I hadn’t planned on posting about this, since I already gripe enough about BGs, but I responded to a post over on Gnomageddon’s blog http://gnomeaggedon.net/ and he, in turn, made a brief mention of it. And, being the type of guy I am, I wanted to “put up” and show the numbers that I mentioned.Anyhow…
Another day, another rough fight in Warsong Gulch. With all the changes in patch 3.2 (I was cautiously optimistic about playing the Battlegrounds (BGs)) the biggest boons should be that most Twinks will stay in non-exp matches, as well as the “full battle only” and not starting with half a team, whicle the other side is fully loaded. My biggest concern was the recent addition of faction change.
So what would this do to the balance of play on Velen?
I’ve mentioned in the past that I don’t have much luck in BGs on Velen. I’ve lost exact count, but, pre-patch, I think I’ve won once out of ~25 games. This is Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin (I stopped playing in BGs at level 39, so I never played Alterac Valley) In all those losses, I’m not sure if it was due to Twink imbalance, or just general skill/level balance.
Since the patch I have played 2 BGs and lost both (rather soundly) I was level 62 at the time, so I knew that I personally was going to perform poorly. After all, the hit tables for a level 62 trying to hit a level 69 are poor at best.
The first one I played was my “new one”, Alterac Valley. I was completely lost. We lost by ~125 reinforcements, and I did “ok” (mid pack on the alliance side) Due to the level issue, I’m not sure if there were any Twinks or not, but it went as well as I had expected: an Alliance loss. The strange thing is that I have since read that the Alliance usually wins this BG due to layout. So the loss is not just a bit frustrating, it’s also a tad pathetic…
So, I went over to play the one BGI am pretty familiar with; Warsong Gulch.
We got spanked, HARD. We lost 0-3. Again, not a COMPLETE surprise, until I looked at the end of game stats. (click on the title picture and you can see the actual screen cap)
I was a tad annoyed how the game went down, I wanted to see if maybe the other team was really loaded or something... So, I went through the player list and got info on everyone on the list. Here's the level, class, etc for each team:
Here’s how people did (in decreasing order – Alliance names are changed since this is kinda dissing them) I’m leaving the Horde names in since this isn’t nasty about them. They beat us, and no chicanery was involved.
Alliance
************* - lvl 67 - arcane mage - Velen
************* - lvl 65 - frost mage - The Underbog
***Me****** - lvl 62 - Ret pally - Velen
************* - lvl 69 - blood DK - Velen
************* - lvl 68 - arms warrior - Underbog
************* - lvl 65 - Feral Druid - terrokar
************* - lvl 62 - ret pally - fizzcrank
************* - lvl 69 - marks hunter - blade's edge
************* - lvl 69 - fire mage - The Scryers
************* - lvl 62 - ret pally- underbog
Average level 65.8
Horde
Grimslugg - lvl 65 - BM hunter - Underbog
Shamysorus - lvl 64 - enhance shammy - Velen
Vicdadic - lvl 69 - UNTALENTED DK - underbog
Hanzoo - lvl 69 - assas rogue - azuremist
Khalëd - lvl 67 - prot pally - zangermarsh
Kirai - lvl 64 - blood DK - zangermarsh
Abidoze - lvl 60 - blood DK - grizzly hills
Dotrix - lvl 64 - affliction lock - dawnbringer
Specialops - lvl 69 - combat rogue
Sacredponko - lvl 69 disc priest - arrea 52
Average level - 65.4
We were almost identical level wise...
Yep, that's right, I did better than a frikkin 69 DK in honor points, and wasn’t TOO much lower than him in DPS.
Granted, there was the usual enter/leave game, so the final results are not perfect, but still.
Per the results:
I was 3rd highest damage at 67k (strange, Recount had me at highest, with 94,000)
According to recount, the person I damaged most was Grimslugg, with nearly 27,000 damage to him alone.
An Untalented DK did pretty frikkin awesome! (even if he was on the other side)
Grimslugg is wearing a matched set of purples, so he was equipped pretty well.
