Well, it has finally come to this. I have started a (semi) serious alliance alt.
Oh, believe me, I've tried it before. I don't think any of my alliance alts have made it past level 15 up till now. I just get so bored of questing with no bags, no mount, no money, that after a few levelups I just end up deleting them to make room for another horde alt. But this time I stuck through with it.
I made a human mage - originally a night elf but ugh, I just can't stand those self-righteous night elves. Same with the dranei - so haughty and smug. I considered gnome but I have to admit they do creep me out, plus gear just looks so ridiculous on them. Worgen was another serious candidate but I decided in the end I wanted to look pretty (don't I already have numerous scary-looking horde characters?) and so I went with a human.
Luckily I had room for another alt on my main's server, so I gathered up all the caster heirlooms I had (which is...all of them - chest, shoulders, cape, hellm, staff, two trinkets) and sent them to her. I couldn't send any bags or money, both of which are kind of crucial in expediting early questing/training, but oh well.
Compared to my very first character's leveling experience, things have been like night and day. Being decked out in great gear right off the bat really trivializes any content below level 10. Within about 10 minutes I was already out of Northshire in search of higher level mobs and quests. Within about 3 hours I had hit level 20 and was scraping together enough gold to purchase a mount!
Things improve SO much when you finally get that mount. No more tedious running everywhere, that mount just makes a world of difference.
Aside from gear another thing that really helped me out was my general experience playing the game. I was dirt poor when I made the character about a week ago, and now she's level 34 and already has 250g in her pockets. Even questing in a low level zone you pick up things here and there - maybe a tailoring recipe, cooking ingredients, some cloth or a couple gems - that you would've just vendored had you not known better. For instance when I had a stack of wool cloth instead of making bandages (I can always go back later to get my first aid skill up when I had plenty of money) I sold it for 15g each. When I got a stack of clam meat (always in high demand to raise cooking skill), instead of using it myself I just sold it for 20g and farmed other mats to raise my cooking. It was little things like that here and there that really helped out - 20g can buy you a few 12-slot bags, and you have no idea how nicer they are than the 6 slot ones.
And then of course when I got my professions started I made even more money. I think inscription is definitely the way to go for a new alt, unless you just got for two gathering professions. But my, that gets so boring very quickly. There is just not as much fun or satisfaction on simply mining, gathering, skinning over and over without making something out of it. Any gathering profession is always a money-maker, whereas the production professions require some strategy to actually generate any profit.
Inscription is so economic compared to the other production professions since you can raise your skill levels very easily just by making glyphs. Glyphs require some parchment (cheap from vendors) and a couple of inks (milled from herbs).
Compare that, for instance, with blacksmithing, where in order to raise a few skill points you need several stacks of ores and expensive gems, sometimes even random things like cloth or leather. Even after spending all those resources to craft something, you normally end up just vendoring or throwing out all the crafted items because the AH is usually so flooded with random low-level green items, and most people just rely on quest rewards or dungeons to gear up anyways. It's not until you start crafting level 85 stuff that you'll make any money.
But glyphs, if you make the right glyphs, will sell for quite a bit. The popular glyphs sell for 50-100g, which is very good given that all it cost you was a parchment and a couple of inks. Of course the trick is knowing which glyphs sell well and which don't, and figuring it out may take a few trips to the auction house or some trial and error.
Not to mention all the other nice perks inscription gets you: you can make darkmoon cards, which always sell for a few gold or if you can make a whole deck yourself, will sell for ten times that. You can make scrolls to buff yourself at very low cost. You can make scrolls of recall which is basically a second set of hearthstones, a very handy feature when you're leveling and have to do a lot of going back-and-forth to turn in quests and whatnot.
Ah, this topic has been derailed. Enough about inscription, back to my mage. Despite my hatred for casting delays, it actually hasn't been that bad. I chose frost so I could get good survivability and I've put talent points into reducing as much casting delay as possible, which has helped. I can wait through a 1.2 sec cast frostbolt, which will usually take a mob down to half its health. Then arcane missiles will usually pop, finishing off the mob. Otherwise I just ice-lance (instant cast!) the mob to death. If it gets close, I frost nova (another instant cast) and blink away. I generally cast nothing else.
