Archives

So bad dude

I watched a fascinating video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU6ntX7Dar4)  the other day about battleground bots, which I have noticed myself in the form of people who auto follow, stand and just keep renewing themselves, or people that just barely keep off the afk flag by running back and forth. What this guy pointed out about them earning more honor was very curious to me, I mean how does the game determine who gets what honor?

Before I get to that, I decided to set my talents to the Holy tree, so I’ll have disc and holy raiding abilities.  I test out my skills in battlegrounds like I usually do to get my key binds memorized before getting to any raids.  We get Strand and we lose, and I have earned only 40 honor, even as the top healer by about  100,000 hp.  My HK’s are only 24 but another alliance with the same HK’s as me, 7 more killing blows (I had zero naturally) also earned 40. Hm.   All in all I don’t do too badly, though I feel the lack of Penance just a bit.

I also run two WG’s, one on attack where we barely take it, another with excellent defense.

114ocyla

I spent a good part of my time at Broken Temple helping about 3-4 others break down any vehicles coming out of there, and we take it and I hop a trip back on a demo to the fort.

115ocyla

At one point along the roads I also got to do something I find very important, which is finding a person trying to kill a horde, someone no one is helping, and assist them survive the 1v1.  It appeared to be against a BE paladin too, though I didn’t catch the name, I popped him with a Penance at the end anyway and he died. We win at defending!  Recount shows 50% healing which I know isn’t 100% accurate here. But.  Still!

Later I log in, and seeing that only a few people are on, not even the raid leader, are on at 8:30 when the VOA or weekly was supposed to start, I get in a VOA 25 pug.  It goes well and we get all the bosses down.  During this, the whiner mage from guild leaves guild with no warning.  Yeah, I called that days ago. I hate mages.  Remind me to send Rexe flowers or something though. I miss out on the guild weekly again.

After VOA I run WG and again killed Omnist in the fort solo. Again!  Dude, terrible, seriously. I was disc spec.  We win!

That Water Boss in VH

Run my daily dungeon and get VH, and I’m not sure who is tanking because everyone is taking turns getting aggro and taking damage. We get the bird boss, the water one (amid much groans)

I then run Strand of the Ancients and the horde captures the titan relic in like 2 minutes. Then then shut us out shortly after. I queue and again get Strand. This time we actually win however! WG is ready so I run that and we successfully defend the temple, and thankfully this time people help me guard the guns. I tried to shoot down the horde in the West tower guns but they are able to kill them in a spot I cannot shoot them at. That seems unfair.

Wintergrasp

I log in and notice that WG is already underway, so I run my tigers little legs off to port in before it ends.

27silver

I turn in my quests before heading out.

28silver

I’d like to get some kills with the guns but I don’t see any Horde in sight!

29silver

I head to Broken Temple since that is closest to their camp but only Alliance is there as well.

30silver

We spend the rest of the battle, while the towers are going down, beating them mercilessly at their camp, again.

31silver

Then I get a group for VOA 10, only the off tank isn’t taunting and I get aggro and die, then the rest of the party wipes shortly after.

32silver

We try it a second time and get it, and no cloth drops. We do the first boss too.

33silver

I run my fishing daily which is the Disarmed one where you fish in the Dalaran prison sewers for an eel that bit off a guards arm.  You cut open the eel and bring the severed arm back to the healer.

34silver

Other fun things can be found fishing in their like shanks, and half empty, or full bottles of moonshine you can actually drink.

I then cook up some Fish Feasts, Firecracker Salmon and Sauteed Golby and send some to my priest.

35silver

I put my gems and ore in the back then log off for now.

Elleria the Mage

I log in still flagged from battlegrounds the day prior and say hello to Dalaran in ma pvp gears!!

1silver

I run down to Marcia Chase and pick up The Ghostfish fishing daily, which is the easiest one IMO. I hop a flight path to Scholazar Basin, along the way going through my favorite area, Wintergrasp.

2silver

This is a shot over the Sunken Ring Workshop, closest to the Alliance camp.

3silver

This is just some trees I like!

4silver

And finally stopping at the rainbow pool for my quest.

5silver

I pull out my epic fishing pole I earned from getting exalted status with the Kalu’ak and start fishing, pulling up useful fish like Barrelhead Goby (which I can use to make food for my priest), Pygmy Suckerfish (to make Pygmy oil on my priest which is useful in Alchemy), and Nettlefish which I use in multi serving Fish Feasts with my Cooking skill. It takes about 10 casts and I catch the Phantom Ghostfish, and eat it, which turns me invisible and complete the quest.

6silver

the take on that fishing bag isn’t that great but hey it’s easy.

7silver

Then I head over to the Alliance Inn, A Hero’s Welcome, and get my cooking daily quest from Katherine Lee, the cooking trainer.

8silver

I need Chilled Meat for this one so I pull 4 out of my bank.

9silver

I then head to the Dalaran sewers and pick out my Infused Mushrooms.

