Yesterday I dinged the For The Alliance achievement for killing all the Horde leaders.
So I share some quickies with you....
/trade LFM for the alliance - Logged in and saw the usual routine in /trade, some coconut is putting together a raid on Horde leaders. But I had a few hours to kill and my only real "goal" was to do some Jousting dailies and check the AH. Only one guildie on at the time and he was actually signed up to do it already, so I figured "what the hey".
Fountain Coins - Small aside. When you're in a raid group and cannot do any questing, fishing for coins is a not tooo unreasonable use of your time.
Staging Area - Meet up in Astranaar. Brings back old memories. When originally leveling, I had Amava hearthed to Astranaar for so much longer than would make actual sense. I was questing all over Azeroth, but would always hearth back to Astranaar and actually physically click on one of the beds upstairs to lay down before logging. Ah, the memories. Noob.
Yelling, Saying, and Emoting - One sure way (or rather, three sure ways) to ruin the element of surprise is to /y, /s, and /e (or any of the built-in emotes that don't require use of /e). Although the opposite faction might not be able to translate your words (kek), they will see the fact that you are nearby. Loose lips sink ships.
Don't Aggro The Guards - We assembled just outside the side gate to Orgrimmar with the instruction of "dont aggro the guards". I was fearing that this is when the PuG attempt would all start to unravel, before it even began. All it takes is one coconut to pull a guard and then hell breaks loose and we become a disorganized mob and fail. Kudos to the team for showing enough discipline to hold still and wait for instruction to commence the attack.
No Fuss - Not a whole lot to say, somewhat uneventful however lots of adrenaline. Most of the uncertainty was whether the PuG would collapse and we'd waste our time. Getting lost here and there added to the excitement.
The Route - Assemble outside Org. Kill Thrall. Port to Theramore and run to Thunderbluff. Brief moment of panic as half the raid got split up by taking wrong elevators. Kill Cow leader. Portal to Shatt and then portal to Isle of Quel Danas. Fly to Zul'Aman. Kill Blood Elf. Portal to Ironforge. Fly to Chillwind. Get lost trying to find sewer entrance. Get lost inside Undercity. Kill Undead boss. Hearth to Dalaran and check email.
Escorting a Friend - My friend was actually dualboxing the raid, playing his healer and /following his rogue. Traveler's Tundra Mammoth, FTW. Made transport of his toons so much easier.
War Bear - And I now have a Bear mount that I'll probably ride for a few days and then return to my Cobalt War Talbuk which remains my favorite mount. Something about the tall narrow shape and the hoof sound fx I like the best.
Better late than never - Some would say I was 6 months late dinging the achievement, and to them I would say "suck it".
The Number Nine - Nine honor kills. Yes. Nine (9). Only nine hk's in the process of killing all four Horde bosses. Talk about an organized resistance.
Showing posts with label pvp. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pvp. Show all posts
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Round and Round We Go
Short Version: Don't go AFK out in the world on a PvP server.
Medium Version: I can haz jump shot skillz. I nailed that f'ing warrior with countless Explosive Shot jumpers, while running circles around a little pile of dirt in Hellfire.
Long Version:
If you've been following along with my beloved blog, you might know that I'm not a big world PvP guy. Occasional (read: one) raid on Horde cities, occasional turf battle over a Titanium node (however, single click mining has taken most of the fun out of this one), and just generally defending myself when the enemy strikes.
So I'm out in Hellfire Peninsula, multiboxing to boost my jewelcrafter up to 65 so she can start doing the JC daily, and I'm over in the west part of the map. There's a Cenarion Expedition camp just south of the main road that runs horizontally across the zone (glory road?)
That camp sits immediately south of a small mound of dirt, and there's a quest NPC on top of the mound.
My lil JC turns in one of the quests, and I minimize the WoW screen to fiddle with iTunes and my level 80 and 62 toons are just sitting there waiting to be slaughtered.
While playing DJ and queueing up some music, I see out the corner of my eye on the other screen that some pain in my ass Horde warrior felt he didn't want any Alliance on that little hill.
By the time the WoW screen regained focus of my computer, my little baby 62 was dead, and Amava was at about 80% health.
So clearly he's gonna whoop me. (A) I'm not that good at 1-on-1 pvp, (B) I'm wearing PvE gear so I've got zero resil and no trinket to get out of stuns, and (C) He's got a 20% health head start on me.
But, he's not going to get away without a fight.
Since I had been AFK, I think he was startled that I began evasive maneuvers.
What's the single most important resource in a fight between a Hunter and Warrior? Distance.
That little mound was just hysterical. I started running circles around it. Doing whatever I could to maintain distance.
Kite the bastard.
I was doing my normal Strafe-Kite routine, but it was leaving me unable to fire some of the time, due to the orientation of me not facing towards him enough.
And it dawned on me....Jump Shot.
I've been using jumpers more and more in PvE lately. Very useful in Malygos phase 2 when running from shield to shield, on Sartharion while maneuvering to get in safe spots in the flame wall, or on Heigan to keep doing damage while playing DDR.
But PvP? I've never really done it effectively so sorta gave up and stick to my strafing routine.
So I try the first one. Run directly away from him. Jump. Spin 360. Fire Explosive Shot while facing him.
And Lock-n-Load proc'ed off that first one. Happy Hunter :-)
So again and again. Running circles around that mound. Dropping frosty traps, mixing in concussive shot, keeping serpent sting ticking.
Explosive Jumpers galore.
Had him down to 10% before he finished me off.
I lost the fight, but , man, oh, man, was it a cool feeling to successfully execute some clean jump shots. I think I'm going to have to visit a few BG's and try this out some more.
My only regret was that I wasn't in PvP gear at the time. He was sooooo dead if I had my dancing shoes on.
Also, it was the first time I ever did a completely clean for-real jump shot on purpose in PvP, so if I was thinking right, I'd have kited him in a straight line all the way to Honor Hold instead of round and round that dirt hill. Whatcha gonna do? /shrug
But it was fun as hell. And he did the honorable thing and accepted his victory and went on his merry way rather than camping out.
Medium Version: I can haz jump shot skillz. I nailed that f'ing warrior with countless Explosive Shot jumpers, while running circles around a little pile of dirt in Hellfire.
Long Version:
If you've been following along with my beloved blog, you might know that I'm not a big world PvP guy. Occasional (read: one) raid on Horde cities, occasional turf battle over a Titanium node (however, single click mining has taken most of the fun out of this one), and just generally defending myself when the enemy strikes.
So I'm out in Hellfire Peninsula, multiboxing to boost my jewelcrafter up to 65 so she can start doing the JC daily, and I'm over in the west part of the map. There's a Cenarion Expedition camp just south of the main road that runs horizontally across the zone (glory road?)
That camp sits immediately south of a small mound of dirt, and there's a quest NPC on top of the mound.
My lil JC turns in one of the quests, and I minimize the WoW screen to fiddle with iTunes and my level 80 and 62 toons are just sitting there waiting to be slaughtered.
While playing DJ and queueing up some music, I see out the corner of my eye on the other screen that some pain in my ass Horde warrior felt he didn't want any Alliance on that little hill.
By the time the WoW screen regained focus of my computer, my little baby 62 was dead, and Amava was at about 80% health.
Round and Round We Go
So clearly he's gonna whoop me. (A) I'm not that good at 1-on-1 pvp, (B) I'm wearing PvE gear so I've got zero resil and no trinket to get out of stuns, and (C) He's got a 20% health head start on me.
But, he's not going to get away without a fight.
Since I had been AFK, I think he was startled that I began evasive maneuvers.
What's the single most important resource in a fight between a Hunter and Warrior? Distance.
Wing Clip, Disengage, Frost trap, Run like the dickens
That little mound was just hysterical. I started running circles around it. Doing whatever I could to maintain distance.
Kite the bastard.
I was doing my normal Strafe-Kite routine, but it was leaving me unable to fire some of the time, due to the orientation of me not facing towards him enough.
And it dawned on me....Jump Shot.
I've been using jumpers more and more in PvE lately. Very useful in Malygos phase 2 when running from shield to shield, on Sartharion while maneuvering to get in safe spots in the flame wall, or on Heigan to keep doing damage while playing DDR.
But PvP? I've never really done it effectively so sorta gave up and stick to my strafing routine.
So I try the first one. Run directly away from him. Jump. Spin 360. Fire Explosive Shot while facing him.
HOLY SHT! IT WORKED!
And Lock-n-Load proc'ed off that first one. Happy Hunter :-)
So again and again. Running circles around that mound. Dropping frosty traps, mixing in concussive shot, keeping serpent sting ticking.
Explosive Jumpers galore.
Had him down to 10% before he finished me off.
I lost the fight, but , man, oh, man, was it a cool feeling to successfully execute some clean jump shots. I think I'm going to have to visit a few BG's and try this out some more.
If only I had been questing in PvP gear
My only regret was that I wasn't in PvP gear at the time. He was sooooo dead if I had my dancing shoes on.
Also, it was the first time I ever did a completely clean for-real jump shot on purpose in PvP, so if I was thinking right, I'd have kited him in a straight line all the way to Honor Hold instead of round and round that dirt hill. Whatcha gonna do? /shrug
But it was fun as hell. And he did the honorable thing and accepted his victory and went on his merry way rather than camping out.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
A taste of BG at 80
Through out my WoW'ing, I've had an on/off experience with BG's.
Did some for fun at level 39 when I didn't know a whole lot about the game.
Then at 70, did a bunch. Primary motivation was to get gear. The point in the lifecycle of TBC that I joined the game, there was tons of outstanding gear available from BG that represented very solid options for raiding.
Along the way, had a pretty positive experience in BG. A fair bit of fun, and naturally, a healthy dose of agro from BG pug members or just plain old frustration at being ineffective. Learned a lot about my class, got better at dealing with other classes, got a bunch of gear for raiding and also for more PvP to make the grind less painful.
Up until Merrymaker, I didn't do any BG at 80
So the time came to step into the queue once again.
First off, AV in my new Battlegroup is just awful for Alliance. I never realized how reasonably balanced things were in the Retaliation battlegroup. It was simply disgusting how badly we got spanked. Most of the matches were actually 40 horde vs between 15 and 30 alliance. I don't know why they even kick those games off. /spit [target=Blizzard, in-de-face]
Secondly, F death knights. Death's Grip "Get Over Here" is annoying. But oh well, I suppose I'll get use to it.....
Thirdly.....or not. Because I doubt I'll be doing very much BG.
Why?
All the loot requires Arena Ratings of 1650 or better.
Back in my old battle group, I think 1549 was my highest rating. And that was only achieved via my most hated and anguished couple of hours per week. So I stopped Arena once there was no PvE-enhancing rewards available to me. A rating of 1650 on my new server is absolutely not gonna happen for me, so I highly doubt I'll ever set foot in Arena again, unless they make some substantial changes to the whole shebang.
There's Savage blue gear available for no Arena rating. But aside from Resilience, my current PvE epics are better in every category than the Savage stuff, for both PvE -and- for PvP.
So as it stands right now, I doubt I'll do any BG grinding for gear. I might step in to do the daily quest every now and again, because in limited doses, it'll add some fun.
I'll probably try out Wintergrasp, despite the lag seeming to crush gameplay server-wide during prime time evening Wintergrasp battles.
Fourthly: I can get Savage gear (if I magically decide that I want resil more than any other stats, which I might if I do want to hit any BG in the future) via Heroic badges. And I can get Hateful via 25-man badges.
I'm nearly at the point that I don't want anything PvE from either class of emblems. So I might dump spare emblems on some PvP gear.
But for what?
Maybe to quest in, so I'll be more survivable on a PvP server. That might be a decent idea.
But I doubt I'll try to gear up for mass BG action, since BG action won't provide me any reward without an Arena rating.
Bye Bye BG
The way things are set up right now, my days of grinding a weekend away to get a shiny piece of BG gear are over.
I'll probably do the random BG here and there, because I do have fun in small quantities. Once it becomes a chore, or if the annoying kiddies are being too abusive, I can just stop since there's no carrot dangling at the end of the marks of honor. And we all know that MMO is about the carrot. The shiny is what keeps us going through the grindy parts and the enduring-awful-strangers part.
However, the gf and I had a hoot in some AV's, so when she dings 80, maybe we'll go in together. But that'll be for fun playing together, and not so much for gear.
