Posts Tagged 'Pvp'

Ode to those who Guard the node.

Published August 1, 2013 World Of Warcraft 5 Comments
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Disclaimer: Not sure it’s even  a real ode, it’s certainly too short, but  it’s for all the unappreciated defenders of nodes.

Valiant are the lonely soldiers, left high on rocks and nodes

Faction Warriors denied the glory of the killing blow,

Battles fought on roads, to them denied,

While in Battleground chat,  the noobs and scrubs will cry.

“We fail again,  why do we always lose””Alliance sucks” every one else they accuse.

While they stand stoic,  Sword, shield, staff or mace in hand.

With keen eyes and tongues, watchful, over captured lands.

Ever alert to the impending dangers they’re  aware.

Encroaching enemies, a  stealthy rouge,  a shape shifting bear.

Keepers of the flags, defenders of bases holding strong.

 

Often on their own,  they never seem to survive for long.

 

Disc can go bubble it’s self I’m going Holy

Published October 19, 2012 World Of Warcraft 1 Comment
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Yes still here.

I was planning to write a post on all the tweaks I’ve done to help my disc spec feel better. I wasn’t the best geared but I was ok  ( currently 467 ilevel) ,  but I have done all the right things since 90,  I have two purple crafted I grinded rep for the patterns, I got my Brewfest trinket, my Sha kill quest reward, the Rep and Valor rep rewards where I can,  and even got the Headless horseman ring. I’m Gemmed &  Chanted flasked and fooded but In LFR my Disc spec just wasn’t doing well in comparison, especially when competing with another disc priest .

To get results you had to snipe other peoples heals with shell,  or smite/penance heal, but then I was still chewing through mana. I fixed my Mana problems by taking Mindbender with it’s 1 min cool down and mana return.  When beaten by another disc smite healer while they were  in pvp gear one LFR group I changed my strat for more smiting. I even tried to rein in my quick draw dispel reaction,  trying to let other people use their mana. Shields weren’t even returning their cost in mana. I had a leaky mana pool.

In Pvp Disc didn’t even feel right.  I was being globaled and without dedicating all my glyphs and talents to survival only had a trinket and  Pain suppression that I could use to get a gcd space to breath, and Pain suppression could still not be cast while silenced, only stunned, so that only helped some of the time. I piled on resil, and once I got over 6k resil I started to notice I was harder to kill, and by getting where I am currently at 7.470k ( 61.51%) I was lasting longer,  but all it took was a couple dps blowing all the cd’s on me and I was gone.

All the stuff we could pick from talent points that made disc awesome in BG’s became talent points or Glyphs. I could have gone pure defensive mode in glyph choices,  Inner fire for 60% ,more armor,  Innerfocus Glyph for 5 sec for silence and interrupt protection and desperation to cast GS while silenced and the combination would have helped,  but not enough. I was already using Spectral guise to avoid getting hit as often, and it worked occasionally and Angelic Feathers for me to get away faster ( and good for flag carrying bg’s) but it wasn’t enough.  I still felt weak.

So I have gone holy.  Yes,  funny isn’t it. A Holy Priest in BG’s – the joke was that holy priests did more healing when they had died and were in spirit of redemption form then then did when they were alive.  I have more instant type casts I can do inbetween stuns and silences  as Holy now then when I was Disc. I have Sanctuary as a less then .5 sec cast, as a set and forget heal,  lightwell as a set and forget.  ( didn’t pick lifespring because it only helps if your less then 50% health)  holy word: serenity is instant with a 10 sec cd  and heals for almost as much as a flash heal but for 1/3 of the mana cost.   Divine Hymn on 3 min cd and everything I had as disc.    Sure spirit shell was awesome when you could see the enemy running at you and you had time to build it up. But when your getting locked down, and you can’t even get a fear off,  or a second to put your psyfiend on the ground – your spirit shell was useless.

Holy is still as squishy – but I felt squishy as disc.  I’m not dying any less.

RBG’s don’t seem to be getting off the ground. Guild attempts have flopped even getting 10 people interested.  Have a few feelers out with some people I’ve been doing semi premades with who might do RBG’s ,  but there’s a noticeable lack of interest generally, and I think I’ve left it too late again I tried to push on week 1 but it never happened and besides  I think I would very much rather be Shadow  ( shadow is awesome sauce right now) – and regardless of how much better I think Holy is for pvp for me at this moment,  trying to convince a new rbg team that I can be awesome might be a hard task.

