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.

Taking One’s Time, and Taking One’s Lumps

What a concept!

We had an interesting discussion in guild chat last night. Caraway, our GM, is a pally tank, and was raging about pugs wanting to rush through the content, and wanting the tank to know every fight going in. One of the other members chimed in, and noted that this is pretty much how WoW is played. Before you tackle content, you read up on it, make sure you’re geared, gemmed, enchanted appropriately, etc.

Caraway made a couple very good points last night. One sounded very familiar. Blizzard worked on Cataclysm for over two years. Why does everyone try to finish it as fast as possible? Hmmm…. I’m fairly certain I heard similar rumblings from a mage that shall remain nameless, during Wrath.

The other, and more telling, point Caraway made, was that somewhere, sometime, someone went through this content without the benefit of guides, advice, perfectly tuned gear and specs, etc. Does that somehow mean that they’re better, smarter, or more capable than we? I really doubt most of us would say “well, yeah! They’re WoW gods!” The fact of the matter is, they were lucky enough to get into beta, and have a crack at it. Or, on the Live realms, chances are their guild had a commitment to be the first, and they tackled it blind.

One of our other members chimed in with some valid points. It’s very hard to find people who are willing to tackle content that way. Most people are caught up in the “NEED MOAR GEER!” mindset. And further, they look upon anyone who doesn’t know the fights as a noob.

Um, no. All it means is they don’t know the fight. They may know how to play their class perfectly well. Which Caraway proved in a pug last night by turning off chat bubbles, switching to the combat log, and tanking Blackrock Caverns, successfully, without any prior prep.

Caraway and I work together, and we started talking about last night’s chat, and he came up with an idea that I quickly band-wagoned on. Moonlight Requiem is the most casual of guilds. Basically, you have people to talk to on guild-chat, and we try help each other as we can, but no one really makes a point of helping someone level, or whatever. When one of our members was getting ganked in Hyjal, I dropped what I was doing and went to help. those of us that know each other outside the game will run together somewhat. Things are pretty loose, though. Which, given my own distaste for pugs, has been a bit of a drag.

However, that may be about to change. Caraway announced to me this morning that we’re forming our own Explorer’s League, within the guild. He’s completely committed to people doing their own thing, and keeping things casual, but last night reinforced the problem with the prevailing view in WoW, and this is how we hope to resolve it in our little corner of Azeroth.

The Explorer’s League is going to be for those players who don’t want to rush through content as fast as possible, as painlessly as possible. We’re not excluding anyone; they’re welcome to run with us. Just don’t tell us how to play. Our devil’s advocate made a good point last night: “So, what if I know the fight? What, am I supposed to pretend I don’t?” Nope. Play your toon. Just don’t spoil it for the rest of us.

See, what get’s lost in the heat of discussion is a simple fact of human evolution. If someone constantly solves your problems for you, you never learn to solve problems yourself. As a parent, I’ve spent my last fifteen-plus years letting my kids go through unpleasant experiences that I might have spared them. It’s hard, especially as a parent. But that’s the only way they really learn. You can tell someone not to stand in the fire. But until they stand in it for themselves, and die, sometimes it just doesn’t sink in.

It’s an experiment. I’m optimistic that it will be a productive one.

Random Thoughts, and The New Arcane Shatter

So, it was a busy weekend. My wife was throwing a birthday party for her niece, and we had family in town as early as Thursday night. I had Friday off, as a result of holiday work schedules, and was expecting to get bogged down entertaining, but bless my wife’s heart, she arranged it so I had most of Friday to myself.

So, been fighting off the last dregs of a cold, and ended up waking at about 6:30 Friday morning, and after getting a pot of coffee going, jumped on WoW, and resumed my grind to finish off Hyjal, and then was off to Deepholm, where I eventually found myself in the good graces of the mother of the hottest babe ever to hit Wow. I think it says a lot for my determination, charm, suaveness, and the lack of sweating petty details by the WoW design team, that Therazane conveniently ignored the fact that Layjos has killed her lovely daughter at least twice. Oh, wait, that was when he was Lajos. Of course! It was the name change! Doh!!!

