I'm just THAT fun to kill.

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Dear Level ?? people who gank me:

Why? Is it fun? Do you like seeing how you can one shot me? Does it make you feel leet?

No, I'm serious, I just simply don't understand the fun in one-shotting low level toons from the opposite faction. I've never done it. I don't get it. It's not fun to me - you're just inconveniencing someone else's life. THERE IS NOTHING FUN ABOUT THAT.

Really, readers, please, fill me in here. If you're one of those people that ganks lowbies, let me know why it's fun. I want to know. Really.

UGH.

This is where my boyfriend points to the whiteboard we have in our apartment, in which three things are written:

1. Did you read your vehicle's abilities? Y/N

2. Did you read the quest text? Y/N

3. Did PvP happen on a PvP server? Y/N

He'll point to number one when I complain, "I seriously can't do this bombing thing. There's no button for - oh, wait."

He'll point to number two when I exclaim, "WTF? I didn't get credit for this quest? I totally killed this guy and...." (point) ".....grumblegrumble ok, let's see... oh I needed to use this totem thing on him. DAMMIT"

And he JUST POINTED TO NUMBER THREE.

RAWR.

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Omg, arena? Megs would be proud.

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Well, not that proud, seeing as how our rating right now is 1510 after about 50 games. Of course, the Megs I'm talking about is the infamous Braids/Rafa from Out of Mana - snarky warlock by day, chaste paladin by night. Sometimes I think they switch their times of day to mess people up. Anyway, she's a beast at arena, and her blog has been a nice guide for me as I enter the mystical world of 2v2. By "nice", I mean "hilarious, amazing, snort-milk-out-of-your-nose funny". Mmhmmm.

Another great blog that has good pvp advice is Taletha's blog, Useful Downtime. He also happens to be Ascended's raid leader. ^^ Ohai Tal!!

Anyway! Norda, who's one of our best PvE hunters (well, all of our hunters in Ascended are fantastic), was looking for a 2v2 partner. I had previously done some 2v2s, but hadn't in a while, and when Norda asked me if I wanted to make a 2s team, I couldn't pass up the offer. Our team name? "I has corns". No, we don't have problems with our feet. Imagine a small kitten eating an ear of corn, ok? There ya go. Teeny kitten! OM NOM SO CUTE.

A little basic information, for anyone who's curious.

• I do arenas with a straight up PvE resto build - 11/0/60. Not the most efficient way to PvP, but I just haven't taken the time to look into a PvP build, and besides, 50g for respecs is quite a large chunk of change. Come 3.1, I'll be dual speccing PvE resto/PvP resto (I thought maybe I'd dual spec resto/bear, but I never go bear. I like having a decent gear set just in case, because I DO want to learn how to tank at some point, but right now, a PvE/PvP dual spec is more useful to me). It'll be neat to try out the new Barkskin talent.
  
  
• I have a decent amount of PvP gear - nothing crazy awesome, but I've got 602 resil.
  
  
• I've done 2v2s before, but only 10 games a week, and not every week. I'm very much a PvE girl - I love raids, being in a group, downing bosses, loot from bosses, all that stuff. So I really am new to all of this.

Things I have learned and/or need to work on and/or you all need to give me advice on:

• Stealthing: almost always a good idea. Cat + prowl ftw. It keeps the other team guessing. They don't know if you're a rogue, a druid, or a random night elf that's shadowmelded. (If they're smart they'll look at our buffs and see MotW and thorns = drood, but hey, we can always hope they're not smart, right?) Sometimes though, if Norda and I were getting pissed off at a losing streak or something, we'd say screw it, mount up, careen right towards them and try to take them by surprise. Note: this only sometimes works. =P
  
  
• Shift! I am very bad about using my forms to my advantage. I tried shifting into bear like, a total of two times, and I had Bash all at the ready to stun the guy, and the first time I got all turned around and couldn't get him in front of me, and the second time I didn't have enough rage. I probably didn't have enough rage the first time either. So I'm a shapeshifting nub. I gotta hit that Enrage button, Bash asap, and then shift out of bear. I'm still trying to get the hang of it. Can you macro that?
  