Disc Priests now come with pet Rogues

Published August 19, 2012 World Of Warcraft 1 Comment
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Well at least in rated BG’s they do.

One of the more popular strats which seem to pop up more in the mid MMR ratings is the assigning of cc to an enemy healer.  Rogues get put on disc priests.  One on one,  I can make killing me a rather long and drawn out process.  If I concentrate on keeping myself alive I can keep a rogue occupied for quite some time.  ( I have Goldshire dueling cred for doing exactly that)  but if you put a Rogue on me when I am trying to heal everyone, and dispel as often as possible. Well,  that annoying little creature that has suddenly grown attached to the back of my robe is a pain in the butt.

PEEL! Please.

We did a rated the other night and one of the teams we faced were hacking.   RL took a video  and posted it to youtube  here  it also got posted on the realm forum that the hackers came from and their GM has assured everyone it’s being dealt with.  They were apparently unaware that their team was hacking until that BG,  maybe they had gotten maps where flying up in the air wasn’t advantageous.

We lost.  Did we lose because they were hacking,  not quite, though it was a contributing factor  we lost because we couldn’t concentrate  when there were priests flying through the air,  or players with their heads sticking out of the ground, you’re looking for enemies in all the wrong places. Their hacking gave them some unfair advantages which lost us nodes, like capping underground – if we had focused better we could have beat them.

We all lost points to losing to them. We lost team synergy. We are all bloody annoyed.

I have been trying to pursue rated BG’s with the passion of someone who has nothing left to do in Wow at the moment.  The new strategy of rolling an alt and standing in SW and listening to trade on somewhere like Tich netted me 2 rather very quick invites  to a xrealm rated team. If people are logging onto alts to recruit for these teams,  why not go to these realms to be recruited.

The problem with xrealm and xrealm pugs is that at least half the team are either drunk.  tired or stoned on the weekend. Those things never affect your performance do they…

It’s also throwing yourself into a group of random strangers  – sometimes sharing real ID, and more lately Skype information and hoping it all goes well, and the party doesn’t fall apart due to massive failure after waiting around in group for 1/2 an hour while they recruit the perfect team class combination.

There is also a worry, or concern that they won’t think you did good enough.   100 + dispels, and outhealing the Pally healer.  Is that good enough?   Did you call that you were being focused too much,  or not enough,  because no one else looks at health bars but the healers. Are they going to point the fingers at the healers, or the DPS when it all goes down.

I had a few good runs,  and some bad ones.

I even took over leading one when we got into an AB and there was no plan or leader.   I had no idea what specs we had or the  gear they were wearing.  I wrongly assumed that there had been some consideration as to who was invited.  I was recruited from trade , but  half of them had never done a rated before.
It didn’t end pretty – well they followed directions, and we managed to keep two bases for most of the game, which means they point lead wasn’t as bad – just we didn’t have the strength to break their defenses on a 3rd.

They promised me Rated’s

Published August 14, 2012 World Of Warcraft 5 Comments
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After wandering around Guildless for a few weeks trying to work out what I wanted to do, I joined a Pvp guild, because they promised me rated BG’s.

Yes it’s bad timing –  end of season,  but since leaving Proudmoore, and the ‘secret pvpers chat channel’ where we used to be able to recruit for things like rateds or semi premades  I have been lacking for a decent pvp company.   It was getting so bad I was even healing anyone who asked  through 2’s arena for point caps.
It’s been bumpy so far.   3 hours of waiting, or  waiting on a Cross realm recruiting “Does anyone have a prot warrior?”  – Skype and mic issues, people having to use real ID to add the RL for the xrealms – people who leave mid BG when we are down 200 resources. and then we spend 30min recruiting a replacement after a devastating loss in the BG because two people left.  When recruiting there have been people who want to be carried or guaranteed a win, people afraid of losing their current rating. Or just no one wanting to do rateds.

We need more people who want to have a decent shot at not only doing rateds,  but team building as well so that we get better and know how to work together. We have had several nights of people cycling through,  some better then others,  and we have even later faced people we have played with in other Rateds. ( and Beat them.  Most satisfying. )

I also got OMG a girl comment. ” I’ve never had a girl in my rated bg before” by what turned out to be seasoned rated bg player on a big US pvp server  ( which is more surprising surely then a 12 year old on a quite  oceanic right?.   Where are you girls?  – Get into Rated Bg’s!.