Besides that, Blizzard has nearly killed Battlegrounds for me by tying Arena rating into the mix.
Did some for fun at level 39 when I didn't know a whole lot about the game.
Then at 70, did a bunch. Primary motivation was to get gear. The point in the lifecycle of TBC that I joined the game, there was tons of outstanding gear available from BG that represented very solid options for raiding.
Along the way, had a pretty positive experience in BG. A fair bit of fun, and naturally, a healthy dose of agro from BG pug members or just plain old frustration at being ineffective. Learned a lot about my class, got better at dealing with other classes, got a bunch of gear for raiding and also for more PvP to make the grind less painful.
Up until Merrymaker, I didn't do any BG at 80
So the time came to step into the queue once again.
First off, AV in my new Battlegroup is just awful for Alliance. I never realized how reasonably balanced things were in the Retaliation battlegroup. It was simply disgusting how badly we got spanked. Most of the matches were actually 40 horde vs between 15 and 30 alliance. I don't know why they even kick those games off. /spit [target=Blizzard, in-de-face]
Secondly, F death knights. Death's Grip "Get Over Here" is annoying. But oh well, I suppose I'll get use to it.....
Thirdly.....or not. Because I doubt I'll be doing very much BG.
Why?
All the loot requires Arena Ratings of 1650 or better.
Back in my old battle group, I think 1549 was my highest rating. And that was only achieved via my most hated and anguished couple of hours per week. So I stopped Arena once there was no PvE-enhancing rewards available to me. A rating of 1650 on my new server is absolutely not gonna happen for me, so I highly doubt I'll ever set foot in Arena again, unless they make some substantial changes to the whole shebang.
There's Savage blue gear available for no Arena rating. But aside from Resilience, my current PvE epics are better in every category than the Savage stuff, for both PvE -and- for PvP.
So as it stands right now, I doubt I'll do any BG grinding for gear. I might step in to do the daily quest every now and again, because in limited doses, it'll add some fun.
I'll probably try out Wintergrasp, despite the lag seeming to crush gameplay server-wide during prime time evening Wintergrasp battles.
Fourthly: I can get Savage gear (if I magically decide that I want resil more than any other stats, which I might if I do want to hit any BG in the future) via Heroic badges. And I can get Hateful via 25-man badges.
I'm nearly at the point that I don't want anything PvE from either class of emblems. So I might dump spare emblems on some PvP gear.
But for what?
Maybe to quest in, so I'll be more survivable on a PvP server. That might be a decent idea.
But I doubt I'll try to gear up for mass BG action, since BG action won't provide me any reward without an Arena rating.
Bye Bye BG
The way things are set up right now, my days of grinding a weekend away to get a shiny piece of BG gear are over.
I'll probably do the random BG here and there, because I do have fun in small quantities. Once it becomes a chore, or if the annoying kiddies are being too abusive, I can just stop since there's no carrot dangling at the end of the marks of honor. And we all know that MMO is about the carrot. The shiny is what keeps us going through the grindy parts and the enduring-awful-strangers part.
However, the gf and I had a hoot in some AV's, so when she dings 80, maybe we'll go in together. But that'll be for fun playing together, and not so much for gear.
Besides that, Blizzard has nearly killed Battlegrounds for me by tying Arena rating into the mix.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Live and Learn. Live on PvP Server and Get Dumber.
PvP server ugliness showed its face. On Christmas, no less.
Getting pretty close to done with solo-able WotLK content on Amava, I pulled an alt out of the closet and got to work on her. Level 66, so a quick boosting run or two through Achindouon instances, and poof, she's 68 and in Northrend.
Aside: Shadow Labs solo (well, kinda solo, with pocket 67 shammy /following) is no joke. And I was laughing my ass off at all the folks who wrote horror stories about farming again and again for Sonic Spear. Especially folks who did so deep into the lifecycle of Burning Crusade, well after much better, more easily accessible options were available outside of Murmur's corpse. Sonic Spear dropped and was put in my bank next to my never-wielded Legacy! But I digress.
So the shammy dings 68 and takes a boat to Howling Fjord to begin her journey.
Aside: Holy Dog Sht. She was so squishy. Not even funny how hard a time she has. One mob, no problem, but mana's going south quickly. Two mobs, I might survive, or might not. Three? Nope. And in the starting area outside Valgarde, the aggro radius of a level 68 means 3 mobs is the norm. Not pretty. But I digress.
Slowly creeping my way through Howling Fjord. Finish off the quests in the opening area, take a boosting run or two through the beginning of Utgarde Keep with Amava, and move on to the eastern side of the bay.
Aside: Boosting through UK was way harder than soloing UK. Some of the pulls are tricky enough when I'm just keeping the Hunter and Gorilla alive. But the soft and squishy lowbie would get caught in way too many frontal fire breaths and whirlwinds. Not pretty. But I digr...oh shut up already.
The shammy is slowly and cautiously approaching some village where I've got to plant an Alliance flag and protect against wave after wave of incoming baddies.
AFK for a sec. I mean, it is xmas after all. Come back, dead. Ok, maybe it was a mob, the area is pretty tightly packed.
Reincarnate. Some cow-looking thing whirlwinding. Dead.
Rez. Two cow looking things whirlwinding. Dead.
Rez. Run away, since there's mad cows in the area. Take two steps. Dead.
Rez. Take one st....Dead.
/anger
Rez. Run away. Actually get 30 or 40 yards this time. Dead.
/Anger
.
.
.
.
.
Rez. Run behind a tree. Wait a minute, drinking for mana and health. Fight some Shoveltusk mob. Cow whirlwinding. Dead.
15. FIF-F$#KING-TEEN. TIMES!
/ANGER
Log out.
Go to character creation screen with intention of creating a level 1 hordie and chewing the douche-bag corpse camper out.
/discovery
You can't create a Horde on a PvP server when you've already got Alliance there.
Probably to prevent exactly what I had in mind.
/simmer
I guarantee that this a-hole is some kid who just got the expansion pack for xmas, and finally got his level 70 ass into Northrend.
Of course, I wasn't really thinking too straight up to this point. But then I get the bright idea to log onto Amava with the hopes to dedicate the rest of my Holiday to camping this guy and crushing his will to live.
But, in the 6 minute flight from Dalaran to Valgarde, I suppose he lost interest and ran off, because flying around with Track Humaniods on couldn't turn the guy up.
Kill a player once, ok cool, you win.
Kill a player a second time. Still kinda cool. You win, you big stud.
Third time, gettin kind of old. Unless there's Titanium or something shiny involved, back the f off.
Beyond three times? With no tangible asset sitting between you and your "enemy"? And to a player a few levels below you?
You just suck. I hope the reason I couldnt find you later was because your dad got drunk on spiked egg nog and beat you with his belt for getting bad grades in jr high school, or because you're ugly.
Go do your homework and stop camping my corpse.
Getting pretty close to done with solo-able WotLK content on Amava, I pulled an alt out of the closet and got to work on her. Level 66, so a quick boosting run or two through Achindouon instances, and poof, she's 68 and in Northrend.
Aside: Shadow Labs solo (well, kinda solo, with pocket 67 shammy /following) is no joke. And I was laughing my ass off at all the folks who wrote horror stories about farming again and again for Sonic Spear. Especially folks who did so deep into the lifecycle of Burning Crusade, well after much better, more easily accessible options were available outside of Murmur's corpse. Sonic Spear dropped and was put in my bank next to my never-wielded Legacy! But I digress.
So the shammy dings 68 and takes a boat to Howling Fjord to begin her journey.
Aside: Holy Dog Sht. She was so squishy. Not even funny how hard a time she has. One mob, no problem, but mana's going south quickly. Two mobs, I might survive, or might not. Three? Nope. And in the starting area outside Valgarde, the aggro radius of a level 68 means 3 mobs is the norm. Not pretty. But I digress.
Slowly creeping my way through Howling Fjord. Finish off the quests in the opening area, take a boosting run or two through the beginning of Utgarde Keep with Amava, and move on to the eastern side of the bay.
Aside: Boosting through UK was way harder than soloing UK. Some of the pulls are tricky enough when I'm just keeping the Hunter and Gorilla alive. But the soft and squishy lowbie would get caught in way too many frontal fire breaths and whirlwinds. Not pretty. But I digr...oh shut up already.
The shammy is slowly and cautiously approaching some village where I've got to plant an Alliance flag and protect against wave after wave of incoming baddies.
AFK for a sec. I mean, it is xmas after all. Come back, dead. Ok, maybe it was a mob, the area is pretty tightly packed.
Reincarnate. Some cow-looking thing whirlwinding. Dead.
Rez. Two cow looking things whirlwinding. Dead.
Rez. Run away, since there's mad cows in the area. Take two steps. Dead.
Rez. Take one st....Dead.
/anger
Rez. Run away. Actually get 30 or 40 yards this time. Dead.
/Anger
.
.
.
.
.
Rez. Run behind a tree. Wait a minute, drinking for mana and health. Fight some Shoveltusk mob. Cow whirlwinding. Dead.
15. FIF-F$#KING-TEEN. TIMES!
/ANGER
Log out.
Go to character creation screen with intention of creating a level 1 hordie and chewing the douche-bag corpse camper out.
/discovery
You can't create a Horde on a PvP server when you've already got Alliance there.
Probably to prevent exactly what I had in mind.
/simmer
I guarantee that this a-hole is some kid who just got the expansion pack for xmas, and finally got his level 70 ass into Northrend.
Of course, I wasn't really thinking too straight up to this point. But then I get the bright idea to log onto Amava with the hopes to dedicate the rest of my Holiday to camping this guy and crushing his will to live.
But, in the 6 minute flight from Dalaran to Valgarde, I suppose he lost interest and ran off, because flying around with Track Humaniods on couldn't turn the guy up.
Kill a player once, ok cool, you win.
Kill a player a second time. Still kinda cool. You win, you big stud.
Third time, gettin kind of old. Unless there's Titanium or something shiny involved, back the f off.
Beyond three times? With no tangible asset sitting between you and your "enemy"? And to a player a few levels below you?
You just suck. I hope the reason I couldnt find you later was because your dad got drunk on spiked egg nog and beat you with his belt for getting bad grades in jr high school, or because you're ugly.
Go do your homework and stop camping my corpse.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Two Amusing Ways the Horde Got Me
So I'm on a PvP server.
Usually its not much different than PvE server. Sometimes, usually when least convenient for me, its brutal. But generally ok.
When horde ganks, 5 vs 1, or lvl 80 vs lvl 72, or even 1v1 but he decides to kill you 5 times in a row, it gets my feathers ruffled.
Aside: A distorted part of me is enjoying the pain, and using the experience as motivation to not allow things I cannot control to get me hot and bothered. Mixed results so far.
Two recent Hordies zinged me in ways that actually amused me.
The hot/cold one. Kill elementals on a frozen lake. Loot their snowballs. Find hot pieces of metal. Fling a snowball to cool off the metal. Loot the metal. Repeat x5. Turn in quest.
The quest isn't all that bad on the surface. Sure, the drop rate of the snowballs is a tad low, but not unbearable. And the respawn on the elemental mobs and the hot pieces of metal are fast enough. It only becomes unmanagable when the packs of Horde ganksters are teaming up on any alliance in the area.
So, one day was really bad. Ganks galore. Struggle through it. Get 4 out of 5 pieces of metal in my bag. Only one left. And, naturally, only one snowball.
Throw it at a piece of hot metal. And, because the lag is pretty bad out in this heavily camped area, discover that a Tauren also threw his from the other side at roughly the same time. He looted first, so my loss, gotta go get another snowball.
Get snowball, return to hot metals.
Throw snowball. Begin looting chilled metal.
And a stinkin Undead Priest comes along and Screams me a fraction of a second before completing the loot.
As I stand there uncontrolling my toon, whacking into the mountain face next to me, I could only stare at the guy looting my chilled metal, without even having to use his own snowball.
The irony of the situation just royally amused me.
And even better when I tracked him down and killed him.
At this point, I was smiling, and happily braved the ganksters for yet another snowball and completed my quest.
I don't know why, but it amused the hell out of me.
One of the pitfalls of a PvP server is where you choose to /afk.
On PvE, no sweat. As long as you're clear of hostile NPC mobs, you can go get a soda, take a shower, let the dog out, whatever.
