5
4
3
2
1
GO!
Wintergrasp on Aman’Thul has always been dominated by the Alliance.
Horde might win it in the early afternoon, when only the teenagers are online. They might even win it during prime raiding time when Alliance are occupied with the Lich King.
Generally it’s held by us. Which of course means easy access to the loot pinatas and Wintergrasp vendor items for us, not so much for them.
If we can’t have it, neither can you!
This seems to have led to a different strategy by the Horde. Sure we win it, but now they aim to deprive us of the benefits.
Wintergrasp may be ours, but VoA isn’t, without a fight.
Initially it was one Warlock, safely ensconced on the pillars in the keep before the VoA entrance portal.
Not much to worry about, the occasional dot here or there, the death of an AFK occasionally.
I mentioned once before that the presence of a couple of rogues had my 10 man VoA group quivering in their boots, not prepared to leave VoA to help their healer get in.
You and what army?
Now they have ramped it up.
Sunday there were a good 10 of them holding the keep against VoA raiders, last night there were 15, apparently there was a Lock in there summoning more to the final line of VoA defense.
One or two is irritating, like that invisible mosquito on a hot summers night. 10-15 leaves most Alliance safely in Dalaran.
Are they griefing the raiders?
I like to think so, I almost hope so. Yeah, I know, I’m cheering the Horde on for making Alliance raiders life difficult, but then I might be a little PvP biased.
I see it like this:
- If you’re a raider, you get access to high end raiding gear AND reasonable PvP gear. You can buy PvP gear with your Emblems, you can convert your stonekeeper shards to honor and buy more – Yet you may never have entered a battleground.
- If, on the other hand, you are primarily a PvPer, while you have access to the same PvP gear, you can only get access to the top PvP gear if you are exceptional at Arenas and you can’t buy PvE gear with your honor.
So for me, where the right to raid VoA, is via the efforts of PvP and I beleive won more often by the efforts of competent PvPers, who know what to do, and when, VoA is a PvP raid.
I sometimes feel (when surrounded by Kingslayers in VoA raids) that you should need to earn the right to raid VoA.
Each week:
- Earn 10,000 honor
- Gain 20 HKs
These are easy goals and can be achieved in one Wintergrasp fight. Maybe it should be a bit harder. Whatever the case, I think you need to earn the right for a shot at the loot piñata in a PvP zone.
Of course, this is coming from me, who loves to PvP, who runs VoA on 2 characters twice every week and has only ever had 3 drops.
- 1 for Gnome – I’d already earned through PvP.
- 2 for Squidly, as the only shaman in the raid, both useless as they were Enhancement pieces.
5 seconds till destruction.
As I mentioned, Sunday night there were 10 Horde holding the keep. I was heading in for a 10 man raid on Squidly, all PvE geared.
I should have realized they were there as there were 10ish Alliance hovering on flying mounts outside the keep
The second I zoned in, I was demolished. This happened again and I put out the call in Wintergrasp zone chat for help to take them down.
When I got to the portal the 3rd time there were 1/2 a dozen there wondering what to do, in addition to those flying.
Quickly I said:
Get ready to go in!
3
2
1
Go!
In we went. I was down pretty much immediately and judging by the quantity rezzing with me, the others didn’t last that much longer. Still I hoped we had taken one or two with us.
We all flew back to the portal together. I noticed as we dismounted that those in the air dropped down to join us.
This time a slightly longer count
5
4
3
2
1
GO!
I didn’t last much longer this time either, but something was different this time.
There was only a couple at the spirit healer and when I returned to the keep I couldn’t see red bars through the keep door, just green ones.
When I zoned in there was still one, a Horde rogue now doing everything in his power to avoid the revenge seeking Alliance. He wasn’t there for long, as the odds had changed. No longer 10 Horde against 1 zoning Alliance, it was 15 Alliance after one Horde.