I realize that I'm wearing so many heirlooms that mobs die quickly and quests are a breeze. This is fine with me - I don't have anyone to keep pace with and now that I have experienced the ally starting zone, I'm not interested in spending hours doing all the same quests I did as horde. I might try my hand at pvp once I'm high level. Or maybe I'll just faction switch once I hit 85. Or I could always have a high level alliance alt standing by to gank fellow hordies I don't like!
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Am I all alone?
Someone in my guild pointed out to me the other day that you don't see many girls playing a rogue. "A decent rogue who actually knows what she's doing", he added.
I haven't really given it much thought until now, but yeah, it's more or less true. Racking my brain in search of all the wow players whom I know for a fact are females (vent confirmation), I can't think of a single rogue amongst them. In fact, if you just search for rogues on my server, I'll bet you most of them are male characters OR female blood elf characters. And when you see a female blood elf, 95% of the time it's actually a dude playing that char. Yeah, shocking but true.
So I've gone and made a list of all the characters I've seen/know of that are played by actual females, and here's the breakdown (counting only mains, unless they have a pretty actively raiding alt as well):
3 Shaman - all were resto/ele. No enhancement.
2 Paladin - Both dedicated holy spec. No prot/ret.
3 Warlocks - I believe either demo/affliction spec, not that it's important.
4 Mages - frost/arcane? Again, not important as all specs are DPS specs.
3 Druids - 2 bear tanks, 1 balance.
5 Priests - 1 dedicated shadow, the rest holy/disc.
No warriors, no DKs, and no rogues.
The conclusion that I draw from this is that:
1. Most girls prefer casting over melee. Not a single enh shammy, ret pally, DK, warrior, or rogue indicates that smacking things with a sword does not appeal to the ladies.
2. Girls like to heal. God, that's such a stereotype and sexist but it's true. In every guild I've been in the 1 or 2 girls we had were always healers. What is up with that?
I understand that the population I sampled isn't exactly the most comprehensive, but seriously...it is rather disturbing that not a single girl I know who plays wow enjoys tanking or meleeing. Just shocking. Apparently I'm an oddball - I LOVE playing my rogue, I love playing melee characters (am I the only one in the world who enjoys playing an enhancement shammy?), and I enjoy tanking, to a degree.
I hate casting, too. I hate waiting for casts to finish (yes, 2 seconds is just too long for me) and I hate relying on mana. I hate being far away from the action and having to worry about mobs getting too close. I like to charge in and kill things, not nuke it from a mile away.
No, but seriously, what gives? Not a single rogue? Really??? I mean, REALLY???
I haven't really given it much thought until now, but yeah, it's more or less true. Racking my brain in search of all the wow players whom I know for a fact are females (vent confirmation), I can't think of a single rogue amongst them. In fact, if you just search for rogues on my server, I'll bet you most of them are male characters OR female blood elf characters. And when you see a female blood elf, 95% of the time it's actually a dude playing that char. Yeah, shocking but true.
So I've gone and made a list of all the characters I've seen/know of that are played by actual females, and here's the breakdown (counting only mains, unless they have a pretty actively raiding alt as well):
3 Shaman - all were resto/ele. No enhancement.
2 Paladin - Both dedicated holy spec. No prot/ret.
3 Warlocks - I believe either demo/affliction spec, not that it's important.
4 Mages - frost/arcane? Again, not important as all specs are DPS specs.
3 Druids - 2 bear tanks, 1 balance.
5 Priests - 1 dedicated shadow, the rest holy/disc.
No warriors, no DKs, and no rogues.
The conclusion that I draw from this is that:
1. Most girls prefer casting over melee. Not a single enh shammy, ret pally, DK, warrior, or rogue indicates that smacking things with a sword does not appeal to the ladies.
2. Girls like to heal. God, that's such a stereotype and sexist but it's true. In every guild I've been in the 1 or 2 girls we had were always healers. What is up with that?
I understand that the population I sampled isn't exactly the most comprehensive, but seriously...it is rather disturbing that not a single girl I know who plays wow enjoys tanking or meleeing. Just shocking. Apparently I'm an oddball - I LOVE playing my rogue, I love playing melee characters (am I the only one in the world who enjoys playing an enhancement shammy?), and I enjoy tanking, to a degree.