PvP, gotta be clear of Horde.
I'm out questing (at Hodir's, big f'ing surprise) and the gf is headed out the door, so we're saying goodbye. So I pop onto my Cenarion War Hippogryph, and fly a little way up into the air, hopefully safe from the Horde.
Goodbye conversation continues.
I hear out the corner of my ears that something's not right with my toon. Look over, some Hordie is firing spells at me. I was hovering too close to the ground, still in range, and seeing me AFK, he just wanted to say HELLO.
So I reach over with a spare hand and hold space bar to fly out of range and into safety. Cool, he's not firing at me anymore.
Back to the conversation.
Next thing I know, I'm hearing the shots again.
See, this time, I flew up higher. But in the Hodir's camp at Dunder Nifflem, there's a variety of cliffs that allow a would-be-attacker a variety of vertical levels from which to attack.
I had flown higher, but he just climbed up to a higher shelf in the camp and found me to be within range again.
So I reach back over, hold space bar a little longer, and now I'm safe from Horde, up high in the clouds. No way he can find a position that's in range he can fire at me.
Back to saying goodbye.
Next thing I know, I'm getting hit again!?!?!?!?!!??!?!!? WTF!!!!!!
Conversation comes to a halt. We both look over.
AND THIS F'ING GUY IS FLOATING DOWN PAST ME ON A PARACHUTE, FIREBALLING ME, AT 10,000 FEET ABOVE DUNDER NIFFLEM!!!!!
I didn't even bother trying to evade. I didn't even know you could cast spells while in the air.
He worked hard for this one. He can have his victory.
We laughed our asses off. He was so very tenacious. /applaud
And finally, we were able to say goodbye without any horde interference.
Usually its not much different than PvE server. Sometimes, usually when least convenient for me, its brutal. But generally ok.
When horde ganks, 5 vs 1, or lvl 80 vs lvl 72, or even 1v1 but he decides to kill you 5 times in a row, it gets my feathers ruffled.
Aside: A distorted part of me is enjoying the pain, and using the experience as motivation to not allow things I cannot control to get me hot and bothered. Mixed results so far.
Two recent Hordies zinged me in ways that actually amused me.
1) Hodir Mc DLT
The hot/cold one. Kill elementals on a frozen lake. Loot their snowballs. Find hot pieces of metal. Fling a snowball to cool off the metal. Loot the metal. Repeat x5. Turn in quest.
The quest isn't all that bad on the surface. Sure, the drop rate of the snowballs is a tad low, but not unbearable. And the respawn on the elemental mobs and the hot pieces of metal are fast enough. It only becomes unmanagable when the packs of Horde ganksters are teaming up on any alliance in the area.
So, one day was really bad. Ganks galore. Struggle through it. Get 4 out of 5 pieces of metal in my bag. Only one left. And, naturally, only one snowball.
Throw it at a piece of hot metal. And, because the lag is pretty bad out in this heavily camped area, discover that a Tauren also threw his from the other side at roughly the same time. He looted first, so my loss, gotta go get another snowball.
Get snowball, return to hot metals.
Throw snowball. Begin looting chilled metal.
And a stinkin Undead Priest comes along and Screams me a fraction of a second before completing the loot.
As I stand there uncontrolling my toon, whacking into the mountain face next to me, I could only stare at the guy looting my chilled metal, without even having to use his own snowball.
The irony of the situation just royally amused me.
And even better when I tracked him down and killed him.
At this point, I was smiling, and happily braved the ganksters for yet another snowball and completed my quest.
I don't know why, but it amused the hell out of me.
2) Attack from Above
One of the pitfalls of a PvP server is where you choose to /afk.
On PvE, no sweat. As long as you're clear of hostile NPC mobs, you can go get a soda, take a shower, let the dog out, whatever.
PvP, gotta be clear of Horde.
I'm out questing (at Hodir's, big f'ing surprise) and the gf is headed out the door, so we're saying goodbye. So I pop onto my Cenarion War Hippogryph, and fly a little way up into the air, hopefully safe from the Horde.
Goodbye conversation continues.
I hear out the corner of my ears that something's not right with my toon. Look over, some Hordie is firing spells at me. I was hovering too close to the ground, still in range, and seeing me AFK, he just wanted to say HELLO.
So I reach over with a spare hand and hold space bar to fly out of range and into safety. Cool, he's not firing at me anymore.
Back to the conversation.
Next thing I know, I'm hearing the shots again.
See, this time, I flew up higher. But in the Hodir's camp at Dunder Nifflem, there's a variety of cliffs that allow a would-be-attacker a variety of vertical levels from which to attack.
I had flown higher, but he just climbed up to a higher shelf in the camp and found me to be within range again.
So I reach back over, hold space bar a little longer, and now I'm safe from Horde, up high in the clouds. No way he can find a position that's in range he can fire at me.
Back to saying goodbye.
Next thing I know, I'm getting hit again!?!?!?!?!!??!?!!? WTF!!!!!!
Conversation comes to a halt. We both look over.
AND THIS F'ING GUY IS FLOATING DOWN PAST ME ON A PARACHUTE, FIREBALLING ME, AT 10,000 FEET ABOVE DUNDER NIFFLEM!!!!!
I didn't even bother trying to evade. I didn't even know you could cast spells while in the air.
He worked hard for this one. He can have his victory.
We laughed our asses off. He was so very tenacious. /applaud
And finally, we were able to say goodbye without any horde interference.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
So How's the PvP Server thing goin?
Figured I'd float a few ideas out there regarding the switch from PvE to PvP server.
Short Story: Jimminy Christmas!!! Please, pretty please, with sugar on top, can we switch the guild over to a PvE server????
Medium Story: Overall, playing on a PvP server isn't too bad for a carebear who likes to run around in a Raiding glass cannon spec and Raiding glass cannon gear with a Gorilladin pet. Its just that when you're on a mission, very focused on what you want to accomplish and the amount of time in which you want to accomplish it....well...that's sorta when PvP ugliness tends to crop up.
Long Story: Lets see how long I can stretch this one out, shall we?
At least 80% of the time, you don't see any difference between PvE and PvP server, in my brief experience. Just do your thing, and everything is fine. But there's that other 20% of the time that things go some what differently. Lemme 'splain...
Start with questing...
When questing, regardless of faction or server type, you get competition with other players for resources. If the area is empty, you fly through quests, if the area is busy, it depends on the players. If they're same faction -AND- they actually accept your invite so as to work together to very quickly burn through the quests, its all good. If they're opposite faction, or greedy and think they'll quest faster solo, it slows you down a bit.
My general experience with Horde on Ner'zhul has been relatively peaceful. We typically quest side by side. Wave at eachother, salute eachother, apologize if we happen to fire a shot or two at them accidentally as our targeting automatically grabs the next target once our NPC mob is dead. Lots of love in the air.
But then you get the coconuts.
You can actually sense that bad news is coming as you fly into an area.
Take for instance, the frozen lake near the Hodirs. Kill about 15 elementals to collect 5 snow balls which will be used to cool off metal that the Hodirs want. I've ranted about this one before. Sometimes good here, due to insane respawn rate, sometimes bad here, like this morning.
As you fly in, you can just tell that its gonna suck. You see a few red nameplates. Which is not always a bad thing. But, you see them acting very twitchy. Lots of kill-then-instantly-mount-flying. Lots of stealthing/unstealthing/restealthing. Generally exhibiting A.D.D. behavior.
And you then know that a couple 13 year olds are questing in your neighborhood before they head off to school, just like you're trying to bang out a couple dailies before you head off to work.
And they kill you. So you switch over to the Horn blowing quest for a bit. Kill one or two of the big guys. And the Jr High School Gang Bangers catch up to you, kill you. So you switch back to the snow balls. And they come back and get you again. Lather rinse repeat until your daily quest is done, and you're ready to wring the neck of the first adolescent you find IRL.
In summary, more often than not, daily questing sux donkey balls on the PvP server.
And with the gathering...
You get a little PvP action near mineral and herb nodes.
Its only normal to want to smack someone who's taking your node. I mean, you saw it on your minimap tracker. This node is yours.
Except that there's another player on it as you fly down through the tree canopy.
If its Alliance, you get grumpy, but fly off, hopefully to beat the competition to the next node in the circuit that you're both flying. End up playing leap frog with same-faction guys.
If its Horde, it depends. Titanium, its fightin' time. Anything else, I just fly off.
But if I'm the one who's there at the node first?
Seems that lots of Horde players share my philosophy. Normally just fly off. But at titanium nodes? Drop the gloves and start swinging. Sometimes they pick a fight at "lesser" nodes, but that's rare. You see, people flying around gathering are alone and are out there with a purpose. And you are also alone, and there for a purpose. I find that most of the Gang Bangers don't want a 1-on-1 fight. They want to gank you with 6 of their friends. One guy keeps kidney punching you so you can't do anything, and the others DPS you down in a couple seconds.
Fair fight? Who wants that?
Last night had the strangest one though. I'm out questing in western Icecrown to raise my Knights of the Ebon Blade rep. Stumble across a Icethorn node. Icethorn is going for about 55 gold per stack, so I'm a big fan.
Start herbing, and get jumped by a death knight. He makes quick work of me.
Ok, ok, fair is fair, you can have the node.
Corpse run, rez. Icethorn is still there. Ok, mana and health up. Start herbing. Get ganked again by the same guy.
WTF?
Corpse run, rez. Icethorn is still there, yet again. Ok, start herbing. Ganked. Dead.
Oh, I get it, you're bigger man than me, everyone trembles at the size of your mighty sword, I surrender. You clearly don't want the Icethorn, but you clearly have no plans to stop with the being a bully.
So I tuck my tail between my legs, and hop on my flying mount. Two seconds into the sky, another Alliance guy flys in, herbs the node, no Death Knight.
/scratches head?
I suppose he just doesn't like Night Elf Hunter Chicks.
And the winner of Most Annoying PvP-Server Behavior goes to....
Those mutha f'ers who hang out at the summoning stone of a dungeon or raid and grief any raiders who just want to get their team together and zone into the instance.
This is so. frikin. annoying.
Quick clear of Obsidian Sanctum before Naxx. Exit the instance. Horde waiting for us to exit one at a time. Come on guys. This is serving no purpose. Go away!
Make an attempt on a boss in Naxx. Wipe. Everybody fly back to the Arial Ziggaurat to zone back in. Frikin Horde waiting at the stone, pissed that they're unable to get enough players to form their own raid, picking us off one at a time. Or using some blast wave thingie to smash us all as we try to fly past into the dungeon.
Five players trying to go to Azjol-Nerub, and there's a quest guy out front, which means you've got to spend at least a few seconds just standing there trying to pick up the quests. And there's 8 stupid Hordites ganking away. Bah!
Just annoying. Should be Sanctuary for 40 yards around a summoning stone, but then again, I'm a carebear, through and through.
Sum it up...
Bottom line, PvP server is reasonable most of the time. When you spend most of your game time in a very focused, goal oriented manner, PvP server allows the coconuts to get in your way much more than I'd like.
Although, the one Titanium node that I actually took by force? That was kinda fun ;-)
Short Story: Jimminy Christmas!!! Please, pretty please, with sugar on top, can we switch the guild over to a PvE server????
Medium Story: Overall, playing on a PvP server isn't too bad for a carebear who likes to run around in a Raiding glass cannon spec and Raiding glass cannon gear with a Gorilladin pet. Its just that when you're on a mission, very focused on what you want to accomplish and the amount of time in which you want to accomplish it....well...that's sorta when PvP ugliness tends to crop up.
Long Story: Lets see how long I can stretch this one out, shall we?
At least 80% of the time, you don't see any difference between PvE and PvP server, in my brief experience. Just do your thing, and everything is fine. But there's that other 20% of the time that things go some what differently. Lemme 'splain...
Start with questing...
When questing, regardless of faction or server type, you get competition with other players for resources. If the area is empty, you fly through quests, if the area is busy, it depends on the players. If they're same faction -AND- they actually accept your invite so as to work together to very quickly burn through the quests, its all good. If they're opposite faction, or greedy and think they'll quest faster solo, it slows you down a bit.
