Armaggedon's coming!

• nor about the titles you show
• nor for that matter if you have a 3200 arena rating.
• I only care that you play to win, and do that well.

So we have a new guildy, a pvp loving guildy. I’ve been in WSG with him all weekend… school holidays.

A demotivational player

Yeah, he’s a young guy. His parents are younger than me.

I don’t care about that either. He plays his rogue well. Peeling is his favorite word. He’s a team player, setting up opportunities for the win. I like that, it’s the way I, and my mates play. Personal glory 2nd, win for the team 1st.

He has one annoying habit, one I haven’t had much personal experience with in a while and when I did it was related to PvE and Gearscore.

No good reason to have these screen shots

He idolizes gear, titles and arena ratings.

When we enter a BG, he is immediately inspecting the team.

Wow, she’s got a 2800 arena rating from last season.

That guy is a Battlemaster!

That warrior is sooo geared.

Look at that noob in greens/heirlooms/last season’s/PvE gear.

To me all of that is irrelevant. Sure it indicates that a player has won some battles, but ratings can be forged, titles can indicate a selfish player, gear indicates nothing more than a grind (more…)

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To which I respond…

No we’re not.

Kill them before they hurt you.

Focus their healers, send them to the graveyard 1st, make them wish they hadn’t joined the BG too.

A long time ago Gnomeaggedon joined the circle of healers meme. People thought it was novel, a joke, but I was DEADLY serious.

You don’t need healers to win a BG, you just need to make sure the enemy has none.

This was highlighted on the weekend and began with comments just like the title of this post.

...with 18 minutes still on the clock!

A short time later, I had capped for the 3rd time and the enemy team never got out of the graveyard I was slowfalling over each time with the flag.

Healers are overrated.

(more…)

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I recently wrote, as an aside, of the power of a team of Priests in WSG Life Gripping (yeah OK, Leap of Faith) a flag carrier across midfield in a long chain.

My last post was about peeling FTW, and many of the contents of this post are peels of one sort of another.

I was inspired by another use of Leap of Faith over the weekend which got me considering all those utility tools we have and their use in the WSG and Twin Peaks Battlegrounds

Catching the Carrier: Gripping FTW!

Lot’s of classes have snares, stuns and CCs (which I will get to), but just like snakes and ladders you want the Enemy Flag Carrier (efc) closer to your base – further from theirs.

Whether you pull back or blow back, they are precious yards that the efc has to regain. At times this is will just slow their forward momentum, at others snatch victory from a certain flag cap defeat.

The one thing to consider (as I was made acutely aware in TP the other day… In ALL CAPS), is you need to pick your time. Death Gripping or blowing an efc from your death dealing team mates may give the efc the break they need (Like cycloning an enemy on 10% health when everyone’s cooldowns are blown and the kill window is lost – not cool!).

Death Gripping FTW!

One step forward, two steps back. A Death Grip can do this to an efc, especially if properly timed with a follow up Chains of Ice or other snares, stuns and CC. The efc will blow his trinket early and be left at the mercy of your flag chasers.

You could also pull the efc sideways across the field into the waiting arms of your flag running group – away from the support of his group. Of course if his support group has a priest it could become a game of flag-carrier-tennis.

Gripping the last chance

You can smell the sense of frustration in a flag carrier as they reach the podium for a cap, only to be yanked back to the doorway.

That last second tackle is worth 1000 midfield (more…)

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It peels good to win doesn’t it?

In both PvE and PvP winning usually involves defeating an opponent and/or gaining an objective.

Sometimes to kill one opponent, we have to deal with several.

In PvE, we deal with this in one of two ways:

• AoE FTW!
  AoE becomes the norm after a certain gear level has been reached – normally where tank and healer are both up to the job.
• CC and focus.
  CC is often used haphazardly until this iLevel point, or because the party prefers control and is used to control.

In PvP, whether BGs, Arenas or World PvP, AoE doesn’t work so well.  Some of us are intelligent enough to know when we are standing in the bad, and without the computer generated concept of threat, we can move away.  Of course some people will play by human generated threat, and just stand and slug it out, ignoring the negligible incoming damage.

