I think of BigBearButt frequently. I link to him just as often.
One of the reasons I do, is I love his passion for playing WoW. Like all of us he reaches low points, yet unlike many he finds new inspiration, or is reinspired by different aspects of the game.
He even hit his 1st Cataclysm raid the other day and came out with more boss kills than me… on his “alt”!
There is one part of the game that he hasn’t dipped his toe into, although he often says that he’d love to join me… You know, if he was going to lose his PvP virginity with anyone it would be me.
I want that virginity… I wonder if I can get an achievement for it?
Two things fueling my desire
Anyway, there are two things that have renewed my desire to get BBB… into BGs.
One is the mention of the possibility to join mates into cross realm parties for instances. I must admit my 1st thought was that I hoped this extended to BGs… and I would pay the money to get BBB into a BG.
The second thing that has made me think of BBB and BGs is my week of PvP with Gnomeadeaden.
You will remember that less than an hour after hitting 85, Gnomeadeaden was in the BGs. One week later he is full Bloodthirsty, gemmed, enchanted and 1/3 of the way to the Vicious weapon.
A lot of this BG time was spent in Blood spec, for a variety of reasons.
What I don’t have in resilience, I make up in blood
One reason was lack of resilience gear. If 3,000 resilience rating absorbs 30% of the damage, the best alternative to that resilience gear is 30% extra health &/or damage mitigation.
In reality a PvE geared tank is in a similar position to a full PvP geared DPS… sans damage maybe, but damage isn’t everything in a BG… Survivability and control are often more important.
Tanks have both, built to survive and littered with stuns, charges, interrupts.
I hate tanks in BGs… it can be very tempting for 3-4 people to waste valuable time trying to kill someone designed to stay alive. That’s group CC!
We want you! Tanks for BGS!
There are also two BGs that require the presence of tanks: Alterac Valley and Isle of Conquest.
I swore I would never tank again, but I find myself switching spec to Blood every time I enter either of these BGs. I might be a bad tank, but at least I can get the party started if a real tank is at the other end of the BG, rezing or maybe didn’t even enter. Just for the record, I haven’t just started the job, but have finished it on several occasions now.
I’ve been having a great time killing Jo’Tek and his mates in AV. Less honor for the Horde, more honor for the Alliance. My priest mate laughed the other day while I solo’d one without a heal from him, yet ended the fight on full health.
As I mentioned earlier, tanks come preconfigured to fluster opponents. Stuns, interrupts, charges, threat generation (get that pet off your BG healer!), plus heaps of tools to stay alive and regenerate health.
When I see a druid change to bear form and realize frenzied regeneration is up.. my heart sinks… meh, putting off the inevitable and denying me a HK.
I was a part of the ritual slaughter of a DK at the Blacksmith in AB the other day. I capped the node and held the DK long enough for assistance to arrive. Then I kept him off the squishy DPS and heals long enough to drive him into the ground. Death Grip, Chains of Ice, frustrated and dead Horde DK.
If you are a PvE tank by trade, think about joining the BG circuit for something different. It’s not just heals and DPS that win BGs!
Sexy voices fill my PvP ears.
BTW, you know how I realise that the bear is frenzied and regenerating… I have this sexy voice whispering in my ear…
I have over the years read many posts about the traps about how the 2-dimensional state of WoW causes “tactile” issues. You can’t see 360 degrees, can’t hear what people are really doing, can’t smell their fear.
Scrolling combat text takes you part of the way, filling in for some of those missing senses, but I dare say I am not the 1st person to die standing in the bad, while struggling to read the combat text that tells me I am standing in the bad.
Take this a step further away from the scripted encounter and you really do want to know what the hell is happening behind you, or what is going through that mean Warlock’s brain before he tries to melt your hide.
In these situations, its just too much for the average player to follow all that text streaming across your screen (blocking your viewing access to the charging warrior).
So, take it a step further, truly introduce another sense… the sense of sound, whispered by an omnipresent siren of desire directly into your ear.
GladiatorlosSA Addon
It really is a sweet thing, although can be a little overwhelming if you are in the midst of a pitched 40 v 40 battle, but you know… I still want to know when I am about to be t-bagged.
Ohh btw, there are two voices… Female and Chinese… and I hate to disappoint, but the Chinese isn’t like a sexy porn Chinese… it’s like, well, Chinese. So if you don’t know Chinese (I don’t know which one, but I also wasn’t the one looking for a smexy Chinese porn voice), stick with the Female voice.