I know your supposed to use all the tools available to you, especially in a Rated BG- much like a mage uses slow fall off the rock in EOS, or a hunter goes invis so you can’t range target them, but I always feel a little sneaky using Mind Vision

I spy on the enemy team before the BG starts -(It puts them off their game  😛 ) – and this is easily done using Battleground Targets the add on, but where ever you are,  If I can target you with Battleground Targets,  then I can find you.

I can tell my team how many of you are trying to sneak around the back way in WW or coming over the hill to LH

Where the flag carrier is coming out in WSG – and where he tries to hide with the flag, how many healers he has with him ect..

I feel this  is a slightly unfair advantage.  Mind Vision is not available in arena  ( though I would have less use for it in there anyway) In a Rated Bg we won in the Battle for Gilneas by floating, we were able to float between LH and WW and I spent some of my time confirming, or reporting potential attacks.

It’s also rather Voyeuristic .

Speaking of Voyeurism

Our Rated RL/GM has been dragging me into arenas – and live streaming them.  The most viewers we had apparently were 11. I have mixed feelings about our Skype Conversations/Games being live streamed. I am not  really  comfortable being part of the entertainment.

I wouldn’t want to watch a live streamed Arena, especially at our level ( 3’s skirting 1550 at the moment – in early days..  working on it.. working on it… )  So I am not sure why other people would want to watch us.  If we get better,  can keep a regular 3’s team then maybe – but again, it’s the end of the season, and we aren’t that great.

There was also this odd obligation to feel like I needed to provide some kind of banter to the people who were watching while we were waiting for Pop, or for the Arena to start.  It wasn’t a radio show,  but I couldn’t help feel like it was. ( with a very small audience )   I also don’t think things like  “Dispel me!  and me replying something along the lines of  – I would if I wasn’t running away in a fear right now,  or me saying, get this Rogue off me., makes for what I would consider entertainment.

And there is all this extra pressure not to lose  and make stupid mistakes. ( we lost viewers when we lost games)

One of the Queue breaks saw someone waving and cheering at us telling us the last game ‘was a good win’   and me not thinking said, ‘Oh he is watching us,  that’s a little creepy’ and of course he heard it on the live stream,

Not the right thing to say to people who are cheering you on, and are of your limited audience. ( I’m sorry.. )

No Quarter

Published May 10, 2012 World Of Warcraft 4 Comments
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Ancient legends say the rank a fallen warrior held

Depended on an Honor Guard of foes that one had felled.

And so in tardy tribute to the one we couldn’t save,

We’ll lay your fiery deaths like crimson flowers on her grave.

No Quarter – Echoes Children – Honor Harrington

One of the things that disappoints me in RBG’s is the tendency for losing teams to leave the BG

“Where did they all go?”

So you have to go through the motions of capping the flag 3 times, or waiting for your resources to cap out. This happens because the other team,  sometimes one at a time,  often all together will just leave the BG – and give up.

Starcraft does this better I think with the surrender button.  Not sure how they would do this in Wow,  but at the very least the Raid Leader could have the power to do a surrender maybe with a supporting vote to enact. That way everyone ends the game without having to all leave and give up, and the winning team doesn’t need to go through the motions.  This would mean then you could punish players/a team that leave the bg without surrendering. Currently there is no deserter debuff.

I understand not wanting to play a game where you are clearly outmatched.  Sometimes the ranking can be a little off kilter. We managed a guild run RBG last night after raid – and we smashed team 1  – none of them had any rating.  We sent a FC and a healer to get the horde flag, and we mopped them up, and rubbed their faces in the dirt before they could get ours. I looked up and couldn’t find any of them around, and they had all died, and were rezing.  Then they left BG. The 2nd game we were closer matched,  but we were the ones outclassed, and on the 2nd cap my team started leaving.

I’m one of the last to give up in a normal BG. The infuriating person who keeps going after the flag, and often sneaking past the horde only to die tragically in the tunnel to our flag room because I have no support. I don’t like giving up because it’s boring.  There is always something new to learn, a reason to keep fighting.  I won’t go quietly and It pee’s the other team off when you just won’t die.  I hate leaving a Rated BG unfinished as well,  but in this case mainly because we still have an opportunity to work as a team. To learn as a team. Maybe we won’t win, but how do you get better if you don’t try?