My general experience with Horde on Ner'zhul has been relatively peaceful. We typically quest side by side. Wave at eachother, salute eachother, apologize if we happen to fire a shot or two at them accidentally as our targeting automatically grabs the next target once our NPC mob is dead. Lots of love in the air.
But then you get the coconuts.
You can actually sense that bad news is coming as you fly into an area.
Take for instance, the frozen lake near the Hodirs. Kill about 15 elementals to collect 5 snow balls which will be used to cool off metal that the Hodirs want. I've ranted about this one before. Sometimes good here, due to insane respawn rate, sometimes bad here, like this morning.
As you fly in, you can just tell that its gonna suck. You see a few red nameplates. Which is not always a bad thing. But, you see them acting very twitchy. Lots of kill-then-instantly-mount-flying. Lots of stealthing/unstealthing/restealthing. Generally exhibiting A.D.D. behavior.
And you then know that a couple 13 year olds are questing in your neighborhood before they head off to school, just like you're trying to bang out a couple dailies before you head off to work.
And they kill you. So you switch over to the Horn blowing quest for a bit. Kill one or two of the big guys. And the Jr High School Gang Bangers catch up to you, kill you. So you switch back to the snow balls. And they come back and get you again. Lather rinse repeat until your daily quest is done, and you're ready to wring the neck of the first adolescent you find IRL.
In summary, more often than not, daily questing sux donkey balls on the PvP server.
And with the gathering...
You get a little PvP action near mineral and herb nodes.
Its only normal to want to smack someone who's taking your node. I mean, you saw it on your minimap tracker. This node is yours.
Except that there's another player on it as you fly down through the tree canopy.
If its Alliance, you get grumpy, but fly off, hopefully to beat the competition to the next node in the circuit that you're both flying. End up playing leap frog with same-faction guys.
If its Horde, it depends. Titanium, its fightin' time. Anything else, I just fly off.
But if I'm the one who's there at the node first?
Seems that lots of Horde players share my philosophy. Normally just fly off. But at titanium nodes? Drop the gloves and start swinging. Sometimes they pick a fight at "lesser" nodes, but that's rare. You see, people flying around gathering are alone and are out there with a purpose. And you are also alone, and there for a purpose. I find that most of the Gang Bangers don't want a 1-on-1 fight. They want to gank you with 6 of their friends. One guy keeps kidney punching you so you can't do anything, and the others DPS you down in a couple seconds.
Fair fight? Who wants that?
Last night had the strangest one though. I'm out questing in western Icecrown to raise my Knights of the Ebon Blade rep. Stumble across a Icethorn node. Icethorn is going for about 55 gold per stack, so I'm a big fan.
Start herbing, and get jumped by a death knight. He makes quick work of me.
Ok, ok, fair is fair, you can have the node.
Corpse run, rez. Icethorn is still there. Ok, mana and health up. Start herbing. Get ganked again by the same guy.
WTF?
Corpse run, rez. Icethorn is still there, yet again. Ok, start herbing. Ganked. Dead.
Oh, I get it, you're bigger man than me, everyone trembles at the size of your mighty sword, I surrender. You clearly don't want the Icethorn, but you clearly have no plans to stop with the being a bully.
So I tuck my tail between my legs, and hop on my flying mount. Two seconds into the sky, another Alliance guy flys in, herbs the node, no Death Knight.
/scratches head?
I suppose he just doesn't like Night Elf Hunter Chicks.
And the winner of Most Annoying PvP-Server Behavior goes to....
Those mutha f'ers who hang out at the summoning stone of a dungeon or raid and grief any raiders who just want to get their team together and zone into the instance.
This is so. frikin. annoying.
Quick clear of Obsidian Sanctum before Naxx. Exit the instance. Horde waiting for us to exit one at a time. Come on guys. This is serving no purpose. Go away!
Make an attempt on a boss in Naxx. Wipe. Everybody fly back to the Arial Ziggaurat to zone back in. Frikin Horde waiting at the stone, pissed that they're unable to get enough players to form their own raid, picking us off one at a time. Or using some blast wave thingie to smash us all as we try to fly past into the dungeon.
Five players trying to go to Azjol-Nerub, and there's a quest guy out front, which means you've got to spend at least a few seconds just standing there trying to pick up the quests. And there's 8 stupid Hordites ganking away. Bah!
Just annoying. Should be Sanctuary for 40 yards around a summoning stone, but then again, I'm a carebear, through and through.
Sum it up...
Bottom line, PvP server is reasonable most of the time. When you spend most of your game time in a very focused, goal oriented manner, PvP server allows the coconuts to get in your way much more than I'd like.
Although, the one Titanium node that I actually took by force? That was kinda fun ;-)
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Pv-what now?
Having been born and raised on a PvE server, the horror stories of Life in Stranglethorn Vale never really held any meaning to me. The Isle of Gank'danas was only something to read about and laugh at.
Well, it sure was time for an education.
Allow me to sum up my findings from my first weekend on a PvP server...
Warning to Horde
Let it be known. I generally shant initiate combat on you, Mr. Hordie. If we're questing, I'll just try to ninja your quest mobs, same as I would if you were an Alliance player who declined my invitation or was behaving like a turd on /trade. I steal, but I dont keel (to stretch a rhyme out of "steal" and "kill"). If we're waiting for the same rare spawn, know that I'll do whatever I can to tag it before you can, and I'm damn good at it, but I won't kill you. Sorry for this, its just how we roll.
But, lemme warn the Horde, so as to save you the time of waiting with the other surprised players standing in line at the complaint desk.....
If you attack me first, know that I'll carefully weigh the time required to execute revenge versus the satisfaction to be gained from said revenge. If there's a creative way for me to get you back, that won't take too much of my precious time, trust that I'll be waiting, deep under the water, with my Hydrocane equipped, and I will strike at the moment most entertaining for me.
And, please, pretty please, with sugar on top, don't get between me and my minerals. Cobalt is fair game, you get there first, you win. Saronite might get you in trouble, depends upon how angry the behavior of your Hordie friends has made me over the previous 15 minutes. Horde near Titanium is Kill on Sight. I do not apologize, you have been warned.
Background
With no idea what to expect, I set off into the world shortly after the server transfer was complete.
The Horde like to start you off slowly. At first, nothing. Just quest around, and see lots of friendly Alliance toons around. Ok, this is warm and fuzzy.
Then eventually, you come across some Horde questing in the same area. Ok, ok, seems to be a mutual respect amongst people leveling. Leave eachother alone, because we're all on a mission.
Then, in a cave in Howling Fjord, waiting for a named quest mob to respawn. GF calls out that she's got a rogue on her, while I'm clearing out some unnamed trash in the room. Ok, nice and nifty, usually when NPC mobs attack one of us, there's plenty of time to finish what you're doing and then go over and help eachother. Nope. Dead, nearly instantly.
Ah, our first gank, a Horde Rogue. And, like the brave warrior that he is, as soon as I get him to about 50% health, he vanishes and runs off. We finish the quest, and on the way out, he saps me and runs away. Very nice, thank you. You've given me a taste of what's to come.
Generally a mutual respect throughout the lands, Alliance and Horde questing amongst eachother, no real problems.
Sometimes Bubbles on Defensive mode will start attacking a Hordie that's right near a quest mob I'm killing. As long as I notice quickly, I'll get her back at my side quickly.
There's also the new changes since 3.0.2 that have you automatically targeting new mobs as your current mob dies, so I've inadvertently targeted and fired upon Horde. Sorry guys, but if I notice and correct it quick enough, they rarely turn and spank me.
The occasional gank here and there. Usually from a solo Horde player on me as a solo Alliance player.
Sometimes its near a quest objective, in which case, I can sort of agree with the mentality, since if they kill me off, it'll give them access to their quest a little faster. Ok, ok. You win.
But there's a few doozies who clearly make PvP servers what they are.
Sea Bulls Need a Little Action
The Sea Bulls are a pretty randy bunch. But it would seem that their Sea Bull bars are all sausage fests, and they can't find their way to the all-girls dorm across the water. So I gets me some fish and lead them over to carve off a slice.
Until Mr. Hordie thinks its cute to kill my Sea Bull, and then, him and his 3 buddies come and kill me. Luckily, I held them off long enough for the GF to finish her quest and get her Sea Bull some booty.
These guys weren't too bad though, as they left me alone when I came back.
The Cheap Shot
I head on over to solo Ragemane's Flipper in Zul'Drak at level 76. At the end, Ragemane is dead, Bubbles is dead, and I'm at less than 1,000 health. Every single ability on cooldown, including deterrence and lifebloom. Happy at having finished the quest efficiently, I swim past 4 Hordies who showed up to complete the same quest. Frikin undead priest feels compelled to smack me with a single Mind Blast which finished off the job Ragemane started. F. U. you spineless cheap-shotting worm.
Of course, true to the philosophy of gank or be ganked, I did the only thing that possible to reclaim some self respect. Corpse run, rez, and swim deep deep underneath where Ragemane spawns. Wait for the 4 of them to engage the mob, then start shooting their tank from the depths, straight up the pooper. Me and Ragemane took care of him quickly, then the healer who so thoughtfully Mind Blasted me earlier. At this point the two DPS'ers figured out what was going on and turned on me, killing me rather efficiently, only to get killed by Ragemane shortly thereafter. I'll chalk that up as successful revenge since they had to start over.
I just might learn to like this PvP stuff.
Sholazar is the new STV
And then, my night turned to sht.
Finish off Zul'Drak quests, and fly on over to Sholazar Basin. NOTE TO SELF: don't fly over Lake Winterchill. Wasted 20 minutes (A) figuring out how to get at this one node of Rich Saronite without being able to fly, and (B) figuring out how to get the F out of the zone.
Back to Sholazar.
Get 4 quests all in the same area with some Venture Co. folks digging in the dirt.
Fly there, land, start killing goblins and such. Then a silly horde unstealths, stunlocks, and kills me without my even being able to move or attack once.
Ok, ok, you got me, fair and square.
Run back, rez, start questing.
Again with the instadeath, only this time there's 3 of them.
Run back, rez, questing...
Uggy, now there looks to be 10 Hordies, spread all over the camp and they're killing all Alliance they can get their hands on.
Ok, so I fly over to a slightly different quest, finish that up, come back to the area. Looks clear.
Start questing, and the pack of 10 comes back, killing everything around them.
Strangely enough, after I got over the initial wave of emotion and desire to crush their windpipes IRL, it became a bit fun. Land real quick, kill a mob, loot a quest item off the ground, mount up quick enough to avoid the incoming Horde wave. Lather rinse repeat until quest is done.
But, facing a pretty strong desire to ding 80, wasting time like that gets old in a hurry.
Well, it sure was time for an education.
Allow me to sum up my findings from my first weekend on a PvP server...
Warning to Horde
Let it be known. I generally shant initiate combat on you, Mr. Hordie. If we're questing, I'll just try to ninja your quest mobs, same as I would if you were an Alliance player who declined my invitation or was behaving like a turd on /trade. I steal, but I dont keel (to stretch a rhyme out of "steal" and "kill"). If we're waiting for the same rare spawn, know that I'll do whatever I can to tag it before you can, and I'm damn good at it, but I won't kill you. Sorry for this, its just how we roll.
But, lemme warn the Horde, so as to save you the time of waiting with the other surprised players standing in line at the complaint desk.....
If you attack me first, know that I'll carefully weigh the time required to execute revenge versus the satisfaction to be gained from said revenge. If there's a creative way for me to get you back, that won't take too much of my precious time, trust that I'll be waiting, deep under the water, with my Hydrocane equipped, and I will strike at the moment most entertaining for me.
And, please, pretty please, with sugar on top, don't get between me and my minerals. Cobalt is fair game, you get there first, you win. Saronite might get you in trouble, depends upon how angry the behavior of your Hordie friends has made me over the previous 15 minutes. Horde near Titanium is Kill on Sight. I do not apologize, you have been warned.
Background
With no idea what to expect, I set off into the world shortly after the server transfer was complete.
The Horde like to start you off slowly. At first, nothing. Just quest around, and see lots of friendly Alliance toons around. Ok, this is warm and fuzzy.
Then eventually, you come across some Horde questing in the same area. Ok, ok, seems to be a mutual respect amongst people leveling. Leave eachother alone, because we're all on a mission.
