So, is WOW worth going back to?

[Morat20]

Wow. your battlegroups must be fucked up. People barely say a word in the heroics on mine. maybe 2-3/5 people will say "hello" and then "thanks for group" at the end with pretty much nothing else the rest of the time.

Actually, mine ARE pretty good about that. Our problem is more the "Oh, I dinged, leaving the dungeon now" or "Whatever I wanted didn't drop off this boss, leaving" type.

But when you get the bitchers and whiners...oh damn, is it ever annoying as fuck. Especially when it's some fucker bitching about your job, because he'd rather blame you than himself. (Healers who can't be assed to heal anyone but the main tank, tanks who can't be arsed to watch the healer's mana, DPS that doesn't bother with anything beyond auto-attack or doesn't watch aggro.....fuckers who tab-target, aggro another group, then rage-quit over getting wiped...).

[Paelos]

My BG is generally quiet on all pugs. Usually I'm the only one joking around on there.

[WoopeeTuralyon]

Wow. your battlegroups must be fucked up. People barely say a word in the heroics on mine. maybe 2-3/5 people will say "hello" and then "thanks for group" at the end with pretty much nothing else the rest of the time.

That's creepy though, lol. It's like playing with bots. They just remain silent, even if you ask a question of them.

[Azazel]

I'm on the same server as Paelos, so same BG as well. I have to say, I prefer the mostly-silence of them compared to most conversation on WoW. Occasionally you'll get a group where the people chat, and most of the time, other players as faceless bots are polite enough "can I get some food pls mage?" etc, and frankly, that's good enough for me when stacked up against the PUGs I used to get into on my own server or trade/city/etc chat.

[Dren]

Our BG's have constant bitching going on.  Sometimes I'll get somebody whining before we even begin.  I like to play BG's, but I'd really like to see battlegroups increased in size or something.  Hardly anything changes in ours.  I'm also waiting to see what the Cata changes will be for PvP in BG's, etc.  If they can limit the amount of premade groups constantly owning pug's over and over all day long, I'm all for it.  It should be PuG vs. Pug or premade vs. premade, nothing else.

I even stepped into a premade group to see if it got any better.  Hell, now it is even worse on the other side of it.  Complete roll-over on the other side.  The real kick in the pants is that since it isn't for a random daily, I get less for a win than I was with a loss for the random.  Plus, I have no chance at my 25 Arena Points.

I'm finding it hard to understand why premades do it in the first place.  For the feeling of the wins?!

[Paelos]

Oh in pvp, the bitching never ends on any battlegroup that's losing. The difference is in the pug dungeon running.

[Dren]

While what I said still stands, I mistook your use of BG to mean Battlegrounds, not Battle Groups.  Reading too fast today to catch the difference.  Carry on!

[WoopeeTuralyon]

While what I said still stands, I mistook your use of BG to mean Battlegrounds, not Battle Groups.  Reading too fast today to catch the difference.  Carry on!

Before random battlegrounds premades were more useful since you get a lot more honor from winning and a little from losing with no added honor from the system. Now.... they're not as nice. Similarly, Blizzard pretty much killed twinking, since they're now in a bracket of their own in which it takes FOREVER to get into a single BG. I miss the days of hour-long WSG turtles and twinks being mixed in with the rest.

[Ingmar]

Moving the xp off twinks into their own queues was the single best pvp decision Blizzard ever made, at least for leveling characters.

[Ashamanchill]

I'm with Ingmar on this, one hundred percent.

I miss the days of hour-long WSG turtles and twinks being mixed in with the rest.

Why? How could you possibly miss either of those things? For most of their Warcraft tenure twinks made battleground pvp unplayable for leveling characters.

[Shrike]

Twinks are still alive and well. You just don't see the hyper-tuned permatwinks in xp BGs anymore. Heck, they're about the only thing that make leveling through the BGs halfway interesting.

[Rendakor]

Twinks are still alive and well. You just don't see the hyper-tuned permatwinks in xp BGs anymore.

This. Most people leveling up are alts, so it's not uncommon to see people in BGs with at least a full set of heirlooms. You just don't see the people who spent months farming their BIS in every slot for level 19, 29, etc.

[WoopeeTuralyon]

I'm with Ingmar on this, one hundred percent.

I miss the days of hour-long WSG turtles and twinks being mixed in with the rest.

Why? How could you possibly miss either of those things? For most of their Warcraft tenure twinks made battleground pvp unplayable for leveling characters.

I was kidding about the turtles, but waiting forever for a single WSG on my rogue pisses me off to no end. Why even have an xp off option if it ruins your chances of EVER playing in another BG unless you have hours on your hands to sit and wait? I like to stop at the top of each bracket and do a bunch of BGs, not play 3 then be at the bottom of the next bracket again.

[apocrypha]

It's hilarious because it shows up the so-called hardcore twink community for the bunch of bullshitters they were always suspected to be.

Twink argument 1: There's 1000s of us, loads of people play twinks! Blizz should stop trying to nerf twinks!

Twink argument 2: We don't just want to pwn non-twinks, we like fair fights honest!

So, Blizzard cleverly isolate twinks so that they can only pvp with other twinks... and lo and behold it turns out that without all the non-twinked easy kills most of them aren't interested and you end up with massive long queues because there simply aren't enough to fill a battleground on most battlegroups.

Hoist by their own petards I think.