On a serious note, I repeat again, Blizzard does it right! I’ve taken a break from leveling alts now that Layjos is on the scene, but what I’ve seen of the revamping of the Old World quests has been very pleasing. The quest-lines make sense, they move along, with very few of the “kill endlessly until you get X number of items” type of quests. Even those tend to be fairly quick. The copious side quests don’t detract from the momentum of the main questline, and some of the questlines are downright entertaining. The John J. Keeshan lines in Redridge and Burning Steppes inspired me to grab First Blood for my son Nick to see, and he has declared it his current favorite movie.

When I finally decided to scratch the mage itch, and move Lajos/Layjos, I breezed through Hyjal, and Deepholm, with no real feeling of “grind”. About the only time I did a conscious “grind” was when I saw my experience bar close to the next level. I always make it a habit, if possible, to grind out those last few points on mobs, so the quest turn-ins launch me well into the next level. So, having gotten the Coming Down the Mountain and Deep into Deepholm achievements, I returned to Vash’jir to pick up there. Unfortunately, I’m not getting the big quest experience points, since I’m a bit above level, but the quests are still entertaining. Yesterday, after family left, I jumped back on, and decided to see how I fared in the battlegrounds.

Oh, incidentally, I gave Fire a try during all that. Not bad. The ability to cast Scorch while moving is interesting. Unfortunately, leveling the way I am, I haven’t been able to muster enough crit rating to really make it effective. I’ve been gradually replacing my Wrath epics, but even with abilities, I wasn’t finding Hot Streak proccing enough for my comfort in PvP, so I decided to return to Arcane.

Overall, battlegrounds went well. I killed more than I died, and even with very little resilience on my gear, didn’t find myself getting killed to fast when I got focused. I identified a few areas I need to macro, and shift my keybinds, but all in all, it went quite well. I didn’t dominate, but I didn’t suck, either. When I had a group that worked as a team, things went well. When I had a group that thought Eye of The Storm is all about capturing the flag, things didn’t go well.  One Warsong went really well, with me leading in HKs, and in the top four in killing blows. We had a good team, and I spent my time picking engaged targets, and hitting them with Arcane Blast, and destroying their health bar, while staying out of close up mismatches. Looking back at it today, that was probably my best battleground, and it highlights what I need to do – get myself in a good position, avoid short range mass crowds of melee, and focus on staying alive. In later battlegrounds, I forgot those principles, and while I didn’t do terribly, I was letting myself get focused, and not escaping effectively enough. It’s something I noted before. I tend to go for the goals, and dive into things, counting on my teammates to be there to back me. When they are, I rock. When they aren’t, I die. It all goes by fast, but I can clearly remember several fights yesterday where I had a healer backing me, or a couple melee-types keeping me from getting smothered. I felt comfortable, in control, and Horde were dying. I can also remember several times that I rushed in too fast, and then, when I went to escape, was still trying to do damage, instead of getting away, and I invariably died.

Arcane has some great control and escape features. Insta-Invis, PoM + Polymorph, and a 3 second speed burst after blinking. I used all of them Sunday, but not as effectively as I should have. Using PoM effectively is going to be a key skill in this spec. The two biggest uses are going to be Insta-Sheep, and Insta-Nuke. In the past, playing the old Arcane Shatter spec, I used Frostfire Bolt as my Insta-Nuke, since it was buffed by the Frost tree, and had the benefit of slowing the target down. Now, with Nether Vortex, Arcane Blast slows the target, and applies the buff, so it’s going to become my nuke of choice, with Presence of Mind making it instant when I need it. More on that later.

I ended up getting about a third of a level in the battlegrounds (gotta love that!) and made level 84 shortly after logging on this morning.  I’m going to finish up Vash’jir, then head out to Uldum. I’m guessing level 85 by no later than Wednesday.

