Monday, February 4, 2008

BG QQ

Yah it's about time I let loose with the rant in this here blog non? And I can tell you that I'm quite the feisty huntard when I get my rant on.

(Emelin is nodding fervently in the background)

The thing in WoW that makes me rantier than just about anything even crap instances PUGs?

Battlegrounds.

Seems like the Wowosphere (see that? I just made that up whoo!) is awash with postings about AB weekend or arenas or PVP in general recently. Or maybe it's that whole being more attuned thing I wrote about before.

So anyway back in December Megan over at Out of Mana wrote a post on Accountability in BG and I was thinking about that this weekend as I spent some time in AB. Now Megan is a way more of an uber PVPer than me that's for sure. I would qualify as one of the people who make a BG 9vs10 in her view with my lousy resilience and HP. That said though I have my own particular annoyances in BGs without factoring in HP and resilience.

I'm obviously talking about PUG BGs of course.

I get really annoyed when what I assume are testosterone fueled 15 year old boys (my apologies if you happen to be a 15 year old boy reading this for the blatant generalisation) who spend 5 mins in the BG before getting all pissy and yelling (ie all caps) in BG chat about how alliance are such losers and WTF nubs and so on. News flash! This doesn't help!

I am formulating a theory that Alliance are so used to sucking/having morons in the BG with them that often when they enter a BG it is with this defeatist attitude already in play. No point saying anything, no point trying to get some teamwork going because it always falls apart.

I have a case study (hahaha I sound like I'm at work...) to illustrate this, but with a positive outcome. I was running a WSG recently. At first things weren't going so great. We capped once but then seemed to be stuck in a stand off with the Horde. It started getting a bit angsty in bg chat but then, miracle of miracles, people started communicating. Providing info about where the Ally flag was or which way our flag bearer would be coming. All of sudden things started to come together and we capped again. It was a long battle but eventually we capped again. And why did we win - because people started talking and working together. It was really quite a beautiful thing to see unfold. It was like there was this change in attitude that you could literally feel... this sense of 'we can win'.

I've been in BGs before where everyone did their jobs and it was smooth and beautiful and we won and there was no really talking required. This could also be because we lucked out with crappy Horde opponents.

But this one WSG will always be memorable because it was a long hard fight where we succeeded by working as a team.

Another part of my theory is that no one wants to stand up and take the lead. You might have seen it in instances where no one really wants to mark. I think it's much worse in BGs. I mean there you are with a group of strangers and you don't really want to push yourself forward in case everyone tells you to stfu scrub. Well at least that's been how I've felt in the past. Now that I'm getting a bit more experienced with the BGs I'll speak up a little more. I'm leery of herding cats though. I'll make a comment like say 'I'm going LM' when AB starts and hope that someone follows me.

In fact last night was one of those poetry in motion BGs where everything seems to hang together because people know what to do. I capped the LM and stood there guarding it. I'm so hot keyying flare and /cast frost trap because that's all I did for a good while. Well I did mix it up with a couple of snake traps. Anyway, this rogue tries to gank me as I stand on the flag (fight on the flag always fight on the flag) and a) I spot him because of my flare and b) he gets ice-trapped giving me time to get to range, smack my LOL-I-WIN button, and start firing. Then I notice something.... I'm bubbled. WTF?? Rogue dead I look around and hiding up in the lumber mill bit is a priest.

Awesome!

/cheer

The priest and I kept that node safe for almost the entire BG until the Horde decided to do a bit of a zerg on it (we had them 4 capped by this time) and we both bit the dust. It's just so great when you get a good healer in a BG and even better when they stick with you as you unleash DPS death so

/bow
/thank

I really appreciate it.

Hmm for a post that was supposed to be pretty ranty I seem to have got all positive and affirmative and stuff. Dang.


Credit where credit is due: The awesome artwork in the picture above is via Wyndforge. I'm totally unsure of their rules about using the work since I'm at work and about to run out the door to get home to log in (whee!) so didn't read up. I promise to do so when I get home though!

3 comments:

Pike said...

My personal strategy is to counter all the negativity with positivity:

If the whole "lol alliance sucks" thing starts up as it usually does, then I'll say something like "nah it's just bad luck" and then give an example on why this is the case.

If somebody says "We never win BGs" I usually say "I dunno, I've been winning a lot lately, we just gotta try a little harder this time" or something. Regardless of if I've been winning a lot lately or not. Yeah, it's not the whole truth, but I think it's worth it =P

Because the whole point is to get people to stop being negative and start being positive because that usually turns into people working as a team, and that often turns into a win.

That said I am taking a nice long break from PvP for the time being; I spent far too much time there grinding honor a month or two back and it's breaktime!

Anonymous said...

Like the site. I just came across it and thought you did a good job. I am a lvl 70 BM hunter as well. I roll with Sandars(humar). I did read old posts and read the one about the pug hunter who got the 4 epics in your run. As someone who is in a guild that is not ready for Kara yet I am quiet jealous. Keep up the good work and I look forward to future posts

Telrunay & Sanders - Baelgun

Anonymous said...

I thought, as a lock, i would leave my 2 cents worth on Bg's. As pike intimated it is just luck what group you end up fighting with.

Sure- we have all joined a Bg where before the gates even open people are saying "alliance suck" etc etc..the highlight of this was 6 of the 15 people created a picnic tent at the Gy and stayed there saying :its not worth it to fight"- thus resulting in 6 minutes of bitching before we were 5 capped. There was still a trusty band of 5 of us or so that were trying to cap. Other times groups just work really well together- im always looking at HP's at the beginning of a fight to measure people's gear as you can get a faily good idea where they are at with HP's.

Hunters are lucky i guess in the fact that they do not have to respec for bg's? Raid spec for a lock is terrible for bgs.

That being said im the naughty lock in SL/SL spec that camps the GY in WSG picking off peeps as they appear- its not a malicious act as i figure if im taking out the rezzers then it free's up the grounds for others to grab the flags. Hehe after doing this for a while and killing some people for the 3rd or 4th time in a row they come looking for me , indeed i have been chased from one end of Bg's to the other for fear kiting /drain life/fear/fear/and being dotted. Guess itmust be annoying to have no control over your character until you die. LOL- locks FTW!