I’ve pugged a fair few tragic Rated BG’s in my time. and so with the highest rank achieved being 1600 I’m technically only a armchair expert, but I will stick out a bad team just because often the only way to get better is to practice. And most importantly practice as a team but most Pug RBG’s end quite messy after a loss.  Often to competing leadership, people who don’t listen to targets or strats, or tunnelers, but some of  the correcting that can be done is just having a good leader focusing the efforts of the team – you assume a Rated BG team is more likely to listen to a ‘get out of mid’ call.  Players don’t follow a pre determined sequence of phases like a boss fight does. The unpredictability is what makes is fun for me, and difficult to lead when you can’t see or trust that everyone is doing what they should be doing. ( or at the least avoiding the things they shouldn’t)

But I get the impression that there are a lot of people out there who have dabbled in RBG’s but give up because it’s too hard to make headway, or their guild doesn’t run it.  Even as a 25 man guild with subs and casuals and alts we still have had issues getting 10 interested in doing RBGs regularly.

I’ve been curious to try Battlemasters.Org premades which is supposed to work like the x-realm raiding sites as per Joystiq’s list of resources and I’m hoping to give it a decent shot this weekend when more people  should be around ( if anyone will have me.) 4.7k resil Disc priest LF RBG. 🙂 that is on when I am awake, not a work, and not raiding.

Two handed Beer raising and x-world x-realm pvpers

Published March 29, 2012 World Of Warcraft 3 Comments
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So back when we could change the custom pose of our characters on Wow Armory – I played with it. Forgot about it, and left it.

So my character is stuck as per image below.  Imagine a Guinness in each hand in light of recent St Patrick day celebrations and it makes more sense.*

Disclaimer: Drink of choice was actually a variation of a black velvet.  Half Guinness and half Bulmers blackberry cider  – because It was somewhat difficult to deal with Guinness at 10am in the morning, and an Proper Irish breakfast with Blackpudding

Yes I transmog’d into the Merciless Gladiators set because I had some spare Honor from a decent amount of  weekend BGing with some fellow bloggers,  mainly Gnomeaggedon, Bigbearbutt  Keredria and a couple of other randoms from each of our guilds.   I like this set because it makes me look more like an  authentic pvper,  ( and did I mention that in game the head piece has pretty sparkles )  Keredria has our Group Shot on the stairs in AB posted.  A thank you to Gnomeaggedon and Keredria, as seems to be all their organization and drive to get this started, and I didn’t have to get out of bed at 8am on a sunday – so Yeah!

Apparently our Aussie accents are adorable 🙂 We did try and deter this train of thought with some real bogan language, and exaggerated accents. My current raiding guild are all all Aussies,  and so it was interesting to hear American accents again.

We had a mix of gear/classes/ experience and we certainly didn’t faceroll , and no one could tell that our mismatch of Realms were all a premade  but we were able to communicate better, and it sounds like we all had a lot of fun 🙂

When running with two groups  it got a little fiddly trying to time the pops,  and one time it looks like we missed it by a nanosecond.

I was back to Disc heals for the weekend,  and still somehow ended up babysitting flags, which is an ideal spec to be in to stay alive long enough when under attack,  flashing off holy nova between stuns and silences to stop flag caps, while calling for help on skype. I also stayed because an increasing trend amongst bg’s of late seem to be Cap and run, and I have cried

“What happened to you cap it you keep it”  way too many times the more recent weeks of Bging.

Losing stables as we cap LM – so very early on in the game is a really bad start, and often the premade was forced to be the ‘responsible ones’ looking after nodes while the rest of the BG did their own thing, including slagging each other in BG chat.

Bear has raised the Idea of getting Horde and Alliance RBG teams pitted against each other.  If that happens, we better start training!

First off the boat

Published September 8, 2011 World Of Warcraft 2 Comments
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In Strand of the Ancients  you can stand on the prow of the Alliance boat on a pointy bit  and jump off the boat and onto the dock before most of the other people,  and often into the arms of the waiting horde,  or if your lucky straight into a demo.

Most people wait until the boat stops before getting off,  and then are seconds behind you,  while you,  the ‘cowboy’ is looking left to right wondering where their back up is.

(The horde side doesn’t have that kind of prow on the front of their boat,  so they are all forced to wait untill it docks to disembark, or if they are a DK jump off early)

When in the Battle for Gilneas if you run to Waterworks from the Alliance side,  you can either go the shorter way in front of that  house nearest the flag at WW  and water or you can go behind it.  If you go in front,  it is faster,  but again your often the first one there,  and will get targeted first by the horde and have died by the time everyone has caught up.

