Battleground Common Sense

So, I finished the weekend just dinging level 69 on Lirys. Last night, I decided to watch House M.D., so I only got a few battlegrounds in. I ended up doing two more this morning, before work, and hitting level 70. The rest of my “pre-work” time was spent flying out to Tanaris to talk to the Legacy Arena vendors, and getting outfitted in my Brutal Gladiator’s set. This evening, I’ll be doing enchants, gemming, etc., before I set out on the next leg of the my climb to 85.

The weekend was pretty frustrating at times. More and more, I found myself wanting to do what I despise, and go off on teammates because of just plain lack of common sense. If there’s one thing worse than someone who hasn’t a clue what to do in a battleground, and refuses to spend a half hour reading any one of the hundreds of posts on the subject, it’s someone who obviously has read those posts, and then turns off their brain.

Motivation

So, in a reply to my last post, Repgrind mentioned that she now has four  85s, and some nights runs a heroic on each, and that pretty much kills the entire night.  It reminded me of a thought the other day that I had. How does she do it, and not get burnt out???

I played Lajos (now Layjos) for a couple years straight, almost exclusively. Some drama hit, and about August or so of last year, I found my enthusiasm for WoW completely gone. I decided to take a break, and wait for Cataclysm to come out. So Cataclysm hit, I ended up doing a server transfer, and I’m still finding my enthusiasm for the mage to be lagging. I’ve got 50+ mounts, 75+ pets, and a ton of titles. Lots and lots of work into that toon, and I’ve decided I’m pretty much done for now. If our guild starts raiding, I’ll be available, and Caraway and I have discussed arena, but my “minute to minute” motivation isn’t centered around the mage.

Enter my gnomie-lock. I’ve been having a ball, as I’ve expressed in my last couple posts. So obviously, my WoW-mojo isn’t gone. So I have to come to the conclusion that I’m just burnt out on the mage. Which leads me back to Repgrind’s remark. She has choices, options, and apparently, that helps buffer the burn-out. Pretty obvious, actually.

So, I indicated before that I thought affliction was over my head at the moment, and besides, I was enjoying the boom factor of destruction.  But, in doing research, I came across some things that really resonated with me, and last night, I decided to flip back over to affliction. I saw one statement in particular, that really resonated to me: You should be pulling targets to you, not running to them. And yes, I’ve remarked on it before, my biggest problem in battlegrounds is I get so gung-ho team-wise that I charge in, find my teammates dead, and find myself facing multiple opponents, and that doesn’t usually go well. That simple statement – and yes, a lot of hours in the battlegrounds – brought it into focus for me.

Probably my biggest “BOO-YA!” moment last night was in EotS. We grabbed Mage Tower, and Draenei Ruins off the bat, and set about going after the flag. I used my handy dandy telescope to zoom in on Fel Reiver, and saw all the Hordies there bail, and head towards the flag. So, I mounted up, and headed out, and did a solo capture. Yeah, I knew there had to be a rogue around somewhere, and sure enough, he opened on me. I trinketed, jumped, Death Coiled him to get some space, tossed Curse of Exhaustion on him, and dotted him up, and finished him off. He came back less than a minute later, and died again. Then he brought a friend. By that time, I’d used my Healthstone, and my cooldowns weren’t cleared yet. I died, but by that time, some teammates were arriving on the scene, and cleaned up my mess.

Moments like these are a joy. It isn’t about an arena rating, or how good I am, or how good the opponent was or wasn’t, it’s about the realization setting in “I can do this!” At this point in time, every time I beat an opponent, I tend to shrug it off as “he must not have been very good”. It’s going to take awhile for me to be comfortable saying “Yeah, I pwned him that time.” But it’s coming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Putting the “War” in Warlock

Blame in on Repgrind. She led me into temptation, and pointed me to The Dark Side.

Last spring, she asked me to play a warlock in the Arena Tournament, to fill out a 3s team with her and Fiak. At that point, I had played a little lock (no pun intended), but I was primarily focused on mage. I decided, what the hey, why not? We got in our 50 matches, got our pets, it wasn’t pretty, but it worked.

While I was boning up on lock, I started playing Liris, on Winterhoof. One of the things I discovered, in passing, was how much fun battlegrounds are with a warlock. So, after working my disc priest up into the 50s, and finding myself lost trying to heal in battlegrounds, I decided I wanted to play my little gnomie-lock again. “Liris” was taken, so she became Lirys Only now, the battleground brackets are 5 levels wide, and start at level 10. I didn’t start at 10, as I was on a questing roll, but soon thereafter, and from that point, probably 80% of her experience has come from battlegrounds. She rolled into this weekend at 51 or 52, and last night, I finished up at 62, pretty much all of it in battlegrounds. Over this last week, I did some of the holiday quests, turned in a few charm bracelets, and had Nick run me through Stratholme, in search of a couple nice gear items (what is with the plate and mail drops???), but other than that, it’s pretty much been all battlegrounds, all the time. By the time I hit 60, I had over 5000 honorable kills, and enough honor to buy the Field Marshal’s Threads, my second set of Dryad’s Wrist Bindings, after having bought most of the useful PvP gear up to that point, and still have a couple thousand honor left over. I snagged a Felheart Belt off the Auction House, and the Grand Marshal’s Mageblade and the Grand Marshal’s Tome of Power as well, and jumped into the new bracket, with almost double the health.