  
• Don't be a noob: In the Ruins of Lordaeron, if you run out directly where the doors open in the middle, you'll do a face plant into a pillar. How many times has this happened to me? *cough* Well.
  
  
• Lolrogues: I have a LOT of trouble with rogues. Here's what I do when I get stunned: Hit barkskin first and foremost, hit my pvp trinket if it's up, and if it's not up, or if I'm stunned again, I'll just spam click my Nature's Swiftness + Healing Touch macro and hope that it gets through before I'm dead. Sometimes I'll spam click my Nature's Grasp to try to root them after I get out of the stun so I can run away and heal, if I don't think I'll need the huge insant heal. Typically though, if a rogue stuns me and uses all his cooldowns effectively, I'm dead. Is there anything else I should be doing, other than getting more resilience on my gear?
  
  
• Who to CC? Norda and I have gone back and forth on this so many times: should we CC the healer, or CC the dps? About 80% of the teams we saw were dps-healer teams. I think I could count the number of pure dps teams on one hand. We had a rogue/mage team, a mage/warlock team... and... I can't remember any others. Anyway. If you take the healer out of commission, then the dps is getting no heals, and theoretically should go down quickly. If you CC the dps, you can burn the healer down quickly (especially a clothie) (again, theoretically) without having to worry about taking too much damage, and then take care of the dps on your own terms after the heals are dead and gone. Is one strategy better than the other? We went back and forth so many times, I don't know. We did find that holy paladins are better off CCed (or did we? I forget), because their heals are so huge, and they can "reset" the fight by bubbling at low health and healing everything. If you CC the pally though, you really have to CC the crap out of him, otherwise he'll get off a heal here and there and it's just too much. Or should you try to burn him down asap? Bah. Any suggestions?
  
  Note: Paladins who are healers will have a huge mana pool - in the 15k range. Paladins who are ret specced will have a mana pool of around 5k or so. Just a little tip =)
  
  
• LoS. Figuring out how to line-of-sight people is something I really need to work on. The very first arena Norda and I did together (a practice one) we had a holy paladin who had no partner in the Blade's Edge arena. That's right, 2v1. And, uh....WE COULDN'T KILL HIM. Every single time I tried to cast wrath, or roots, he'd go around a pillar. Up a ramp. Around a corner. He wasn't even trying to kill us - he was just trying to survive, and he was doing a damn good job at it. It was absolutely insane. He was probably laughing his ass off at us. In retrospect, it was pretty hilarious. After like 8 minutes of this, we had to manually leave the arena to end it, no joke. Wish I could take lessons from that dude.
  
  
• Know how your 2v2 partner works. It's really important! Norda and I initially dropped down below a 1400 rating - we had a 1380 something I think. As we figured out how the other worked, we starting winning more, and now we're back up above 1500. I'm figuring out how to not pull the hordies out of his LoS, and he's figuring out that I might accidentally let a cyclone go through on that DK right after the paladin dies - so he should wait to use any big burst damage CDs he has til the cyclone immune effect fades. I'm learning how to adapt our strategy as the match progresses, too. We say CC the priest, but then I notice the priest's health plummeting - and realize that our plan has changed. I cyclone the rogue instead. Stuff like that.
  
  
• OMFG, I love Cyclone. The only thing I love more than a cyclone is a chain of four solid cyclones. Bwuahahahah!!! My god, it feels good. Sometimes, just sometimes, I want to bind a macro that will make me laugh at the target every time they're cycloned. So I'd cyclone some dude named Pwnstarface four times in a row, and they'd be like "aw MAN, cycloned again? Wtf! Dammit! wait- what - did she just - she - OH NO SHE DI'INT" and in their chat box it's all like
  Averna laughs at Pwnstarface.
  Averna laughs at Pwnstarface.
  Averna laughs at Pwnstarface.
  Averna laughs at Pwnstarface.
  Oh my god. SO. AWESOME. I wouldn't though. I'm too nice. Plus, I'd be afraid it would piss them off SO much, that they'd start playing well and then really pwn us. Wouldn't want that, now would we!

