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.

I ran a string of like 6 battlegrounds but we lost each one.  Fun stuff.  I remind people in EotS that if there are 10+ horde at a certain base, PICK UP YOUR SKIRTS and move somewhere else!  But again, doing coordinated pvp with no vent, is hard.

I head to Old Town to check out all the Alliance leaders in the keep, and run into this guy preaching doom and gloom quite a bit like the annoying preachers in L2.  The NPCs in front of him and sobbing, falling to their knees and praying, saying they don’t want to die and stuff.

Stormwind Keep is alive with all KINDS of people too. That may be because Captain Anton has a quest!  He tells me to go get pamphlets from these doomsayers, a few of which have hilarious names like “What Does ‘The End of All Things’ Mean for Me?” and “Finding Security and Comfort in a Doomed World”. There are so many players here I really can’t get a shot of him.

I visit the various patches of preachers and pick up my items. I turn that in, received 13 gold and now I’m asked to put up warning posters all over town. I place my signs and Stormwind Citizens come up, read it, comment then walk off. One in particular says “If I had a silver for every time the world was going to end, I’d be richer than a goblin trade prince!”. Ha ha!

Then I pick up another quest where I get to join the Doomsday Cult! Wee!  Also get another quest about finding missing people.  Even better. I like my Doomsday robes!

I talk to the Cultist and get some more quests, Spreading the Word. I head out and put one of those personal billboard doomsday signs on myself. I run through the areas yelling my DOOMSDAY stuff!

Then a whole string of cultists head over to a spot and start casting some dark magic, and who do I run into but Stout!

I then run WG and get the Within Our Grasp Achievement.

I queue up for my daily dungeon and get, siiiigh. Oculus.

Even though we lose like 3 party members leaving as soon as they can, the tank plows ahead only assuming the healer is still on him.

I have some interface problems where my buffs randomly vanish when exiting the drake, and I could not see the tank or anyone else taking damage.  If the tank hadn’t asked if I was going to heal him, he would have died.  As it ends up however, I died. I get credit anyway though, and run back, only there is no Satchel of goodies for me and the chest is empty.  Maice tells me they took that out.

If that’s true, that sucks.  Apparently my trouble was, according to the Warcraft forums, releasing before the boss was killed. Sigh.  FUCK OCULUS!

I’m about to log when Arashikage reminds me of the Dead Man’s Party achievement by dancing with Catrina in any major cities grave yard, so I go do that! Now I’m ugly and undead. Sadface.

The other day I had someone note that WoW “has no pvp”.  I’m not sure where this misinformation is coming from.  Let me introduce you to the PVP menu.

The first one is Wintergrap, a large siege style battle that runs every 2 hours.  I’ve noted it in this log already; I like to attend as much as possible.  It pits the Alliance against the Horde on winning the Wintergrasp fortress which allows you to run VOA for JP, gear, and earn Honor for a multitude of things by completing the weekly  WG quests, and killing the opposite faction.  For more info see http://www.wowwiki.com/Wintergrasp

The battlegrounds are Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin, Alterac Valley, Eye of the Storm, Strand of the Ancients, and Isle of Conquest.  I believe I’ve talked about all these as well since I like to do them at least once a day.  These each have their own objectives too. Thing is about these is you can queue for them at any time, sometimes without needing to wait, which all depends on the server.  On my server you can chain battlegrounds immediately just about all day long. And these, unlike WG, are instanced so if one is full, another one will start up.  Battlegrounds can earn you exp as well as honor and if you win, you receive quite the decent chunk of exp. I levelled from 78 to 80 over a weekend in the Call to Arms (featured) battlegrounds.

Then you also have arenas in 2v2’s, 3v3’s, and 5v5’s, which work like the dungeon finder only you have to put together people on your team that you registered in a group, and then queue for it.  These sometimes have long waits on my server. The arenas as I understand it, can be “fun’ no point skirmishes or the rated ones. High arena scores lets you purchase the top pvp gear, through team and or personal rating.

Then there are always duels between players, and on pvp servers you can kill the opposide side at any time.  I play a PVE server which means I have to flag before I can be attacked.

Anyway, that comment just pissed me off raw. L2 has sieges but we have Wintergrasp and much more often, L2 has Olympiad and we have arena (and much more often), L2 has fortress battles and Territory Wars and we have battlegrounds (and much much more often).

I log in this afternoon and catch the last 10 seconds of WG. I see a paladin flying around on a red hippogryph with a red flaming tail, something I’ve never seen before. I ask them (Shardwynn) where it comes from and they say from a TCG Loot card. NICE. It’s the Blazing Hippogryph http://www.wowhead.com/item=54069

I don’t feel like PVEing much today so I get Strand and we win, then get AV and 30 mins later we lose. Isle of Conquest we win. I spent my time in the guns during most of that. Then we lose WSG but that is mostly because a group of me and 3-4 others spend the majority of the time trying to beat down a shadow priest. I think they are a LITTLE OVERPOWERED right now. A little.

I then get Arathi and a mouthy night elf DK by the name of Hotter was berating everyone for being terrible, and I told him to shut his mouth NOW. Then he said we at the LM sucked because we lost it, I said you’re right a warlock and me can take on 5 horde. He comes to LM I assume to watch me and the shit talk stops after that. And we win, so I get to ask “so who sucks NAO?” XD The upside of that is now I can afford my new pants. I drop one Mystic King’s Amber for a Potent Ametrine this time but keep the same leg enchant.

This morning I transmute an Eye of Zul, then run WG.  This time I have help with the horde killing the guns in the front.  With Tenacity horde druids are really insane, and we needed 5 people and me popping Divine Hymn just to take one down.  He had something like 250k hp.

Afterwards I offer to help Rashill, a DK, with the Bones and Arrows quest but we do not run into any horde.

I then run EotS and we lose like we always do, because no one knows how to play.  Alliance likes to take bases, then run off and leave it wipe open.  Over and over. Arathi Basin goes the same way. I am glad my mass buffs no longer take components though, that is for sure.  Using 20 or so in a few battlegrounds was annoying.

I get Isle of Conquest next and we’re told to go Docks and Workshop but we get rolled at both. it’s fairly obvious we’re going to lose straight away. I am wrong however, and it takes many, many minutes to lose. I do earn the All Over the Isle achievement however.

Next one up is Arathi and I’m left to myself to take the mine and defend it.  I remind people I am not healing on the road and if they want heals they need to defend a base. No one comes to the mine for several minutes.

I then head to Farm where everyone deserts me and I have to kill a horde warlock myself.  On my disc spec. Sigh.

I note that disc HEALERS are meant to HEAL people but no one seems to care. Somehow we pull a win out of that, though. I am about 300 honor away from Wrathful pants however.

I get Arathi again and this time we lose. Bleh.