Morning Warsong Gulch, Better PVP Experience

This morning, I had woken up a little later than normal, which meant that I had a little less time to play before leaving for work. I had already gotten my warlock to Kalimdor to start questing in Darkshore and working on the Loremaster of Kalimdor achievement, but I didn't want to start that process if I wouldn't be able to make significant progress on those quests.

Instead, I hopped on my now level 85 Retribution Paladin for some random battlegrounds, and a lot of mining in Pandaria while waiting on the queue. After a fair amount of farming for Ghost Iron, I was worried that the queue wouldn't pop before I would run out of time. No sooner did that thought cross my mind, I was in and ready to deliver righteous justice in the name of the Alliance.



Getting into the group, I was so thankful to see not one, not two, but three healers supporting our group. This was a welcomed sight because in my previous queues there were no other healers, while the horde would be the ones with the support. This might have contributed to my bad experiences, but at the same time in previous battlegrounds we didn't have healers and still did fine. At any rate, I was ready to play with and around my team, and I wanted to focus on sticking with other people to accomplish our objective.

It helped that a few other players on the team were helping to call out directions which helped the team focus our efforts. We stuck together well, and whether it was due to a gear advantage or a numbers advantage, we were able to pick off stragglers, and isolate their flag carrier in most instances to win with an easy 2-0 capture differential. I felt good dealing damage, helping to keep my teammates alive in a pinch. There was one instance where I went in with a rogue to take out the enemy flag carrier, and while we were outnumbered, I was able to take their attention and keep the rogue alive while we took back our flag.

It was a fun time, and it reminded me why I enjoy battlegrounds so much. I am wondering how the changes that have been made will effect my enjoyment of battlegrounds when I play the WoW classic version. Since in the original version of Warsong Gulch there was not time limit, there were no damage and healing debuffs by carrying the flag, and the graveyards were in a different spot. I'll need to make sure I have the time to devote to potentially longer matches for sure.

I am not good at PVP

This morning, I tried my hand at some battlegrounds on my level 84 ret paladin. I had played some over the weekend, and I had some fun playing as ret, since I could do damage and heal my team. Today was not as much fun.


In general, it was difficult for my teams to get very much momentum as the horde were much better at being grouped, focusing down a target, and they wiped the floor with us. Our team was all over the place. People (me included) running in haphazardly without the group, and we got picked off so easily.

I queued as a healer to see how that played out, and let's just say that entering a battleground is not the right time to situate one's action bars for pvp healing. I've played a holy paladin for years, but having rarely pvped since cata, I was very unprepared.

I will keep trying to pvp, as that is something I am looking forward to when classic comes out. I'm going to try to focus on helping my team coordinate better, so that we aren't just lambs to the slaughter. Fingers crossed.

At the very least, it gives me time to farm some Ghost Iron.

Trying to Solo Gnomeregan, and some PVP on my Ret Paladin BFA

Now that I’ve completed the quests in Stranglethorn, my hunter had a couple of quests from the dungeon Gnomeregan that have been nagging my quest log since level 30, so I made the trek there and tried me hand at soloing the trash mobs so I could get to the dormitory and turn in the grim encrusted object. After not using my hunter pet for a lot of my leveling, I pulled out my trusty Talboc and gave it a try. Since mobs scale in dungeons now, I had to be sure to kite and use my pet to take the brunt. I died a couple of times, but eventually made it to the point where I could complete the quest. There was a follow up quest in Ironforge, so I took that as an opportunity to get the heck out of there.

After the quest turn in, it was off to the Wetlands. I run from Thelsemar, and when I came to a fork in the road I chose the road less traveled. It was between safely going through the Algaz tunnel, or make a jump for it and hopefully time disengage before hitting the ground. I jumped, and because I didn’t get far enough from the side of the cliff I disengaged too soon and my screen went gray. I didn’t feel like running all the way to my corpse so Rez sickness it was, and I logged out at the first quest hub in the zone. 

Then the question was what to do now. I haven’t pvped on my human paladin in a whil, I thought, so let’s give that a go. I mined for ghost iron while waiting on the queue, and had some fun playing ret, helping to heal, returning some flags, and capping one to boot. It reminded me of when I used to play that paladin more in Wrath of the Lich King as a twink. I twinkled at 39, 60, and 70, and had such a fun time. While I wasn’t as dominant as I was then, this time still gave me the feeling of supporting my team while delivering justice to the filthy horde.

This was especially fun because I have such fond memories of playing this paladin in battlegrounds. He was my very first character, and I loved pvping on him and dominating. Recently, though, I've been reviewing classic wow ret paladin game play, and I've realized that the paladin is meant to be more supportive. I remember when I used to play, I'd pretend to be a warrior, and I'd often forget to heal myself, and rarely would I think to heal or buff someone else.

In playing in a more supportive role, I'm enjoying that more versatile role, and I think I'm going to try playing as holy and prot in battlegrounds more, just to mix it up. Plus it'll help with group balance since it seemed like the horde always had a bunch of healers while the alliance had one if that many. Also, if I don't select healer when I queue it won't let me swap to holy before the battleground has begun, so selecting those specs will help me be more flexible.

I also enjoyed the new Warsong Gulch. The updated graphics and models looked really good, and that is probably the battleground I've played the most, so to see it all new and shiny is awesome.