Then, in a cave in Howling Fjord, waiting for a named quest mob to respawn. GF calls out that she's got a rogue on her, while I'm clearing out some unnamed trash in the room. Ok, nice and nifty, usually when NPC mobs attack one of us, there's plenty of time to finish what you're doing and then go over and help eachother. Nope. Dead, nearly instantly.
Ah, our first gank, a Horde Rogue. And, like the brave warrior that he is, as soon as I get him to about 50% health, he vanishes and runs off. We finish the quest, and on the way out, he saps me and runs away. Very nice, thank you. You've given me a taste of what's to come.
Generally a mutual respect throughout the lands, Alliance and Horde questing amongst eachother, no real problems.
Sometimes Bubbles on Defensive mode will start attacking a Hordie that's right near a quest mob I'm killing. As long as I notice quickly, I'll get her back at my side quickly.
There's also the new changes since 3.0.2 that have you automatically targeting new mobs as your current mob dies, so I've inadvertently targeted and fired upon Horde. Sorry guys, but if I notice and correct it quick enough, they rarely turn and spank me.
The occasional gank here and there. Usually from a solo Horde player on me as a solo Alliance player.
Sometimes its near a quest objective, in which case, I can sort of agree with the mentality, since if they kill me off, it'll give them access to their quest a little faster. Ok, ok. You win.
But there's a few doozies who clearly make PvP servers what they are.
Sea Bulls Need a Little Action
The Sea Bulls are a pretty randy bunch. But it would seem that their Sea Bull bars are all sausage fests, and they can't find their way to the all-girls dorm across the water. So I gets me some fish and lead them over to carve off a slice.
Until Mr. Hordie thinks its cute to kill my Sea Bull, and then, him and his 3 buddies come and kill me. Luckily, I held them off long enough for the GF to finish her quest and get her Sea Bull some booty.
These guys weren't too bad though, as they left me alone when I came back.
The Cheap Shot
I head on over to solo Ragemane's Flipper in Zul'Drak at level 76. At the end, Ragemane is dead, Bubbles is dead, and I'm at less than 1,000 health. Every single ability on cooldown, including deterrence and lifebloom. Happy at having finished the quest efficiently, I swim past 4 Hordies who showed up to complete the same quest. Frikin undead priest feels compelled to smack me with a single Mind Blast which finished off the job Ragemane started. F. U. you spineless cheap-shotting worm.
Of course, true to the philosophy of gank or be ganked, I did the only thing that possible to reclaim some self respect. Corpse run, rez, and swim deep deep underneath where Ragemane spawns. Wait for the 4 of them to engage the mob, then start shooting their tank from the depths, straight up the pooper. Me and Ragemane took care of him quickly, then the healer who so thoughtfully Mind Blasted me earlier. At this point the two DPS'ers figured out what was going on and turned on me, killing me rather efficiently, only to get killed by Ragemane shortly thereafter. I'll chalk that up as successful revenge since they had to start over.
I just might learn to like this PvP stuff.
Sholazar is the new STV
And then, my night turned to sht.
Finish off Zul'Drak quests, and fly on over to Sholazar Basin. NOTE TO SELF: don't fly over Lake Winterchill. Wasted 20 minutes (A) figuring out how to get at this one node of Rich Saronite without being able to fly, and (B) figuring out how to get the F out of the zone.
Back to Sholazar.
Get 4 quests all in the same area with some Venture Co. folks digging in the dirt.
Fly there, land, start killing goblins and such. Then a silly horde unstealths, stunlocks, and kills me without my even being able to move or attack once.
Ok, ok, you got me, fair and square.
Run back, rez, start questing.
Again with the instadeath, only this time there's 3 of them.
Run back, rez, questing...
Uggy, now there looks to be 10 Hordies, spread all over the camp and they're killing all Alliance they can get their hands on.
Ok, so I fly over to a slightly different quest, finish that up, come back to the area. Looks clear.
Start questing, and the pack of 10 comes back, killing everything around them.
Strangely enough, after I got over the initial wave of emotion and desire to crush their windpipes IRL, it became a bit fun. Land real quick, kill a mob, loot a quest item off the ground, mount up quick enough to avoid the incoming Horde wave. Lather rinse repeat until quest is done.
But, facing a pretty strong desire to ding 80, wasting time like that gets old in a hurry.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Is when hype fizzles
Back on october third, I hinted at some up and coming mayhem that was all hush hush.
Ooooh, the intrigue and drama.
Why so tight lipped?
Well, talk about a dud.
Both as a blogging exercise of building up suspense (lack of followthrough ftw), and the actual event itself.
See, there's this guy in the guild, lots of social connections, lots of big ideas.
He comes to us with this master plan.
One that he's discussed with intimate contacts at 5 other high-level guilds.
Lets raid Orgrimar with the intent of griefing the Horde and occupying the city for at least a full hour, denying any use to the enemy.
Totally frivolous, totally griefing. Totally fun!
We live on a PvE server that has very little world PvP, and there's been one or two raids on our cities by bored horde guilds lately, so why not give it a shot.
The plan was presented to the guild leadership with the promise that roughly 200 people have already indicated involvement.
L.O. mutha f'ing L.
Lots of buzz in the days leading up to the event.
Word spread and there was lots of energy on /general and /trade
Horde got word, since loose lips certainly do sink ships, and even horde /general and /trade became filled with news of the upcoming alliance invasion.
So the night comes, we've got about 20 people from our guild ready to rock.
But where is Mr. I-have-big-ideas-about-griefing-horde?
No show.
Nice move, fella :-)
So we head over to ratchet, find a bunch of other guilds with various party sizes. Many of the guilds are friends of ours so it was cool to see.
Totally disorganized, totally chaotic. Totally fun!
In all, probably 70 or 80 alliance players.
Completely disorganized wave after completely disorganized wave rushing in the side gate towards Thrall's room.
I had a little baby Horde spy sitting there watching the action. You underestimate the sneakiness, sir.
The best wave I was part of got Thrall down to 35%.
The Horde defense was outstanding. They rallied a massive amount of players to defend the city and then camp out our graveyard in Razor Hill.
And then they sent nearly 100 players to conquer Stormwind City.
The night was a dud in terms of military success, but we had a blast. If we had even an ounce of coordination between the guilds (hello, Mr. I-dont-show-to-my-own-event) it would have been a very different situation, but oh well.
Ooooh, the intrigue and drama.
Why so tight lipped?
Well, talk about a dud.
Both as a blogging exercise of building up suspense (lack of followthrough ftw), and the actual event itself.
See, there's this guy in the guild, lots of social connections, lots of big ideas.
He comes to us with this master plan.
One that he's discussed with intimate contacts at 5 other high-level guilds.
Lets raid Orgrimar with the intent of griefing the Horde and occupying the city for at least a full hour, denying any use to the enemy.
Totally frivolous, totally griefing. Totally fun!
We live on a PvE server that has very little world PvP, and there's been one or two raids on our cities by bored horde guilds lately, so why not give it a shot.
The plan was presented to the guild leadership with the promise that roughly 200 people have already indicated involvement.
L.O. mutha f'ing L.
Lots of buzz in the days leading up to the event.
Word spread and there was lots of energy on /general and /trade
Horde got word, since loose lips certainly do sink ships, and even horde /general and /trade became filled with news of the upcoming alliance invasion.
So the night comes, we've got about 20 people from our guild ready to rock.
But where is Mr. I-have-big-ideas-about-griefing-horde?
No show.
Nice move, fella :-)
So we head over to ratchet, find a bunch of other guilds with various party sizes. Many of the guilds are friends of ours so it was cool to see.
Totally disorganized, totally chaotic. Totally fun!
In all, probably 70 or 80 alliance players.
Completely disorganized wave after completely disorganized wave rushing in the side gate towards Thrall's room.
I had a little baby Horde spy sitting there watching the action. You underestimate the sneakiness, sir.
The best wave I was part of got Thrall down to 35%.
The Horde defense was outstanding. They rallied a massive amount of players to defend the city and then camp out our graveyard in Razor Hill.
And then they sent nearly 100 players to conquer Stormwind City.
The night was a dud in terms of military success, but we had a blast. If we had even an ounce of coordination between the guilds (hello, Mr. I-dont-show-to-my-own-event) it would have been a very different situation, but oh well.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Arena-B-Gone
It has been two weeks since I set foot in the Arenas.
Since then, the sky looks a little bit bluer, the grass a little bit greener, the flowers smell a little bit sweeter.
The incoming freshman co-eds at the nearby College look a little more....well....nevermind 'bout them.
That is all.
Since then, the sky looks a little bit bluer, the grass a little bit greener, the flowers smell a little bit sweeter.
The incoming freshman co-eds at the nearby College look a little more....well....nevermind 'bout them.
That is all.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
No fun + no rewards = smell u later
So I've just about had it with Arenas.
Season 4 is not normalizing at all. The opponent matching system isn't too hot for me, Dog.
Start the week at 1450.
PWN the first 2 teams. We're talking "zomg, i just 3-shot the shammy!" kind of pwned.
Easily defeat the next 2 teams, in matches that aren't even close, if not quite pwnage.
Pop to about 1525.
Get crushed. Crushed! We're talking "zomg, i just got 3-shot by that mage!" kind of pwned. For the next 3 matches.
One really good fight, could have gone either way. Took a little while, required some pretty good teamwork and resourcefulness. We lost, but by far, theonly most fun match of the night.
Lost another one, not even close. Not a 3-shot, but they were at full health and near full mana as we crumbled.
Pwned the last team.
Went 5-5, ended the week at 1453.
Perhaps the least fun 45 minutes of my week, and if you knew some of the stuff I got going on IRL, you'd know that that's saying something.
My biggest issue is that its so clearly not matching us up with suitable opponents.
From 80,000 feet, sure, you could say we went 5-5, so it clearly is matching properly.
Yeah, right.
The difference between totally pwning and being totally pwned should be more than a 50 arena rating points.
Its been consistent like this week to week.
And since 1550 looks to be out of reach, there's no more gear in it for me.
So....
My ultimatum to Blizzard: give me a reasonably balanced set of matches next week, or WeHeartWelfare is out of the arena business.
No fun + no rewards = smell u later
Season 4 is not normalizing at all. The opponent matching system isn't too hot for me, Dog.
Start the week at 1450.
PWN the first 2 teams. We're talking "zomg, i just 3-shot the shammy!" kind of pwned.
Easily defeat the next 2 teams, in matches that aren't even close, if not quite pwnage.
Pop to about 1525.
Get crushed. Crushed! We're talking "zomg, i just got 3-shot by that mage!" kind of pwned. For the next 3 matches.
One really good fight, could have gone either way. Took a little while, required some pretty good teamwork and resourcefulness. We lost, but by far, the
Lost another one, not even close. Not a 3-shot, but they were at full health and near full mana as we crumbled.
Pwned the last team.
Went 5-5, ended the week at 1453.
Perhaps the least fun 45 minutes of my week, and if you knew some of the stuff I got going on IRL, you'd know that that's saying something.
My biggest issue is that its so clearly not matching us up with suitable opponents.
From 80,000 feet, sure, you could say we went 5-5, so it clearly is matching properly.
Yeah, right.
The difference between totally pwning and being totally pwned should be more than a 50 arena rating points.
Its been consistent like this week to week.
And since 1550 looks to be out of reach, there's no more gear in it for me.
So....
My ultimatum to Blizzard: give me a reasonably balanced set of matches next week, or WeHeartWelfare is out of the arena business.
No fun + no rewards = smell u later
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
BG as a Low Level Hordie
The Olympics show up, and along with them, a tabard and companion pet.
So the GF and I decide to take our first step into Horde BG. Her first step into BG entirely.
What a hoot.
I was a level 26 Prot Paladin and she was a lvl 27 Elemental Shammy at the time, so we clearly were not a big help to our teams, getting pwned by 29's left and right.
But lots of fun.
I have absolutely no idea how to play Paladin in PvP. Hell, i was slamming my #2 button while following flag runners to Wing Clip / Raptor Strike them. :-)
Did a little healing, got spanked.
Tried grabbing the flag and running it back, got spanked.
Tough not having an instant-cast heal. At least the gf could ghost wolf and run ahead of the FC and then heal as they run past. If I got CC'd at all, no real chance of catching up to the pack and contributing.
Did enjoy casting Blessing of Freedom and the occasional bubble on flag carriers.
