Alterac Valley - Not too bad today 2/28/10

I have been trying to stay away from Alterac Valley lately because the Alliance is doing so bad in there, but today I tried a couple and we seemed to be doing pretty good. Brieanna ended up fighting in 16 battles for Alterac Valley, 11 wins and 5 losses. That is a vast improvement to how the Alliance has been doing in there lately.

Most of our losses were failed Blitz's. People still want to zerg Drek, but they don't bother to check and see if we have a tank and heals until we all get there. By all I mean half the team on a good try. When someone says they want to zerg before the gate goes up I always ask if we have a tank and heals for that. Half the time no one responds and I say don't zerg, we don't have a tank or heals, but when the gate goes up the cry "ZERG! ZERG! ZERG!" goes up and we're off. Usually to a loss. Time and time again the same people will do this and fail time and time again. Another problem is Galv. Galv is a tard magnet, people can not just ride by him, they have to go in and try to kill him. Usually the Horde packs his room full because they know they can wipe the group that tries, and usually they do. Galv has caused more zerg and Blitz fails than anything else.

We did have good groups for the most part and did manage to pull off a couple Blitz's and a few zergs. The difference between a Blitz and a zerg is the time. A Blitz is over in 6 minutes or less and a zerg we usually just kill Drek with all towers up but it takes more than 6 minutes. We had a couple battles where the Horde tried to turtle. AV is set up to the Hordes advantage in a turtle but it doesn't always work out for them, especially when we have a good group like we did today. I got hundreds of kills in each of those battles and did over 3/4 of a million damage in each. My damage is going up more and more with each new piece of gear I get. I usually do battlegrounds in Survival spec and it is good for some good damage and a lot of killing blows.

Read more...

Strand of the Ancients - Daily Battleground 2/28/10

Today the daily battleground was Strand of the Ancients. It is also the holiday weekend in SoA. I hate having my daily battleground fall into a battleground that is having it's holiday weekend, you get all the weekend warriors and twice the AFK in a battleground on it's holiday weekend.

SoA was no exception, but I got in with a pretty good group on my second try. We lost the first one horribly. We did manage to get the yellow gate down, then the timer ran out. That gave the Horde the full amount of time for their try. They had no problem capturing the titan relic in half the allotted time. We had a lot of AFK and a lot of people who had no clue what they were doing, not even sure if they knew they were in a battleground.

In the second battle we did much better. We slammed right on through and captured the titan relic in just a few minutes. That gave the Horde a few minutes for their try. We won that one without losing a wall/gate. We kept them on the beach and it was over in a few minutes. Whoever goes first sets the time that the second group will have. If we capture the relic in 3 minutes, then the Horde has 3 minutes to capture it and vice versa. Brieanna got the achievement Defense of the Ancients which not even my other 2 characters, Wranngar or Gomorra, have.

Read more...

Alterac Valley - Daily Battleground 2/26/10

Today Brieanna's daily battleground was Alterac Valley. I have been staying away from Alterac Valley and pretty much all the other battlegrounds lately as the Alliance is doing so poorly in them, but I decided to give it a try.

It wasn't too bad, we won the second battle I was in. Even the first battle we lost wasn't too bad, we came very close to killing Drek, and would have if the Horde hadn't gotten Vann down first. The battle started off pretty even in numbers, I think we were short 3 people. The second battle started off about the same numbers and someone said we were up against a Blackrock pre-made. That is usually when everyone gives up, but this time we decided to make it really hard for them. There were a lot of Horde players from Blackrock, but if it was a pre-made is was one of the saddest ones I have ever seen. We wiped them at Balinda, while half or more of their team was waiting at Galv for us I'm sure. They had quite a few on defense but we rolled right through them. We capped IBT and TP, took IBGY and killed Galv. Then we moved into Frostwolf Keep and took those towers and the relief hut. Once those capped we went in and killed Drek. It was all pretty simple.

I fought in 4 battles for Wintergrasp today too. It seems to me that the Alliance is striving to prove that they suck in all the battlegrounds lately. I used to see a turtle fail in Wintergrasp about once a week where everyone would stay in the keep. That is a guaranteed loss. Now I am seeing that happen twice a day or so... When we are on defense we need to take down the 3 Horde towers, there is no way around that, that is how you win. When we get a group of idiots that just stay in the keep, the towers do not go down and we have a long slow loss. Taking down the 3 Horde towers knocks 10 minutes off the timer. That reduces the time considerably that they have to capture the keep. People know this, or should, but still decide to stay in the keep and fail...

