Server Choice

The other day at lunch I was having a discussion with one Addoe, Adoe, Ado, Adorand…whatever his name is now, and I was talking about how I was ready to transfer some of my toons on my second account over to Horde and server/account transfer them so that I can only be paying for one account every month.  Since he and his wife play on Drak’Tharon and I have a few low-level toons over there, it was assumed that I’d move over there…I know many people over there.  But said that I was going to transfer to Kargath instead.

Why?

I said, well Kargath is PvE and Drak is PvP.  I don’t want play on a PvP server.  They gave many solid arguments saying that you don’t really run into many people and that people don’t really jump you.  And Addoe pointed out that it’s fun to get into sparring matches and said how they were outside a raid and he got into it with a Death Knight.  I on the other hand pointed out the constant anxiety I would have while leveling or doing anything if I could get jumped at anytime, and that I didn’t find beating each other up outside a raid while trying to get it organized very fun.

It was funny though, because on that same day that we agreed to disagree about how fun PvP servers could be, I went home and got to experience exactly what I was talking about.  First was just minor, a friend who transferred over to a PvP server recently was saying how he died 12 times in Mt. Hyjal while trying to level up.  12 times in one hour.  He wanted to be on a PvP server, so he didn’t mind too much, but said 12 times is a bit ridiculous.  And there’s not much a level 80 can do against a level 85.

The second experience was my own.  I’ve been pushing Elgar to 150 pets.  I think he’s at 141 and there are a few that I could get fairly easy, like the Tol Barad seagull.  Elgar skipped TB stuff initially.  So I headed over to do some dailies.  I have only ever done the dailies in the PvE part of the zone.  So there I am, killing ghosts at Largo’s Overlook.  There was a bit of competition that day, 3 or 4 others there at the same time, so I decided I would dot up several and then use Mind Sear to AOE them down.  So I’m doing just that, 3 ghosts all with DoTs and me in a bubble doing Mind Sear.  People are running around and I see someone running toward me, I assume they are going to run past me to get more ghosts.  And right before they reach me, they turn yellow, like PvP yellow.  And then instantly red.  Because now, my Mind Sear had hit them.  And I hear the “you are now in PvP” noise.  Awesome.  Since I’m focused on keeping Elgar alive and killing the ghosts, I’m really caught off guard and the guy seems to just run past me, then I see a flagged Draenei Shaman trying to kill this Tauren Death Knight.  I kill my ghosts and decide it’s do or die at this point, and jump into the fray hoping that I can help the Shaman enough.  But I’m at 50% health and the Shaman is less than that, the DK however, is 90%+.  Our efforts seem futile.  Then, a Blood Elf Rogue shows up and makes quick work of the Shaman, the moment I see the rogue, I decide it’s time to flee.  I make a run for it.  And I make it pretty far timing my dispersion so they couldn’t slow me down.  But it’s not long and I’m eating dirt.

I will be the first to say I suck at PvP whether I have a good start or not.  I’m just not that fast and usually people who are partaking in it are pretty well experienced.  Now if someone else in full crappy PvE gear and a poor spec who never wants to do PvP wants to challenge me, I’ll take them up on it.  😉

I found it ironic that on the same day that I’m talking about PvP and people jumping me when I’m just trying to do things and how I don’t like that, that someone flags me and then kills me which is exactly the thing I was talking about hating.  And of course that Adoe was trying to say it hardly ever happens and yet here on my peaceful PvE server, I got a little taste of the frustration.

I just wanted my Tol Barad badges so I could get a seagull and instead, I got dead.

To be fair, part of the reason I don’t like PvP servers is because I tend to play WoW as though it’s a single player game.  I’m off doing things by myself most the time and I pretty much want to be able to play as I like without other people getting in my way.  I don’t need WoW to be an MMO for me to have a good time.  Yes, it’s great that I’ve met some awesome people and have a wonderful guild, but I’m as happy as a clam just doing my own weird things by myself, without the constant worry that some idiot who thinks he’s god’s gift to whatever class he is playing is going to gank and then teabag me.  There’s plenty of douchiness in the real world, I don’t need it in my video game too.

Alternative Weekend

It was as usual a busy weekend for me out of game, birthday parties, community band concerts, and taxes.  Ha! 

But I did get some play time in, but wasn’t feeling up to level 85 shenanigans so I played around on a bunch of lower level alts.  The way that you gain levels these days is pretty inspiring for those low-level toons, there’s still excitement when you might learn a new spell the next level! 

So I played on the dwarf warlock that I rolled a while back in hope that one day he might be the dwarf warlock we need for the Classy Dwarves achievement.  But at this rate…  Anyways, he was level 11 or so and so I did some more dungeons and then was alerted that BGs are now in groups of 5 instead of 10.  Hmm… what the heck, I’ll do some level 14 PvP.  So I took my felguard and away we went.  It was crazy fun.  My group was pretty horrible compared to the level 14s on the other side, we had mostly 10 and 11.  Grrr…but I got some achievements and did mucho damage and got quite a few honor points and killing blows.  After I realized we had no chance in hell to win WSG I just starting running around DoTing everything for the HKs.  Yes friends, I was the dude in the middle just causing trouble.  Isn’t that what dwarves are for?

