5v5 or Bust!

I just started doing 5v5's with our Guild with no expectations of winning. Surprisingly, we've managed to stay around 1450-1475 with a group that runs 5 DPS most of the time. What I was more surprised to find was how many more arena points I get running a sub 1500 5v5 vs. our 2v2 that sits around 1550-1575. I've been getting about 100 more points on a farm team than I do on my 2v2 where we've gotten some of the kinks worked out in our class pairings. The moral of this story is to get your butt on a 5v5 sooner rather than later if you want to accumulate the most arena points with the least amount of effort. That's about all I have to say about that.

Hooray For Season 4!

Well, as soon as season 4 started, I went out and bought me a shiny new s3 chestpiece, s4 necklace and s2 shoulders (frankly because I wanted a little change in appearance after having worn s1 shoulders so long). I gemmed everything up with +12 stam gems and I'm now sitting over 12k health.

So, with all the new pimptastic gear, you may be wondering how has Longbow been fairing in the arenas. The short answer is HORRIBLE.

Having never pvped during the start of a new season, I really don't have anything to compare my experiences to, but our matches have been twice as hard as they were the latter half of season 3. I'm hoping that within a few weeks, the good teams will move up the rankings and out of my noob rankings. Then, maybe I can fight some teams that suck as bad as ours :)

I have been able to notice many of the mistakes I've been making, but unfortunately I don't seem to be able to capitalize on my awareness of these slip ups.

So, I will continue to play my 30 games a week with my friends 3 characters and hope that I can level up a druid before WotLK. Maybe my druid Buckwild will have better synergy with my arena partner's characters and we can actually move up the ladder a bit.

Only time will tell.

Arena Matching Working As Intended?

Ok, so it's been a few weeks since I've posted. I've wanted to post because this topic has been frustrating me for the past three weeks, but I have been so busy that I really didn't think I would have the time to do this subject justice.

Well, ever since the last patch that supposedly fixed the arena matching system, my 2v2 team has had the great luck of being matched up against 1600-1700 rated teams when our team was at 1490-1520 rating. This was during prime time on sunday and monday nights. If I were a betting man, I would have guessed that these nights would have more than enough people playing at our rating to match us up against.

I'm also seeing a trend when I look up the armories of the teams and players we lose against. Several of them are wearing full season 3 gear to include the shoulders and weapons. I don't think that every one of the guys I see in full s3 gear bought their rating and just suck so bad that they are now in the 1500 bracket again. I think point selling is still alive and well and that the s3 geared players are suiciding their rating during the week to sell their services to help raise other players ratings. Or maybe they are just helping out guildies/friends.

Our team usually wins about six out of every ten 2v2 games we play so we are far from stellar. It's just me and a RL friend and we run 10 games with his enhancement shaman, 10 with his disc/holy priest and recently 10 with his affliction lock. So, given our sub-par experience, it really doesn't help that we've had the fun luck of being matched up against 1600-1700 rated guys and guys wearing full season 3 gear the past three weeks.

And that's all I got to say about that.

Spring Cleaning

I logged in Friday night and decided that I needed to go through all of my bank alts to make sure that I didn't have anything dropping out of the mail. After doing a little spring cleaning, I clicked on Longbow (my nelf hunter) and figured that I might as well get started on my dailies.

Just before logging in with Longbow, I decided to go ahead and delete my character Testx that I use to figure out what I want my character to look like when I am trying to pick what face, hair, and beard on my alts. He was taking up my last character slot and I was toying with the idea of rolling a warlock or mage. So, I click on delete and get the prompt to type the word "DELETE". I type delete, click "OK" and notice the most peculiar thing.

My character Testx was still on the screen. I must not have hit "OK". At this point I've wasted too much time with my "spring cleaning" and house keeping, so I figured that I would log in with Longbow and knock out my dailies. If this sounds like work...it is. On a side note, this game can certainly feel like a second job at times...but I still love it. Anyways, back to my dailies. I moved the pointer up to my #1 spot on the character selection screen where Longbow normally sits...only there was no longer a Longbow!

It appears that in my hurry to finish up my "spring cleaning", I accidentally deleted Longbow. At this point I was in panic mode. Longbow may not have the best gear, but I have spent months in the battlegrounds grinding out honor one loss and one mark at a time to get him the gear he is wearing. To make matters worse, I was saving up for an epic mount and had finally gotten above 3,000 gold. Now, I realize that is a drop in the bucket for some players, but for me, it was a lot. After staring at the screen in disbelief for a few minutes, I do the only thing I could do at this point. I logged in with my bank alt, opened a GM ticket and started praying to the game gods that someone would have mercy and restore poor little Longbow.

An hour goes by and I walked through all the possibilities in my head. What if I get him back with zero gold and no gear. What would happen to all my stuff in the bank. Would I lose all my mail? I couldn't begin to fathom spending that amount of time re-gearing him a second time. Heck, I don't even like my hunter that much. His main purpose in life was to run my alts through instances, enchant thier gear and make them bags (I have two accounts...one with Longbow, the other with my alts). I finally got tired of sitting in Ironforge waiting on a GM, so I logged off and went to grab a bite to eat.