Got a loser's tabard, which is fun to wear, for no real reason, but its ugly which I like.
Now, we're thinking of heading back in at level 29 to see if we cant eeek out a win and a companion pet before dinging into the next bracket.
So the GF and I decide to take our first step into Horde BG. Her first step into BG entirely.
What a hoot.
I was a level 26 Prot Paladin and she was a lvl 27 Elemental Shammy at the time, so we clearly were not a big help to our teams, getting pwned by 29's left and right.
But lots of fun.
I have absolutely no idea how to play Paladin in PvP. Hell, i was slamming my #2 button while following flag runners to Wing Clip / Raptor Strike them. :-)
Did a little healing, got spanked.
Tried grabbing the flag and running it back, got spanked.
Tough not having an instant-cast heal. At least the gf could ghost wolf and run ahead of the FC and then heal as they run past. If I got CC'd at all, no real chance of catching up to the pack and contributing.
Did enjoy casting Blessing of Freedom and the occasional bubble on flag carriers.
Got a loser's tabard, which is fun to wear, for no real reason, but its ugly which I like.
Now, we're thinking of heading back in at level 29 to see if we cant eeek out a win and a companion pet before dinging into the next bracket.
Open PvP is more Inclusive than PvE
Tobold writes about guild hopping and other such goodies in a recent post. Near the end, he covers the idea of open PvP being more inclusive than PvE.
I couldn't agree more.
In PvE, you need a very specific number of players, and each encounter requires a very specific type of classes and gear levels. If you don't get enough people to show up, you can't raid. If you get enough people to show up, but they're all Hunters, you can't raid. If you get enough people to show up, but they've all got different levels of gear, you likely can't raid. If you get too many people show up, some people have to sit out. If you are half way through a raid and a player has to leave, unless you've got spares waiting around, your raid is done.
This aspect is the completely and totally exhausting part of raiding for me. I have no trouble farming for mats, researching encounters, honing my skills, ensuring my gear is repaired and my bags are packed. I do have trouble finding the proper 25 toons at the right time. Several times a week.
Contrast this with PvP.
I've never really participated in open PvP, but how about pre-made Battlegrounds?
Some of the most fun I've had in WoW is playing in pre-made Battlegrounds.
Form up a raid group. Who really cares about composition. Sure, its nice to have a couple healers. Its nice to have some tanks for flag carrying or NPC tanking. But, if you get 10 hunters to show up? Why not give WSG a shot? Or enter EotS for a partial pre-made.
Or, how about if you get your perfect 15 players and you're rocking and rolling in AB? You've got a nice blend of classes, specs, whatever. And somebody's mom comes into their room and yells at them to get off the computer and clean up the mess they left in the kitchen?
If you're in a PvE raid, the raid will stall at best, or maybe even totally stop, dependent upon the specialized role of that player and the availability of subs.
Playing in a BG? Ok, maybe find a replacement, or maybe just let Blizzard fill in the spot for you.
With BG's you still suffer the issue that if you get too many players, somebody will have to sit. Sure, if you have 15, and another shows up, you can go play AV, but if you're specifically farming EotS, then somebody's out. Those left out are not exactly up sht's creek though, since they can just PuG BG while they wait for a pre-made spot to open up. But in theory, the'll be excluded from the Guild activity.
Now look at open PvP, like assaulting an enemy capital or sieging a Keep in Warhammer Online? The more the merrier. Come one, come all, lets go rumble.
The key to opening up PvE raiding to the masses will be to bridge this gap. Allowing 10-man versions of all the WotLK raids is a step in that its easier to find 10 than it is to find 25, but you still need specific roles, and if 11 show up, someone is going to be left out.
I couldn't agree more.
In PvE, you need a very specific number of players, and each encounter requires a very specific type of classes and gear levels. If you don't get enough people to show up, you can't raid. If you get enough people to show up, but they're all Hunters, you can't raid. If you get enough people to show up, but they've all got different levels of gear, you likely can't raid. If you get too many people show up, some people have to sit out. If you are half way through a raid and a player has to leave, unless you've got spares waiting around, your raid is done.
This aspect is the completely and totally exhausting part of raiding for me. I have no trouble farming for mats, researching encounters, honing my skills, ensuring my gear is repaired and my bags are packed. I do have trouble finding the proper 25 toons at the right time. Several times a week.
Contrast this with PvP.
I've never really participated in open PvP, but how about pre-made Battlegrounds?
Some of the most fun I've had in WoW is playing in pre-made Battlegrounds.
Form up a raid group. Who really cares about composition. Sure, its nice to have a couple healers. Its nice to have some tanks for flag carrying or NPC tanking. But, if you get 10 hunters to show up? Why not give WSG a shot? Or enter EotS for a partial pre-made.
Or, how about if you get your perfect 15 players and you're rocking and rolling in AB? You've got a nice blend of classes, specs, whatever. And somebody's mom comes into their room and yells at them to get off the computer and clean up the mess they left in the kitchen?
If you're in a PvE raid, the raid will stall at best, or maybe even totally stop, dependent upon the specialized role of that player and the availability of subs.
Playing in a BG? Ok, maybe find a replacement, or maybe just let Blizzard fill in the spot for you.
With BG's you still suffer the issue that if you get too many players, somebody will have to sit. Sure, if you have 15, and another shows up, you can go play AV, but if you're specifically farming EotS, then somebody's out. Those left out are not exactly up sht's creek though, since they can just PuG BG while they wait for a pre-made spot to open up. But in theory, the'll be excluded from the Guild activity.
Now look at open PvP, like assaulting an enemy capital or sieging a Keep in Warhammer Online? The more the merrier. Come one, come all, lets go rumble.
The key to opening up PvE raiding to the masses will be to bridge this gap. Allowing 10-man versions of all the WotLK raids is a step in that its easier to find 10 than it is to find 25, but you still need specific roles, and if 11 show up, someone is going to be left out.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Ranting about Arenas
I'll just throw this one out there.....
Blizzards Arena Matching System Blows.
Going into the week, my team started at around 1475. We should be fighting other players like us. Moderate-to-Decent gear, decent resil (369 and 411), got a handle on the basics of PvP, just not all that good at execution.
Why, oh why, do you pair us up with teams filled with Challengers, Gladiators, Rivals, Duelists, etc?
Why is there Hand of A'dal fighting the likes of us?
Sure, its the beginning of the season, so maybe they missed the first few weeks and are just starting out at 1500.
But Blizzard, shirley you cant be serious?
They need to incorporate a "Games Played" factor into their calculation. Since we hover around 1500, we will NEVER actually get accurate pairings, we'll always brandy new teams that are destined for 2000 and glory or 1200 and rerolling. Even this early in the season, our 40 games played should have Blizzard looking for someone near us in ranking and with at least a handful of games played. That would help separate us from the recently formed teams that are gross mismatches for us.
Oh, and don't even get me started on the agony that is three consecutive matches against double Challengers.
Here's my interpretation of how their ranking/queueing system should work:
1200-1300 coconuts dancing naked.
1300-1400 teams dancing with gear on.
1400-1500 people who are trying but have poor resil.
1500-1600 players who have done their homework in BG and have the resil, but not so much with the Arena skillz.
1600-1700 people who are pretty good, showing more coordination and mobility, as well as proper team composition.
1700-1850 now we're talkin'. these guys have an excellent grasp on using terrain, LoS, coordinated CC and focus fire, endurance matches rather than quick wins, exploiting opponent weakness while maximizing friendly strengths.
1850-2000 same as the previous bracket, only these guys have better twitch reflexes, faster reactions, better macros, just better execution.
2000+ should be for the best of the best. Maverick and Goose, Iceman and Slider,Aspect of the Viper and Jester of WoW.
One of the matches had a guy in S3 shoulders. S3 Shoulders? Means he had a 2000 or better rating last season or a 1950 or so rating this season. Stop queueing me up with these guys! They're clearly better than me. I don't need to get pwned to prove it.
Stop it! By playing dumb and pretending you can't sort out the teams a little better than your simplistic 1500-starting-point algorithm, you're making your customers hate you with a passion that burns with the heat of a thousandstuns suns.
Challenging matches, win or lose, are fun and invigorating. Blow outs, giving or receiving, are a mockery of my $15.
Unless the season starts to normalize, and teams start getting ranked and matched more properly, I think I'm gonna become a coconut dancing naked to cash in on my 250 points per week.
Blizzards Arena Matching System Blows.
Going into the week, my team started at around 1475. We should be fighting other players like us. Moderate-to-Decent gear, decent resil (369 and 411), got a handle on the basics of PvP, just not all that good at execution.
Why, oh why, do you pair us up with teams filled with Challengers, Gladiators, Rivals, Duelists, etc?
Why is there Hand of A'dal fighting the likes of us?
Sure, its the beginning of the season, so maybe they missed the first few weeks and are just starting out at 1500.
But Blizzard, shirley you cant be serious?
They need to incorporate a "Games Played" factor into their calculation. Since we hover around 1500, we will NEVER actually get accurate pairings, we'll always brandy new teams that are destined for 2000 and glory or 1200 and rerolling. Even this early in the season, our 40 games played should have Blizzard looking for someone near us in ranking and with at least a handful of games played. That would help separate us from the recently formed teams that are gross mismatches for us.
Oh, and don't even get me started on the agony that is three consecutive matches against double Challengers.
Here's my interpretation of how their ranking/queueing system should work:
1200-1300 coconuts dancing naked.
1300-1400 teams dancing with gear on.
1400-1500 people who are trying but have poor resil.
1500-1600 players who have done their homework in BG and have the resil, but not so much with the Arena skillz.
1600-1700 people who are pretty good, showing more coordination and mobility, as well as proper team composition.
1700-1850 now we're talkin'. these guys have an excellent grasp on using terrain, LoS, coordinated CC and focus fire, endurance matches rather than quick wins, exploiting opponent weakness while maximizing friendly strengths.
1850-2000 same as the previous bracket, only these guys have better twitch reflexes, faster reactions, better macros, just better execution.
2000+ should be for the best of the best. Maverick and Goose, Iceman and Slider,
One of the matches had a guy in S3 shoulders. S3 Shoulders? Means he had a 2000 or better rating last season or a 1950 or so rating this season. Stop queueing me up with these guys! They're clearly better than me. I don't need to get pwned to prove it.
Stop it! By playing dumb and pretending you can't sort out the teams a little better than your simplistic 1500-starting-point algorithm, you're making your customers hate you with a passion that burns with the heat of a thousand
Challenging matches, win or lose, are fun and invigorating. Blow outs, giving or receiving, are a mockery of my $15.
Unless the season starts to normalize, and teams start getting ranked and matched more properly, I think I'm gonna become a coconut dancing naked to cash in on my 250 points per week.
Friday, July 11, 2008
A tale of two BG's
Hot on the trail of 70 Arathi Basin Marks of Honor, Amava's been spending all her non-raid time in the Battlegrounds.
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 awfulgear money grind I call work. Conclusion: lets mix things up.
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.
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.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Oopsie, you forgot your tokens
I get on Amava for some early morning battlegrounds. Hoping to complete the daily, Eye of the Storm.
I'm about 2k honor away from the Guardian's belt which will be a PvP and PvE improvement for me, thus prime candidate for next gear upgrade.
Nail EotS with 3 quick 4-caps and one hard fought victory, in which yours truly capped 4 flags, as the team was clearly going for the 2-cap-plus-flags strategy. There was much rejoicing.
Port on over to Stormwind, mount up and ride over to the PvP Vendor house, nearly falling into the canal along the way, because I like to cut the corner and jump off the bridge, but I'm still a clutz.
Happily talk to the vendor with the Guardian's loot.
He says "kk, that'll be 17k-ish honor and 40 AB tokens, please".
Doh. Silly tokens. Brb, they're in the bank.
Double Doh. I've only got 18.
Coconut that I am, I recently exchanged about 30 or so sets of four tokens for honor in that repeatable quest. Major brainfart in an effort to get a necklace quickly. Totally lost sight of what my future needs would be. Gotta love impulsive decisions in search of instant gratification.
So now I'll be hitting all AB, all the time. I need a total of 70 tokens for the S2 Helm and the Guardian's Belt. Uggy uggy uggy.
I'm about 2k honor away from the Guardian's belt which will be a PvP and PvE improvement for me, thus prime candidate for next gear upgrade.