And I’ll be respeccing this evening as well. I’ve already foregone Arcane Tactics, since I don’t plan to be doing much raiding early on. I’m going to drop Focus Magic, and putting that point in Shatter. My level 85 point will go in Shatter as well. “Lol-wut?!?” you say.

Arcane Tactics is a 3% damage buff on the raid. In a raid, over the course of a boss encounter, 3% is significant. In PvP, particularly when you’re not packing a buttload of spellpower, it’s not crucial. Likewise, with Focus Magic, a once-in-awhile 3% crit buff is significant, on a raid where you can make sure it stays on your partner. In PvP, it’s nice, but again, not particularly crucial.

However, being able to selectively apply a triple-damage crit in PvP is very significant, and very useful, especially when that allows you to tie it in with Arcane Potency and Arcane Power. PoM triggers the former, and Arcane Power just adds more goodness. If they’ve been pounding on my Mana Shield or Mage Ward, so much the better, as Incantor’s Absorption is  going to be buffing my damage. Get an interrupt on a caster? Woo-hoo, he’s silenced for 4 seconds, AND Invocation kicks in. Quick freeze, AP, POM, and nuke well.

Then of course, there’s Frost Ring, which has a significant range, which opens up all sorts of interesting possibilities, especially when you note that all the arcane tree goodies are worded “all damage”, “your damage”, “spell damage”, etc. Are Frostbolt and Frostfire Bolt going to hit as hard as Arcane Blast? Of course not. But  they’re not going to start the mana ramp-up either, and against a frozen target, Frostbolt is going to get a 20% buff in addition to all the other spell buffs Arcane gets, including the mastery buffs. Not to mention, it has a shorter cast time, and also very importantly, if I get interrupted, I’ve only got Frost spells locked out, and I have most of my main guns still available.

Is it gonna pwn like the old Arcane Shatter spec? Probably not, and I suspect it will play significantly different, but we shall see.

The Joys of Killing Paladins

So, we moved Nick’s DK over yesterday. By the time I got home from work, he’d already headed out to Hyjal, and was over it because of the constant ganking. So we tried the Vash’jir heroes call, which started okay, but then was cut short because the first quest refused to complete for Nick. (He found out this morning how to fix it, yay!). We went back out to Hyjal, started questing, and immediately, a level 85 Horde pally named Arvalon, or something like that, started displaying his douche-bag-ness. We’re in the middle of a bunch of mobs, and he jumps in. With a level difference of 5, Nick couldn’t even hit him, and frankly, Nick’s a PvE tank, not an arena player. I fared a bit better, and I can testify that Improved Blink is the shiznit in PvP, but I also haven’t mage PvPed in about 5 or 6 months. We hurt him, and finally got him to drop an AoE, and got some guards on him. We died about 5 times to his 1, but I still count it a minor victory. He camped the questgiver, and laughed at me. I laughed right back at him, and even gave him a mock-salute. I find it amusing that someone can misses the stupidity of making fun of someone they’ve killed who can’t really even hit them back, and let’s face it, that sort of person gets their nut on thinking they’ve pissed someone else off. No worries, it’s a big world, I can go elsewhere to level, and yeah, fucker, what goes around comes around, and the day will come when I’m what comes around.  My son hasn’t really had that sink in yet, I’m hoping he can be taught.

Caraway and I were talking at work, and he was marveling at the survivability of paladin’s in general, particularly prot. I was regaling him with tales of Hartbane‘s battle-healer spec in the good ol’ days, and as I told him, you don’t so much kill paladin’s so much as you dismantle them. Sort of like peeling an onion, and far more painful and full of tears. But hey, a Blood Elf pally died last night, so at least one new angel has a set of wings, and the day was a success.