I hate casting, too. I hate waiting for casts to finish (yes, 2 seconds is just too long for me) and I hate relying on mana. I hate being far away from the action and having to worry about mobs getting too close. I like to charge in and kill things, not nuke it from a mile away.
No, but seriously, what gives? Not a single rogue? Really??? I mean, REALLY???
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Damn you warlocks
Sigh...ever since patch 4.0, ie ever since the immediate pre-cata launch and the subsequent cata patches, warlocks have been a thorn in my shoe. Is that an expression? Yesterday I described a coworker as having "a fork in everyone's pie" - I think I made that one up. Anyways...
Before the cata patches hit, rogues were tops, at least in my guild. No one could top me in single-target DPS. Not even the most seasoned veterans, not even ret pallys, not even arcane mages, not even kitty druids. There were two other rogues in the guild (we did 25mans) and the three of us were always in top 5 damage for most boss fights (obviously not fights like gunship or valithira).
And that made sense, you see. Rogues can't really do anything else but DPS. We have no raid-wide buffs, we have very weak slows/traps/CCs, not that anyone used those in wrath. We have tricks of the trade and that's about it. Compare us with any other pure DPS classes like mages, warlocks, and hunters - we bring very little to the table. No mage food, no arcane intellect buff, no soulstones/healthstones, nothing. All we do is stab people but we are good at it!
Since the latest round of patches, however, warlocks seem to be dominating charts. And it's not even a small margin, whenever there's a warlock in the group the gap between the lock's damage and mine (always #2 behind the lock) is over 5% of total damage done. This just doesn't seem fair to me. There's nothing I can possibly tweak in my rotation, gearing, spec, gems, etc at this point to overcome that much damage difference. Maybe if I was decked out in heroic raid gear, but at the same gear level as the lock I feel like I should be doing close to equal damage. But that's not the case.
Which is why I'm kind of happy when there are no locks in the group. Then I get to see my name at the top of the DPS chart once more and I can rest easy knowing that even though I bring very little to the table, at least I'm doing 25% of the damage.
Maybe I should roll a warlock...oh wait, I have one...hmm. Time to dust off those heirlooms again perhaps?
Before the cata patches hit, rogues were tops, at least in my guild. No one could top me in single-target DPS. Not even the most seasoned veterans, not even ret pallys, not even arcane mages, not even kitty druids. There were two other rogues in the guild (we did 25mans) and the three of us were always in top 5 damage for most boss fights (obviously not fights like gunship or valithira).
And that made sense, you see. Rogues can't really do anything else but DPS. We have no raid-wide buffs, we have very weak slows/traps/CCs, not that anyone used those in wrath. We have tricks of the trade and that's about it. Compare us with any other pure DPS classes like mages, warlocks, and hunters - we bring very little to the table. No mage food, no arcane intellect buff, no soulstones/healthstones, nothing. All we do is stab people but we are good at it!
Since the latest round of patches, however, warlocks seem to be dominating charts. And it's not even a small margin, whenever there's a warlock in the group the gap between the lock's damage and mine (always #2 behind the lock) is over 5% of total damage done. This just doesn't seem fair to me. There's nothing I can possibly tweak in my rotation, gearing, spec, gems, etc at this point to overcome that much damage difference. Maybe if I was decked out in heroic raid gear, but at the same gear level as the lock I feel like I should be doing close to equal damage. But that's not the case.
Which is why I'm kind of happy when there are no locks in the group. Then I get to see my name at the top of the DPS chart once more and I can rest easy knowing that even though I bring very little to the table, at least I'm doing 25% of the damage.
Maybe I should roll a warlock...oh wait, I have one...hmm. Time to dust off those heirlooms again perhaps?
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
We be trollin trollin trollin
Recently a couple of good RL friends have joined us on our Azerothian adventures. My hubby and I started some low level alts to play with them and show them the ropes and such. So far we've been doing some low level dungeons together and I must say I'm quite enjoying my new role as a healer.
I rolled another troll since, well, I just love trolls. The title of this post refers to the fact that I got rather drunk one night while clearing Scholomance with my friends and ended up trolling trade chat briefly. Very briefly. But it is nevertheless shameful.