CC and snares, even with their reduced duration and diminishing returns in PVP, are still the best way to deal with masses of opponents.

Decisions… decisions….

Your 1st reactions when entering mass combat should be:

1. Who is the focus target?, and
   You want to know the focus target 1st… no point in CC’ing a target that is about to be destroyed – especially with cyclone which just makes that target immune to it’s imminent death (giving their healers time to top off their health).
2. Who do I CC?, and
   Next you want to identify and CC – repeatedly if possible – additional targets. Healers are often the 1st choice, although sometimes you may be better off CC’ing another target (say the flag carrier) and destroying the healer that is keeping your opponents alive.  Whatever the case, pick one – CC them, make sure they stay that way. Worst case is they blow their trinket to get out of your CC… now they wont be doing that for a couple more minutes, so CC them again!
3. Is this the fight I need to win?

• Do you need to win this fight?
  Are you fighting for the survival of your flag carrier, or to return your flag to the base to enable a cap?  If so, this is a noble cause worth fighting for, now is the time to use all the tricks in your spellbook, CC and snares included.
• Is this a distraction from the primary goal?
  Does the player you are fighting bear no relationship to the state and position of your flag carriers (or team mates in need)? If so, you are wasting, or maybe they are wasting, your time, energy and health bar.  You are better served putting your resources where they are needed.Yes there are times where it is a worthwhile cause to fight without any objectives in play.
  - Maintaining a clean midfield – when no flag carriers are at risk, or running right by you.
  - Holding 5 players away from a node so it can tick over.
  Of course, once again these are tactical fights.  They are performing a service to the team, not just putting the team a player down.

Picking your fights and peeling FTW!

So let’s talk about peeling, probably only a term known, in context, by PvPers even though it has fundamentally the same intent as CC’ing or kiting adds in PvE.

The objective is to peel (more…)

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I don’t play to give up.

At a time when more often than not people are lamenting the lack of difficult PvE encounters, I have chosen to spend my time playing against people, unpredictable people, in PvP encounters.

Katherine commented on my last post that people probably just want to collect their honor for the loss and start again.

I’m sure she’s right, after all 3 quick losses will give you the same honor as one long win and significantly more than one drawn our loss.

Still I don’t play for honor points, I play for battleground honor.

The honor of knowing I never gave up, I gave as good as I can for as long as the battle lasted.

Really, we are lucky to get honor for a loss.

Imagine a boss kill attempt, where you are given gold and epics for taking the boss to 30%. You only get rewards in PvE for successfully completing a task.

When I enter a BG, it is to win it (more…)

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Come on guys, let them cap 5 and get it over with quick

Ever heard that?

I swear I have heard it a million times.

A million times too many.

Often very early in the battle, usually someone confident they can take on the enemy singlehandly and win, it is only the rest of us that are losing the game for them.

Here’s a tip for them, or for you if you are one of these people.

There is a very quick method of ending the BG, you don’t have to wait for them to cap 5, you don’t have to wait for the game to end.

Just quit!

You already have anyway, so why not let the rest of us get on with it (more…)

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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 (more…)

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What is the best dressed freshly dinged level 85 wearing to battlegrounds these days… and does it really matter?

Let’s go back about an hour…

This weekend I leveled Gnomeadeaden from 80 to 85.

I then grabbed the few guildies that were online and had my 1st (and most likely last) tanking experience in Crucible of Carnage.

Then I entered the BGs, SotA to be precise, as it was the Call to Arms for the weekend (more…)

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I know, I know, another WSG post… that’s where I’m spending 99% of my time, so I guess that will be reflected in my posts.

WSG is a game about flags and the people that carry them.

It’s something you have to keep foremost in your mind when playing the game because it’s very easy to get the scent of blood and lose focus.

There are things that can easily change your focus:

• Farming
• Enemy names
• Vendettas

Farming

Farming is something I understand well, having been on the receiving end for so long. The tide has turned recently for the Alliance and more often than not now we are wielding the plows and the Horde are the freshly tilled earth.

Farming is exhilarating, the complete domination of your opponent sends chills through your spine (more…)

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