Nail EotS with 3 quick 4-caps and one hard fought victory, in which yours truly capped 4 flags, as the team was clearly going for the 2-cap-plus-flags strategy. There was much rejoicing.
Port on over to Stormwind, mount up and ride over to the PvP Vendor house, nearly falling into the canal along the way, because I like to cut the corner and jump off the bridge, but I'm still a clutz.
Happily talk to the vendor with the Guardian's loot.
He says "kk, that'll be 17k-ish honor and 40 AB tokens, please".
Doh. Silly tokens. Brb, they're in the bank.
Double Doh. I've only got 18.
Coconut that I am, I recently exchanged about 30 or so sets of four tokens for honor in that repeatable quest. Major brainfart in an effort to get a necklace quickly. Totally lost sight of what my future needs would be. Gotta love impulsive decisions in search of instant gratification.
So now I'll be hitting all AB, all the time. I need a total of 70 tokens for the S2 Helm and the Guardian's Belt. Uggy uggy uggy.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
When will S4 Normalize?
Mini-rant.
When the f will the S4 ratings sorta normalize so I can play against opponents that are realistically matched to me?
In week 1, we rose to 1549. Right, 1 point shy of qualifying for some nicer gear.
So, going into week 2, we expected to face slightly better opponents, what with being slightly above 1500, where every Tom, Dick, and Gladdy(ator) is starting out.
Played 11 matches.
5 were against Contenders.
3 were against Hand of A'dals
1 was a disconnect where the other team didn't even show up, insta-victory but no rating change.
1 was against a single toon, lordy knows where his opponent was.
So basically, out of 11 matches, exactly one was against what I would consider to be a realistic opponent for us. Long, hard fought victory, seemingly well matched in gear and skill.
I wonder how many weeks it'll take before the teams that're on their way to 1800 or better are out of our bracket, and we're left with the average-ish folks like ourselves.
If we hover around 1500, are we forever destined to be mismatched, since anybody who starts a team will be at that rating? Or will the S4 change to Personal Rating and Team Rating matchups fix this as the season progresses?
When the f will the S4 ratings sorta normalize so I can play against opponents that are realistically matched to me?
In week 1, we rose to 1549. Right, 1 point shy of qualifying for some nicer gear.
So, going into week 2, we expected to face slightly better opponents, what with being slightly above 1500, where every Tom, Dick, and Gladdy(ator) is starting out.
Played 11 matches.
5 were against Contenders.
3 were against Hand of A'dals
1 was a disconnect where the other team didn't even show up, insta-victory but no rating change.
1 was against a single toon, lordy knows where his opponent was.
So basically, out of 11 matches, exactly one was against what I would consider to be a realistic opponent for us. Long, hard fought victory, seemingly well matched in gear and skill.
I wonder how many weeks it'll take before the teams that're on their way to 1800 or better are out of our bracket, and we're left with the average-ish folks like ourselves.
If we hover around 1500, are we forever destined to be mismatched, since anybody who starts a team will be at that rating? Or will the S4 change to Personal Rating and Team Rating matchups fix this as the season progresses?
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Calling PPL Out in BG
When a Battleground is first starting up, you are typically bombarded by a few different comments.
The best (read: worst) is the various requests for Mage tables and Warlock stones. Yeah, as if the Mages and 'Locks didn't know you were hungry.
You also get the discussions about how well your faction has been doing in BG lately.
Then you get the strategists.
Some times its a macro guy with about 15 lines of text dumped into chat via a macro, completely bombarding the team, and largely ignored.
There's also the guy who gives short, succinct strategy, that is largely constructive, however small the team's reaction is. This is the guy with "G1 FR, G2 DR, G3 MT, ignore flag until 3 cap".
And then there's my favorite guy.
He's the one who tells us a specific strategy, usually in a simple, nice format. But he says it in a way that, for some reason, you just have zero confidence that he's following his own advice.
Running AV. Shortly after the gate opens and we're all trotting on over to our initial objectives (probably Galv, and not RH or IBGY, but that's neither here nor there).
This guy opens up with "4 people guard each of IBT and TP till they cap".
I don't know what bugged me about it, but I just felt that he was asking people to do something that he, himself, was unwilling to do.
Poo poo.
So I'm all "[Guy], which tower will you be guarding?"
He's all...silent.
We kill Galv. I notice on my mini-map that [Guy] is pretty stationary near FWGY. FWGY? Uggy.
So I'm all "[Guy], sorry, I didn't catch which tower you were guarding. I'd like to help you out."
He's all "I got ganked on my way to the tower".
I'm all "700 yards south of TP?"
He's all...silent.
Alliance ends up losing the BG.
Queue up. See same [Guy] in the Battleground.
Before it starts, I'm all "I'll be guarding TP and [Guy] will be in IBT. We'd love 2 players to join each of us to hold until cap"
He's all...silent.
BUT, sure as sht, he went to IBT, and I went to TP. A couple brave folks joined each of us. We held both until they blew up.
[Guy] did a great job, called out INC, stayed until cap.
Alliance went on to win the BG.
Long story short, practice what you preach.
The best (read: worst) is the various requests for Mage tables and Warlock stones. Yeah, as if the Mages and 'Locks didn't know you were hungry.
You also get the discussions about how well your faction has been doing in BG lately.
Then you get the strategists.
Some times its a macro guy with about 15 lines of text dumped into chat via a macro, completely bombarding the team, and largely ignored.
There's also the guy who gives short, succinct strategy, that is largely constructive, however small the team's reaction is. This is the guy with "G1 FR, G2 DR, G3 MT, ignore flag until 3 cap".
And then there's my favorite guy.
He's the one who tells us a specific strategy, usually in a simple, nice format. But he says it in a way that, for some reason, you just have zero confidence that he's following his own advice.
Running AV. Shortly after the gate opens and we're all trotting on over to our initial objectives (probably Galv, and not RH or IBGY, but that's neither here nor there).
This guy opens up with "4 people guard each of IBT and TP till they cap".
I don't know what bugged me about it, but I just felt that he was asking people to do something that he, himself, was unwilling to do.
Poo poo.
So I'm all "[Guy], which tower will you be guarding?"
He's all...silent.
We kill Galv. I notice on my mini-map that [Guy] is pretty stationary near FWGY. FWGY? Uggy.
So I'm all "[Guy], sorry, I didn't catch which tower you were guarding. I'd like to help you out."
He's all "I got ganked on my way to the tower".
I'm all "700 yards south of TP?"
He's all...silent.
Alliance ends up losing the BG.
Queue up. See same [Guy] in the Battleground.
Before it starts, I'm all "I'll be guarding TP and [Guy] will be in IBT. We'd love 2 players to join each of us to hold until cap"
He's all...silent.
BUT, sure as sht, he went to IBT, and I went to TP. A couple brave folks joined each of us. We held both until they blew up.
[Guy] did a great job, called out INC, stayed until cap.
Alliance went on to win the BG.
Long story short, practice what you preach.
Monday, July 7, 2008
PvP teaches better PvE
Ooh, ooh. I see a little common thread going around the community, and look at me, chipping in rather than just looking over at the cool kids, hating on them like in Jr. High School.
So BBB, and Great Green Hunter, and Resto4Life have a little conversational thread going about PvP. I think it all started when BBB exploded in a tirade that only he can deliver in such an entertaining way. To sum up, he was having a little struggle with the fact that for most players at end-game now, if you don't PvP, you are missing out on gear that's an upgrade. And not just an upgrade, but an UPGRADE.
Bottom line for me was that I started actively doing PvP when Season 3 came out. I wasn't around for Season 1, and when S2 came out, I was still figuring out what's what about level 70. Season 3 came out and the Axe was just too juicy. How can I call it PvP if I'm just showing up to lose for one hour a week, four weeks, and I've got my axe.
Well, as it would turn out, the competitive side in me didn't like just showing up to lose. So I showed up to win. I lost anyway, but the spirit became infectious.
I started BG'ing to get my resil up. Along the way, I discovered the PvP Gear Vendors and saw all this shiny stuff that would be big upgrades in PvE also, namely the Vindicator's set.
Kept at the 10 weekly arena games. Slowly got better. Very slowly. Kept at the BG's until I had everything I wanted from them. Then only did BG for fun, which means not a whole lot, but rather a game here or there.
S4 comes out. Lots of new gear available. I'm back in the BG's hardcore, trying to grind out everything that's a PvE upgrade, followed by fleshing out my PvP set, such that I'll do better in Arenas, which will allow me to access more of the PvE upgrade stuff available from Arenas. Dizzy yet?
Either way, back to the topic. I think I might need to change the title because I"m all over the place.
Besides gear, and lots of fun, and lots of frustration, I think PvP has improved my PvE skills.
Most specifically when things go wrong.
Running a Heroic. Chain pulling to get through it fast, your tank isnt waiting for your trap cooldowns to be perfect every time. Trap resists. What do you do?
Before honing skills in PvP: run like crazy, shout wildly, maybe run away from your tank and towards you healer, and feign death.
After honing skills in PvP: wing clip, run away from healers to a safe zone, when wing clip expires, if your trap isnt ready yet, concussive shot, drop trap, wham-o, frozen turkey, run all the way across the battle field (arcane shotting and serpent stinging the skull along the way), and wait for your trap cooldown to expire.
That's one example, but I think that generally, PvP helps players learn how to use their toon's capabilities when things go wrong. In PvP, its always going wrong because humans don't follow the nice and neat aggro rules that mobs do. But they do generally follow some basics.
If you start whacking on a rogue or warrior or even some druids, they're generally going to follow you. In mobs, we call it aggro. With humans, I dunno, its some kind of stubbornness or competitiveness, but they do generally follow you around. Kite them. Wing clip, frost trap, concussive shot. Do your best to stay at max range, and many humans will behave exactly like a mob.
You can even make them change direction. If you're kiting a warrior away from a flag in AB, and find that you're getting too far from the action, drop a frost trap, wait for him to trigger it, then turn around and run right through him, wing clipping along the way. Just like a mob, you'll often find these players turning around to follow you, as if you're on top of their aggro table.
So for me, in many situations, handling a mob and handling a human can be some what similar, and my raiding team benefits from the fact that I have trained in PvP.
So BBB, and Great Green Hunter, and Resto4Life have a little conversational thread going about PvP. I think it all started when BBB exploded in a tirade that only he can deliver in such an entertaining way. To sum up, he was having a little struggle with the fact that for most players at end-game now, if you don't PvP, you are missing out on gear that's an upgrade. And not just an upgrade, but an UPGRADE.
Bottom line for me was that I started actively doing PvP when Season 3 came out. I wasn't around for Season 1, and when S2 came out, I was still figuring out what's what about level 70. Season 3 came out and the Axe was just too juicy. How can I call it PvP if I'm just showing up to lose for one hour a week, four weeks, and I've got my axe.
Well, as it would turn out, the competitive side in me didn't like just showing up to lose. So I showed up to win. I lost anyway, but the spirit became infectious.
I started BG'ing to get my resil up. Along the way, I discovered the PvP Gear Vendors and saw all this shiny stuff that would be big upgrades in PvE also, namely the Vindicator's set.
Kept at the 10 weekly arena games. Slowly got better. Very slowly. Kept at the BG's until I had everything I wanted from them. Then only did BG for fun, which means not a whole lot, but rather a game here or there.
S4 comes out. Lots of new gear available. I'm back in the BG's hardcore, trying to grind out everything that's a PvE upgrade, followed by fleshing out my PvP set, such that I'll do better in Arenas, which will allow me to access more of the PvE upgrade stuff available from Arenas. Dizzy yet?
Either way, back to the topic. I think I might need to change the title because I"m all over the place.
Besides gear, and lots of fun, and lots of frustration, I think PvP has improved my PvE skills.
Most specifically when things go wrong.
Running a Heroic. Chain pulling to get through it fast, your tank isnt waiting for your trap cooldowns to be perfect every time. Trap resists. What do you do?
Before honing skills in PvP: run like crazy, shout wildly, maybe run away from your tank and towards you healer, and feign death.
After honing skills in PvP: wing clip, run away from healers to a safe zone, when wing clip expires, if your trap isnt ready yet, concussive shot, drop trap, wham-o, frozen turkey, run all the way across the battle field (arcane shotting and serpent stinging the skull along the way), and wait for your trap cooldown to expire.