The real POINT of this post, however, is to express my regret at how easy dungeons are. There's just no real challenge. Yes, I am wearing heirlooms, as is my husband. But we're not completely decked out or anything, just a few pieces. And let's not forget that we're 4-manning most of these dungeons, which I think should make them at least 20% more challenging, no? Not to mention that two out of the four players are relatively inexperienced, and one of them is a tank. This is my first time healing. This is my first time playing a druid. We normally tackle dungeons that are 3-4 levels above us. All of these factors should make a for a challenging, gruelling dungeon run, right?
Not really the case, sadly. I realize low level dungeons are supposed to be sort of roflstomped anyways, but I really expected better than this. All of the dungeons we tried from 15-35 or so have been disappointingly easy.
It was only until we got to Scarlet Monastery that things got a little trickier, and it was only because mobs were running into other packs and pulling the whole room. Yet, we managed to survive most of the time. It was only by trying to fight 10 mobs that we were actually able to feel the challenge. How pathetic is that? In a cataclysm heroic, pulling even one extra mob can mean a wipe, whereas 4 noob-ish level 30s crawling into Scarlet Monastery can handle 7-8 mobs at the same time? A little ridiculous if you ask me.
Scholomance was challenging, but again only because we would inadvertently pull the whole room by mistake. The only boss we wiped on was the one that summons like 30 mirror images and we had no idea how to handle it. None of the other bosses even presented a minor challenge - as a level 40 healer I could outheal all the damage without even losing half mana.
The good news is that things seem to be getting a bit tougher. We tried Dire Maul West which was quite difficult (although that may have been because we were all inebriated). I'm hoping that once we hit Outland things will get even more challenging. Otherwise why even bother going into a dungeon? It's supposed to be a big scary place with sparkly epic rewards that only the bravest of souls venture into. Not just some 15-minute roflstomp loot vending machine.
I rolled another troll since, well, I just love trolls. The title of this post refers to the fact that I got rather drunk one night while clearing Scholomance with my friends and ended up trolling trade chat briefly. Very briefly. But it is nevertheless shameful.
The real POINT of this post, however, is to express my regret at how easy dungeons are. There's just no real challenge. Yes, I am wearing heirlooms, as is my husband. But we're not completely decked out or anything, just a few pieces. And let's not forget that we're 4-manning most of these dungeons, which I think should make them at least 20% more challenging, no? Not to mention that two out of the four players are relatively inexperienced, and one of them is a tank. This is my first time healing. This is my first time playing a druid. We normally tackle dungeons that are 3-4 levels above us. All of these factors should make a for a challenging, gruelling dungeon run, right?
Not really the case, sadly. I realize low level dungeons are supposed to be sort of roflstomped anyways, but I really expected better than this. All of the dungeons we tried from 15-35 or so have been disappointingly easy.
It was only until we got to Scarlet Monastery that things got a little trickier, and it was only because mobs were running into other packs and pulling the whole room. Yet, we managed to survive most of the time. It was only by trying to fight 10 mobs that we were actually able to feel the challenge. How pathetic is that? In a cataclysm heroic, pulling even one extra mob can mean a wipe, whereas 4 noob-ish level 30s crawling into Scarlet Monastery can handle 7-8 mobs at the same time? A little ridiculous if you ask me.
Scholomance was challenging, but again only because we would inadvertently pull the whole room by mistake. The only boss we wiped on was the one that summons like 30 mirror images and we had no idea how to handle it. None of the other bosses even presented a minor challenge - as a level 40 healer I could outheal all the damage without even losing half mana.
The good news is that things seem to be getting a bit tougher. We tried Dire Maul West which was quite difficult (although that may have been because we were all inebriated). I'm hoping that once we hit Outland things will get even more challenging. Otherwise why even bother going into a dungeon? It's supposed to be a big scary place with sparkly epic rewards that only the bravest of souls venture into. Not just some 15-minute roflstomp loot vending machine.
The Journey so far
Introducing my latest title....Defender of a Shattered World!
That's right, folks, our guild downed Nefarian last night! The xpac has been out for a while and all, but lots of people, I would say the majority of guilds on our server, have not downed Nefarian yet. Last time I checked (which was moments ago), we are one of the 25 guilds on our server who have down all normal mode raid bosses. Oh, did I forget to mention that we got Al'Akir a few weeks ago? Hmm, must remember to update more...
