Results tagged “pvp”

I'm pretty much a middle of the road player - I'm not in a raiding guild off doing Ulduar and hard modes, but neither am I what Gevlon would call a slacker (though moron, possibly). My main interest is PvE, questing and instancing with my friends, but I also enjoy the odd bit of PvP in Battlegrounds (AV, SoTA and AB mostly) and Wintergrasp. I won't pretend to be a good PvPer - dogged would be the best description - but I like to think I have some idea of the what to do. It's surprising how many don't though.

In AV I know the importance of taking the towers (and defending them until they're capped) and of denying the same to the enemy. All too often though, people are in a frenzied rush to get to the enemy boss, or else are stood in midfield beating up on the opposition (which is a really efficient way of reducing their reinforcement count ...) and so tower defense comes down to a pair of clothies trying to hold off a horde hit squad .... A lot of times the battle is nothing more than 30-40 individuals running at disparate targets while the enemy seems to be working as a well-oiled machine, picking off lone Alliance troops (or even uncoordinated groups). I'm sure they're not really as coordinated as they seem (unless we're up against a big pre-made) but even a modicum of coordination and tactical thinking can be devastating when you're up against the zerg that is the Alliance in Ruin (or Emberstorm as it is now). It would be nice, for once, to see a measure of coordination on the Alliance side - it happens occasionally by chance, but all too rarely - but I suspect the cries of "we've lost" or "you noobs ..." will continue instead - it's much easier to QQ than to try and solve the problem.

Historically, the Ruin battlegroup has struggled for numbers and balance - we were a (small) mix of pvp and Rp realms (and some newly opened servers) and thus starting battles was always a chore, and when they did kick off there was a good chance that one side (usually the Horde) was grossly outnumbered. A month or so back Ruin was merged with several populous German PVP realms (Emberstorm), which has had two effects on BGs: Firstly, there are a lot more of them (benefits of a larger population). Secondly, because of the way cross-language BGs work you never find yourself teamed up with the Germans (though we have a server of Italians in Ruin so it'd make little difference ...), only opposed by them. As a result, you either find yourself facing off against other Ruinites (so the old imbalance issues arise) or - more often now - partial group of Ruin Alliance/Horde players vs a full opposition group from the German realms. The prior situation was unacceptable, but beyond all comprehension the new situation is even worse! Indeed, one of my associates who is more into PvP than I am decided to move server rather than put up with the situation in Ruin/Emberstorm (though he found the mirror situation there - .many more Alliance than Horde; I presume there were 'technical' reasons why the BG mergers weren't done in more sensible manner ... not that it isn't galling to see the possibilities.)

Which leaves Wintergrasp. That actually runs quite well (and the win/loss balance isn't as one-sided as it was). Yes, there is lots of tactical muppetry and the horde usually has Tenacity (so not much chance of the "Against the odds" achievement for the Alliance at present) but all in all it remains fun. However, having the WG quests go weekly removed some of the impetus for playing (unless you're after Wintergrasp tokens, though to be honest there's not a lot to buy ,,,) which I guess was Blizzards aim to try and smooth out the numbers taking part. I'm not sure how the upcoming 3.2 changes will play out here though, with WG becoming a pseudo-Battleground with restricted player numbers (though I'm not sure having a 100-a-side hardcap will make too much difference on Steamwheedle Cartel).

A week after 3.1 launched, Andro is a couple of dailies short of Stormwind Champion status with the Argent Tournament (I would've reached it yesterday, but one day last week I missed a couple of dailies due to instancing). It's been a nice diversion, though I'm still getting to grips with the jousting, and it'll be good to see a new phase. I'm not sure of the long-term appeal - I may well go more slowly through the other city's progressions, but even so you're only looking at a few weeks to max things out. After that it's just a money/seal grind (though the mounts and pets appeal to me immensely). I'm kinda hoping that the event will evolve over time (and it'd be good to see the tourney grounds grow - unlike the Shattered Sun Offensive the site doesn't appear to evolve (yet).

 One of the other major changes in 3.1 was the introduction of Dual Spec but while my Paladin Buliwyf availed himself of the system at the weekend (a healer spec and a tank spec) I held off doing so with Andro. I always planned to use the system, but hadn't had the time/motivation to do it. Last night I took the plunge (to the amazed response of one guildy "dps and dps?"). And yes, it is DPS and DPS, though the plan was to have one spec for raiding and another more tuned for battlegrounds. One thought was frostfire for raiding and arcane for PVP, and another was Arcane for raiding (Andro's current spec) and frost for PvP. The latter is what I went for in the end, though I actually kept the frost spec more raid oriented. The reason? This weeks 3.1.1 patch was to include a talent re-spec so in effect the time I spent playing with the frost raiding spec was a "freebie" test and I can adjust the talents after today's patch. It was an interesting exercise - Frost doesn't have the +hit benefits of arcane so I have to use an extra couple of bits of kit (which impacts on DPS a little). In my first attempt on the dummies I forgot that and ran at around 1600 dps (with Arcane I'm usually 2k or so self-buffed). My second attempt (with the right gear on) was around 2k, and my third and fourth more like 1800. It's got potential as a raid spec and is certainly useful for long fights (buckets of mana-regen).

3.1.1 also brings the start of Arena Season 6. I'm not a big Arena player - I dabbled briefly in Seasons 3 and 4 but am pretty hopeless - but I do play Battlgrounds, and this new season means a trickle-down of new kit. In season 5 the progression was Savage (i200 blue, honor), Hateful (i200 Purple, arena/VoA) and Deadly (i213 purple, Arena). I'd got most of the Savage kit, and the few Hateful pieces I could without an Arena rating, but from today I can start work on replacing the Savage stuff with Hateful, and the Hateful stuff with Deadly. That's something in the region of 500k honor to purchase, but I have a few things going for me. Firstly, I already have some of the Titan-Forged (Wintergrasp Token) pieces which are a mix of i200 Epics (Hat, Boots and Trinket 1) and i213 epics (robe, belt and Trinket 2), so I don't automatically need the Hateful/Deadly versions, which reduces the total to about 350k. I also have 75k of honor banked (as I'd got all the stuff I wanted already and have been to a degree avoiding WG/BGs since I capped a fortnight or so back). With a run through WG and some BGs, that's potentially a couple of pieces right off the bat (bracers and shoulders are my thought, though gloves may beat out the shoulders for now).