Battleground Twinks

[pxib]

I quit a long time ago, and I'm not planning on coming back for Wrath of the Lich King unless it turns out the new PvP is some sort of robot Jesus. I got characters to max level, discovered that PvP there depended heavily on gear that I couldn't get without raiding for decades and made myself a level 19 priest and a level 39 rogue to play some fun, relatively balanced PvP in the those twink brackets. I chose 19 because I'd come to believe that rogues were very weak there and wanted to produce a character that would be able to humiliate them without spending very much money. I chose the rogue at 39 because it was the last bracket before mounts became available and the one at which my lack of perfect gear and enchantments would make the least difference.

It was a real blast.

Then blizzard began to buff hunters. Although apparently they're still having trouble in the arenas at endgame they rapidly became completely unstoppable at 19. First concussive shot stopped being a magic effect so it could not be dispelled, then bow damage was increased roughly two-fold and pet damage roughly five-fold. PUG vs. PUG, the number of hunters each team had became practically the sole determining factor as to which team won.

In frustration I made a hunter... and it was so easy to play and completely dominate, even untwinked, that I gave up on the game entirely. I'd been looking for a challenge without endless raiding and farming. That was done. I quit the game. Since then hunters have had their talents rejiggered to give low level players even more options, had their dead-zone removed, and apparently in the new patch they'll replace the concussive shot's infrequent stun talent with one that increases its undispellable daze effect to five seconds rather than three... for two points rather than a five.

Not that anyone cares, mind you... QQ and yadda-yadda.

I just think that Blizz has generally missed an opportunity to keep dedicated players who don't care much about expensive new content by generally ignoring the battleground twinks. As much as being one-shot by a rogue at level 10 can be frustrating, it's nothing compared to being one-shot by EVERY SINGLE CLASS at 61. The affordable, casual, relatively balanced 19 PvP game is dead.

Edit: Bolded the only part of general interest.

[ShenMolo]

Ahh...19 bracket twinks...so much fun.

My first was a female gnome warrior (with the pink double popsicle hair style of course) with a Searing Blade with Fiery Enchant and all the usual twink fixings. That was a blast, especially when I ran around with my healbot Paladin buddy.

[K9]

The 49 bracket is where the real fun is at.

[Rasix]

Some friends of mine recently resubbed to WoW.  They haven't played since before TBC.  Right now we're having a blast in the 60-69 bracket and it looks like they're going to keep their characters there until they have all of the marks they need.  Luckily I had a rogue that's in that bracket.

There's a few things that make this bracket so nice:

1) Level difference isn't that bad.  I take out lvl 69 folk with little difficulty.  Even 60's can get their shots in.
2) Gear inflation is largely in check.  My greens are doing just fine.
3) A 3 man team working largely in just AB, EOTS and WSG can wreck havoc.  I imagine we're some of the very few using voice.
4) Horde is either dominant in this bracket or we're just really good.  In two nights, we have yet to lose.  Small sample, but 5 AB, 2 EoTS and 1 WSG.  All pretty much blowouts except for 1 come from behind AB.

My friends are just loving it.  They're pretty good at PVP (both were crazy good DAoC players) and this bracket has yet to break their spirit like earlier pre TBC battlegrounds did.  The biggest factor is the lack of a massive gear imbalance.  Transition to lvl 70 bgs will be a jarring experience for them, but I don't think they'll leave this bracket anytime soon.

Feral druid/feral druid/combat rogue 

 

[Special J]

The 49 bracket is where the real fun is at.

A couple buddies convinced me to resub and reroll on their PvP server.  On my way up the treadmill I'd stop and PvP some.  I really enjoyed battlegrounds at that level even as a non-twink (but admittedly, I do have higher level 'sponsors').  I'll proably spend little time in 50s and spend a long time there in high 60s.

[SurfD]

My friends are just loving it. 


Feral druid/feral druid/combat rogue   

That last bit is what makes it.  Feral druids are a fair bit ahead of the curve in an itemization group that stops at 69.

[Xanthippe]

I spent a month at least in the 50-59 battlegrounds on my feral druid and had a blast.  I think they are the least twinked, therefore the most fun because the fights are most even. 

(The last patch added mounts in at 30, btw.)

[K9]

Feral druid/feral druid/combat rogue 

The 69 bracket is basically the 70 bracket without gladiators or resilience. This is awesome for DPS classes, but hell for healers/clothies.

[Zetor]

I've come to hate the sub-40 brackets when I was levelling my [new main] shammy armed with nothing but quest rewards and very rarely instance stuff. Silly me for thinking I could have fun in a battleground without being 2-shot!

But then, I guess that's the flipside of twinking... and it's not so bad in the 49 and 69 brackets. 59 is a bit of an exception because of the ridonkolous power level differential betweend TBC and old-world gear (this means that anyone can just get a set of greens from the AH and be competitive, which is good; but it won't help anyone below lv58ish).