Anyways, it was a fun fight that kept you on your toes for the first two hellish phases. Unlike some of the other boss mechanics, I think phase 1 and phase 2 really required everyone to be on the ball and be responsible for surviving and ensuring others are alive as well.
Phase 1 requires high DPS output, but a CONTROLLED high DPS output. For instance you can't just go on stabbing Nefarian willy nilly - every 10% of his hp he shocks the raid for 100k damage. Yeah, that's not a typo. 100k is about 80% of my health pool and about 60% of the tanks health. When you see the boss nearing 91%, 81%, etc, EVERYONE needs to be watching health bars. This is not the time to get tunnel vision or be an idiot DPS. Healers need to top everyone off to full so they can survive it (defensive cooldowns are VERY helpful), and DPS needs to watch their output so you can push the lightning shock at the right moment. I have to admit it's been a long time since I've clutched my mouse staring in panic at the boss's health bar, waiting for just the precise moment to use my finisher and immediately hit my defensive CD. Phew!
If you thought that was bad, welcome to phase 2...lava jumping shadow damage hell. You have to get on top of a platform since lava starts rising up. You have about 3 seconds to make it before you're burnt to a crisp. Jumping is easy, you say? You'd be shocked to see just how many people can't scramble onto a platform. Not to mention that if you don't get up there immediately and start interrupting the adds that come out, they will kill everyone in the whole room with a blast nova which has unlimited range. Oh, did I also mention Nefarian is shooting shadow bolts (25k per hit) which are unavoidable, uninterruptable, cast every 2 seconds at random members in barrages of 3? Yeah, welcome to a healer's nightmare. I was using potions, healthstones, even bandaging myself just to stay alive. Oh, and you're still pushing Nefarian during all this so that 100k damage shock is still happening.
Phase 3 I can't really say what was happening. My job was to stab the boss, and stab hard. I think we had 2 offtanks kiting a bunch of adds around, there was range DPS rooting and shackling them or something. All I know is that the minute we landed back down for phase 3, I heard the raid leader scream, "BLOODLUST NOWWWW" and I knew it was my cue to go balls out deeps. There was fire all over the ground, adds were running around smashing our offtank, healers were doing all they could to heal through the shocks, and before I realized it, half the raid was dead...but so was Nefarian.
It was indeed an epic battle rivaling the lich king fight! And certainly one of the more fun fights in this new expansion. It combines all the aspects of raiding into one nicely packaged fight: controlled DPS, CC'ing adds, good positioning, intensive raid-wide damage, and of course my favorite, the balls-out DPS phase. I think the fight provides a fun challenge for every role and I'm super proud that we got him in only a few weeks!
I'm also very happy, in a shameful petty way, that none of my old guilds have progressed this far. My old guild, the one that used to be pretty good, have just downed Al'Akir a week ago. I have a sneaking suspicion that they're bleeding guild members left and right (like most of us these days), but also that they're not even bothering to push progression. I feel sorry for them, but at the same time they really brought it upon themselves. What were they expecting people to do when they said "no more raiding!". People will leave, one by one, in search of better guilds.
Next up...hardmodes! Time to go practice bashing my head against a wall...
That's right, folks, our guild downed Nefarian last night! The xpac has been out for a while and all, but lots of people, I would say the majority of guilds on our server, have not downed Nefarian yet. Last time I checked (which was moments ago), we are one of the 25 guilds on our server who have down all normal mode raid bosses. Oh, did I forget to mention that we got Al'Akir a few weeks ago? Hmm, must remember to update more...
Anyways, it was a fun fight that kept you on your toes for the first two hellish phases. Unlike some of the other boss mechanics, I think phase 1 and phase 2 really required everyone to be on the ball and be responsible for surviving and ensuring others are alive as well.
Phase 1 requires high DPS output, but a CONTROLLED high DPS output. For instance you can't just go on stabbing Nefarian willy nilly - every 10% of his hp he shocks the raid for 100k damage. Yeah, that's not a typo. 100k is about 80% of my health pool and about 60% of the tanks health. When you see the boss nearing 91%, 81%, etc, EVERYONE needs to be watching health bars. This is not the time to get tunnel vision or be an idiot DPS. Healers need to top everyone off to full so they can survive it (defensive cooldowns are VERY helpful), and DPS needs to watch their output so you can push the lightning shock at the right moment. I have to admit it's been a long time since I've clutched my mouse staring in panic at the boss's health bar, waiting for just the precise moment to use my finisher and immediately hit my defensive CD. Phew!