Zone chat & raid chat erupted. There were some proud Alliance there that minute. We had fought for the right to raid VoA. Not just win a meaningless Wintergrasp battle, but actually fought the Horde from our keep.
I was pretty proud of myself too. I had coordinated that attack. I’m not sure I managed to drop a heal or scratch the Horde, but I know that without my willingness to engage in PvP, to coordinate the attack, no one would have been raiding VoA for the next 2 hours.
Get your PvP on!
So next time you go to the loot piñata party and there are a bunch of the opposition drinking the punch, speak out, drive your allies to break the siege, the real siege.
Ohhh and if you don’t PvP, don’t whine when you need to fight to earn the right to raid VoA.
Getting on the pillars.
If you are wondering how you get on the pillars in the keep, here’s the answer.
There is only one time when you can get on top, which is just after a fresh capture of Wintergrasp keep, when the doors of the keep are gone.
Then you can fly in and land (or drop, as you will be dismounted) on top of the pillars. It might take you a couple of attempts.
If the doors are only partially damaged, or completely closed, you are out of luck.
My guess is that people do this with “disposable” characters, ones they don’t need immediately. Log out, then log in again when the time is right to “grief”.
The impatient griefers do it while the doors are still open and pay the price as anyone can fly in at that point. The patient wait for the next WG to be won and the doors are closed.
Gnomer and Out!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
http://gnomeaggedon.net/2010/06/15/counting-down-the-death-of-the-horde/
Grrrr this post name! Hahaha. But nice job, sometimes all it takes is one person willing to step up and lead, to coordinate the masses, so to speak.
Good work on flushing the griefers out and winning that little battle!
Made you look
I don’t PvP, but when the call comes for the good fight, I’m happy to go out and die occupying some Hordie while the good PvPers work on more challenging fare.
I say, Good for them! Those leet 25-man raiding popinjays can strut their stuff – or we’ll all know the score.
You never know, I might grow to like it – kinda like Philo Beddoe. I’ll even bring an ape to the party.
“Right turn, Clyde.”
Always happy to have a warm Hunter’s body taking the hits for me while I wind up a little bit of destruction!
See? Canon fodder DOES have its uses!
I hate when you make obscure cultural/literature/political references that goes over my head. Especially when someone goes “lol grim” but I don’t know what’s going on.
Oh, dear Jong, how have you avoided exposure to Clint Eastwood’s masterpieces, “Every Which Way But Loose” and “Every Which Way You Can”? Queue those puppies up and leave your brain under the bed, you won’t be needing it much. Trust me.
But it’s a great way to empty a bottle of bourbon & smoke a few cigars..
Dual action…
Kills the pain
Makes the movies bearable, almost funny
Of course as a teenager, they were awesome movies… but then there weren’t many options back then
Exactly! Now, I just watch for Clyde.
I wonder, between these, and Bronco Billy, which ones Clint regrets the most.
oooh, that sounds so familiar…except on my current server alliance holds wintergrasp most of the time AND they are the ones grieving horde players on a rare occasions horde actually manages to win VoA. essentially, they are trying to make it impossible for us to do VoA..ever. to be fair though its not all of the alliance, its specific people..same people every time, who are also knows for generally trollish behavior. Nonetheless…
At one point it was somewhat fun to take it back from them…again, but at some point? it just gets ridiculous, and very annoying. I hate when people are wasting my time and yes, when I’m trying to cram VoA on several characters into that 2 hour window – its a waste of time.
you see, some of us don’t do VoA for pvp gear. I believe if VoA only dropped pvp gear you’d never have as much QQ as you do now. pvpers general love a good fight, sanctioned or unsanctioned. but that damn place drops t10. and potentially saving 60 to 95 badges (not to mention tier tokens)? its pretty big deal. especially when it comes to someone who only raids sporadically but enough to want to hold their own.
personal opinion? either make the keep safe zone between wintergrasp battles or remove PvE rewards from the equation.