10silver

I make a campfire and cook my Infused Mushroom meatloaf for my quest and turn it in. I receive 9 gold 93 silver, a Dalaran Cooking Award, and a Small Spice Bag.  The bag contained 3 Northern Spices which are required for high level cooking items, a Baby Spice which makes players and NPCs small, and an extra Dalaran Cooking Award. The awards are used to purchased cooking items like Spices, new recipes, etc.

11silver

I check my PVP tab and Wintergrasp isn’t for another 40 minutes.  Horde controls it currently. I fly out there anyway and start mining, waiting for the battle to start.  I pick up my Wintergrasp quests then head out.

12silver

I mine up 9 Crystallized Fire, 4 Crystallized Air, 10 Crystallized Shadow, 10 Crystallized Earth, 5 Titanium Ore and 18 Saronite Ore, and 2 Huge Citrine before the battle starts.

The battle starts out well.

13silver

However it ends poorly when the Hordes guards and other players overwhelm us in the last 5 minutes and we do not take the fortress. Sadface.

14silver

They weren’t even trying either as I ran manaless through the entire fort without getting killed. :/

I decide to swap out some of my Shattered Eye of Zul gems in my gear for Radiant Eye of Zul, to exchange haste rating I really don’t need on my fire spec to critical strike rating.

Then I queue up for a random battleground and get Arathi Basin, which we lose like 99% of the time.

15silver

The point of this battleground is to control more resources than the enemy side.  You have the Stables which is closest to the Alliance starting point, the Lumber Mill up the hill to the right, the Gold Mine down the road to the left, the Blacksmith in the center, and the Farm on the opposite end closest to where the Horde starts.

I start off running up to Lumber Mill (LM) but got blasted off by a damn Shaman, caught myself with Slow Fall and flew all the way to the Farm where I stayed for a while.  The dilemma here is the battle really needs all members on a voice comm because information gathering is crucial.  Both sides have up to 15 people and need to capture (cap) more resources than the other.  Since there are a limited amount of people you need to communicate who is where, where the enemy is, where they are going, and where you should head to.  So if 10 horde are at the Farm, up to 5 others are somewhere else, meaning they are thinly spread on the other locations.

16silver

Unfortunately typing is not always easy when one is fighting, so being unable to type out that 5 horde are coming to LM with only 2 defenders, puts a side at a bad spot.  Some battlegrounds are run as “premades” which means a group of people geared for it, probably with voice comm are running with the sole purpose of winning.  A premade just rolls over a bunch of uncoordinated randoms almost every time.

Later I get back to mining in IceCrown and take a shot in front of our wonderful airship, the Skybreaker!

17silver

I queued up another random battleground while I mine and get Isle of Conquest, which is one of my favorites.

18silver

Someone gives out the plan at the start, everyone actually follows it.

19silver

and we win! And I earn the Resource Glut achievement.

20silver

Later I join a WG battle again and take out a Blood Elf Paladin at Sunken, steal his insignia and loot some money, leaving only bones behind!

21silver

I love the paladin class in general, and blood elf males are beautiful, but sorry for them they are Horde so I must kill them XD

Unfortunately for me later on another Blood elf paladin kills me.

22silver

But let’s be fair, he had like 4 friends helping him too.

23silver

However this run, unlike my previous one, we rape them all the way back to their camp.

24silver

All they can do is cower at their Spirit rezzer where they take no damage.

25silver

and the ones that dare jump down I get to deal with 😀 and we win!

26silver

Doing the CTA solo is a BAD idea

Today I get in just in time for WG with 10 mins left and we win. I then run Strand which is the Call to Arms and we get pwned like nobodies business. The horde have 3 frost mages camping the GY and kill everyone the second they rez up, and even putting up PW Barrier doesn’t help anyone survive.

I then run Arathi and some how resist against a warlock while asking for help several minute before some people arrive. We win that one and I end up with top honor some how at 119, with the next highest being only 50.

Next one up is WSG. This is one of those long dull ones where both sides hold onto the flags for ages. Which generally means, as it does in this case, we end up losing badly. I get 28 whole honor while the top horde gets 142.

I am hoping the plans Blizzard has for balancing up the battlegroups some how will work out. I have no desire to play Horde and I can still earn pvp gear in a reasonable amount of time, but I can see on Horde dominated servers how most Alliance would probably just switch to Horde (since that is a service) just to escape the nonsense. Of course then you end up with hour long queues for BGs because the other side simply doesn’t want to bother.

So yeah get EotS after that and we start off good but wait, wait, holy crap WE WON an Eye of the Storm. 101 honor for me.

I decide to queue for my dungeon and get Oculus and I won’t lie, I just exited the second I got in. Picked up another EotS bg to pass the time. We lose, and there is much gnashing of the teeth and tearing of the clothes. I turned up my view distance so I can better see the amount of people at closer bases and at mid, and people were screwing around at mid most of the time for whatever reason.