-- Z.

[Arrrgh]

I get out my 29 mage twink once a month or so and pick on the hunter twinks. There are so many of them that the herd just needs thinning once in a while.  It's easy to freeze them in place, get right on top of them, and then just AE them and their pets to death. I've yet to run into one that did enough melee damage to take out my mage before I can AE/spell spam them down.  Of course my mage is fairly well twinked, has the AB honor bubble trinket, and has all the engineering toys/explosives.  YMMV.

[Rake]

One thing that's ruined the Twink BG fun is that since a few patches ago you don't always get an even number of players on each side.

You can end up with AV's that have 12 vs 40 now which kinda stopped me logging in as the only bit of fun I had left in Wow was the 60 AVs and other Twink BGs.

[idiot grin]

/unlurk

i agree with the part the OP bolded...  if WAR is any good, those are the people blizzard will definitely lose. 

the only thing i did with WoW in the year i played was mid-bracket pvp.  Sometimes i had to kill foozles for gear.  Worked the AH while waiting for the queue to pop, it payed for chants pots bandages etc. 

clearly hunters were overpowered in some brackets BEFORE the deadzone removal...  which was a change aimed at arena balance.  Speaking as someone who likes battlegrounds more than arena, i say blizz should go back and code the trees/stumps/hills in the BGs so they block LoS.  I have no idea how much time/work that would be, but i think it would go a long way towards balancing hunters in the BGs.  Problem is, it should maybe only work like that for hunters.

the deadzone change went too far, as did the auto-purge, and with the new pet talents they're sailing right over the edge into the abyss...  but before that i think the only brackets hunters were really a problem in were 19 and (beast spec)49. 

in my battlegroup, and from what i've seen on pvp forums, lvl 49 BM hunters sort of "don't count."  Best way to explain is--  there's an arcade fighting game, i think it's an SF2 version, where no character is officially banned for tournaments...  but there's a character who none of the best players use, because he's so overpowered.  However, lots of average players use that character in the tournaments because it gives them a better chance.  That's pretty much how 49 beast spec hunters are viewed, too.  19 bracket probably should be that way but isn't. 

but given the difference between good and bad pvp gear, and how long it takes to get good gear/chants for a beginner (it's essentially a post-70 endgame)... there should be a class that can pvp without gear.  As a beginner, the way i learned was to get roflstomped over and over by people with at least double my hp and dps, until i got gear.  Most people aren't willing to do that...  with a hunter, you can pvp with terrible gear and survive, even in the 19 bracket.  (if i come back to WoW, it'll be alliance side for the shorter 29-59 queue times, and the dwarf hunter i roll for instance runs/gold will be levelled 1-80 with no pants).

looks like the new pet talents are gonna pretty much break the mid-game pvp, though, unless something changes...  only hope is that they aren't available thru 29, maybe even 39.  Or a classic server with pre-BC rules, i know there are carebears who want the same thing.

if they ever give oomkins a spell interrupt they can have my money no questions asked...  it can be melee range, i don't mind

/re-lurk

[Xanthippe]

No more battleground twinks?



https://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=10532281614&sid=1&pageNo=2#22

Tigole:
"We're also planning on improving some Battleground and PvP features in general. For example, we want to give you the ability to queue for Battlegrounds from anywhere in the world. We're also going to explore EXP gain through the PvP system as well as low level itemization to support that. "

[Drubear]

I really don't believe they'll do that - I vaguely recall there being a blue post about twinking being a "valid playstyle."

Perhaps they will also add the option to turn off XP gain to allow both styles of play?

[Koyasha]

Possibly.  Then again, maybe they'll realize that there's more people who would play battlegrounds and enjoy it if you could make progress within them, and not just progress toward horribly outdated weapons and armor that will be outleveled very soon anyways, oh and by the way you level like twice as fast as when they were originally implemented.

If most players can't enjoy the battlegrounds with twink conditions, and they see it's a good thing to have more players enjoying the battlegrounds, they'll put an end to the 'permanently level x9' twinks.  Just like when they slapped a level 62 restriction on the engineering goggles (which previously were usable as low as level 50, where you could train engineering to 350) and didn't grandfather in the old items, forcing anyone below 62 that had them to lose the ability to wear them.

[pxib]

...or they could just double the number of brackets. x0-x8 would give experience and allow a variety of characters of different levels, and then battlegrounds at x9 which give no experience for the twinks.

[Xanthippe]

Or they could attempt to gear-match or stat-match - so that a typical level 19 isn't playing a level 19 with 1000 hitpoints.

[Simond]

Or they could just make BGs award xp and tell the twinks to bugger off because they're not wanted any more.