Gnomer and Out!
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One of my favorite things to do with my level 59 DK twink, back when such a thing was possible, was tanking Drek. I loved the rush to Galv, then down to FWV, taking the RH and towers, maybe encountering resistance, maybe not – and then the nervous wait for the towers to go down, the “do we have any healers?,” and then the frenzied rush to grab aggro before 20 overzealous DPS got themselves instagibbed.
BAM. DREK, YOU ARE MINE.
ALLIANCE WINS!
I loved it so much that I’m doing it again, this time on my leveling Prot warrior. It’s not quite the same – I can’t do it over and over again, I get about a half a level out of each AV – but it makes for a fun alternative to a dungeon run.
I have to try out that addon now. Thanks for the tip!
It feels strange for me to be telling DPS to hurry up and get to the boss… I’m ready to tank, but it will be a long drawn out fight if they don’t recover from their wipe.
Still its a fun feeling to step up before 39 strangers to tank the boss… at the end of the day, no one will care if you fail (unlike in a Heroic), and sometimes you are nothing but the 3rd or 4th tank… which never hurts if the Horde are there to spoil the attempt.
the addon notes say you can make your own recording of the voice files and alter it yourself. hmm, i’m trying to imagine a Gnomeaggedon Edition version of this…
I doubt it would be PG-13…
From the clean “That Pally has my Wings!”, through to the unmentionable substitutions for Rogue warnings
not being PG-13 would be part of the appeal, i say. XD
Thanks for the interesting and thought prevoking post!
This ol’ druids’ second spec is for bear tanking, which I’m teaching myself atm. Although the thought of BG’s never crossed my mind, you’ve certainly presented an option for me to further my learning to tank.
I wouldn’t be relying on it for pure tanking experience, but you will have a lot of fun at least
As a tank in the BGs I say… keep out I don’t need more of me… just kidding – that’s why I have dual specs so I can change when I need to (which is a pain when you go into an already started BG and find there are 5 tanks and no healers).
I’ll add this – playing a tanking spec in BGs is what has got me interested in them again. I always felt too squishy to be effective before I started playing my prot paladin in there – now I can survive and do damage and contribute. I still feel squishy playing ret (although part of that is that ret are so easy to kite and they only have 1 ranged attack versus 2 in pro) – so I’ve switched my offspec to holy and I feel useful again (despite halving my resilience)!
Prot Pallies don’t have the same tools DKs and Warriors have – we have 1 stun on a long cooldown… but we have defensive cooldowns coming out our ears – which gives great survivability, and some on-demand burst damage. I remember fighting a chance duel in Tol’Barad against a better geared ret paladin and just losing (if only I had managed to get that stun off) and made a convert to the prot way then!
I’ve just got my warrior to 85 and so taking him into (more) BGs is on my to-do list as both prot and arms! I knew I needed to finish leveling him and take him into the BGs as soon as I saw an arms warrior slam dunk his way to cap the flag in WSG…
No more warriors in the BGs!
lol.. I scream when I see one charging me.
You may not have the stuns, but as you say, are difficult to cut down, making you a painful flag carrier and and a nightmare of a distraction.
I find myself twitching between BGs.. Blood or Frost. Sometimes survival is everything, but after a while I just want to cut someone down in 4 strokes, which you can’t easily do in Blood… but of course, you feel the squish when you go dps.
Different strokes for different BGs… and if you get the start time to make that decision, then away you go. best option is to queue in the spec you will cope with, and if you get the chance respec to the better one for the BG.
So I normally go Frost now that I have reasonable gear… I may not be made to tank, but if I am the only plate wearer in the room, I have a better chance than a mage to tank.
[...] Gnomer wrote a post recently that would have had me blushing if I were still capable of it, and along with the love he called me out big time on being a slacker. Which, of course, I am. [...]
I’m curious, Gnome. What’s your take on bears in BGs? Our small guild’s token PvP guy has been trying to get me into the BGs, and I’ve been considering respeccing Resto, but now you’re making me want to test the water with my Zx-gear bear.
Cheers!
Druids can be frustrating as all hell, especially feral.
I expect a Bear would do well enough, with the advantage of popping into heals or stealth as required.
You are jacks of all trades, can stealth to a flag room, or flag… ninja cap, then survive all the way home.
I’d suggest you give it a try.. although Resto is good too… you can still go bear when the chips are down.
[...] I brought it up in the last post and it seems to be a popular topic right now, I thought I’d provide a healing 101 post on PvP. According to one of my [...]