October 28, 2009

Battlegrounds and My Warlock
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.
  

Below are some things I don't understand about PvP. If anyone reads this, please don't ridicule me for not knowing what are probably the most basic things about PvP. I realize all of these questions are probably answered on a gazillion sites on the Internet. Maybe next time I check in about my PvP/BG progress I will have found the answers to all of them.

1. 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?
2. 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.)
   
3. 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.)
4. 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?
5. 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?
6. 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.
   
7. 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.
   

I'm sure I have other questions, but those are the most pressing. I have no idea how long I'll enjoy BGs. But, for now I'm having a great time.

October 26, 2009

After taking time away from the game the previous week, I returned with a vengeance at the end of this past one. I had Thursday and Friday off of work, and I spent much of the free time in WoW. Lots of stuff to report. The first of which is very exciting:

Hallowed Be Thy Name - Woo hoo! My first title! As I've expressed before, I usually don't get caught up in hype about anything. In fact, I actively avoid it. Seasonal events in WoW are no exception. My first reaction to them is annoyance -- they're an interruption to my normal routine. Plus, they're a time sink. Bah humbug!

Putting aside all thoughts of time sinks and annoyances, I told myself that I wouldn't have been doing anything else at that time anyway. So, early the first morning I ate my breakfast and had a cup of coffee and went out to get that Hallowed title. It took me nearly the entire day to do so. There were many many candy buckets to visit in the old world. Luckily, I had visited all of the necessary Outland buckets last year. I can't imagine how much longer it would have taken if I had to do those too.

I got many of the achievements last year. Those I had left to complete this year were:

• G.N.E.R.D. Rage
  
• The Masquerade - last year I did all but Leper Gnome, Skeleton and Pirate
  
• Tricks and Treats of Azeroth - as mentioned above, I had the entire old world still to do
• Rotten Hollow - This was the one on which I got the title!

I have to say, once I got into it, I had a lot of fun. There was an adrenaline rush as I got closer and closer to finishing each achievement. And the title was the best of all. At one point I thought I'd never get the G.N.E.R.D. Rage one, but my luck suddenly changed and bam! Another one down. (more about the PVP experience below)

I am very happy, excited and proud to have earned a title. Yeah, I know it's not as noteworthy as it would have been had I gotten it last year. But that doesn't matter to me. I don't care if it took me two Hallow's End seasons to get it. I got it! That's the important thing. :-)

PVP and Me
In order to get the Hallowed title, I had to venture into PVP. It was quite an interesting experience for me. The only other time I had gone into a battleground was right before the WotLK expansion. My mage was still frost and I was bored. I ran a couple Arathi Basins and walked away uninterested. I really don't like PVP. It's just not my thing. But, this time around it was interesting.

Priest -- The first time in I went on my priest as shadow, expecting to dot everyone in sight and get honor points as they died. I was murdered almost instantly every time the enemy got near. Even though I was hiding in crowds, my shadow form must have been why they picked me out of the crowd. That's why I began to panic, thinking I wasn't going to stay alive long enoug to get the G.N.E.R.D. Rage achievement.

But then I changed tactics. I switched back to Holy and healed my way through. That changed the experience completely. The "HK" broadcast started appearing all over the place and I had that achievement in no time. Healing in BGs rocks! lol I also got a few more achievements: Damage Control, 100 Honorable Kills, That Takes Class, The Grim Reaper, Know Thy Enemy Alterac Valley Victory, Everything Counts, Take a Chill Pill, Isle of Conquest Victory and Dinner Impossible. Phew! That's a lot of achievements. And the only one I actually purposefully got was the Dinner Impossible one. I'm so glad I had those feasts sitting around in my inventory still. :)

Druid -- Realizing how easy it was to get the G.N.E.R.D. Rage achievement, I went back to the BGs with my druid this time. I switched to Resto and was prepared to count the HKs. Lesson number 1: If you're a tree, you're a target. After a few deaths and wasted candies, I decided to heal without switching to tree form. That did the trick. I still got killed many times, but I earned a lot of Honor points and the G.N.E.R.D. Rage achievement. (Though I don't have the patience to do all of the Hallowed achievements.) Like my priest, she earned That Takes Class, Know Thy Enemy and 100 Honorable Kills. She also got a few others: Strand of the Ancients Victory, Ancient Protector and Drop it Now.

Shaman -- Just for the heck of it, I went to a BG with my shaman. That was a waste of time. :-\ She's 31, making her pretty much the bottom of her bracket. And, I really don't know how to play her well since I rarely do so. Needless to say, I didn't even get the G.N.E.R.D. Rage achievement.

So...all in all, my PVP experience was interesting. Healing is very easy to do, especially on my well geared priest. I probably won't go back in there with my priest though since there is no equipment that I am interested in working towards. But, I might go back on my Druid. It seems pretty easy to get gear with PVP, especially since I get honor easily as a healer.

I do have to say, I wonder if people have addons that allow them to see which enemies have the lowest PVP rating or gear because I was quickly targeted every time I got near enemies. Even when I was in a crowd. Hmm...PVP will probably never be my thing, but at least I'm not afraid of it any more.

ToC 25
We tried to do ToC 25 on Friday night. We couldn't get past the Northrend Beasts. Then, we went back on Saturday night -- one shotted the Northrend Beasts and made it all the way to Anub'arak. We got overwhelmed by adds each time we attempted it. We finally called it without bringing him down. Oh well...at least we got a lot further than the previous night. I also got a new robe in there: Flowing Vestments of Ascent. I realized my Spirit is way too high -- imagine that, a Priest complaining about too much Spirit. lol So, I re-enchanted and re-gemmed a few things.

ToC 10 Heroic (Trial of the Grand Crusader 10)
Last night we tried ToC 10 Heroic on 10-man progression run. Most of the guys in the run were not the normal progression team. I'm not sure if we're ever going to have that team again. (Things change so quickly in WoW.) The guys last night were new to the guild -- they had transferred from the Horde side. They had good gear and were very well versed in the fights. I am elated to say that we one shotted the Northrend Beasts! Woo hoo!!! We couldn't get past Jaraxxus though. Oh well, next time.

One odd thing to note. One of the new guys asked me if I used a voice changer. At first I didn't even understand the question. Then when I realized what he was implying, he said my voice sounded just like someone's they used to run with. Strange, eh? I'm not sure what to make of the whole thing.

Hallow's End Stuff
Let's see, in addition to getting the Hallowed title on my priest, I did several Headless Horseman runs with my mage guild. I got a couple of the rings for my druid: Wicked Witch's Band and The Horseman's Seal. Otherwise, the drops were too low quality for my mage and priest. They all got brooms, though. They're always fun to ride around on. :-)

That's about it, I suppose. A lot of fun in one week!