That's one example, but I think that generally, PvP helps players learn how to use their toon's capabilities when things go wrong. In PvP, its always going wrong because humans don't follow the nice and neat aggro rules that mobs do. But they do generally follow some basics.
If you start whacking on a rogue or warrior or even some druids, they're generally going to follow you. In mobs, we call it aggro. With humans, I dunno, its some kind of stubbornness or competitiveness, but they do generally follow you around. Kite them. Wing clip, frost trap, concussive shot. Do your best to stay at max range, and many humans will behave exactly like a mob.
You can even make them change direction. If you're kiting a warrior away from a flag in AB, and find that you're getting too far from the action, drop a frost trap, wait for him to trigger it, then turn around and run right through him, wing clipping along the way. Just like a mob, you'll often find these players turning around to follow you, as if you're on top of their aggro table.
So for me, in many situations, handling a mob and handling a human can be some what similar, and my raiding team benefits from the fact that I have trained in PvP.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Uber Premade
With the release of Season 4, I've been hitting the battlegrounds harder than usual. Assuming my Arena rating stays below 1575, which I have every reason to belive it will, I started the weekend with my eyes on 5 pieces of gear from BGs.
Getting ready to start off my saturday afternoon grind, I log in and nearly immediately see a message in Trade that somebody's assembling a premade. The name caught my eye as familiar. I checked my friends list only to discover that this person was an enchanter who I had do some work for me months ago. At that time, she was raiding Mt Hyjal, and aparently since then, has cruised through just about everything anybody on my server has been through.
So I join this team of 15 PvP'ers. For the first time in my WoW end-game career, I was by far and away the least geared in the group. Checking the armory, most of the group was in arena teams rated higher than 1850. Most entirely equipped in full S3 gear, with the only non S3 stuff being the S4 pieces they've already picked up.
For the next 3 hours, we went on to have the best time I think I've ever had in a large group setting in WoW.
On the surface, we started off with a bunch of 2000/0 EotS wins. While amusing, and nice for quick honor and marks, this became quite silly.
But then the Blizzard Queuing Mechanism kicked in and started pairing us up with other premades.
And the battles became epic. EPIC.
Outstanding coordination, faking advances at one node, then mass marching at another. Quick reactions to calls of incoming Horde. Nearly zero meaningless fighting in No Man's Land. Healers. Actual flesh and blood healers. Playing for Alliance. And getting into the action and healing ppl.
I was blown away by how much fun these fights were. We only lost two matches the entire 3 hours, and most of the games were hard fought wins against other good teams, not just steamrolling PUGs.
And I was equally blown away by the 8k honor I racked up in 3 hours.
Ended the weekend with a shiny new set of S2 shoulders, which look fantastic, and a new Seargant's Heavy Cloak, thus rounding out my PvP set, as the cloak was the only slot I didn't have a dedicated resilience piece for.
Assuming my Arena rating stays where it is, I'm looking at Guardian's Belt, S2 Helm, S2 Chest and then I can relax on the BG's.
Getting ready to start off my saturday afternoon grind, I log in and nearly immediately see a message in Trade that somebody's assembling a premade. The name caught my eye as familiar. I checked my friends list only to discover that this person was an enchanter who I had do some work for me months ago. At that time, she was raiding Mt Hyjal, and aparently since then, has cruised through just about everything anybody on my server has been through.
So I join this team of 15 PvP'ers. For the first time in my WoW end-game career, I was by far and away the least geared in the group. Checking the armory, most of the group was in arena teams rated higher than 1850. Most entirely equipped in full S3 gear, with the only non S3 stuff being the S4 pieces they've already picked up.
For the next 3 hours, we went on to have the best time I think I've ever had in a large group setting in WoW.
On the surface, we started off with a bunch of 2000/0 EotS wins. While amusing, and nice for quick honor and marks, this became quite silly.
But then the Blizzard Queuing Mechanism kicked in and started pairing us up with other premades.
And the battles became epic. EPIC.
Outstanding coordination, faking advances at one node, then mass marching at another. Quick reactions to calls of incoming Horde. Nearly zero meaningless fighting in No Man's Land. Healers. Actual flesh and blood healers. Playing for Alliance. And getting into the action and healing ppl.
I was blown away by how much fun these fights were. We only lost two matches the entire 3 hours, and most of the games were hard fought wins against other good teams, not just steamrolling PUGs.
And I was equally blown away by the 8k honor I racked up in 3 hours.
Ended the weekend with a shiny new set of S2 shoulders, which look fantastic, and a new Seargant's Heavy Cloak, thus rounding out my PvP set, as the cloak was the only slot I didn't have a dedicated resilience piece for.
Assuming my Arena rating stays where it is, I'm looking at Guardian's Belt, S2 Helm, S2 Chest and then I can relax on the BG's.
Friday, June 13, 2008
How can we suck so much?
I wish I had some screen shots to back this up, but oh well. You're gonna have to trust me on this. Its not like I'm trying to sell you a bridge here.
Played a few AV and AB matches recently to start piling up the Honor to replace my Vindicator's gear starting two weeks from now when the Guardian set becomes available.
Joined up with my 2v2 teammate and went into these BG's as a group.
I cannot begin to explain how much we dominated each and every BG we entered.
It made me so ashamed at our 1517 rating after 81 arena matches played (yes, we took a month or two off in the middle of Season 3).
Example: Arathi Basin
The two of us open up the game by capping the Blacksmith. Small skirmish, defeat off a few Hordies, take the node. Horde moves on to cap the remaining 4 nodes.
This pissed us off.
So we left BS undefended and sauntered on up to the Farm and captured it. There were 6 Horde when we got there. None of them bugged out and ran off. They all died. Two rez'd, came back in, and died again. It was just me and my partner.
We continued to move node to node. GM. ST. LM. Back to Farm. BS. Outnumbered at nearly every node we approached. Just the two of us. Captured the node every single time.
Went the entire AB without dying. He led the healing meters by triple the nearest Alliance player. Amava led the damage by more than double. Alliance won the game, after starting off being 4-capped.
Example: Alterac Valley #1
Other than when stuck behind a turtle and not feeling like doing a corpse run (/crossfingers that they'll not pick up my insignia, and let me rez at my corpse), I rarely play defense in AV.
My buddy says he wants to try it out. kk. The two of us head into Belinda's house. I think it was Belinda. The Alliance equivalent of Galv. We're the only two Allies in there, besides the NPCs.
Masses of Horde show up to kill her.
Nope. Wave after wave after wave after wave of Horde died. Nobody thought to target the two of us. He kept healing Bel, I kept killing Horde healers.
Horde was down to 150 resources by the time they gave up and stopped attacking her.
The healing and damage report was off the chart. The closest Ally to my damage output was 100k less than me. The nearest healer on either team had only a fraction of the healing output.
Example: Alterac Valley #2
Giddy off of the defensive victory, we decided to bring the fight to our enemy.
Went straight to IBGY. Piled up a stack of Horde corpses this high (visual cue: hand held out to the side, indicating a pile shoulder height. and my shoulders are abnormally far from the ground). By the time the rest of the Alliance killed off Galv, IBGY had actually capped.
Moved on to defend TP. Just us two. A constant stream of incoming Horde. Dead. Several minutes of nearly continuous combat up in that little room in the tower. TP blows up.
Run along to discover the entire Alliance offense is doing the silly little dance at FWGY. You know the one. The totally useless mass of bodies doing nothing else besides illustrating their complete and total inability to see something shiny (like some Horde) and not reach out for it (or go fight it).
So the two of us trot on past. This time, a random stranger (warrior tank, ftw) saw us going and joined in. The three of us went on to cap RHGY, cap both FW towers, fight off several horde trying to get through the gate and reclaim their towers, and then we went on to initiate the fight against Drek. We had him down to 55-ish % before any additional Alliance players made their way into the fight.
Even given the obscene mass slaughter in mid field near the FWGY, and even with keeping each and every shot I fired aimed at claiming or defending a strategic objective, I led the damage output by a large margin. And even though my friend healed primarily himself, Amava, Ruby the Boar, or our Warrior friend, healing was far and away the tops.
This one was actually pretty nasty, and Alliance won with 22 reinforcements to spare. But OOOOOHHHHH did it feel good.
So what's your point?
We understand, Amava, you've got a tiny doo-dad and need to make up for it by bragging about your conquests on the virtual battlefield, right?
Well, yeah, that.
But, wtf? Clearly we have some ability at PVP.
How in the hell has it been so hard for us to squeak our way above 1500 in arenas?
I'm not expecting 2000 or something outrageous, but 1600? Is that really that far fetched?
How can we possibly suck that much?
Played a few AV and AB matches recently to start piling up the Honor to replace my Vindicator's gear starting two weeks from now when the Guardian set becomes available.
Joined up with my 2v2 teammate and went into these BG's as a group.
I cannot begin to explain how much we dominated each and every BG we entered.
It made me so ashamed at our 1517 rating after 81 arena matches played (yes, we took a month or two off in the middle of Season 3).
Example: Arathi Basin
The two of us open up the game by capping the Blacksmith. Small skirmish, defeat off a few Hordies, take the node. Horde moves on to cap the remaining 4 nodes.
This pissed us off.
So we left BS undefended and sauntered on up to the Farm and captured it. There were 6 Horde when we got there. None of them bugged out and ran off. They all died. Two rez'd, came back in, and died again. It was just me and my partner.
We continued to move node to node. GM. ST. LM. Back to Farm. BS. Outnumbered at nearly every node we approached. Just the two of us. Captured the node every single time.
Went the entire AB without dying. He led the healing meters by triple the nearest Alliance player. Amava led the damage by more than double. Alliance won the game, after starting off being 4-capped.
Example: Alterac Valley #1
Other than when stuck behind a turtle and not feeling like doing a corpse run (/crossfingers that they'll not pick up my insignia, and let me rez at my corpse), I rarely play defense in AV.
My buddy says he wants to try it out. kk. The two of us head into Belinda's house. I think it was Belinda. The Alliance equivalent of Galv. We're the only two Allies in there, besides the NPCs.
Masses of Horde show up to kill her.
Nope. Wave after wave after wave after wave of Horde died. Nobody thought to target the two of us. He kept healing Bel, I kept killing Horde healers.
Horde was down to 150 resources by the time they gave up and stopped attacking her.
The healing and damage report was off the chart. The closest Ally to my damage output was 100k less than me. The nearest healer on either team had only a fraction of the healing output.
Example: Alterac Valley #2
Giddy off of the defensive victory, we decided to bring the fight to our enemy.
Went straight to IBGY. Piled up a stack of Horde corpses this high (visual cue: hand held out to the side, indicating a pile shoulder height. and my shoulders are abnormally far from the ground). By the time the rest of the Alliance killed off Galv, IBGY had actually capped.
Moved on to defend TP. Just us two. A constant stream of incoming Horde. Dead. Several minutes of nearly continuous combat up in that little room in the tower. TP blows up.
Run along to discover the entire Alliance offense is doing the silly little dance at FWGY. You know the one. The totally useless mass of bodies doing nothing else besides illustrating their complete and total inability to see something shiny (like some Horde) and not reach out for it (or go fight it).
So the two of us trot on past. This time, a random stranger (warrior tank, ftw) saw us going and joined in. The three of us went on to cap RHGY, cap both FW towers, fight off several horde trying to get through the gate and reclaim their towers, and then we went on to initiate the fight against Drek. We had him down to 55-ish % before any additional Alliance players made their way into the fight.
Even given the obscene mass slaughter in mid field near the FWGY, and even with keeping each and every shot I fired aimed at claiming or defending a strategic objective, I led the damage output by a large margin. And even though my friend healed primarily himself, Amava, Ruby the Boar, or our Warrior friend, healing was far and away the tops.
This one was actually pretty nasty, and Alliance won with 22 reinforcements to spare. But OOOOOHHHHH did it feel good.
So what's your point?
We understand, Amava, you've got a tiny doo-dad and need to make up for it by bragging about your conquests on the virtual battlefield, right?
Well, yeah, that.
But, wtf? Clearly we have some ability at PVP.
How in the hell has it been so hard for us to squeak our way above 1500 in arenas?
I'm not expecting 2000 or something outrageous, but 1600? Is that really that far fetched?
How can we possibly suck that much?
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