I fought in one battle for Strand of the Ancients today too, a win. It was my second battle in there and my first win. It was SoA's holiday weekend so I got extra honor for fighting in there. I may go back in there this weekend before it is over, I'm not sure.

Read more...

Assorted Battlegrounds 2/23-24/10

I fought in a few different battlegrounds the last couple days. The one I fought in most was Isle of Conquest.

I don't know what is wrong with the Alliance, how they can go from doing so good to doing so bad from one day to the next. This wasn't a time frame thing, I tried all different times and they were just doing bad. I fought in 4 battles on the 23rd, that wasn't too bad, 2 wins and 2 losses. The 24th was a different story though, I fought in 4 battles on the 24th too, all losses. It just happened to be my daily on the 24th too so I never got that done either. Hopefully they will shape up, we need at least one battleground they do well in.

I fought in 2 battles for Alterac Valley on the 23rd, both losses. There is nothing new there, between QQ pre-mades screwing up the queue's and the overall lack of experience we really don't stand much of a chance. On the 24th I fought in one battle, a win. It was a long drawn out win but a win none the less. We won it by killing Drek too, not on reinforcements. We got all the towers down and killed Galv so it was a maximum honor game.

We have even been doing poorly in Wintergrasp lately. I fought in 3 battles on the 23rd, 1 win and 2 losses. Wintergrasp is a battleground we own, I am not sure what the problem is. Maybe a lot of people got 80's off eBay for Christmas and now they are hitting the battlegrounds with them. We did better on the 24th, I fought in 2 battles, both wins. Tomorrow, Friday, I will be able to do the quests again which give A LOT of honor which I need. They also give Stone Keeper's Shard's which Brieanna can use too.

Read more...

Assorted Battlegrounds 2/22/10

I did a few different battlegrounds on Brieanna today. The one I fought in the most was Isle of Conquest. I am cutting back on Alterac Valley for awhile, it has gotten so bad in there.

We were doing pretty good in Isle of Conquest today. I fought in 18 battles in there, 10 wins and 8 losses. We were doing really well early on then it started to taper off so I got out. Over time the players change and you need to move on when the poorer quality players get on or you will just have loss after loss. This always corresponds to certain times of the day so you can kind of time it. The strat that still seems to be working is to get the Hangar so you have control of the airship, then jump from that into the Horde Keep and bomb the west gate from the inside while others in the team are firing on it from the airship and hitting it with siege equipment from the outside. We can usually get the gate down in a couple minutes that way. After that it is just a matter of killing Overlord Agmar. He is pretty tough but I don't think he is as tough as Drek'Thar in Alterac Valley. IoC is a 40v40 battleground.

I did fight in 7 battles for Alterac Valley, 5 wins and 2 losses. Down from the 10 to 20+ a day I usually do. To say the Alliance was doing much better in there today would be an understatement. I hit it at the right time I guess. I would queue for IoC and AV at the same time and if AV came up first I would take it. If I got into a battle that we were obviously losing or one that hadn't started yet but we were grossly outnumbered I would just accept the IoC queue when it popped and switch over to that one. We had 2 successful Blitz's and 1 not so successful Blitz. In the not so successful Blitz we had Drek down to 5442 HP when the last person died. The problem with that one was no heals. The other 2 went really well, we all rode to Drek, that was how you could tell you had a good group, 75% of the people actually went to Drek, and owned him. That is good for around 600 honor. I usually get 1200+ in a turtle from kills and anything we may cap but that can take 40 minutes, the Blitz is over in 6 minutes or so. AV is a 40v40 battleground.

I fought in 3 battles for Wintergrasp today, all wins. We were defending in all 3. People actually got out and captured the workstations in the first 2 and we got the southern towers down pretty quick. In the third one I was in people were sticking to the keep more and it took a lot longer and was touch and go for awhile but we pulled it off. I should be able to get one of my trinkets tomorrow even with the shutdown. Wintergrasp cycles roughly every 2 hours and 15 minutes. There are quests you can do in there too that give you 13g23s, 10 Stone Keeper's Shard's each and a lot of honor. I don't think there is a limit to the number of players in WG, I have seen 2 full 40 man raid groups plus a third partial one on our side in there at one time.

