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.

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.