I logged back in, checked the character screen and still no Longbow. I logged in as my bank alt and after about one minute, the icon changed for my ticket and said something to the effect that my ticket would be resolved shortly. Then, one minute later, it said that my issue had been resolved and that I had been selected to take a customer satisfaction survey.

Needless to say that I didn't take the survey. I logged back out and checked the character selection screen. THERE WAS LONGBOW! And he was wearing all his gear. I logged in with him and the only thing that was lost was my guild and arena team membership (I still had my arena points).

To the GM that handled my ticket on Baelgun...I owe you a BIG thank you!

Patch 2.4.2

It's late so this will be a short post, but I wanted to share my thoughts on the latest patch.

So , I log in last night on my hunter with anticipation and excitement. Because I'm saving up for my epic flying mount, I settle into my routine and start my dailies. I go to the quest giver in Shatt and grab my Multiphase Survey quest, head down to Nagrand and knock out my quest. I fly back to Shatt, go to the quest giver and turn my quest back in. There's some discussion in guild chat about certain mods not working with the new patch (big surprise there) so I chime in with a list of some of my mods that are no longer working. Back to my routine...I open up my backpack to see if I got a shiny badge of justice in my Shattered Sun supplies reward...but wait...I don't see it in my backpack. Now I'm a little mad...somehow in all the fuss in chat, I must have gotten sidetracked and accidentally deleted my shattered sun supplies quest reward! I post in guild chat about my goof only to find out that THEY TOOK AWAY MY PRECIOUS QUEST REWARD!

With the dailies out of the way, I get ready for a bit of PeeVeePee in the battlegrounds. I go grab my pvp daily quest and luckily remembered to go in and add Scare Beast back to my hot-keyed buttons. Now that it's instant cast, I will destroy those pesky feral dr00ds. I join Eye of the Storm battleground (EotS for those in the know) and was overwhelmed with joy when I see a druid running straight at me in cat form. I wait for him to get close enough to see the whites of his furry little eyes and then I let him have it!

SURPRISE #2...my Scare Beast is NOT instant cast. /sigh
Edit: 5/19/2008 - I noticed a few nights later that it was changed (after the patch) and is now instant cast.

Kids, the moral of this story is that you should read your patch notes BEFORE you head into battle. Now you know. And knowing is half the battle. G.I. JOE!

Battleground PvP Ain't Arena PvP

About six weeks ago I started running arenas on a regular basis with my hunter Longbow (and by regular, I mean 10-11 games each week which obviously makes me an expert), so I thought I would write about the obvious. Arenas are not battlegrounds. There really isn't any comparison between the two types of PvP. I bring up this point because there are so many players out there that enjoy battlegrounds, but have never stepped foot in the arenas. I myself didn't step foot in them until season two...and the 20 or so matches I ran with my enhancement shaman in 3v3s and 5v5s were enough to tramatize me for many months afterwords. I think it bruised my epeen that I didn't go in there and rip everyone to shreds with my epic level 60 high warlord PvP mace and outland greens like I was used to in world pvp, duels and battlegrounds.

I think it's safe to say that battleground PvP is about as fair as you're gonna see anywhere. In the battlegrounds with 10+ people, class composition of the group has little effect on the outcome of the battles. I'm not saying that having no healers on your side won't influence the outcome...but all and all there's enough people that all the "rock, paper, scissors" scenarios are covered. Contrast that to the other end of the spectrum which is a 2v2 arena. What class you are teamed up with makes ALL the difference depending where you lie in the ratings.

Now I've always thought of myself as an above-average PvPer and I usually get first or second on the damage done in WSG, AB and EotS, and I'm usually in the top 5 in AV. I "grew up" my first 70 (troll enhancement shaman) on Wildhammer (PvP server) and honed my PvP skills guarding the starting cave in AV.

I even managed to reach Legionnaire so I'm no stranger to PvP. What I and many others find out very quickly is that arenas are more like a group duel than they are like any of the battlegrounds. Let me further specify...it's like a group duel where everyone can gang up on your first if they choose :)

My first experience in the arenas was in a hardcore 10 game a week 5v5 :) My first impression was that it felt like complete and total chaos. I didn't know who to hit or what to do. BG strategy was simple...kill the healers first. Often times this is not the case in arenas. I'd be lying if I said I knew who to hit now as my arena partner and I are still trying to work those wrinkles out of our strategy.

I myself can only speak from my experience in fighting the top-tier highly ranked arena teams of the 1525-1575 ratings. I can't seem to get above 1550...obviously it's my fat draenei shaman 2v2 partner Luun that's dragging us down and not a lack of l33t pvp skills on my part ;)

But I digress...my point...I did have a point...oh yes. My point was that arenas are addictive and fun. They are like duels on steriods. If you enjoy BG PvP, then you will love arena pvp.

If your gear sucks, don't worry. You'll get your butt handed to you over and over until your rating drops you down to a nice confortable spot where you can fight people with similar gear and/or experience and/or ability as you. Once you reach that nice little rating spot, it really does get fun and you quickly find that those hard fought battles where you win with just a fraction of health left really gets the adrenaline flowing.