Ahh but you see, I like that it drops PvE gear as well. To me this is the one raiding avenue for PvPers to pick up a bit of PvE gear on the side.
I don’t mind the preferences of the players PvP, PvE, whatever.
However I do dislike the whinging when the pure PvEers are deprived of “their” raid. (Oh… And roll on PvP gear they will never use)
but why do pvpers even need pve gear exactly? outside of weapons (and even then) its really pretty meh for pvp.
I actually started rolling on pvp gear with characters I don’t really pvp on out of sheer self preservation (I only used to pvp on a hunter and now gearing up warlock to eat little mages for breakfast, mwahaha
– god she’s fun in pvp /cackle…aaanyways) zone into the relic/summoning stone in pure pve gear? splat. zone in wearing pvp gear? you might, just might have a bit of a chance. yes resilience and added 10k or so of stam really make that much of a difference, as I’m sure you know as well.
I still maintain that pvp and pve really should remain separate to keep everyone happier. those who enjoy both? they can do both, no problem. but those who only enjoy one aspect of the game shouldn’t be forced into the aspect that is not fun for them. you can avoid some of the blizzard created achievements but its damn hard to avoid some of the more persistent players.
oooh, I know what solution could be! remove the VoA as it is now. instead of loot pinata pve bosses – make baggies of random treasure available from completing “victory in wintergrasp” quest. it might contain extra honor, or maybe stone keeper shards, or arena points, or it might contain a nice piece of pvp lewts! ala weekly quests you get inside ICC. As for extra chance at tier for us pveers, well then..we could just keep VoA and instead of winning it via pvp, we could unlock it via ICC (or other raids) boss kills. for instance – kill 10 man saurfang? unlock 10 man Toravon for the week. Kill XT in Ulduar? get access to Emalon. Ignis would unlock Koralon and if someone actually wants to do Archavon – they could go and kill Sarth and KT in Naxx.
how’s that for a solution? should give raid groups more flexibility and separates pvp from pve.
Well you see I’m a PvPer that likes to raid (I used to be a raider that liked to PvP). I got behind on the gear grind and couldn’t get a raid.
If I don’t queue in my PvP gear, I can’t even get a ICC 5 man from LFD. (gawd help me if I equip a fishing rod, then I’m lucky to get UK).
The best non-raid/non-Arena weapon & offhand available is from the 5 mans. Though this is due to change in Catalysm where at least we will be able to get last season’s through BGs. Otherwise you need 1800 personal and team rating (as well as the arena points in the bank) to get your hands on a (the lesser of) weapon. No mean feat.
I don’t mind PvEers in VoA, it’s all good. I do mind them hiding from the PvP.
I also think it’s great that there is a mix of T10/S8 or T9/S7 gear as loot. Either of the T10/S8 items would make me happy and support my fun times.
Though I wish we weren’t leaving 3 items rotting on bosses because the class/spec isn’t represented, or they didn’t need it.
As for PvP gearing, I completely geared Squidly this weekend (with the exception of Arena point/rank gear & weapons of course). 1st 2 pieces with triumph emblems, the rest in BGs.
Shame I can’t do the same in PvE
my server is the same — it’s pretty rare that the horde take wintergrasp. it’s getting the point that i almost feel sorry for them. then one or two or three slaughter the hell out of squishy ol’ me, and those empathic feelings go away. i killed this one hunter’s gorilla twice over the weekend in a single battle, and i’m sure that hunter is now out for vengeance. >: )
but back to you and your epic rallying of the troops: HUZZAH! and congratulations! you are an inspiration. /CHEER
It’s opposite on my server, Horde rule WG, and I do feel sorry for the Alliance. I do hope they pick up this strategy. I love to PvP, and killing more is always good.
[...] this weekend, I had a look at Squid. I was looking at the enhancement PvP gear I had collected in VoA, shaking my head I looked at what he was [...]