You Got Lucky

Many years ago I decided to start playing a Mage. It was as a levelling experiment with 4 people questing and dungeoning together for fun and not as an exercise in speed levelling. The Party was created without any real synergy but I think we still managed to assemble a Tank, a Healer and two Dps. In those days I was pure damage dealer, with a Hunter, Warrior and a shiny new Gnome Mage.

As with anything in WoW we are expected to make some big decisions very early on about the Spec that we are specialise in. With a Hunter, I wanted to make my pet as big butch and mean as possible, so that I chose Beast Master. Marksman made some sense but Survival just appeared all wrong. The result was that I have been Beast Master ever since except a brief flirtation with Marksman during WotLK. Warrior was different in the fact that I know idea what to do except hit things with a large sharp object.

Although it is many years ago, I still remember starting out in Dun Morogh killing Troggs with firebolts. They would run at me and die at my feet without even being able to smell their disgusting breath. Life was simple in those days.

When the levelling group disbanded several levels later, I decided to enter Stranglethorn Vale. In those days STV was one zone and it stretched from around Level 25-30. The Southern Section was very dangerous even if you stayed on the road with Apes trying to stop your trip down to Bounty Bay. It was not quite as bad as the Wetlands run, in which the aggro area of a level 10, would put  the entire zone on red alert, looking for fresh Night Elf meat.

The North section contained some lower level Tigers and Panthers and it is here that I cut my teeth with my Mage. Fire mage was a Glass canon spec, with big burst damage and zero survivability, I spent a lot of time running from mobs and sitting down eating for the purpose of refreshing mana and health. I decided that this was not working very well for me, and I decided to change spec. I needed survivability and decided that Frost with it's slowing abilities would stop mobs from getting toe to toe and ripping my cloth garments to shreds. It is hard today to remember how tough levelling could be in those days.

I killed large quantities of Tigers and Panthers, and then Raptors and Crocodiles, all in an attempt to master a basic rotation, slowing, trapping and smacking my opponent into submission. The skills learnt in those hours have been etched into memory muscle and would be honed further during Cataclysm and the Dark Ages when I chose PvP rather than drag myself into another Zul.

Cataclysm was a fantastic time to be a Frost Mage and every Tol Barad would have a large contingent of Frosties running around, it was a cold time for everyone else. At the same time that Frost was the PvP king, Arcane and Fire were rocking the meters in PvE content. Mages have always been at the top of the DPS tree, which caused many to suspect that Ghostcrawler played a Mage.

MoP is the first expansion that I can remember that people have played the spec they want and not the top of tree with the possible exception of BM. Beast Master Hunter and Frost Mages have both enjoyed a moment in the sun but considering the rough ride through every other expansion, I can safely say it was a refreshing change.

At first glance Mages and Warlocks appear to be very similar both being magic based with ranged attacks, but I was reminded by their differences when handling different parts of the Wrathion quest line. It is no surprise to learn that Warlock struggled with the PvP content, so I was very worried when my little Frost Mage approached the same juncture in the game.

Warlord Bloodhilt, the Orc who hits like a wet noodle, can be soloed easier by certain classes. Part of the fight is the need to remain in close proximity to the Warlord, which is fine for Tanks, and classes with pet Tanks (Hunters and Warlocks) but not so good for a squishy with no natural healing capabilities. This resulted in a greasy smear for my Mage and I seem to remember my Shaman had similar issues. I needed backup so called on my Paladin friend Oov, who was enjoying his birthday by playing WoW on a different realm. He complained that he was not feeling totally comfortable playing a character that for vanilla and 3 Expansion had been his main character before switching to a Frost Mage. I said that his job was just to make sure he stayed alive.

Bloodhilt was a fairly slow fight with the Warlord still possessing 11.7 Million hit points and my mage feeling significantly weaker than when she is on the Timeless Isle with all those nice buffs. With the final deathswipe Bloodhilt toppled and so did Oov. "I said you only had to stay alive!".

Now for the PvP challenge. I have got 37K Honor Kills in my time in WoW and a large chunk are on my Frost Mage, so I was quietly confident except for the lack of gear. As usual I started with Temple of Kotmogu and as usual it was an easy win for the Alliance.

A Pair of Aces

My first trip into Silvershard Mines was of course a defeat. Having been in this position it was time to run some PvP content that the Alliance can win. The minimum a PvPer needs is a Trinket that removes all snares.