My first experiments with Arcane PvP were interesting, though. I complete forgot to use things like Arcane Power (need to get that macro-ed in, dammit), but that really wasn’t a factor. As I said, Improved Blink rocks. I haven’t had time to evaluate the Glyph of Arcane Power (I’ve heard some discussion on how it’s supposed to work, but doesn’t). The biggest thing that jumped out at me was the lack of a really spam-able Arcane spell. Arcane Blast just isn’t suitable for quick use in combat. My initial cast with haste adjustmetns, is still like 1.9 seconds. In a battleground, with distractions, that’s probably doable, however, 1 on 1, or in Arena, that’s an eternity. Of course, there’s always Scorch or Ice Lance, but those really aren’t optimal for Arcane.  I sort of have visions of running along a freeway, throwing pebbles at trucks. Then again, Shatter is available on the first tier of Frost, for double/triple crit chance… and Arcane Blast has a 40 yard range, AND slows the target with Nether Vortex.

I’m having this vision of stacking AB a couple times at long range, then jumping in with a Frost Nova, and cutting loose with a PoM + AB that crits for what Christian Belt describes as “ also doing damage to his posterity down through seven generations, causing his children’s children’s great-great-grandchildren to speak in hushed tones about the time many generations past when a mage blew up his forefather”. Granted, Layjos is only level 80, and doesn’t have that kind of spellpower yet, but the principle is there, and yeah, I find it exciting. More research required.

All that said, I’m going to experiment with Fire and Frost as well, I think.

 

 

Moving On

So, yeah, much as I hated bailing on Crits, I had too much time and effort invested in Lajos to let him sit, and the reality was, I’d never play him. So, last night, I popped on Winterhoof, sent the heirloom items from my other toons to Lajos, and a few other key items. The old guild bank had been ransacked by the last member of the old group, who had stayed with the guild. That surprised me, though on reflection, it shouldn’t have, since I haven’t really been on in about 3 months. It would have been nice to have my share of the titansteel we’d been pooling for choppers, but I’m not going to lose sleep over it. For all I know, Booters sent it to me, and it timed out and returned.

So, now I have to learn how to play a mage all over again. Whee, good times. Actually, I think it’s going to be pretty interesting, since there isn’t a whole lot out there for Arcane Mage PvP in Cataclysm. Yup, you read that right. Arcane.

Sure, I know, Frost is a no brainer for PvP. So, I’m guessing that there are going to be a LOT of Frost mages in the battlegrounds. Fire has been improved, and likewise, I expect to see a lot of Fire mages there as well. So, since I’m having to relearn anyway, I figured I’d stick with what’s realtively familiar. Everything I’m reading seems to indicate that Arcane rules when it comes to burst damage, and PvP is very much oriented around burst damage. We shall see. Should be exciting.

Oh, and incidentally, I had to rename him, so now he’s named Layjos. Meh.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ebb and Flo

So, yesterday, sitting at work, I was going through some old WoWInsider articles, and came across one from last June, an Art of Warcraft column talking about dealing with PUG battlegrounds. Most of it dealt with how to enjoy the experience, and not rage at it, and overall, was some really good advice. Most of it was redundant for me, things I’d sort of subconsciously realized and adapted to during the time where I was building my first PvP set, as it was the only way I could get any higher level gear, and that meant PUGS. It’s different in a battleground tho’, as there isn’t the rigid “this is how you handle this boss” attitude, and things are happening so fast, weaknesses of players (i.e., my own suck-age) are a lot less glaring, and so less likely to be commented on.

Looking back to then, I realized I’m in sort of the same situation. Back then, I was guild leader of a very small, tight guild, and raiding, even heroics, were beyond us. We were very PUG shy, when it came to instances, and my only real alternative was to do BGs, to get any sort of decent gear. Eventually, I ran into Repgrind, and found a high comfort level, and started getting into some higher level content. Eventually, my own guild fell apart, and I went to Crits, but left vs. right coast scheduling proved to make it extremely difficult to progress with them. Not long after, I decided to just take a break.

Now, I’m just a guild member, of a very casual guild, Moonlight Requiem, headed by one of the guys I work with. The guild is really just getting off the ground, but Caraway, the GM, is very good at getting people in. Most of the people I’ve met through the guild seem pretty cool, but I’m still finding myself soloing a lot. A big factor in that is the holidays. People have a lot of time off to play, and they’ve leveled at an insane rate. On the flipside, a lot of my play time has been sporadic, due to family aggro. It will be interesting to see now how it levels off, and what happens.