So I think that was Friday night?  Or did I play on the Rogue?  I can’t remember.  But at some point too I played on the rogue and got him to level 60…I’m not even sure if that was this weekend.  So he’s sitting in Outlands now ready to level up.  I finished up Blasted Lands and dinged 60 before even heading out there.  I had intended to do some PvP with him too, but now it’s 60-64 so I’ll wait a few levels.

Saturday I did a dungeon on the mage (normal) and the queue was only 6 minutes for DPS Saturday morning.  That is one thing I have noticed is that the queue times for normal dungeons are far less than heroic, which seems odd but maybe not?  Either way, a quick run and done.  Schubert is best at single target as AOE on frost pretty much doesn’t exist.  I should I suppose use his fire spec for trash and then switch to frost for bosses, but I don’t think the tanks would wait for me.

Sometime over the last couple days too I rolled a Tauren priest.  I have a few horde toons, none of them over level 33 that I mostly use just to harass people with.  I named him Alfalfa which I was surprised was not taken!  I’m going to maybe level him as holy to try that.  But again, probably won’t get much play.

I also played on my DK a lot this weekend.  Several dungeons and many quests in attempt to get to 75 because then I could train her blacksmithing.  It is odd that she is my only female toon (created by the kid I mentor) but her big pink pigtails are sorta fun.  She does okay though I am pretty sure I am doing DK all wrong.  At least I realized with Festering Strike I don’t need to reapply disease.  I’ll figure it out one day.  I have also bene collecting tank gear and now that she’s 75 might get a blood spec and try tanking.  I had tanked the LK dungeons on the paladin starting around 74 so it might be worth a shot.  Besides, Floy was blood DPS before they made it the tank tree.

Also, the best part of the weekend was when the guild hit level 25!!  I am so proud of everyone who worked so hard and the last few levels really owe a big thanks to the raiders who contributed so much XP.  It was pretty awesome to see that achievement and then hear of those having a lion parade!  I could not join as I, though the GM, have no toons exalted with my own guild.  Such is the life of the crazed altoholic.  I think that my warlock might be revered, but that’s it.  I guess I should work on that.  I think logging in earlier in the evening instead of my 8 or 9pm usual log in would really help get me some guild groups!  Ha!

Anyways, my guess it I’ll be focusing on the alts again this week, there are too many of them…but each time I choose a new one it’s sort of like playing a new game, even if the quests are the same.

CONGRATS again to the guild as a whole for Level 25!!  I am so amazed at what we’ve accomplished and feel lucky to have such an awesome group of people!

The 50-50 Guild Event

We’ve been having many guild events lately it seems:  Tempest Keep classic raid, the fishing tournament, and on Tuesday we had a guild War Games night.

For those that are unfamiliar, you can host your own “War Game” on a battleground map by challenging another player and their group to a match.  This is easily done by the following steps:

1)  Form two raid teams, try to make them equal size (and equal power).
2)  The team leader of one team locates and targets the team leader of the other team.
3)  Open the PvP interface and select the map you want to play (battlegrounds only for now, arena is apparently coming soon!).
4)  Instead of clicking Join Battle, click the War Games button. 
5)  The other team will accept, and presto!  You’ll be in your War Game in no time!

No honor is gained or achievements can be made in a War Game.  Since the maps are set up as Alliance vs. Horde, one team will be selected to be the Horde or Alliance if both teams are the same faction.  Just make sure you take note so that you are running with your flag to the correct base.  He he. 

We made two teams of 8 each for our first battle and did Twin Peaks since most people had never seen it.  We had mostly PvE types so we figured it wouldn’t be too bad.  Our group had lots of fun!  We each joined our own Vent channel and ours was full of laughter and death.  It was hilarious.  Our team won the first battle which was quite exciting.  We had a shadow priest run the first flag back and a paladin do it the second time.  They managed to get their flag back once, though I’m not sure who carried it.

They chose the second map and picked Battle for Gilneas.  It’s a resource map with three points.  They were assigned Horde.  This battle was 9 vs. 9 as we had a few more people join and a few drop.  We did not do a very good job balancing the teams for the second match and our team again won.  Sadly, the other team was not having such a good time as we were.  I think due to the unbalanced teams.  However, they did have some on their teams that really gave us a run for our money!  Do you know how hard it is to kill druids?  Grr.

So it turned out is was only half successful?  I think had we had more team balance and switched up the teams between matches so that people could play with others it would have been a little more fun.  We’ll remember this for next time.  Much like our Dire Maul arena free for all though, it’s fun to be in a different environment with our guildmates.  I had fun and hope we can convince others to play War Games with us again.  I think it’s a fun break from the normal and in BG where you know everyone and you’re all more PvE than PvP it makes it a little less stressful, in my opinion anyways.