The random BG was Deepwind Gorge, which having run this one with the posse, I was quite comfortable hanging back and picking off the fleeing Horde from the centre of the battleground. Anyone with half health must have lost the Horde buff that means they take no damage and are immune to any snares. The rest of the fight was based around defending the middle flag. It was here that I remembered what Frost Mages do really well. They are a PITA to kill! They don't stay still with blink, they have invisibility, an ice block, frost armor, polymorph, mirror image, ice barrier, and ring of frost. They have a veritable bag of tricks in their armoury, and occasionally they will bite back.

If I can keep the enemy tied up trying to kill me, then it makes an overlap somewhere on the battlefield. It is the same principle as sending a Tank out to soak up the hits, while the rest of the team picks off the weak from the periphery. I took this philosophy into my next Silvershard Mine, which was a late night effort, after 1 O'clock server time, with the hope that only PvP ers would be playing at this time.

The Alliance started fairly badly but we stayed in contention, and got our act together in the middle section. I took up my role escorting a cart up the middle section. Towards the end I enjoyed a nice piece of play keeping 3 Horde occupied while the Alliance stole a surprise win, with only 30 points in it. The Lion Roars in 3 attempts. I am utterly delighted.

Bad Company

It is now a week since my Warlock of Whimpery started her PvP leg of the Legendary Cloak quest line. The hatred for the quest "The Lion Roars" is itself legendary, and many column inches have been written about it by Alliance biased bloggers. The latest of which was Kurn in her review of the Legendary Quest chain (see section Chapter 2).

I approached last night having done in the region of about 25 Battlegrounds in the Silvershard Mines, and all with the exception of one was a miserable failure. I have managed the PvP quest already on 2 characters, my Hunter sailed through at first time of asking but my Resto Shaman had a terrible time. The last time was 6 months ago and my solution then was ask in Guild. My prayers then were answered by Beomani the Warlock, a very accomplished Raider and PvPer. I have been looking for Beomani for several days, and I am guessing that he might have been on holiday, but definitely away for his computer. I made a casual enquiry but you know that people have affairs to put in order when then have been absent for any length of time.

Shortly after Beomani gave me the nod and I joined a group to find Stormedge a Ret Pally, who I have encountered on a handful of late night PvP sessions.

PvP Heroes of Silvershard - Stormy and Beo

I was actually quite excited being given an opportunity to enact my revenge, this dish was going to be anything but cold. It was going to be a bloodbath with the streets filled with the stinking green flesh and congealed blood of hundreds of Horde for all the beatings they have given the Alliance in 9 years.

A plan was formulated and we decided to take the Horde head on and go for the Lava cart. On arrival there was no Horde in sight. This turned out not to be good news but a surprise attack. It was like finding yourself in the Neutral Zone only for the entire Klingon Fleet to uncloak behind you.

Stun-Silence-Death, I managed to offer one spell as a counterattack. From that opening Salvo the Alliance never recovered. I was utterly dejected my posse had made absolutely no difference to the outcome of the Alliance fortunes.

The 2nd attempt started with Stormy assessing our chances as being no better than the first attempt. Mostly PvE people with a similar makeup of melee, range and casters. The omens suggested a similar outcome. I was pleasantly surprised when we managed to take the Horde to within a hundred points.

Stormy and Beo were starting to get in a groove and the need for each of them to top the Killing Blows was fuelling the improvement in the Alliance team.

The 3rd attempt left me in my favourite position of nursing home the Lava cart. and it was nice to witness all 3 carts occasionally turning Blue, this meant we had a chance of being competitive.

Finally

A 600 point Victory for the Alliance was the final result from the 3rd bout. The Scoresheet suggests a fairly even contest, but a 600 point win is a comfortable victory. Wrathion will be pleased.

Not wanting to leave my posse immediately after claiming the spoils I agreed to carry on and do some more PvP battlegrounds. A random BG placed the team in Deepwind Gorge, which is a new MoP BG that I have only been in once, and suffered a humiliating defeat. This time the boot was very much on the other foot. The BG was nearly over before the Horde scored any points and a score of 1600 - 23 was a brilliant victory and proves that the Alliance can occasionally compete.

There is nothing like the popup of Achievements in Guildchat to get people interested, and we increased our numbers to 5, I switched to Resto Shaman to give the party more balance and we went round the Lion Roars battlegrounds of Temple of Kotmogu and Silvershard Mines.

An organised party of 5 with Mumble and 3 players resplendent in Prideful gear made mincemeat out of a demoralised Horde. If the Grumpy Elf is right and the Horde queue times are 30 minutes per Battleground and they expect a win as a divine right then we must have left Horde members wondering what they had done that was so wrong.

Waterloo

Traditionally in times of lack of content, I turn to PvP as a stop gap. I am not particularly good, but I do at least try to improve and make things as easy on my team mates as possible. The Grumpy Elf is currently embroiled in the PvP side of the game. Gumpy's take on the current status is that CC is far too long in duration and that healing is OP.