I fought in one battle in Warsong Gulch. I hate Warsong Gulch. I can't even begin to explain how much I hate going in there. When patch 3.3.3 comes out they will be getting rid of marks which means you will be able to get the PvP mounts using honor. I really like that idea, no more farming 30 Warsong Gulch Mark of Honor for each mount. 30 WSG marks is about 30 battles, 1 mark for each loss. I would say the Alliance loses 95% of the battles in WSG in this battlegroup. The main reason for that is people fighting in the middle instead of supporting the flag carrier or trying to get our flag back when the Horde have it. In almost every battle I have ever been in, people seem to be farming kills instead of trying to win. Maybe they have given up and just want their mark. The main reason I went in there was to serve a Great Feast so I could complete the Dinner Impossible achievement. Oh yeah, it was also my daily battleground but I dropped it after that. We lost 0 to 3. WSG is a 10v10 battleground.

Read more...

Battlegrounds 2/21/10

I fought in a few different battlegrounds on Brieanna tonight. Some were better than others.

I fought in 5 battles in Alterac Valley, the Alliance still isn't doing too well in there. I had 2 wins and 3 losses. The Alliance was having the same old problem in there, lack of teamwork, everyone doing their own thing, no one working together towards a common goal. It is the same old story in there and I am going to be spending less time in AV in the future I think. It is too bad too, it is my favorite battleground.

Arathi Basin was my daily battleground today. Unbelievably we won the first one I was in. I got in with a really good group and we had a 5 cap at the end. It is really rare these days that the Alliance does so well in AB because no one guards anything and that was the case tonight too, I was the only one guarding the Lumber Mill, we just came up against a really bad group of Horde I guess. This is a battleground we used to dominate. Completing the daily earned me 19g86s, 1241 bonus honor, which Brieanna really needs, and 25 arena points. I fought in one more battle, a loss but a close loss. Maybe the Alliance is starting to do better in there, I will keep an eye on it.

I fought in one battle for Strand of the Ancients, a loss. I had never been in there on Brieanna before. I served up a Great Feast as part of the Dinner Impossible achievement and now only have Warsong Gulch left to do before I complete it. This was another close loss, the Horde did capture the Titan Relic and we almost did, we had the gate to the relic room almost down, which would have resulted in a draw. Because we were unable to capture it the Horde won.

The battleground I spent the most time in tonight was Isle of Conquest. Tonight was also Brieanna's first time in there. I had queue'd for it many times before she turned 80 but never had the queue come up. We were doing ok in there. We started off winning, we won quite a few in a row, then we started losing. There are certain times of the day to fight in the battlegrounds when we do well and other times when it is best to just stay out of them. I started off in a good time and moved into a time frame when it was best to just walk away which I did. We had 7 wins and 10 losses in there.

I fight in Wintergrasp every time I see it queue up and we are doing well in there as usual. That is the only battleground the Alliance consistently does well in but it only queue's every 2 or 3 hours. We had two wins and one loss in the ones I was in. I am after the trinkets in there which are 25 Wintergrasp Marks of Honor each. We are usually defending which means I head down and help destroy the Horde towers in the south. The one loss we had resulted from just about everyone staying in the keep instead of coming out and going after the objectives. I see that happen once in awhile and am not sure why. You would think that after all this time people would realize that you WILL NOT win WG by staying in the keep, you need to get out and capture workstations, if just to keep them away from the Horde, and you have to destroy their towers. When all 3 towers are down there is an announcement that goes something like "The towers have fallen, victory is ours, clean up the remaining forces".

Read more...

Eye of the Storm - Daily Battleground 2/20/10

Eye of the Storm was the daily battleground today. I tried to do it on Brieanna but gave up after 5 consecutive losses. Five is the most times I will fight in a battleground to get my daily done. I have heard people, especially in EoS and AB, say they are on their 21st or 28th or so trying to get their daily done. Not me.

This is another battleground the Alliance used to dominate. I have most the achievements on Wranngar and Gomorra from then. I think I have one on Brieanna, the win EoS. I think that is probably the only one I was in that won too.