It happens to me in Eye of the storm as well  if taking FRR or BET  that even taking into consideration the lag difference that makes me appear in front of everyone else,   my many many hours of PVP mean I have learned the more efficient ways of getting places that little bit faster. If I don’t wait for everyone to catch up I will die.

Being ‘first’ off the boat or the eager Bever isn’t ideal.  Best case you’re a distraction,  and might last long enough to give your team time to get there while you play the pinata, so it’s safer to run with the pack,  even if the pack is a little slower,  otherwise you’re not doing anyone favours by being the first to die.

 

Pvping in BG’s – WSG

Published June 30, 2011 World Of Warcraft 6 Comments
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So Spiritual guidance had a piece on the basis of Shadow Priest Pvp today and is correct in that the ‘randomness’ of Pvp it’s hard to tell people what to do,  especially on the scale of a BG. I realized that for someone who does an awful lot of battlegrounds and shares I guess general experiences in BG’s  – I don’t actually say many things useful for a person wanting to know what a Shadow Priest, can or should do in a BG
There is lots of difficulty  in explaining how to pvp – and there is how I do stuff, and there is how they do stuff, so it’s very much open to criticism, or interpretation, it’s also very circumstantial and  it’s a forced team sport. The less people in the BG contributing to the success in a meaningful manner mean the less likely you will win, and if you have 10 or more people running with multiple ideas of ‘what they think is right’  it’s not  easy.
  I was hoping there would be more stuff around on rated BG’s but there doesn’t seem to be.  I had envisaged people reading  the great military generals, the classic strategists and applying them to rateds. My own experience in rateds have been restricted to trade pugs and random gatherings  and given I have resisted the call of raiding I think if I found a stable Pvp Guild that did rateds seriously and  with more regularity in my peak playing times then just for the points I would jump ship/server
 Because I’ve never talked about what I do in a Bg,   I  plan on breaking this down into individual posts one for each BG . It’s a discussion, it’s what I do – and I may not always be right.
I’m starting WSG because it’s the BG I played the most.
Initial Zerg
Both sides like to zerg,  or run together to the other teams flag room.  Most of the time though 10 people don’t make it to the other end. Some people go ramp,  some tunnel,  some wander off midfield,  or get stopped or killed along the way.
If we are in semi premade  ( 5 grouped party members or less ) we will cut the horde’s zerg off  – best case we wipe them/split them up over rez timers so we don’t have a concentrated assault for any future offense.
They usually don’t expect to have their zerg interrupted, so like lost deer they will stand mid field hesitating on their mounts  blinking in shock.
By the time they have recovered we have targeted the healers and are taking them down one by one, and pushing them back towards their rez point.
People also get tunnel vision,  present them with a target and they will forget that their real aim should have been to ride/sneak past us and head to the flag room and instead they dismount engage in combat.
We break up their Zerg because  It’s demoralizing, and it makes sense to delay their first flag grab, while the rest of your team grabs theirs . When you all  run out of the starting room together, your united,  your a Team. GO TEAM!  Break up that team, and have people rezing in different 30 sec rez time means that their team of 10 becomes 4 or 5 and are much easier to deal with and contain, and your less likely to have larger groups chasing after your flag carrier.
( Ideally because the Horde have committed themselves to offense  the rest of our team has already grabbed the flag and are running towards mid field to ‘us the defenders’ who can assist by cleaning up an attacking horde and giving the flag carrier an escort)
If I am Solo, and  If I feel like being a pain – I’ll head them off on my own. This is a suicide mission,  and the aim is to delay them/break them up or even just pee them off.
Try to drop a Fear in the middle of their Zerg. Some will dismount to kill you  Trinket out of their initial stuns, Psychic horror a melee,  Silence a caster,   Shield, and when about 40k health I then disperse, and jump around for 6 secs making the melee chase me,  hoping that my fear is off cool down so I can get one last fear bomb off before I collapse and die. Why do it?,  if I get can get them to dismount then I have succeeded in breaking their zerg.
Chasing Flag Carriers
When your flag does get picked up by the opposing team As a Shadow Priest you can  /tar the flag carrier and Mind vision them to see where they are at.  (I Like Mind Vision in BG’s ) Report their location, Ping the map/tell Bg/ and the defence crew can clean them up. My Mindvision will fail if they are in the tunnel and I am mid field, once they become in line of site in the tunnel ( stand in front of tunnel) , I can then target them. If they run up top  I can report that they are going Ramp or GY.  Sometimes the Flag carrier seeing his is being Mind V’d starts doing stupid things, stops mid tunnel, runs back,  or  will hesitate and forget that they are supposed to getting that flag  to their base and will run off into all sorts of weird side directions to hide.