Doing a bit of introspection, I’m realizing that if I want company, I need to be more outgoing. LOL… not really my forte’, but hey, I’ll work on it. Looking at the big picture, Caraway has assembled what seem to be a really cool bunch of people, so in essence I have a “pre-screened” group.

Anyway, to get back to where I was originally going, I was musing on how far I’ve come. I started, unintentionally, on a PvP server, and used to gnash my teeth at the ganking. I moved to a PvE server, and once there, grew to really like PvP. Now I’m back on a PvP server, and while I still despise the random griefing, it’s more of a roll my eyes thing now, rather than real rage. And, full-circle, I’m back to taking refuge in the battlegrounds, this time for leveling as well as gear.

Originally, I’d planned on leaving Lajos over on Winterhoof, in Crits, but I’m starting to rethink that. I’ve got a perfectly good level 80 mage, well geared, sitting, doing nothing, and realistically, I’m not going to be spending much time over there. If I do, it’s not like I’m going to be in a position to run content. Basically, I’m just “keeping a presence”, and I’m debating whether it’s worth it. If I do a character move, I can bring money, heirloom items, etc. over that will make life a lot more productive on my current server, including leveling our guild.

And of course, I’ve got a guild bank over on Winterhoof, full of stuff that would be really useful. My DK sits as guildmaster, and the stuff languishes in an upper tab. Those people who stuck with the guild after the melt-down have given up and bailed, and I can’t say as I blame them. I just really lost my enthusiasm for WoW after the events of last summer. Now that I’ve rediscovered some of that enthusiasm, it’d be nice to profit from some of my labor.

Off To Battle

So, when I started my discipline priest, I told myself I was going to be leveling a lot in battlegrounds. Then I totally got carried away in some of the new quest-lines, and looked up, and I was at twenty, then thirty, then forty. Each time, I’d resolve to knock out about seven levels, then hit the BGs. Each time, I’d look up, and go “damn, I’m at level twenty-nine… and on a quest”, etc.

And then I found out, belatedly, about the new five-level brackets. Oh, REALLY???

So, at like level fifty-one, I started queuing up. With visions of Fiaked dancing in my head, I chuckled gleefully, prepared to enter battlegrounds, and wreak havoc…

… and in my first Alterac Valley, promptly got my havoc wreaked. Well, damn.

See, I knew the theory that a battleground healer has to avoid getting focused, hang back, etc. Well, a couple battlegrounds beat that theory into me very, very well. I didn’t realize that my guild tabard had a big bullseye painted on it. However, it apparently does, as I became a very popular target.

Ok, so time to regroup, and adjust. I did. It went better (relatively), and once I started getting a quick finger on Shadow Word: Death, I even picked up a few killing blows.  Those first few BGs, were just plain rough though. I’m getting better at picking a teammate, and just tagging along with him. Let me also say that while I was already something in awe of Fiaked, now I’m at the point of stuttering, remembering a particular WSG fight where he and I stormed the Horde flag-room, and commenced a 2-on-5-ish kill fest, him healing my mage. It ain’t easy, folks. Nothing prepares you for those first few waves of incoming red nameplates, all gleefully heading for YOU, and enveloping you in a constant wave of stuns, interrupts, and what-have-you, while you’re desperately trying to get off a Flash Heal.

Honestly, after PvPing as a mage, I know that in time, I’ll get better. I also know that I was sadly light on stamina gear (which I’m remedying).  And I’m sitting here at work plotting tweaks to my add-ons to give me better info. I’ve made it through three levels almost purely on battlegrounds. After that, I picked up wife-aggro, and had to adjourn to get caught up on Dexter. However, I expect to get 55 early tonight, and then it’s off to a new bracket. Since I’m (mainly) healing, I can still work effectively at the bottom of a bracket, since hit percentage doesn’t come into play. Now it’s a matter of getting to that point where things seem to slow down, and I can pay attention to things like cooldowns, dispels, etc. Time to start tweaking Tell Me When.