I was in one fail group after another. About half way through one of them I said "You people do realize that 3 towers beats the flag every time right?". I got responses like "No duh" and "No kidding". Everyone knows it apparently but no one does it. Every group I am in is 60% or more Flagtards. A Flagtard is someone who can only see the flag. They can't see that we don't even have a node to bring it to, they are focused solely on that flag. When you have 60% or more of your team in the middle of the battleground trying to get the flag, you are losing all your nodes because you have no one to defend them. That is pretty much how every battle goes. When you come off the rock and see 3/4 of your team heading for the flag you've lost already. Another case of people having no clue what needs to be done.

Read more...

More Alterac Valley - 2/20/10

I fought in 30 more battles in Alterac Valley on Brieanna tonight, 9 wins and 21 losses. I have about given up on AV, good groups are few and far between. I will have to find another battleground to fight in, one where we win more if one exists. Constantly losing is getting old. This is a battleground we used to dominate and now we can hardly win.

The main problem with Alliance in this battlegroup is lack of teamwork and total lack of understanding what needs to be done. I mean it is hard to even believe these people are trying. You can't get more than 2 people into a tower, even when the Horde are turtling and everyone is screaming to cap the towers, they will scream to do it, but they won't stay in them and defend them even though they know the Horde are going to send in 6 to 8 people to take it back...

We had a bunch more failed Blitz's tonight, people calling out for a Blitz without checking to see if we have a good tank or heals, then finding out when we are all there that we do not. In the case where we do have a good tank and heals the tank usually runs in and attacks Drek when there are only a few people there instead of waiting until everyone that is coming gets there. That results in the tank dying pretty quick. People just don't think. I hate to think what kind of people these are in real life if they can not think out something as simple as AV. I do realize there are a lot of kids that play Alliance but not all of them are kids.

Read more...

Alterac Valley - 2/19/10

The Alliance is doing terrible in Alterac Valley. I don't know what the problem is in this battleground the Alliance used to dominate but we can't seem to win anything in there anymore. I fought in 30 battles on Brieanna, 10 wins and 20 losses.

People will not work together in there. I was in so many failed Zerg's and Blitz's I lost count. In battle after battle people would agree to a Blitz then, after the gates opened, someone would start spamming a different plan. The majority of the Alliance players are not too bright to begin with and that is all it takes to create mass confusion. Now you have two people trying to out spam each other with two different plans and everything just falls apart. In a zerg, when we actually start with 40 players assuming QQ pre-mades doesn't screw up the queues, we are lucky to get 10 people that actually make it to Drek. That number goes down considerably with the less players we have. That's another thing too, these zerg happy idiots will still call out for a zerg even if we only have 15 players. Out of 15 players you are lucky if 4 make it to Drek.

Galv is another major factor in losses. It does not matter if there are 30 Horde players standing right in front of Galv, the Alliance will just ride right in there and get slaughtered. They do it time and time again even though they are told his room is packed full of Horde. You see, Galv is a Tard magnet and they really can't help themselves.

Needless to say most battles end up with us turtled in Dun Baldar for the long slow loss. I really want to transfer to another server in a different battlegroup.

Read more...

The Battle for Alterac Valley 2/18/10

I fought in a lot of battles for Alterac Valley in the past couple days, the Alliance are not doing too well in there at all. I fought these on Brieanna who is doing well in there since she turned 80, piling up some nice damage in every battle.

A lot of the battlegrounds started off very unbalanced and I recently found out why this is happening. It is because of QQ premades. They load up all the queue's then don't accept it when one pops. That leaves the queues lacking in numbers when they pop. I am going to put in a ticket to Blizzard about this, this practice needs to be stopped because it is screwing up the queuing system and causing a lot of losses for the Alliance. That would go a long way towards explaining why the Alliance is always lacking in numbers and not the Horde, QQ is only Alliance.

Read more...

Alterac Valley - 2/16/10

I am not going to go into detail, suffice to say I was unfortunate enough to fight in 6 very unbalanced battles, all of which we lost. The battle closest to being even at the start started off 28 Alliance to 40 Horde. The worst one, numbers wise, was 18 Alliance to 40 Horde. As far as I'm concerned this is an epic fail on Blizzards part. I put in a ticket on this and was told that the battle will not start until the battleground is full on both sides... Being someone who is actually in the battleground and fighting, not sitting at a desk making excuses, I can see that this is not true. My findings come from experience, not the Blizzard manual.