Another neat thing: the add-on Proximo, or something similar, is a great help for any arena enthusiast. Basically it's a box that shows the health bars of your opponents, color coded based on class. It can also show what they're casting, which is nice when you want to interrupt a big heal, say.

The catch is, the opponents unit frame (health bar, basically) will only show up once you mouse over the physical player on your screen. So if you're against a stealther, you can't mouse over them, and therefore can't see them on your Proximo until they unstealth.

The truly amazing part is that you can set click-to-cast combos that will only work in arena, on Proximo. I have mine set to cyclone the player if I right-click their unit frame. It's fantastic.

Update: and now that I've done some research, it seems that this add-on hasn't been updated since November, and probably will continue to not be updated. Gladius is a decent alternative, and it looks even more customizable than Proximo is. I'll check it out some point soon and let you guys know.

So to all you arena people out there: any tips or advice you can give me? Any other add-ons you use? I'd love to hear from you!

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Battlegrounds

Battlegrounds, in order of most favorite to least favorite:

1. Arathi Basin

2. Alterac Valley

3. Eye of the Storm

4. Warsong Gulch

I don’t understand people who enjoy WSG. It’s awful. It sucks. Also, it blows. I would rather do EotS than do WSG. Yeah, it’s that bad.

I’ve found that communication is non-existant in WSG. Granted, most alliance players in a pug BG have trouble with basic communication, along with spelling and grammar. “BUFZ PLOX!!!!!11oneone.” Nuh-uh, bitch, no buffs for you. L2type, and then maybe I’ll throw you a MotW. You know what, I’m even gonna go out of my way to individually buff thirty-nine other people in an AV, just so that you don’t get the raid-wide buff. Eat it.

Back to WSG. Communication is nil, people fight in the middle of the BG (this is not an objective people! There is no possible way to win if you only fight in the middle of the field!). (And I know that people fight in the road in AB and EotS, but in my experience, WSG middle-fighting trumps both of ‘em). (No more parantheses for a bit). (Sorry).

The basic strat: A strong offense runs to the other base, gets the flag, heals the flag carrier as he runs back, and burns down the opposing team’s flag carrier as he comes back. Sounds easy, right? Wrong. Every single time I’m in WSG, the flag carrier totally eats it on the way back cause he decided to go on a suicide run with no healer with him, and he’s oh, I don’t know, a mage or something. Mages wear cloth. And can’t heal themselves. And can’t run fast (correct me if I’m wrong - I don’t play a 70 mage or anything - but mages are crappy flag carriers, right? Not cause they suck at playing, just cause of their build?). OR, everyone fights in the field and ignores said flag carrier as his health slowly dwindles to nothing, OR, everyone fights in the field and ignores the other team’s flag carrier as he merrily skips by everyone to his home base. Or (and most likely), all of the above. Every single time.

Pretty much the only reason I’d ever do WSG is for the small rush of adrenaline I get when I’m the flag carrier. Other than that, I’d rather set babies on fire.

(Ok, really though, I wouldn’t do that. Really. Don’t call child protective services for all the kids who live in my neighborhood. Thanks.)

Arathi Basin and Alterac Valley are pretty rad, because 1: We tend to win them. And 2: See 1.

Before everyone gets all wrahhhh on me here, honestly, I think it’s a coincidence. I know many people who are just as good players as me, if not better, who report losing quite often in AB and AV. I think I’ve just had good groups and some good runs. I find that communication is better in AB than in WSG. I don’t know why. Anyone care to explain, or beg to differ? And in AV, you don’t necessarily have to talk all that much until it’s time to go all in, so communication is less of an issue to begin with.

So. What’s YOUR favorite battleground?