Flag carriers can be pesky things if they can blink, or have a speed boost.  It’s all very well  to kill the healer first,  but  sometimes you need to make sure the flag carrier doesn’t out run you, and their healer. It can be hard to get out of combat in time to mount up and chase ( and they don’t need heals if you can’t run after them fast enough to hit them)  Fear/Psychic horror to get them to stop running in a straight line.  Then if you have team members around you,  keep them slowed by spamming Mindflay – as long as you have that channeled on them it gives the rest of your team time to dps them down, and can more useful than if you were doing normal dps rotation on them.
Don’t forget your fiend.  He hits reasonably hard, and can be annoying when he is wailing on the flag carrier is also something you can throw at them while your running to get close enough to stand and cast.
Spell wise, Devouring plague has a damage on application affect, so if you can’t stop and cast Mindblast or Mindflay then chasing them while keeping SWP on them,  Shadow word deathing on Cool down, fiending,  and spamming DP on them for the intial damage I find helps get their health down.
Learn to Peel, Mcing the healer is one way to shut them up/interrupt their casting/ Slow  or CC the flag carriers support crew so it makes it harder for them to help the FC, but don’t get distracted and end up having epic mid field battles.
I am also glyphed for a faster casting Mass dispel,  great for getting team mates out of hungering cold,  or mage circles, and removing buffs from the enemy.
Being the Flag carrier.
I wrote this test Post a while back. It’s not ideal to be the flag carrier. It doesn’t matter how much resilience you have,  if you’re getting attacked stunned, feared silenced your going to need help.
I don’t take the flag if I’m in the Zerg – other people want to fight over the privilege, and you often have no idea if just because they are in Pvp gear, are plate wearers or have large health pools,  that they won’t do stupid things like get into a bike as a passenger and drop the flag,  or vanish, or shadow Meld,  or try to hop on their mount, you can try to support the person who is flag carrying ( until they prove that they are bad at flag carrying)
This may mean that you need to help heal/shield. That post pretty much covers all the things we can do to keep ourselves alive.
If no one else is going for the flag and no one is near then I will pick it up and try and carry it. Be sneaky,  wait in the doorway up top until a rez wave happens and they aren’t looking back at their own base,  I favor going up the sides. Not everyone has distance enabled on their views, and may have difficulty seeing you on screen.  When they do catch up do your best to keep them off you, aim to cc by fearing/horror then stopping and killing.   Dot up enemy’s that are following you so you get your trickle of healing return from Vampiric embrace, and save your trinket/dispersion for when you really need it,  but also don’t die having not used them.
Healing as a Shadow Priest in the BG
I will break out of Shadow form to heal if I HAVE to,  we take additional damage, lose spell damage bonuses, and it costs mana to return back to Shadow form. You are crippling us by assuming  we will break form every time someone needs a top up.  We do not have the mana regen out of shadow form to be great healers.  We can help you,  but eventually we will go oom, and then we get targeted and die anyway( and yelling “Heal me you B*tch priest isn’t going to make me  heal you)
I have a healing bar set up ‘under’ my shadow form bar.  When I drop form my bars change, and I have set up things like fear/shield and some heals on my main buttons  and I use VuhDu the healing mod, so I can cast a healing spell by clicking on the frames to get me out of shadow and heal on the target.   I will drop my form if I can see that I will help you.  If you have no resilience, and getting attacked by 6 horde. your written off as a lost cause. But there are Shadow Priests that absolutely refuse to drop form.  Me it really depends.
If you can keep the flag carrier alive long enough for the real healer to catch up or even top the FC up if it’s too much for the healer to handle  then it might be a good idea to do it.  We are utility – and if we can be productively flexible and contribute  to the success then we all win ( but don’t do it too often because it will gimp you)
I know that hasn’t covered everything, but I guess depending on how this post is received I will do one for each BG.

Alliance to the Bone

Published June 27, 2011 World Of Warcraft 4 Comments
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I have flirted with Horde side a few times. They seem to be the most abandoned of my alts though, they don’t have the support system meaning the toons with complementary professions and the gold my alliance do, it makes and easier to walk away from.

