Last weekend was Call to Arms: Alterac Valley, so I figured there was no time like the present to give that BG a whirl on Quintalan. Forty players on a side meant that any screwups on my part would be minimized, so why not?
The first couple of runs on Friday night went pretty well. We split 50/50 with the Alliance, while I learned a bit about staying with the pack. Oh, and that Stormpike takes quite a licking to bring down.
Saturday night, I got on after having company over. It was a bit late, so I figured that I'd play until the Horde got a victory. Not a very high bar to jump over, so I figured I'd be in bed pretty soon.
The first indication that it wasn't going to be my night was that I ported into the middle of a run, and couldn't get more than maybe 10 seconds into the battleground before getting killed by a Lock and a DK that were corpse camping at the Horde's home graveyard. Needless to say, that game ended about 2 minutes after I ported in with an Alliance victory.
So I queued again.
And again.
And again.
Surely, I thought, I have to get lucky sometime.
Not necessarily. There was the run where a tank and a healer had a very public feud over who was to blame for the successive wipings on Stormpike. In the meantime, the Alliance ran everyone up to Drek and killed him, which caused the tank to go spastic.
Then there was the run where a bunch of us --about 15 or so-- made it to Drek, and we all stood around looking at each other. "You mean there's not a single tank here?" a Rogue asked. "You have got to be @#$#-ing me. We need a tank up here for the boss." We waited for something like five minutes, and still no tank appeared. "We need a tank up here!" "WTB tank!" Another five minutes, and the Alliance won.
I complained to Soul, who was running a few BGs of his own. "Aren't BG's fun?" he replied.
I grumbled something and queued up again. "How are we doing tonight?" someone asked.
"Lousy," came the reply. "Haven't won yet tonight."
"Pfft. This is easy. You make sure you cut off their arms, and the rest falls into place."
While I didn't share his enthusiasm, I hoped there would be a semblance of strategy. Lo and behold, this time there was. Three of us took out one tower, another small group took out a second, and we defended our base. Once the towers were down, it became a war of attrition. No rush the boss strategy, no fast kill needed. And it worked.
Alleluia.
I've done the Call To Arms battlegrounds on multiple alts as a way to supplement their questing through Northrend, so I know exactly what you're talking about. It is such a blessing to get a "core" group of a few capable tanks and healers to keep queuing.
ReplyDeleteI think part of the issue though is that you're screwed from the beginning if people don't subconsciously split themselves into appropriate groups. For example, if you get a ton of offensive-minded people you'll probably get the other Relief Hut very quickly but not have any defense to backcap or hold off the opposing rush. On the other hand, if you get a bunch of defensive-minded people then you probably won't get much of a push at all and it will be a very slow game. In these situations, it doesn't tend to matter how many tanks/healers/dps you have.
@Anonymous: True, very true. In that respect, WSG is much better, because you have fewer people to work with rather than the herding cats in the big BGs.
ReplyDeleteMe? I like being a support person. Sure, there's a rush about being at the front of the line, but I'm just as happy keeping the other faction off of the towers, or being a pain in the ass while defending Drek.
I did a lot of AV this weekend on my Shaman (got 3.5 levels out of it) and having played in AV on all of my toons I have a theory that the odds of you winning are based on the number of Paths of Frost (-12.5% for each) on you when the gate opens and whether or not you have crusaders aura on you (yes = +12.5% ). So assuming a base 50% chance of a win 3 paths and no aura reduce your odds of winning to 12.5%.
ReplyDelete@Dyre42: I was stunned the first time I entered AV that none of the Pallys there had Crusader on. (I corrected that immediately.) It just makes perfect sense that in this BG you need speed given the distances you cross.
ReplyDelete