It was the textbook example of a zerg fight on our part. (everyone just runs around doing what THEY want to do, with no organization or plan) The Horde had a number of folks that “zerged” as well, but they had several players that grouped up and ran together, which is how they won, and won
Now, I want to point out that I am NOT very good at PvP. Also, this was my second time back into PvP in a couple months, so I was rusty on top of everything.
What does this mean?
A few vague things… The fact that I was near the top COULD suggest that Ret Paladins are overpowered (“OP”) but since there were a couple other Pallies on my team that were near the bottom, possibly not. And it’s not like I kicked Horde butt either.
Overall, I’d say that the Alliance team was, well, sub par. Myself included.
I am now sitting at level 66, I’ve learned a bit more about playing a Pally than I did 4 levels ago (a topic for my next post) and I have also geared myself up quite a bit. At the time I played this BG, I was getting ~ 300 DPS against level 60 Test Dummies. Prior to a couple upgrades while I was still level 64, I had bumped that to 600 DPS in a long fight, and I have hit 700 DPS occasionally in “real world” fights against level 63 mobs. (I also have Seal of Vengeance and Divine Storm now as well) I may have to go back into the BGs before I hit level 70, just to see how much better I can do.
Uh, I am far too much of a wuss for pvp, although M'Pocket Tank (occasionally M'Pocket Retardin) has been getting really into battlegrounds lately. To be fair, she's 80 which might a difference to the not getting mullered but since I'm a sissy-robe wearing holy priest I think my future in pvp is far from rosy...
ReplyDeleteI've really been enjoying PVP lately, especially with the advent of experience. I usually an in the top 5 for dps in Warsong Gulch on my hunter. I've recently entered Alterac Valley and though we've won each event, my stats are woefully low. I'm looking forward to trying Alterac Valley on my DK. Another great post btw.
ReplyDeleteMy other half often runs a priest, and thing don't get much squishier... she usually does well by doing heals, though it means she usually has to "team up" with someone on the field. If you find a decent player and can keep them healed, they will usually bend over backwards trying to keep YOU alive. :)
ReplyDeleteHey Slikrx.
ReplyDeleteAlliance has traditionally been considered to hold the advantage in AV... the old line is "terrain advantage", and also theoretically been losers more often than not in AB and WSG.
I think the reality is something different. I would dare say it is 50/50.. or closer to that. We tend to remember the fails more than the wins.
If you are chain joining BGs you are also quite likely to end up with the same group (or a proportion) of teammates or opponents.
So if you are on a winning team, you will get a streak of wins... losing team... streak of losses.
Ultimately it comes down to playing the BG the way it is intended. If you go off and do other things, you may top the honor kill list, but you are depriving yourself and the team of XP these days.
Doesn't mean it is any easier to take the losses and the fail pugs (read today's post for an example of that), but once you build the confidence, you can really have an impact on the outcome of a game. (not always, but often)
In general, since I dislike BGs, I will rarely chain into more than one. This past weekend we ran two in a row. WE WON THE FIRST 3-0!!!!! And lost the seond one 0-3. *shrug*
ReplyDeleteIt's a bit sad though (for myself) I'm now a level 69, with a Northrend sword & shield (the 1H sword does as much DPS as some of the bett 2H Outlands swords, and the shield has 500 more armor than the best Outland shield I've seen) Anyhow, even with that loot, I'm still not performing all that well. (oh, and I'm wearing a set of "nicely" gemmed adamantite plate) While I wasn't a hindrance to my team, I wasn't a huge asset either. I was middle of the pack in both games, which is sad since I HAD been near the top with a lesser geard lvl 62 pally.
The best news of all? I have my 30 Warsong marks to put towards my PvP mount! NO MORE WARSONG!!!! All I need are 29 Arathi and 30 Alterac marks.
Now that I'm done relpying a novel, I'll head over and read your post. :)
Looking over the players listed, one thing stands out to me: Horde had a disc priest (aka a healer) and Alliance only had dps. Makes a bigger difference than you'd think.
ReplyDeleteHmmm.. I hadn't even THOUGHT about that type of thing... *blush* and yeah, having a dedicated healer can be a BIG help.
ReplyDelete(the previous BG we had two low level paladins who were doing a GREAT job healing. The bummer was that we had no clue WHO was healing until the game ended, so we couldn't help/protect them or stay close to them...)