One
Waiting in start up area. Coconut chimes in with "i've lost 10 in a row, can we just lose fast. 1 mark of honor in 2 minutes, versus 1 or 3 marks in 20 minutes".
Oh, boy, its gonna be one of those. Of course, nobody listens, Alliance runs out to a fast 4 cap. At around the 1000 resource mark, the Horde shows up. Not the Horde we've been fighting up to that point, but the HORDE.
A roving death squad of 5 players. 2 Rogues and 3 Druids. They stealthed up to each node, attacked in unison. I have no idea if they were premade or not, but their coordination was precise. No stopping them.
Alliance freezes up, Horde death squad makes a mockery of our lil Pug. What was a 4-cap is now a 4-cap, just of a different flavor. Coconut boy from the beginning is spamming "i told you so".
1 Mark of Honor in 20 minutes.
Match Two
Requeue. As tends to happen at 7:00am on a weekday, you get the same general bunch of 15 people in your BG's.
Coconut, same deal. Amava's all "zomg, [coconut], stow that attitude or leave the BG", followed by 13 other supportive messages, indicating that we're playing to win, even if that makes our Mark of Honor grind sub-optimal. Playing the Game > Grinding the Gear, even though I'm technically here to grind the gear :-P
Starts same way, Alliance 4-cap.
Around the 500 resource mark this time, Death Squad. I'm defending GM alone. Instant de-stealthing of 5 monsters. I don't like when Horde takes my node.
But, I'm a sharp cookie, so I gets to thinking. Hmm, if we just do our normal routine, this is gonna be ugly. Today's daily BG quest is AB, so I'd sure like to complete the quest before I go to the awful
So I ask the BG if they'd like to form up our own version of the Death Squad. (A) Lets have all defenders announce when DS shows up to attack. When they do, nobody respond to the "inc" call, but rather, flee from it. (B) Our own group of 5 will continuously attack the previous node that Horde DS was attacking.
Since we started with a few hundred resource advantage, if we pull this off, there will basically constantly be two nodes "changing hands", ie, one that the Horde DS just zerged in the process of capping but not yet earning points, and the one that the Alliance DS just reclaimed in the process of capping but not yet earning points.
If we hold two other nodes, which seems realistic since the Death Squad seems to be their only offense, we win.
And, holy jimminy christmas, we did it.
Played out exactly as I was hoping. Everytime somebody called "DS inc [node-A]", Alliance would abandon [node-A]. As soon as the next call of "DS inc [node-B]" went out, the Alliance DS would go attack [node-A].
3 Marks of Honor in 35 minutes.
It was a sight to behold. Took forever, since nodes were continuously in non-point-generation mode, but whatever. Sure, Coconut was angry and grumbly, but ask me if i give a crap?
Proof positive that Alliance PuG BG can actually learn from experience, and react in a positive, coordinated way.
(*) I had to look it up, its a half moon right now, so must be the proper alignment of Uranus.
2 comments:
Apparently there was a 2000-1990 Alliance AB win in our battlegroup yesterday. I wasn't there, but my guildmates were babbling on about it.
We work well when someone takes the initiative to lead. Otherwise everything just falls apart.
Can't wait to hit 70 and see "Amava crits Kzag for 2500" flash across my screen.
Slowly creeping up, at 64 now.
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