Battle Ground XP

So as many of you know, characters gain experience in the battlegrounds now. You don't gain it for killing players, but for accomplishing objectives such as capturing a base in Arathi Basin. The idea that Blizzard gave behind this was to help deal with twinks. They said that a twink would end up leveling out of the bracket they were in unless they turn off their xp gain. Once you turn off your xp gain, you can only do battlegrounds with other players who have done the same thing thus leaving the normal battlegrounds twink free. On paper it sounds like an amazing idea. I'll admit I've been excited to be able to level a character using pvp and to be able to enjoy the pvp since I wont be dealing with twinks. Now that the patch has been out for a couple weeks, did their vision work?

I would have to answer no. I love getting xp from playing pvp but it hasn't stopped the twinks. I've played a few days worth of battlegrounds on my mage alt and I was surprised at what I saw. First of all, the twinks are still running strong. There is no shortage of people out there who are more than willing to two shot my poor little mage. Now let me tell you why I think this plan isn't working and what needs to be done to make it work.

Twinks aren't turning off their xp or leveling out of the bracket because the xp gains from this are so minimal that it wont effect them for months. There have been some matches that I wasn't able to get any xp at all because you have to be in the right place at the right time. Adding experience to the battle grounds is still an amazing idea but needs to be approached differently. Blizzard for some reason has decided that you MUST level from doing quests or dungeons but why? Why shouldn't you be able to level from pvp? I think it's perfectly fair and will only add another dimension of fun to the game that would draw more players. What they need to do is make it so that you do get experience from killing players. Make killing a player worth just as much if not more than killing some mindless npc. It makes perfect sense and wont throw off any mechanics of the game at all. There are only two things that I can see coming out of a change like this. One is that people will be more willing and have more fun leveling new characters, whether they're current players or someone brand new to the game. Second, it will solve the issue of twinks once and for all!

Making a change to allow people to actually level through pvp wont break the game but it will solve some issues that people have had with enjoying the game at lower levels. I truly believe that with this one easy change we can make the game more enjoyable for thousands if not millions of people and that has to be something that Blizzard is interested in.

First of Many

This video has a collection of clips from Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin. Parts of the video may look strange to some people and that's because I have a little different play style than some other shadow priests. I play more for the team as a "utility" player than someone looking to top the damage chart. You'll see me use mind flay in a few situations, but you'll notice that I'm not using it for damage but for the slow instead so that someone else can either damage the target or get away. I find that more battle grounds are won when people work as a team. For any new players to pvp, there are a couple good examples of kiting and a few of playing my utility style as I call it.

One key to being successful in the battle grounds as a caster, no matter what caster class you are, is kiting. If someone is on you, kiting in this game can be difficult. The key is to try and make sure they don't get on you in the first place. Their are two ways of doing this that work for me. First, always try to make sure that you don't look like an easy target. What I mean is you have to keep your distance. Stay as far back as possible and try not to be the closest caster to the melee classes. Second, keep moving. Circling around makes it more difficult for melee classes to keep track of you and less likely that they'll attack you. So make sure you stay back and keep moving as much as possible and you'll maximize the abilities of your team.

Good luck out there and I hope you enjoy the video.

Ducky

3.2 has arrived

So as the title says, 3.2 is finally here. I've been looking forward to this for awhile now. From a Shadow Priest point of view this is a great patch. I'm totally in love with the change to Dispersion. I use the glyph so the amount of times you can use it in a single BG is amazing. With people respawning in BG's a single fight can go on for what seems like forever. I've had times where I've gotten to use it three times in a single fight. Between using it for mana and using it for survivability, it's got to be one of the best tools in the game for any class.

The other major change for the shadow priest was the buff to Vampiric Touch. When this gets dispelled now I'm seeing pretty constant 6k numbers without crits. I haven't had it crit yet, or haven't been paying attention when it did, so I dont' know for sure what those numbers look like but it has to be good. That should give us a nice advantage in the arenas for those couple players who still play shadow in there. As for the rest of the shadow community who sticks to the BG's, it's still a great buff. Finally a way to keep a little extra damage on paladins!

Well, that's my take on 3.2 so far. I wanted to give a quick post to let everyone know that I'm still here and still playing the game. Just haven't had a lot of time for posting the past couple weeks. I'm going to check out the Isle of Conquest battle ground this weekend and I'll let you know what I think. Until next time...

Ducky