Resilience

When I first started doing battlegrounds at level 70, I topped the charts all the time. On deaths. I was so awesome. At dying. I had more deaths in a battleground than the 2 other top diers (is that a word?) combined. I remember finishing a battleground, sorting by damage (aw man, third to last again? At least I beat out that guy … oh wait, he was that afker), then sorting by healing (middle of the pack there, well, priests and holy pallys are just OP! QQ), and then sorting by deaths (ZOMG I’m on the top!!! ….. wait. What am I sorting by? Awww maaan….. /leave battleground). Granted, I had no idea how to PvP at the time. I had just finished leveling and was far too used to just hitting a stand-still mob (what do you mean, the horde run around? Come back! Why is he running away? Oh. Wait, now he’s pew pewing the crap out of me and - aw man, I just died). Plus, any time I got ganked while leveling, I just kind of stood there and took it. I figured the faster they kill me, the faster I can get back to my body, and the faster I can keep on leveling. I avoided world PvP like the plague.

So now that I’m fairly well geared, have practiced in some 2v2 arenas, and have Led2usebarkskin, I’m not as afraid of the PvP aspect anymore. In fact, battlegrounds are, dare I say, fun! And I’m not too bad at it! (All those people out there who suck at PvP? It’s ok. I was there once, too. You CAN L2play! Have faith!)

And what makes PvP MUCH easier, is resilience. Now that I’m starting to build up a PvP gear set, I’m realizing how wonderful resil really is. I used to overlook it in favor of stam, or int, but damn, resil is an AWESOME stat.

Let’s turn to Wowwiki.com to help us out here. According to the site (which is an awesome website, btw, and you all should check it out for your world of warcraft questions), 1% of resilience does this:

-chance to be critted on is reduced by 1%.

-damage from crits that DO hit is reduced by 2.2%.

-damage from any and all DoTs is reduced by 1%.

-amount of mana that’s drained by debuffs or spells is reduced by 2%.

Another good thing to know: 1% resilience = 39.4 resilience rating. So take this for example: I have 150 resil in my PvP gear. That’s almost 4% resilience. So an enemy’s chance to crit on me is reduced by 4%, damage from crits that do hit is reduced by 8.8%, damage from DoTs is reduced by 4%, and amount of mana drained is reduced by 8%.

Sweet stuff, huh.

I just acquired this new PvP gear with more resil last night, and my resil rating jumped from 60 to 150. So I’ve only done a few battlegrounds with it, but already I can totally notice it. I just die less. A pally and a rogue can be wailing on me, and instead of lifeblooming and rejuving the hell out of myself and staying alive for 9 seconds, I lifebloom and rejuv the hell out of me and stay alive for 13 seconds. And sometimes those extra few seconds are enough for dps to burn down whoever is on me. Which means I stay alive more. Which means I can heal more people. Which means less people die, which means more damage is put out, which means we usually win more.

Yay.

Moral of the story: don’t overlook resilience.

Obviously, one could make this argument for any stat: More stam, for instance = less dying = more heals on people = more dps staying alive = more win. Or, perhaps, more spell power = better heals = more dps staying alive = more win.

However, my point is that the increase in my resilience showed a noticeable change.

Think about it this way. My 150 resil mitigates: 8.8% of a 4,000 damage crit (which is 350 damage), and 4% of a DoT that does, say, 1500 damage over time (so that’s 60 damage). So 150 resilience mitigates exactly 410 damage just in this situation. Sure, +41 stam would mitigate the same amount. But resil is far easier to get, mitigates mana drained, AND gives me a chance to not have these crits land in the first place.

Seems pretty sweet, right?

Sidenote: One thing that’s good to know is that resilience scales with your level. So to get the same amount of crit and DoT damage reduction that my 150 resil rating gives me at level 70, I would have to have a 300 resil rating at level 80. (At level 70, 39.4 resil rating = 1% resil; at level 80, 82.0 resil rating = 1% resil. At level 60, 25.0 resil rating = 1% resil. Make sense?)