Oh, and yeah, I’ve noticed that things were tweaked in general in 4.0.x, so priests are still being dialed in. Whatever.  It will get better, and I’m going to just look at is as exercising with ankle-weights, so to speak. When things do get dialed in, I’ll be that much better off.

Adventures in Healing

So, from midweek, on through the weekend, I was fighting off the latest crud going around. In my case, it manifested mostly with wracking cough that by Thursday had my diaphragm in perpetual cramp, but I got the stuffy head, etc. Luckily, this was a quiet weekend. I spent most of the weekend playing WoW, which was a nice change.

I work on the principle of total immersion, so I’ve pretty much ignored most of my other characters, and concentrated on my dwarf priest, Coosh. Just to recap, I got him to Kharanos, did a bit in Loch Modan, and then headed to Elwynn, more to see how the quests looked than anything else. From there, I went out to Westfall, and got thoroughly hooked on the questline, which ultimately sent me off to Redridge, where, among other things, I got to do the new Bravo Company questline, which is a tongue-in-cheek Rambo parody, and an absolute blast. Cataclysm continues the BC and Wrath pattern of achievements for completing a certain number of quests in an area. I got the one for Redridge, which then sent me along to Duskwood, where I knocked out the quests for the achievement, and then happily headed for the new Northern Strangelthorn area, where again, I got the achievement.

A quick word on the new quests: so far, an enthusiastic Two-Thumbs Up. Gone are the “slay things endlessly waiting for certain items to drop” quests. Most amusing, to me, was the fact that the one quest where I had a low drop rate on a needed item was killing Murlocks, which are supposed to be irritating, so I view that as game-flavor. Along the way were some downright engaging quests, some reworks of old classics, and some very creative new ones.

Spirestone is a PvP server, so ganking comes as no surprise.  I’ve been pretty fortunate so far, only one real ass-hat encountered. My first brush with “the enemy” was out in Redridge, where I’d gotten myself in over my head with a pack of gnolls. Suddenly, I see the pillar flash and crash sound of moonfire, and a gnoll evaporates. I was in “keep alive” mode at that point, and another moonfire came crashing down a cooldown later, and I turned to see a Tauren Druid tapping away at a mining node. I bowed, and saluted, and sent off a /thanks, and was on my way. Example 1: Classy Player, can obviously squish me like a bug, but helps out the lowbie. In my opinion, the way it should be.

Yesterday, however, I was in Northern Stranglethorn, and I saw a rogue vanish. “Here it comes” I thought, and prepared to take my medicine. Sure enough, one shotted. The rogue did an apology emote, so I figured he was gonna leave it at that. I ran back from the spirit healer, and resurrected. Bam, one shotted again.Rinse, lather, repeat, a couple times.

Here we have Example 2: The No-Class Cork-Soaker. I truly have problems understanding this mentality. Ok, so a level 80 squashes a level 30. That’s not something to feel proud of, it’s just a fact of game mechanics. Once is someone feeling bored. Not a problem. But to repeatedly grief someone… that screams to me of a truly pathetic personality. We all play the game for rewards, whether it be satisfaction, challenge, whatever. What kind of person is rewarded by making someone else miserable? Or in this case, thinking they were making me miserable? I pretty much just rolled my eyes, then after the fourth or fifth time, went and got more NyQuil, sampled some of the wife and daughter’s baked goods, then returned. By this time, he’d gotten bored and left. No doubt an e-peen that tiny can only take so much self-stroking before they have to go take a nap.

Later, my guild leader (and co-worker) Caraway invited me to heal his group in an already in-process Maraudon. I was still a bit low for the instance, but he was pretty comfortable tanking, so no problem. After all, how could I resist a trip to see the hottest babe in WoW, Princess Theradas? I’d just gotten a point into Atonement, so I was anxious to see how effective using Smite to heal actually was.

By itself, not terribly effective, especially with melee DPS in the party. All too often, I watched the healing go to the rogue, not the tank. For the most part, I felt I did okay. Could have used more mana, and since I hadn’t been planning on running an instance, I didn’t have much to drink with me, but all in all, it went well.