When a friend moved to Jubie’thos Horde side PVP server for raiding,  I dug out a horde hunter that had made it to her 40’s on there ,  and had already gone through 2 motivational surges throughout my Wow playing history,   the first one was when RL friends started a BE female only guild for which I rolled her for, and her first revival when one of my raiding guilds decided to play alts on Jubie  horde side for a short period,  so for what I thought would be a minor revival,   I logged in and brushed off the dust; deleted the bag full of arrows and spent the little gold she had on a better riding skill and some glyphs, and then I kept playing.

I got to look around the server, and was surprised to see how many people were on during my peak hours.  I’ve now spent a fair bit of time on US servers with high Aussie populations, and their Aussie peak are nothing like a real Aussie peak on a real oceanic server.

I hung out until a level 25 guild invited me and I am in a random guild that invites rabble like myself randomly just because we are tagless.

She is 67 now, but I want her to 85 just so I can have at least one 85 horde side. but I am having some allegiance issues, firstly Jubie’thos is a PVP realm, and those pesky Alliance try to kill me when I am questing,  and then secondly there are the  BG’s I throw myself into to mix up my leveling.

My first reaction to seeing a higher score on the BG board next to the Alliance symbol,  is ‘yipee’ we are winning.  Except I know I shouldn’t be getting exciting over Alliance winning while I am playing Horde.

I also feel guilty killing Alliance races.

I’ve spent so many years killing horde that their faces are a blur – I don’t pick out their races, or notice their hair.  All I see is a red tag about their head that makes them fair game,  but now,  killing Alliance brings a small attack of conscience Instead of oh,  I killed a enemy,  it’s awee I killed a little Gnome… or Aweee the poor furry faced worgen, and dwarves – I see a red headed dwarf female and I think,  how can I shoot something that looks like ‘me’ ( my level 85 hunter being red headed dwarven female)  or the other more often  me,  a NE shadow priest, or the other not so much me’s

You  see it’s become even harder since I finally got my 100k kills on my Priest,   I guess that technically now makes me a life time sworn enemy of the Horde.  I wear my badge of Hk’s as my title,  and I was thinking; FINALLY (  considering I always seem to end up baby sitting something because no ones else does  – rather than zerging like all those other people with mass amounts of Hk’s do. )

Is Pvping supposed to be about winning.

Published June 19, 2011 World Of Warcraft 7 Comments
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I met this random person a BG. Sorta. I don’t remember their name, but we were babysitting Lumbermill  and I was sleeping  at the foot of the node in boredom and got to talking about the state of Alliance on each others realms,  and they mentioned that they had just recently changed to Alliance because they were

“Sick of horde….  they care more about K’b’s than tactics to win bgs”

I didn’t get to tell them ” Honey..  we are the same on this side too” because we got distracted by a hordie trying to cap the node.

I’ve been a big fan of playing to Win in Pvp,  but that’s not all there is to Pvp in Bg’s anymore.

It’s about Hk’s it’s about K’B’s, it’s about Faction Rep,  Guild Rep, getting achievements  and sometimes its just about being a D*ck because it’s a Bg full of strangers.

Even I have conflicting motivations right now,  I don’t really care about honor,  I’ve been buying chanting mats for weeks so I’m not wasting my cap, and I am So close to my 100k kills –

Which means I should not be babysitting nodes.  I should be chaining AV’s and dotting up everything,  instead I end up baby sitting Lumbermill,  I think I was born with this ‘must take responsibility’ gene. So when the person who capped it runs off,  and my pleas of ” you cap it you keep it” is falling on deaf ears I still feel obligated to stay and guard.  Cause we are playing to win first right?

But does anyone actually care if we win  or lose anymore?  When a loss means that you can still satisfy your need to top Hk’s, K’b’s or get, or get closer to what ever achievement your working on now.

The only thing winning does is give you more honor,  so if most of the BG doesn’t give a crap about honor – why would they give a crap about winning.

And besides,  isn’t it more fun to run a muck… doing what you want zerging bases

The simple motivation to want to win isn’t enough anymore.  We are more ok with losing because we get closer to some other goal, when it could all be so simple,  the single desire to win.

I have that  objective sitting on my screen.  I watch it ticking over. I’m not sure what will happen when I get it.

I want to wear the ” Of the Alliance” title, and then I shall faction change and wear
Of the horde just for the Irony that I got it killing horde. ( kind of kidding)

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