Well...I found what I want to do with my warlock: Battlegrounds! In my last post I mentioned stepping into BGs to get the Hallowed title on my priest. Well, since then I've been spending most of my time in BGs on my warlock.
It all started when I had the hankering to do a BG, but I didn't want to log in with any of my known toons. So, I pulled out my poor neglected warlock and gave The Strand of Ancients a whirl. I've been having a great time in there ever since. I've tried every BG, but at this point SoA is my favorite.
I queued for the Wintergrasp battle for the first time last night. Woah! What a totally different experience! I hadn't read up on it, so I had no idea what I was doing. People started sharing quests (which later gave a ton of Honor Points!) and storming the keep. I just followed the biggest crowd...and boy am I glad I did. There is definitely safety in numbers.
I watched what others were doing and did the same thing. I attacked turrets and approaching enemy vehicles. Occasionally an enemy was near so I attacked them. I lasted several minutes into the fight without dying. So unlike Strand of Ancients. :)
Then, after the outer wall was breached, I just stood there and Tabbed and Dotted, Tabbed and Dotted. No one even paid attention to me. The HK rolled right on in and I just kept dotting everything in sight. I died once while standing there. I suppose I was the recipient of other peoples' tab/dot routine because there were no melee near me and I didn't see any spells, bullets or arrows come at me.
Then, the battle was over and we won. I turned in the quests, earning a lot more honor. I'm now at 29k. That was quite a jump after just one battle. Too bad it doesn't happen more often! :-)
Like my monthly Level Check, I thought I'd put some notes down about my initial thoughts about BGs and PvP. It'll be interesting to look back in a few months to see how much has changed.
- I will never be good at pure PvP. I prefer predictability and order. Plus, I'll never have the gear or the experience that the other players have. Raiding is more my style.
- I never expect to try out Arenas. That's pure PvP. I have no interest in putting myself through that stressful torture. :)
- I like (some) BGs because you don't necessarily have to PvP in them.
- Strand of Ancients, for example, is all about bashing down the gates and capturing the graveyards (or defending both) before the timer runs out. I've found myself drawn to that BG because, as an undergeared and inexperienced clothie, I can contribute quite a bit to the success of my team by getting in those tanks or in the cannons defending the gates.
- I don't like rogues or death knights. :-( They murder me in two seconds flat.
- I've learned to strategically place my Demonic Circle out of sight so I can pop to it if things get hairy. Like in Strand of Ancients, when defending the final gate, I can put it around the corner at the bottom of the steps. If I get swarmed, I click on the Teleport button repeatedly. If I'm lucky, it goes off before I'm dead and I am safe for a few moments.
- I don't like rogues or death knights.
- BGs are a perfect way of playing my warlock while staying anonymous. I stopped playing him regularly because my desire to stay anonymous on him makes it tough to find groups. I could sit for hours in LFG without getting a single invite. With BGs, I don't have to worry about that.
- How do you actually earn an HK? At first I thought you had to either damage an enemy that eventually dies or heal an ally that eventually kills an enemy. But, on my warlock I'm getting HK notices all the time, even when I am not damaging anyone. Maybe it's a proximity thing? Maybe if I'm close to the death of an enemy, I get HK for it? Or maybe it's a combination of the two. If I damage an enemy and then he eventually dies, I get HK for it, even if I'm no where near him when he dies.? And I get HK for the death of an enemy that I am near even if I haven't damaged him in any way? Could that be it?
- What do the various HK notices mean? I see HK: Private, HK: Scout, HK Legoionnaire, etc. What does all that mean? My initial guess is that it relates to the pvp level of the enemy that has died. What I mean by that is that if someone is completely new to BGs and has no PvP gear at all (like me), when an enemy kills him he gets HK Scout (or something low-sounding). But if he kills someone who is fully decked out with PvP gear and has a ton of lifetime kills under his belts, he gest HK Legionnaire (or something high-sounding). (Already got my answer. These are carry overs from an old system of ranking. They used to mean something but they don't anymore. Blizzard has simply not removed the rank identification from the message.)
- Are all enemies worth the same amoung of honor? This is sort of a follow up to question #2. If my guess about the different types of HK notices is correct, does that mean I earn more honor for HK Legionnaire than I do for HK Scout? (Already got my answer. All enemies are worth the same amount of honor.)
- Are any BGs known for being better sources of Honor than others? I thought I was doing well having earned about 7k honor after a few hours of back to back BGs on Monday evening. Then I went to Stormwind to find out what I could buy, only to find out that I was less than 1/5th of the way to one item. Now, I'm not expecting to be fully PvP geared after only a few hours. So, don't misunderstand my concern. It's just that I'd like to maximize the limited amount of time I have. I played in SoA all weekend because it was its holiday. I assume that means you get more honor that way. (I better check that out.) But, in general, is there any BG that is best for honor grinding?
- Is Stormwind really the only place to spend honor points? As far as I can tell, that's the only option. And, if that's the case, the pickings are pretty slim. With raiding, people don't all end up with the same gear, necessarily. Sure, there are the tier items, but most people end up with whatever they're lucky enough to win the roll for. The variety is fairly large. But, with PVP, if the only things you can buy with honor are the items at the vendors in Stormwind, everyone ends up with the same equipment on. Or am I missing something?
- Are the marks from BGs like SoA good for anything? I can't find a vendor that takes them. And Wowhead doesn't list any. The Wintegrasp marks are currency for items at the WG vendor, along with Stone Keeper's Shards.
- Is there any behavior in BGs that is unacceptable? I know that going AFK is a reportable offense. But, what about things like camping a graveyard and slaughtering people as they get resurrected? Is it basically "all's fair in war"? I nearly quit a BG the other day because I couldn't do anything or earn any HK because I kept getting killed as soon as I resurrected. Although it was incredibly annoying to me, I suspect it's acceptable behavior. It might be seen as a valid tactic.
No comments:
Post a Comment