After a few battlegrounds, I’m contemplating dropping back to my Grand Staff of Jordan for the extra resilience. There was a hunter on my team talking about his 8K crits, and I was getting outright owned by rogues, so I need to look at more damage mitigation.

Somewhere along the way, I got the idea of leveling completely through the battlegrounds. Blizzard has made this a viable option, for the most part. With my two BoA pieces, plus the 5% bonus from our guild, a winning Alterac Valley would yield over 50k experience around level 50. Even dropping those two pieces, a losing AB or EotS is giving me 9k experience. The best part? Instead of spending my time doing quest chains – some of which, I hasten to add, are simply awesome – I can spend my time at the auction house, leveling professions, or reading, all while queued for a random battleground. So while not necessarily being the fastest or most efficient way to level, it may be more efficient overall.

The biggest problem, of course, is gear disparity. There are relatively few PvP pieces available on the way up, and they fall in level increments of 10. Of course, at lower levels, resilience isn’t as critical as it is at higher levels. I just stacked lots of stamina, and had Layjos make a trip out to Old Hillsbrad once in awhile to fill up a couple bags with Rumsey Rum Black Label every so often, and all in all, I generally do pretty good. Once DKs entered the picture at the 55-59 bracket, things got tricker, as a leveling lock has very few escape mechanisms. Essentially, I’ve got a 5 minute trinket, and a 3 minute escape with Death Coil. Fear? Too long a cast time when a rogue is carving you up, or a DK/pally/warrior is chopping you into kindling. Howl of Terror, likewise, unless you spec it to insta-cast via Affliction.

I struggled with Affliction, though. For Affliction to really rock, you have to DoT everything in sight. I’ve always had a problem with tab-targeting in general, and the Soul-Swap Inhale/Exhale mechanic isn’t going to really shine if you’re not using it. Additionally, on the way up, not all the spells were there yet. I decided at 30 to try Destro, and liked it. My off-spec is still Affliction, though, so I’ll be playing it occasionally.

Back to gear. At level 85, you can buy a full set of PvP gear with honor, before going for the Arena sets. On the way up, however, you have very few choices, as far as outright PvP gear goes. Almost invariably, you’re going to have to run instances or do quests for gear.  Which takes time away from the battlegrounds and other stuff. Here’s the rub… Lirys is 62 right now. Just doing BGs in the evening, I’m pretty confident I can get her to 65 in a night or two. On the other hand, if I spend that time doing LFG, I may get a couple nice pieces of gear (or I may get drops that aren’t any good to me), I may get a couple of levels, I may… you get the picture. Oh, and I may catch a ration of shit from the other people in the random who see PvP gear, and automatically assume you’re going to .  Yes, what she’s wearing are PvP  pieces. However, if I go out on Wowhead, and do a find upgrade for any of those set pieces, most of what I’m seeing is “drops in Ruins of Ahn Qiraj” or “Drops in Blood Furnace”. Here and there, I see “quests – Zangarmarsh”, but those are a minority. And don’t forget, that’s with the PvE stat weighting. Just out of curiosity, I’ve done a few comparisons with other warlocks of similar level off of WoWHead, making sure on the Wowarmory that they’re still active. Lirys Health, Mana, and Spellpower, in general, compare favorably to locks at least a couple levels greater.

In the short term, I have an easy choice. I can go out to Hellfire in the mornings, and do the world PvP quest to get Honor Hold Marks of Honor, and get the Circlet of the Victor and the Band of the Victor. I could go for the Seal of the Exorcist, however, it costs 50 Spirit Shards. Which can only be gained from running Auchindoin instances, and then only when the 5 towers are in Alliance Hands. Um, no thanks. Not good bang for the buck. By the time I get 50 Spirit Shards, I’ll be knocking on level 70.  So, it looks like I’m going to be spending time in Hellfire. Assuming, of course, there’s anyone on the Horde side capturing the towers back.

Long term, it gets harder, and I can only think that this is going to be the norm from here on out.  Get to the “zero” level (i.e. 60,70,80) and get the new set, then augment with off-set pieces from the auction house, or specific quests that I can knock out quickly.

I’ve been giving thought to professions, as well. Initially, I took engineering, for the “gadget” factor. However, when it gets right down to it, I’ve been a bit disappointed with it for PvP. I have yet to notice a real effect from bombs in a battleground. The engineering headpieces are great, if you’re twinking, but for a profession that is damnably expensive to level, it hasn’t been really helpful. Nitro-boosts/rocket boots are awesome for getting away – if you have  a chance to pop them in time, and you can’t carry a flag with them, and you can’t use them in an Arena. To be honest, it may be me. In the heat of combat, bombs, etc. are just one more thing that my mental “what do I do next” sub-routine has to do. I’m going to make a point to think ahead, and fling more bombs over the next few evenings, and see if maybe I’ve just been doing it wrong.

Alchemy, on the other hand, has served me well.  Something as cheap and simple as a Swiftness Potion, for example. I can’t wait until I can make and use elixirs that last through death. Bang for the buck. And best of all, with the exception of something like Swiftness, you have time to consciously think about what you’re doing.

Given the way I’m playing this toon, I’m thinking  taking up herbalism would make more sense. It’s relatively quick and cheap to level, and I can do it while I’m waiting for the queue to pop. I can make money off of it, and support my alchemy. Not to mention Lifeblood has become very interesting, with a combination Heal/Haste buff.

Gear concerns aside, though, I’m simply having a blast.