5v5s really can be quite overwhelming for the uninitiated or undergeared, so I would suggest starting out in the 2v2 or 3v3 to get your feet wet. My other advise would be not to focus on your win/losses or your rating your first month. Just get in there and run as many matches as you can and try to learn what you did right and what you did wrong each time.

Lastly, don't team up with a draenei enhancement shaman, they are fat and they smell funny.

Welfare Epics

I hear the term "welfare epics" thrown around alot. I myself am guilty of using this term to describe my own gear on Longbow. This was a term introduced by the blues themselves to refer to the season one arena gear that became available for purchase with honor in 2.3.

Longbow grew up as an alt, and as such spent most of his time power grinding his way to level cap with no time spent in the BG's or instances prior to 70. In hindsight, this was a very poor decision which resulted in me not knowing how to play my class (to put it nicely). I would really urge anyone leveling alts to take the time to run instances with their new characters and hit a few BG's before entering the 70 BG's, arenas, Kara, Gruul's, etc. as a green 70 (no pun intended for my green-skinned friends or those characters still wearing greens) because you will quickly find just how undeveloped your group skills and pvp skills are.

Anyways, back to my point. When I hit 70 with Longbow I had two choices to gear him up. Having the new found luxury of being in a larger guild that runs Mt. Hyjal and Black Temple (thanks to a friend of mine that actually put in the raiding time to get me invited as a "friends and family" member), I could ride the coat tails of my guild and have them drag me along kara/gruul's/za runs with them carrying my weight. Or...wait for it...I could roll up my sleaves and actually put forth some effort myself to get geared. Now, this was prior to the patch that allowed you to buy the pvp-friendly blue rep gear. So, after a little thought, I decided to hit the BG's for hours each night for over a month instead of being a welfare case for my guild.

The BG grind was just that...a grind. Now I love PvP, but a person can only take so many hours of playing with the mentally challenged before you start to develop a nervous tick. My favorite BG has always been Alterac Valley. In reality, I think this stems from the fact that you don't "have" to put forth maximum individual effort to achieve wins. Unlike WSG where one AFKer can put the nail in the coffin for close matches. Don't get me wrong, I'm competative and love to win, but there are some nights where my heart is just not into it and I just want to grind out some honor with moderate effort. Unfortunately, in Shadowburn battlegroup before the changes to AV during the infamous "boycott" days, AV = 0 bonus honor for the alliance EVERY match. Even though we lost every match, I still enjoyed it, but I had gear to get which meant I need honor and I needed other marks...so once I had all my AV marks, I said goodbye to AV and grinded out the rest of my honor 120-150 honor at a time in Eye of the Storm. Yes, it was painfull but it was the only BG that we consistantly won.

After more than a month of grinding out several pieces of season 1 arena gear, I decided that I would join my guild to enjoy some of the "end game" content that they had on farm that I never got to see being in smaller casual guilds (za, kara, gruul's, etc).

The first night I decide to run with my guild, we hit ZA...a nice purple chest piece drops and I get it. Two days later, I join them for the second half of a kara run. We get to the chess event...I'm a dumb ass so I can't figure out how to move my chess piece that I am controlling. Someone had mentioned something about a pet bar...so I'm looking all over for a pet bar not realizing that my normal action bar has been replaced with new spells. We hit shade...they explain the fight and I still can't manage to stay out of the blizzard. We hit Netherspite...I can't tank the beam because despite their best attempts at explaining how to take over the beam and not get the debuff, I have no idea what they are talking about so the real hunter in our group ends up taking that responsibility. We get to Prince, one minute into the fight, I get feeble debuff...don't run out of AOE range and die. They kill Prince with absolutely no help from me and the sunfury bow and the tier 4 helm drops. Thankfully the real hunter in the group that was trapping his butt off won the roll on the bow and I won the roll on the helm (our guild just rolls for loot in instances they have on farm).

All that to say that I got a tier 4 helm and a ZA epic chest piece for less than 4 hours of running around in an instance.

So let's recount:

Season 1 Gladiator helm
14,500 honor and 30 AV marks

For better or for worse I averaged about 120 honor every 20-25 minutes in Eye of the Storm which seemed to be the only battleground in Shadowburn (as alliance) that I could consitently get a decent amount of honor from (AB wasn't too bad...but I ended up getting alot more honor from EotS). Obviously this isn't exact but I would conservatively estimate that I ended up making somewhere around 350 honor per hour. Now, our beloved helm requires AV marks which I had to aquire one at a time due to not-so-smart tactics on behalf of the alliance. Thank goodness the horde were good at steam-rolling us and it only took 20-25 minutes for most AV's then.

All total, it took about 40 hours to get the honor and 10 hours to get the marks

That's 50+ hours in the BG's for one "welfare epic"

That's 100+ hours to get one helm and one chest piece, compared to 4-5 hours total on my first run in two instances to get the PvE equivilents.

You tell me...which ones are the "welfare epics"?