Nick, in his usual fashion, is dithering around with 3 or 4 characters, but he’s out of school, so he should be able to get his pally up to near my level, so we can start chain running instances. Either that, or I’ll have to ground him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not So Cataclysmic Changes

So, a few months ago, I started taking a break from WoW, and playing Starcraft II, then discovered Minecraft.  Between that, and familial obligations and fun, I’ve let a bit of the WoW burn-out fade. I’m still not actually going to purchase Cataclysm until Christmas, as I can’t get it without getting Nick a copy, and I refuse to do a major purchase for him this close to Christmas. It’s a parenting thing, what can I say?

A couple of the guys at work are habitual “get expansion, play until tired of it, then deactivate until next expansion” players, and they’ve been urging me to jump in. One of the frustrating difficulties I’ve faced in the past was playing with East-Coasters, and then not being on in time to make the raids, etc. So, when the guys hunted up a new server, with a low ping, in Pacific time, I allowed myself to be dragged back into WoW-space, and logged onto Spirestone to create a character.

I considered doing my stock mage or warlock, but since this is going to (at least in theory!) be a group effort, and I haven’t really looked a the new talent trees much in months, I figured I might as well start fresh. I’ve been meaning to do a healer type for some time, so this seemed to be a good time to jump in with both feet.

Of course, conventional wisdom says priest leveling is best done with a Shadow spec, but that isn’t going to do much good when I need to heal party members. Oh, and did I mention that this is a PvP server? My first server was a PvP server, and getting ganked used to frustrate me beyond belief, but after my arena sojourn with Fiaked, I’m a lot more comfortable with PvP, AND was massively impressed with what a discipline priest was like in PvP, so I decided to go Disc, and a Dwarf, as a further nod to Fiaked.

Thirteen levels so far, and loving it. It’s a challenge, and yeah, I’ve died a few times, however, in every case, I could have been smarter about how I tackled the mobs. Basically, I wanted to see just how much I could handle. Three wendigos or trolls at once proved to be a bit of a stretch. For the most part, I haven’t had many problems.

Thus far, I’m enjoying plodding through the revamped quests. As a rule, I hate the dwarven starting area. I don’t mind hills, but for the quests, it makes it a pain, and much more effort than it should be. I’ve done some area jumping, dropping in on Elwynn, and then back out to Loch Modan. Frankly, I expect to do the majority of my leveling through LFG and PvP, and I’m in no hurry to do every new quest. Plenty of time for that. Right now, I just want to get to level 20 and get my mount, and then start checking out instances, old and new.

It’s going to be a fun learning experience. There’s not a lot out there about leveling a discipline priest, post-Cataclysm, and a lot of theory-crafting is still in progress, and a lot of that’s not going to be relevant until I have enough talent points to get farther up the tree anyway. Right now, I’m just happily mixing Mind Blast, SW:Pain, Smite, and Penance to see what works most efficiently, and getting used to my heals. Good times.

I’ve toyed with the idea of transferring my main, but I like being in Crits on Winterhoof, even if the time difference makes it a bit frustrating, so any decisions along those lines are going to be down the road… much as I’d like to get my heirloom gear over to Spirestone!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moar PeeVeePee

So yeah, I’m a bit obsessive. I’ve tried leveling my lock a few times over the last week, but it dulled real fast. Right now, I’m immersed in mage PvP mode, and I keep feeling the compulsion to hit the “H” key and queue up for a random BG.  Why fight it?

With this weeks arena matches in the books, this weekend was a running mixture of heroics, an Ulduar 25 and 10 for the weekly, and lots of bgs. As RG mentioned, Saturday afternoon Fiaked, Hartbane, Kalyon and I teamed up on a string of random bgs, and while I wouldn’t put it in the “pwned” category, it is true that we won pretty much every BG we went into.