If you thought that was bad, welcome to phase 2...lava jumping shadow damage hell. You have to get on top of a platform since lava starts rising up. You have about 3 seconds to make it before you're burnt to a crisp. Jumping is easy, you say? You'd be shocked to see just how many people can't scramble onto a platform. Not to mention that if you don't get up there immediately and start interrupting the adds that come out, they will kill everyone in the whole room with a blast nova which has unlimited range. Oh, did I also mention Nefarian is shooting shadow bolts (25k per hit) which are unavoidable, uninterruptable, cast every 2 seconds at random members in barrages of 3? Yeah, welcome to a healer's nightmare. I was using potions, healthstones, even bandaging myself just to stay alive. Oh, and you're still pushing Nefarian during all this so that 100k damage shock is still happening.
Phase 3 I can't really say what was happening. My job was to stab the boss, and stab hard. I think we had 2 offtanks kiting a bunch of adds around, there was range DPS rooting and shackling them or something. All I know is that the minute we landed back down for phase 3, I heard the raid leader scream, "BLOODLUST NOWWWW" and I knew it was my cue to go balls out deeps. There was fire all over the ground, adds were running around smashing our offtank, healers were doing all they could to heal through the shocks, and before I realized it, half the raid was dead...but so was Nefarian.
It was indeed an epic battle rivaling the lich king fight! And certainly one of the more fun fights in this new expansion. It combines all the aspects of raiding into one nicely packaged fight: controlled DPS, CC'ing adds, good positioning, intensive raid-wide damage, and of course my favorite, the balls-out DPS phase. I think the fight provides a fun challenge for every role and I'm super proud that we got him in only a few weeks!
I'm also very happy, in a shameful petty way, that none of my old guilds have progressed this far. My old guild, the one that used to be pretty good, have just downed Al'Akir a week ago. I have a sneaking suspicion that they're bleeding guild members left and right (like most of us these days), but also that they're not even bothering to push progression. I feel sorry for them, but at the same time they really brought it upon themselves. What were they expecting people to do when they said "no more raiding!". People will leave, one by one, in search of better guilds.
Next up...hardmodes! Time to go practice bashing my head against a wall...
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
It's a hard knock life...for noobs
The dreaded event, Children's Week is finally here!
Let me just say that Children's Week is the reason why I didn't think I would ever get the violet proto drake. Sure, I didn't even know about the world event achievements back when I was a noob (I recall brewfest was going on right when I joined and I thought it was part of the game all-year round). I didn't even realize you got a drake mount for completing all of them. So for my first year or so of wow the world events came and went and I managed to earn a few achievements here and there, simply by sheer luck.
Then I kinda got hardcore, and began to systematically check them off whenever each event rolled around. Then I saw the children's week one, and said forget it! The pvp achievement sounded absolutely nightmarish for someone who avoided pvp like the plague!
This year I decided to give it a solid attempt. I was encouraged by the fact that my husband, with his crappy computer that barely runs at 5fps, managed to complete all the BG achievements. It wasn't easy, he said, but I was further encouraged by reading a few forum posts talking about how horde and alliance will cooperate and help each other out just for the sake of getting the achievement.
So I steeled myself for the inevitable frustration, collected a few piece of pvp gear and marched my merry way into the battlegrounds. I had about ~1.5k resil and an arsenal of stuns, aggro drops, and most importantly, movement speed enhancements to help me out (ie glyphed sprint, preparation + sprint again).
The first one I managed to get into was Warsong Gulch, my least favorite BG ever. I saw most of the people also had their orphans out as well, so I knew I was at least in good company. I parked myself right in our flag room, and waited along with the 5 or so people assembled there. The alliance made an all-out zerg for the flag room and I died within minutes. By the time I had rezzed the flag was in the middle of the BG. I chased it down, dying a few more times in the process, until finally they capped it. I went back to the flag room, and to my surprise and joy I found another rogue in the middle of stunlocking an alliance player holding our flag! I helped finish him off and clicked that flag like a madman! And miraculously I got credit for it!