Read more...

The Battle for Alterac Valley - 2/15/10

The battle for Alterac Valley rages on and the Alliance is doing a lot better than they were. A lot better doesn't mean they are doing good, just better than they have been. I fought in 15 battles on Brieanna tonight, 8 wins and 7 losses.

We started off most battles outnumbered by no more than 5 which is a vast improvement over the numbers we had been starting with lately. Too bad it was the last night of the holiday weekend, if we weren't sucking so bad in there all weekend I would have my next piece in the bank, waiting for me to hit 80, by now. The majority of the losses I got were in the earlier battles I fought in. I hit a point where all the people who had no clue left and we got a good group on. We were setting a plan and following it, working together as a team which is rare. The results were a 100% turn around from what we had earlier, we were capping towers, killing Galv and driving the Horde back into their keep, then into their cave, then killing Drek. There was one player, Dotsalot, that was spamming his battle plan. He was persistent and it paid off.

I have said many times in the past in my other blogs that there are good times and bad times (of the day) to fight in certain battlegrounds and that is what I had tonight, I started off during the bad time and worked my way into the good time. Unfortunately when I get to play is when I get to play so I have to take what I can get. During the week anyway.

Read more...

More Alterac Valley - /fail 2/14/10

I fought in a bunch of battles on Brieanna tonight and all I can say is the Alliance is sucking worse than usual. I fought in 12 battles, 2 wins and 10 losses. These people aren't even trying.

It's not that we were up against good Horde players, we weren't, it is just the people in there had no drive to win. And a lot of them didn't have any experience either. In the past few days I have seen more than one person get their first honorable kill if that tells you anything. On the rare occasion we win, a lot of people are getting their first Alterac Valley win achievement. This is a battleground you can start fighting in at level 51, this is the 71-79 bracket. Why are these people all of a sudden deciding to fight in there now? They probably heard it was holiday weekend and decided to get some extra honor, only problem is when you have too many inexperienced people all you are going to do is fail. We had a lot of uneven battles too, numbers wise. Half of them we started out with less than 30 players to the Hordes 40.

We are still having a problem with people going to Galv at the start and wiping. Same people, same results, you would think they would learn but they don't. In a few of the battles I got people to skip Galv and get IBGY instead. Then cap IBT and TP, then go and get Galv. That worked out pretty well, we got 2 towers and a GY anyway. I really don't think people know how to play in there and if what they are doing over and over again is any indication, they are not learning.

Read more...

Give a Bunker, Take a Tower 2/13/10

The Alliance was still not doing too well in Alterac Valley today. I fought in 16 battles on Brieanna, 6 wins and 10 losses.

On one hand it will be nice when the holiday weekend is over and all the weekend warriors are gone along with a lot of the AFK, on the other hand it will probably mean the wait time to queue will go back up to hours.

We had the usual problem in most our battles of people not working together, people not following any kind of plan that was agreed on. And, of course, people going after Galv even though they knew he was packed full of Horde and they were going to wipe, causing us to lose. Same good old stuff. SHGY played a big role in a lot of our losses. I guess this is the bracket where people get attached to SHGY and won't let it go because we had a lot of that going on. Almost all our team would be at SHGY defending it for the loss.

Read more...

The Battle for Alterac Valley - 2/12/10

The Alliance wasn't doing well in Alterac Valley at all. I fought in 9 battles on Brieanna, 2 wins and 7 losses...

People just would not work together. The Horde were defending Galv, like they tend to do sometimes, so the best thing to do then is skip him. Do you think we could get people to do that? Nope. Galv is a Tard Magnet. People can not go by him without running in there even when someone announces that he is packed wall to wall with Horde. The Horde will have half their team in there defending him. The Alliance run in there like sheep to the slaughter. They also have IBGY because you can't get anyone to skip Galv and cap that first, so they just keep rezzing and running back in there until all the Alliance are wiped out. IBGY is practically right next door to Galv so they have no problem doing that. That sends all the Alliance either back to SHYG or one of the graveyards in Dun Baldar.