So, a couple notes on the incessant whining on Winterhoof that “Alliance sucks in Wintergrasp”, and on the Whirlwind battlegroup in general that “Horde dominate bgs”.  None of these is particularly new or earthshaking, but I’ll repeat them here anyway, if for nothing else than to display the fact that I get it.

1. Battlegrounds in General – Know the objectives. If you don’t know, ask. If you’re too timid to ask, shut up, listen, and stick with the crowd. Even if they’re “not doing it right”, battlegrounds are about coordinated effort, and while you learn, you’re much better sticking with a group. Curb your heroic tendencies, you’ll live longer.
2. Bases are King – Particularly in Eye and Arathi, but the theory applies in some form to pretty much all battlegrounds. In those two in particular, if you consistently control 3 bases, you will win. The flag in Eye is only of use when you can only hold 2 bases, and need an edge, or when you hold 3 bases, and want to speed up the victory. If you’re going for the flag with less than 2 bases, you’re doing it wrong.
3. Think Logically – If you have 3 bases in Arathi or Eye, and half a dozen Horde show up to attack one, that means one of theirs is going to be lightly defended.
4. Don’t Road Fight – This is a reflex that’s really hard to overcome, but it must be overcome, nonetheless. The only time you want to road fight is when you have a numerical base advantage, and you can tie up a significant number of the enemy on the road, so they can’t attack your bases. Guess what? This is what the enemy has been doing to you in all those BGs you lost!
5. In Wintergrasp – If you keep throwing your forces at a single point, the enemy will mass there, and unless you outnumber them drastically, you will be stopped. If you ignore your towers, they will be destroyed, and you will run out of time.
6. Moar Healerz – To all those healie types who come to bgs and heal me… I love you, no shit, let me buy you a beer. That’s why paladins, druids, and priests can be such terrors in battlegrounds… they bring their own healer.
7. Communication and coordination – a group of 4 or 5 people who are on the same page can dominate a battleground.

Case in point… on Saturday, in Warsong Gulch. While Kalyon and Hartbane were back on defense, Fiaked and I went on the offensive. We ran into 3 Horde outside the upper tunnel, 2 of them mages, and took them out, then got some cooldowns, and rushed the flagroom. Five enemies in there, with TWO resto druids. Neither was well geared, and it showed. We burned both of them, and held out long enough for a few other teammates to show up, and a flag cap soon followed. None of it was particularly due to MY skill. I played my class, we communicated on Vent, I got heals, and good things happened.

Like the arena, being on Vent is huge in actual fights. But I did a lot of battlegrounds solo over the weekend, and invariably, when people played as a team, and paid attention to the objectives instead of just “see Horde -attack Horde”, we did well.

Wintergrasp is tough for Alliance on Winterhoof, because yes, we’re generally hugely outnumbered. That’s only going to change if we encourage more people to come out. It’s still possible to win, though, even when outnumbered, if people play smart, and coordinate. Even outnumbered, you have to spread out to attack from Broken Temple, and Sunken Ring simultaneously, and to defend the towers. When you get right down to it, it’s the “Bases are King” principle. If you control all the bases, the enemy has to dispatch forces to take them back, and to do it effectively, they have to send a larger force. So, effectively, 2 people on a base can keep double, triple, or quadruple that number tied up. That’s X number of fortress defenders that aren’t up stopping siege vehicles. That’s the numbers game that allows a smaller force to win on attack.

Defense is another matter altogether. Realize, from the start, that Blizzard didn’t design Wintergrasp to be defended effectively. They WANT it to change hands. The best bet there is to build catapults to go out and kill siege vehicles as fast as possible, and to send out squads to kill towers. Only after towers are down should defenders try to cap Sunken Ring and Broken Temple.

Anyway… a good tally this weekend. I was able to upgrade a ring, so I’ve got Relentless and Wrathful rings on, and I’m only a few WG marks short of being able to swap my PvE Bloodmage shoulders for the Titan-Forged Shoulderpads of Salvation. When my arena points come up for this last week, I should be able to swap my Hood of Fiery Aftermath for the Relentless Gladiator’s Silk Cowl. I might even manage another upgrade as well.