2.0: BGs & New PVP System

While it is intense to play premade vs premade games, I also find PUG vs PUG games to be extremely entertaining. I really wish I am a horde player with zero queue time, but as an alliance player with long queue time, believe it or not my honor per hour isn't THAT much different playing on a top team versus pugging. In term of playing premade vs premade, I enjoy Warsong most for its raw intensity, followed by AB, and unfortunately I have never played AV in a premade vs premade setting.



In term of going solo, I definitely enjoy AV the most, not only you pretty much never run into those ugly PUG vs premade games, it is by far the best honor you can get. It seems alliance and horde teams never play defense anymore and it is all about killing the NPCs fastest. So pretty much win or lose, you get 300-400 honor in roughly 30 minutes before counting any HKs. I personally love going to towers and graveyards away from the front line that are being attacked and I find a lot of small group PVP this way. Solo HKs give a lot of honor when there is no one else around. Road camping is also a lot of fun, as long as you do it away from the big groups you will have no problem getting chain kills. Rogue is not meant for the front line, where ranged classes rule supreme. Still, I have a lot of fun just sneaking in crowds, only popping out of stealth when I know I am going to win. With COS, I really can't die unless I do something stupid like getting caught by 3-4 people. I am always near the top on killing blows and near the bottom on number of deaths.











I kind of hate Warsong for pugging. If you see a half decent team you are going to get 3-0ed and earn zero bonus honor. In AB, you can at least turtle stables and mine against bad premades (and there are a lot of bad premades out there, just enough to beat PUGs to farm for gear), you get some decent bonus honor in addition to the HKs. Not to mention in Warsong, to even try to win the game, I have to run the flag myself, get focus fired, and have very little HKs to show for it. AV is definitely THE best game for PUG players.



For those of us who earned R14 the hardest way possible (getting 3rd place on your server won't improve your bar at rank 14 at all, that is how bad it was at the time), it is a little weird to see everyone earning my R14 fist in three days. It is good for the game to reduce the gear gap between high end and low end players. You will see warriors in valor with R14 sword soon. Yet I am still amazed how well R14 gear lasts. Looking at my gear today and compare it to last December when I made the 31812 Dual ZG Trinket Video, I have like . . . 2-3 pieces of sidegrades at best. Yet I don't feel underpowered at all against people with T2.5 and T3's, I really feel my increased stamina is almost just as good as their increased damage. Blizzard is really taking serious effort to make this game casual friendly.



I think I have matured as a player in BGs. I no longer jump all over people for their mistakes. I used to label mediocre player as "scrubs" and when I lose, I always feel it is the roster's fault. But I think I realized that if you are considered a top member of the team, you have to take responsibility for both winning and losing. Let's face it, if the Houston Rockets lost a game, it is about Yao and Tmac, not Chuck Hayes. It is important for the leader to admit he made a bad play and take the burden from his teammates.  As long as they follow instructions and actually play with some degree of effort, there is no reason to call them out.  You won't always be on the best roster. There are games you won't be able to win. However, one of the most satisfying games I have played in a long time, was a 1 hour Warsong game on a 9 men team that lacked gear and experience. Alliance players tend to hop between BGs a lot so for most of the game we were playing 9v10. With a weak class matrix, we still managed to win that game 3-2 against a team with far better gear and class matrix. COS/Prep is just so clutch, both on offense and defense. Even playing in PUGs against arranged teams I manage to make the best of the situation, whether it be squeezing out some bonus honor by telling people to turtle stables, or simply pick up a few extra HKs. I think the new BG system gives raider leader to the highest ranked player? I seem to be raid leader for PUG games all the times, and it is very important to be positive and inspire your team, even if you think they are worthless scrubs



I will most likely stop at 90K honor (plus whatever it takes to pick up the level 70 PVP trinket and blue ring, probably 20K more). I don't think I have the endurance to grind 100K honor for the three epic gem enchants. 40 days is a long time however. We will see. If there is a BG group with equal waiting time for alliance and horde, I will definitely consider joining it. Right now the most annoying part is the queue time, a battlegroup that has equal alliance/horde wait time, I will seriously consider transferring to it.