Lost In The Grind

One of the aspects of WoW I enjoy is entering the battlegrounds and testing my skills against other players. Obviously the goal is always to win, but because it is a team effort it isn’t as simple as deciding to play defense or offense and doing your best. You can have a full set of PVP gear and have the best spec and have quick reflexes and all the addons and it still doesn’t mean you are going to win. Why? Because battlegrounds isn’t a 1 vs 1 battle, even the arenas require teamwork. Hence, the creation of premade raids designed specifically for Arathi Basin or Eye of the Storm. With my experience of playing battlegrounds on a few different battlegroups and now having two level 70 toons, one of each faction I can see differences and similarities. When you are hanging out in a major city either doing some crafting or checking the auction house you see the endless chat in the trade channel, unless you decide to leave channel 2 it is always there. I have to say I rarely see advertisements for premade groups for battlegrounds while playing my horde shaman, on the other hand for quite a while while playing my alliance druid it was very common to see groups looking for more or single players looking for a premade. Maybe I am ignorant to it, but I think the horde are generally either more experienced or more confident in their abilities and prefer to join up with the other random players without much concern of being punished by the alliance. At the same time I think the majority of alliance players aren’t that experienced with pvp and therefore seek out other players who have the experience and will make a better team to compete.
Here lately I haven’t been in the battlegrounds with my druid mostly because I enjoy the gameplay of my shaman much better. Both characters have their strengths and weaknesses. My feral druid has a lot of crowd control and lasting power, and while playing in cat form he can deal some damage, but it is melee damage and means he has to catch his enemy to hurt them. On the other hand my shaman can hit players from quite a distance with the lightning shock and chain lightning spells. My shaman has totems that can counteract almost any movement impairment. As I progress along and gain more honor eventually I would love to be decked out in all the season arena 1 epic gear. Eventually I will seek an arena team to take it to the next level. I have been invited to join a couple arena teams with my druid, but I just don’t know if I am ready to commit yet.
A lot of Horde players were thinking the changes to Alterac Valley with 2.4 would make winning more difficult, but I have seen the tried and true strategy that almost guarantees a win for the Horde every time. It is quite simple, all the horde need to do is send defense to Galv and cutoff the alliance offense between Galv and the IB graveyard. If you can control that choke point you will win. Trust me, I played a lot AV since the patch and I have seen the horde send everyone on offense, we lose every time. It is just a matter of time, the game might take 20 minutes to complete, but you can’t lose if they can’t get to Drek.
A typical game would go like this, keep in mind I always go on defense in AV, it’s a habit. Waiting in the cave, watching the clock tick down to zero, finally the gate opens and everyone runs out. Half the time someone will say, need 15 to go D, meet at Galv…I am already on my way there regardless. I ride to Galv, sometimes the Alliance is meeting us there, but most of the time we have a few seconds to get ready for their arrival. If we have enough on D we can keep them from even entering his chamber, but occasionally the initial rush of Allies will overtake our D, at this point someone screams, NEED MORE ON DEFENSE, GET TO GALV! So, after respawning, I make my way back over, sometimes alliance will be attempting to take the tower, so I make my way up, throw down an earthbinding totem, reach the top and find a horde rogue battling a mage, so I summon firey, my fire elemental pet who puts out more DPS than I do…either the mage kills the rogue and I am left having the battle him/her or the mage is dead, here comes a druid up the tower in cat form, he pounces me and firey starts burning his fur…by this time here comes a blood elf priest to my rescue fearing the druid, I cast lightning shock on him and cold shock, and we own him. Tower is saved…I make my way down to check and see what’s up with Galv, the alliance are still hitting it hard but our defense if keeping them from killing him. At this point the game has been going on for about 10 minutes and we have 450 reinforcements and the allies are at 390…looks good…keep it up.
I decide to make my stand the path near IBGY, I lay down my totems, usually earthbind/tremor, grounding, poison cleansing and totem of wrath. Sometimes another player will stand next to me, sometimes a group of players will be there with me, catching the allies as they attempt to reach FW and beyond. After another 5 minutes we have taken out another 10 alliance characters who tried to sneak past us but didn’t. Looks like a druid or rogue ninja’ed a tower down at our camp, there are already players there taking care of it. I hold my ground. Then like as if were we in some kind of old western stand off in the center of town, the dust blows across the ground, just out of reach of my lightning bolts stand a mage, a hunter, a pally and a warrior just eyeballing myself, a mage and a hunter. Looks like rocky, my earth elemental pet is ready for action, so I put his totem down, and commence to bring the pain…First cast is chain lightning, it gets their attention, crits them good, the mage starts to cast something, I lay down a grounding totem and catch it, the hunters cat is all up in my face pissing me off, but rocky gets his attention and lets take care of business. The cure poison totem is doing its’ job. The damn pally must be holy he is healing everyone as soon as I hurt them. The mage and hunter I am fighting decide to get closer and I say to them let’s take out the healer! They say, OK, so we focus fire, he uses his bubble…always the bubble…Well, I am getting beat up pretty bad by the mage and hunter, so I take on the role of healer for our little group, they keep hammering the pally til he goes down…now it is a matter of time before the mage and hunter will die, but by this time here come 3 more allies, a priest and that cat druid again…ugh…
I say in BG chat, need more to help defend IB, believe it or not, nobody has a smartass comment, and a handful of people arrive…at this point the battle has gone on for 18 minutes and we have 280 reinforcements, the allies are down to 150…ugh…come on! I lose track of the events after this point, but it continues on in the same manner until we eventually win a little after 25 minutes of fighting.
Of all the places to fight against other players, I do have to say I enjoy AV the most, perhaps because it is the biggest and you can get lost in there if you aren’t watching what you are doing. Just having a gameplan before you enter can mean the difference between victory or defeat.