At the end of last year in an attempt to get a second character through the Legendary Cloak quests, I got well and truly stuck at the PvP quest The Lion Roars. In my end of year post I stated that:

"My thoughts on PvP are that CC is totally out of whack. On a bad day my Shaman was never out of CC, whether it was Fear, Sap, Silence or trap, it was shockingly bad. My own CC is the Toad which seems to be on the longest cooldown in the game. Chain CC is very bad for the game."

Looks like I was not alone in my thoughts. There is no fun in PvP when you are never in control of your character which is something that was highlighted by the Blizzard team in the recent Interview "WoW Source: Warlords of Draenor PvP and Class Updates". I stated that that my Shaman was able to use Toad so infrequently and the duration was a matter of seconds, but I could be feared constantly for up to a minute. It does appear that changes will occur in this area in the near future.

5 Weeks ago Cynwise wrote a piece on "Faction imbalance in Random Battleground PvP". It is an interesting take on the Horde is better at PvP scenario. The chances of winning in a battleground is greatly improved with Communication and Co-ordination. If only 5 of a team of 15 PvPers is communicating through Vent, or Mumble, the chances of victory are much improved because the core team is stronger. The strongest opposition teams that I face are the ones that work together, move together and most important stick together. They defend the Healer and attack the opposition Healer. I must confess that my own abilities improved dramatically when I installed the addon "Healers Must Die" which if memory serves me right, adds an arrow or some indicator above the head of the Healer.

I might be oversimplifying the battleground situation, but in my opinion the Horde excel at the strategic battle and the Alliance at the big pitched battles. Communication is vital for strategy but the Alliance can all clump together and create an immovable object they can all move around in one big army without any thought. If you operated like this in Arathi Basin you only ever own 1 or 2 of the 5 objectives and as a consequences would lose. Alterac Valley and Isle of Conquest have a much higher win ratio for Alliance.

Flag Capture is a Horde winner everytime especially Warsong Gulch. For some reason the Alliance fare better in the similar Twin Peaks. I can only think the terrain is less even. It took at least 25 attempts to win my first Warsong Gulch, which incidentally was an emphatic 3-0 win for the Alliance.

In my experience, the better geared I am the better chance of an Alliance victory. I guess what you see in PvP is only your own personal experience. If your gear tips the scales slightly in either direction you are going to see skewed results. On the old weighing scales you would get a fair amount of swaying if the weights are similar, but if the weight is too heavy one side or the other the scales would slam down and become immovable.

Random PvP is not fair, and I think it is fair to compare with motor sports, in particular F1 (Formula 1). In F1 the cars are all different, and each constructor will end 2 cars into the race. The constructors are not all equal and some will have far larger budgets, the best project managers, the best designers and the best technicians using the best testing equipment. The drivers are all so close in terms of skill, weight, size and driving ability that providing the cars are reliable the best car will always win. Sebastian Vettel, has won the Championship for the last for years not because he is considerably better than his rivals, but because he has the car and the best team behind him. Many people would like to see the best drivers in identical cars and see which driver would come out on top.

In Horse Racing they try to make a level playing field by handicapping:

"These are races where the Handicappers try to give each horse an equal chance of winning. We do this by giving the highest rated (or 'best') horse in the race the highest weight to carry; and reducing the weight carried by inferior horses."

This I believe is the kind of solution that Grumpy is advocating:

"Not much blizzard can do without upsetting the apple cart.  However, I did mention something in my random thoughts that I think has some serious potential.  Just give the individual player an incentive to keep queuing up when they lose instead of getting frustrated and quitting.  Buff them, buff them well, for each loss and sooner or later, if they stick to it, even the worst team will beat a good team through overwhelming buffs they received from getting their asses handed to them so often."
Most PvPers are more intune with the F1 scenario and this is the reason that they cap their Conquest gear as soon as possible, so they can bully the noobs in the Honor gear. It is not about being better it is about bigger and stronger (more time available).  If Blizzard wanted to create even Battlegrounds they would cap the iLevel of the gear for each Battleground. If you are undergeared you will get a buff and overgeared your stats are nerfed or normalised. The question is, "What is the reward for taking part/winning if gear does not matter?".

Perception also plays it part in PvP and I was always surprised to see figures showing that Tol Barad and Wintersgrasp were more even than the battles that I had attended. If random is indeed random, then your battleground win ratio should 50:50 but even a small deviation to 45:55 will give the impression that Alliance always loses.

With careful consideration I think Random BG's should be handicapped and Rated BG's are where you can show off your gear. In reality, Rated BG's will become full of gear capped players, creating it's own form of balance.