Needless to say with that group we didn't down Drek. Hell, we couldn't even cap a tower with that group, no one wants to defend anything. We won the 2 we won on reinforcements somehow. There were a lot of AFK, it's the holiday weekend, and a lot of weekend warriors, people who only come into the battlegrounds on their holiday weekend for the extra honor and have no clue at all what they are doing. They don't seem to be able to follow directions either. It is really sad that we can't get some wins in there on the holiday weekend and soak up some of that extra honor.

Read more...

Alterac Valley - 2/11/10

The battle for Alterac Valley rages on again and I was finally able to get into one. More than one actually, I fought in 11 battles on Brieanna, 5 wins and 6 losses. After being in queue for days this battleground finally started popping again. Not unlike the 80 slot, the 71-79 slot has good times and bad times to play in it. I started off in a bad time, we couldn't win anything, and finished in a good time, we couldn't lose.

I still haven't gotten the Blitz yet but we did have a couple where we took Drek down with 2 towers up. Those were the ones where we rushed FWK and took east and west towers along with the relief hut. We won a couple more in reinforcements, that's fine by me, a win is a win and I got a lot of kills out of those. We had some good teamwork going on in the later battles and that's what makes all the difference, people working together towards one goal. Too bad the 80 slot can't figure that out.

Read more...

Arathi Basin - Daily Battleground 2/10/10

Today Arathi Basin was Brieanna's daily battleground. Her daily battleground is different than my 80's obviously, as she is in a different level bracket. I fought in 3 battles before I picked up the daily, 1 win and 2 losses. We won the last one I was in after I got the daily.

In the losses it was the same old story, and believe me it is getting old. We would start out ok, then everyone would spread out, a couple going after this node, a couple going after that node, no one defending the nodes we had and slowly we would lose them. People do the same thing over and over and over again, they lose doing them over and over again, but do they learn? Evidently not as they continue to do it.

The first battle I was in started off with us outnumbered 3 to 1, 5 Alliance to 15 Horde. Needless to say that one didn't last too long. I guess the Horde were losing a lot in there and Blizz decided to give them some free honor.

In the last 2 battles I was in we didn't do great, didn't play smart, but managed to pull off the win. We still had people everywhere, in the last battle there was no one at all at the Lumber Mill defending it, but we still managed to pick up a new node every time we lost one. That seems to be how people like to play in there, let one go and get another, I am more of a get 3, hold 3, win, type person. The rotating node approach usually ends in a loss for us so getting and holding 3 makes more sense to me.

I usually don't fight in that many AB's because Alliance sucks so bad in there but it has been the only battleground I can get into lately. I was in queue for Alterac Valley for over 4 hours and it didn't come up once.

Read more...

Battleground Queues 2/9/10

I was in the queue for Alterac Valley for over 3 hours tonight and never got called. Sadly this is becoming the norm. I queue for Alterac Valley as soon as I log in and then wait until I log off without getting into a battle, or on what has become a good day, getting into one. It wasn't like this last week and I am not sure what the problem is. Last week I was waiting no more than 20 minutes to get in.

I did get into one battle for Arathi Basin but as usual that was just a joke. We started off well, getting the Gold Mine, Stables and Lumber Mill, but then the typical Alliance stupidity took over and we lost them. At the very start of every battle it says "3 nodes needed to win". Seems pretty simple doesn't it? Get 3 nodes, defend 3 nodes, win. Evidently that is more then some people can comprehend. For some reason, and this happens in almost every battle, the Alliance has to go off in one's or two's and try to get more nodes. This leaves nodes poorly defended if there is anyone there at all to defend them or call incoming. I hate it when AB is my daily, the only way we seem to win in there is if we come up against a really, really bad Horde team.

Read more...

The Battle for Alterac Valley 71-79 Slot - 2/8/10

The Alliance is still having a really bad time in Alterac Valley. I fought in 1 battle on Brieanna, a loss. That wasn't entirely our fault though, we started off outnumbered 28x40. That is pretty bad considering the people in there range from 71-79. I was in queue the entire time I was on and that was the only battle that came up. I was in queue for over 2 hours before that one came up, the queues are incredibly long lately for some reason and we are starting off outnumbered most times, it is getting to be just like the 80 slot.

Needless to say we were overrun and forced back into Dun Baldar which we tried, but failed, to defend. That battle ended 18 minutes after it started, when the Horde killed Vann, at which time we had 32 players to the Horde's 40.

Read more...