I do think it would be pretty hilarious to do an Alterac Valley with 10 on each team or so, that could be pretty hilarious, or potentially quite annoying?  He he.  I’ll also have to remember to think of prizes next time, I meant to keep track of biggest healers, damage dealers, and flag carriers, or maybe if the team votes on MVP or something, to give some prizes, but I totally forgot.  Next time!

Speaking of Fishing…

Our daily fishing the other day was the Jewel of the Sewers quest.  By far the most easy of the daily fishing quests in Northrend.  For fun, I logged on all my level 70+ characters and picked it up.  I figured I would eventually get around to it on all of them.  I was suprised though to see that my little mage Schubert had skill of…oh crap, he never trained fishing at all.  But he still had the fishing pole from the eels in Outland in his bank.  Borka and Kittykat picked up the quest too, as well as Trout and Elgar who normally do it anyways.

In the spirit of this past weekends fishing trip, I spent some time fishing it up on all of them the other night.  For Schubert it was 126 skill ups before be caught the jewel, Borka and Kitty were less but still many points required.  Unfortunately, none of them got very good prizes in their bags of fishing treasures.  But it was good to get them some skill ups. 

Trout has been doing the daily fishing a little bit more frequently on his quest for gold for epic flying.  He was doing the Terrorfish quest last week when jumped by a rogue.  I once was told that hunters are the anti-rogue, but I can’t understand how that could be?  I kept flare up nearly constantly but I’d be stun-locked before I knew what happened and death ensued.  Several others near me were doing the same fishing daily and so we partied up.  We did kill him 10 or so times before he called in his BE rogue friend and between the two of them and cloak of shadows, vanish and sap, and us fighting with fishing poles in hand, we just had too much trouble.  Eventually some gave up since the rogue just kept on coming back, and the others of us caught all our fish and headed out as well.  But the little rogues were persistant little sh!ts and would gank the person running to the flight point when they finally decided to turn in. 

Personally, I didn’t get it, because I don’t play like that nor do I get any kicks out of killing other players.  Hence my terrible PvP skills.  Especially in a situation where obviously the fishing people have no interest in the rogues. 

To end with one last fun note, eating Magic Eaters while fishing can have fun effects especially during the wild magic debuff.  Who knew dragons could fish?!?

It’s been a violent Children’s Week

Now, everyone has complains about the holiday events.  Too restrictive to high levels, I didn’t get my candies, etc. etc.  Now normally I don’t pay much attention to holiday events beyond the minipets.  So naturally I was tickled about two pets from Children’s week.  Of course, Schubert just zipped around the world with his ports and was done in no time flat.  Elgar and Trout had a harder time but I spent my hearth cooldown time farming various dragon whelps in hopes of the pet drop, and low and behold Elgar got one! 

I haven’t completed any of the holiday titles.  They all seemed like too much work.  Ha ha.  And they also usually occur at holidays, when I’m not around to play much.  But the achievements needed for Children’s Week actually seemed attainable.  Our daily was UP, eat some food, blah blah.  Not so tough and not a long list of achievements needed either.  So I’m down to the last one…School of Hard Knocks.  I really dislike PvP.  I’m not that great at it, and I’m a healer.  Even though I’m disc I’m not disc-PvP.  The trouble, for those of you that have never played a healer in a BG, is that once they see you’re keeping someone alive, the come right for you.  While you’re out there thinking “kill the healer!!” the other team is as well.  Elgar died the most in every battleground he was in.  And if I see “You can’t do that while stunned” or “You can’t do that while silenced” one more time, I’m going to pluck my own eyes out.  But I can’t, because I’m dead.  /sigh

This poor child has been watching me die all week long in hopes that I’ll stay alive long enough near the WG flag to actually pick it up.  I haven’t yet.  I managed to run a flag back in EotS, and even assault a flag in AB, don’t ask me how, but I did.  I got several achievements as well for BGs including the one I was most proud of, damage control for healing 300k in a single battleground.  The nice thing is that even though I suck at PvP, I still get to see my high numbers for healing, I’m consistently in the top 2-3 for healing done.  Though I almost always take #1 for total deaths.  Ouch.

Tonight is my last chance, the kid will watch me die over and over yet again in hopes of the final portion.  This is my only holiday event complaint.  The PvP requirement is a challenge as it’s placing a PvE event, holiday, into the brutal PvP environment.  Ouch.  I would have been happier if the achievement was “Win the following battlegrounds with your orphan out.”  That would have been much better. 

Ending on a final positive note, I did manage (one by one) to get my 30 WSG tokens that I’ll need for my PvP mount.  Just a few quick AB, which alliance seems they can actually win, and I’ll have the 30 I need there too.  Poor little orphan though…he can’t be having much fun watching us die over and over and lose.  If I were him, I’d have seriously reconsidered which side I was on after watching the Alliance die in shame.