Next was eye of the storm, which made me nearly burst into tears on the first attempt. There was a shaman who had clearly come into the BG to grief the achievement seekers, by repeatedly throwing people off the flag platform with thunderstorm. I logged off, got my shit together, and on the next BG I managed to cap the flag not only once but twice!
Arathi Basin was a piece of cake - I happened to walk in on a poorly defended gold mine under heavy assault from the horde. I clicked the flag, got interrupted by a persistent paladin a few times, but in the end I capped it.
Alterac Valley took me three tries. The first was a fail - I had no idea where the stupid bunkers were, nor did I know where the flags you're supposed to click inside of those bunkers are. The second AV I managed to come into battle just as the horde were losing. On my third one lady luck was with me - I was deep in alliance territory, wondering what the heck to do now since both towers were capped, when I noticed that a tower near the horde base was repeatedly being capped and traded back and forth. I knew there was some alliance guy helping out. So I started to run back, but on the way I found a tower that was contested. I popped sprint and managed to get at the flag a split second before a mage did, and after a tense few seconds I capped it, earning the achievement [School of Hard Knocks].
Now only the Midsummer festival stands between me and the drake!!!
Let me just say that Children's Week is the reason why I didn't think I would ever get the violet proto drake. Sure, I didn't even know about the world event achievements back when I was a noob (I recall brewfest was going on right when I joined and I thought it was part of the game all-year round). I didn't even realize you got a drake mount for completing all of them. So for my first year or so of wow the world events came and went and I managed to earn a few achievements here and there, simply by sheer luck.
Then I kinda got hardcore, and began to systematically check them off whenever each event rolled around. Then I saw the children's week one, and said forget it! The pvp achievement sounded absolutely nightmarish for someone who avoided pvp like the plague!
This year I decided to give it a solid attempt. I was encouraged by the fact that my husband, with his crappy computer that barely runs at 5fps, managed to complete all the BG achievements. It wasn't easy, he said, but I was further encouraged by reading a few forum posts talking about how horde and alliance will cooperate and help each other out just for the sake of getting the achievement.
So I steeled myself for the inevitable frustration, collected a few piece of pvp gear and marched my merry way into the battlegrounds. I had about ~1.5k resil and an arsenal of stuns, aggro drops, and most importantly, movement speed enhancements to help me out (ie glyphed sprint, preparation + sprint again).
The first one I managed to get into was Warsong Gulch, my least favorite BG ever. I saw most of the people also had their orphans out as well, so I knew I was at least in good company. I parked myself right in our flag room, and waited along with the 5 or so people assembled there. The alliance made an all-out zerg for the flag room and I died within minutes. By the time I had rezzed the flag was in the middle of the BG. I chased it down, dying a few more times in the process, until finally they capped it. I went back to the flag room, and to my surprise and joy I found another rogue in the middle of stunlocking an alliance player holding our flag! I helped finish him off and clicked that flag like a madman! And miraculously I got credit for it!
Next was eye of the storm, which made me nearly burst into tears on the first attempt. There was a shaman who had clearly come into the BG to grief the achievement seekers, by repeatedly throwing people off the flag platform with thunderstorm. I logged off, got my shit together, and on the next BG I managed to cap the flag not only once but twice!
Arathi Basin was a piece of cake - I happened to walk in on a poorly defended gold mine under heavy assault from the horde. I clicked the flag, got interrupted by a persistent paladin a few times, but in the end I capped it.
Alterac Valley took me three tries. The first was a fail - I had no idea where the stupid bunkers were, nor did I know where the flags you're supposed to click inside of those bunkers are. The second AV I managed to come into battle just as the horde were losing. On my third one lady luck was with me - I was deep in alliance territory, wondering what the heck to do now since both towers were capped, when I noticed that a tower near the horde base was repeatedly being capped and traded back and forth. I knew there was some alliance guy helping out. So I started to run back, but on the way I found a tower that was contested. I popped sprint and managed to get at the flag a split second before a mage did, and after a tense few seconds I capped it, earning the achievement [School of Hard Knocks].
Now only the Midsummer festival stands between me and the drake!!!
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