[WoopeeTuralyon]

I wouldn't mind having to fight enemies as strong or stronger than I am, but apparently almost everyone else does. It's fun destroying non-twinks every now and then, but a 250 hp priest isn't exactly a challenge. Not complaining so much about not being able to be in BGs with non-twinks that are basically free kills unless there are a bunch of them, but not being able to be in BGs at all with xp off.  It should auto-queue you if you have xp off 

[Morat20]

Out of curiousity, how does blizzard seperate twinks?

[Shrike]

Somewhat ironically, the best twink experience in BGs is where you lose the BG, but still top the charts in kills/honor. By a lot. Otherwise, you outlevel it too quickly.

The mian reason I got involved in twinking (such as it is today), is because I'm usually stuck in BGs by myself with no one else to rely on for support. You just don't know who you'll be rolling with. What you can probably count on, though, is that they'll suck and/or be at the bottom of the bracket level. So you have to pick up the slack. Even very heavily tuned, if I went in BGs at x5 or x6 level, it'd be a very rough ride.

On the other hand, just a few good twinks can dominate a BG. I managed to convince a friend to try out PvP by harrassing him to twink his blood DK for the 79 bracket and run with my PvP prot pally. When these two hit a node or flag room, it was ugly (for the horde). AB and the Eye were particularly fun. Thing was, with just these two and maybe a mid-level straphanger or two, we could dominate a BG without too much trouble. My pally on her own, however, wasn't nearly so effective. She was plenty nasty to be sure, but the force multiplier of a simiilar friend was tremendous.

[Shrike]

Out of curiousity, how does blizzard seperate twinks?

Well, from what I"ve seen, if you have xp turned off, you're lumped in with only other people with their xp turned off. There aren't very many of them on Rampage.

I recall leveling my DK through the 79 bracket. XP on, insta-BG. I remember waiting about two hours for a BG to pop with it off, however.

[WoopeeTuralyon]

Alright, maybe they haven't ruined it, but they have changed it drastically. You now onnly have a limited nummber of BGs which you hope to lose so you can do more before you level. Then, you have to get new stuff for the next bracket.

[Shrike]

Pretty much. Although, I like building gearsets for different characters at the various brackets. It's fun. Takes time and can be kinda expensive, but it keeps me occupied. Plus, I have a lot of tradeskill support from my 80s. Things like armor, jewelry, gems, some enchants, some weapons, BoA stuff, and just raw cash are easy to repurpose to leveling a new twink.

The main thing holding me back is lack of character slots. A couple might get transferred come Cataclysm. I want a BE warrior in the worst way.

[brellium]

I would drop the fire spec and pick up arcane and frost. Arcane is the highest dps spec in PvE, and frost is the best for soloing(you're almost incapable of dying).

I was frost through 80, it was luv, and as a plus I could do 2k dps as a brand spanking new 80 with frost.

[SurfD]

I would drop the fire spec and pick up arcane and frost. Arcane is the highest dps spec in PvE, and frost is the best for soloing(you're almost incapable of dying).

I was frost through 80, it was luv, and as a plus I could do 2k dps as a brand spanking new 80 with frost.

Actually, Fire is the highest dps spec in PVE currently, once you hit top end gear.

[WoopeeTuralyon]

You might've done 2k as a fresh 80 but it doesn't go up and up like arcane or fire. And yeah, SurfD, someone already told me fire surpassed arcane at high gear levels earlier in the thread.

EDIT: it was Azuredream.

[brellium]

You might've done 2k as a fresh 80 but it doesn't go up and up like arcane or fire. And yeah, SurfD, someone already told me fire surpassed arcane at high gear levels earlier in the thread.

EDIT: it was Azuredream.

You're right, it doesn't. I switched to arcane and arcane/fire when I started gearing up.  When my models suggested 100-200 dps gain with my crappy gear I respec'd out of frost.

[Dren]

I recently went arcane with my mage for PvP.  I was frost, but as discussed, my gear has improved enough to warrant getting my full bang for the buck on dps.  I'm actually amazed that I live longer now in arcane.  I never gave it much thought, but the amount of PvP talents in that tree were eluding me for some reason.  I'm really enjoying it.

I'm still not to the level that some pvp mages are at.  You know the ones.  The ones that are just IMPOSSIBLE to kill?  Yeah those.

[Morat20]

I recently went arcane with my mage for PvP.  I was frost, but as discussed, my gear has improved enough to warrant getting my full bang for the buck on dps.  I'm actually amazed that I live longer now in arcane.  I never gave it much thought, but the amount of PvP talents in that tree were eluding me for some reason.  I'm really enjoying it.

I'm still not to the level that some pvp mages are at.  You know the ones.  The ones that are just IMPOSSIBLE to kill?  Yeah those.

Like the one that sorta critted me for more than my full health -- despite 5 fucking stacks of tenacity -- in Wintergrasp? Although that might have been a two-shot. It involved fire, and my sudden fucking death.

Now that I'm playing Wintergrasp, I'm sort of understanding why the Alliance gets fucking rolled. I think the best I've logged into was tenacityx5, which indicates a bit of a numbers disparity.

[Sjofn]

I have somehow lucked my way into playing servers on the "right" WG side. Doomhammer, Alliance always wins, Moon Guard, Horde always wins. It's silly.

Moon Guard's PvP is uh. Not as ... good as Doomhammer's. You know the stereotype of RPers not knowing how to PvP at all? They fit that as hard as they can.

[Morat20]

I have somehow lucked my way into playing servers on the "right" WG side. Doomhammer, Alliance always wins, Moon Guard, Horde always wins. It's silly.

Moon Guard's PvP is uh. Not as ... good as Doomhammer's. You know the stereotype of RPers not knowing how to PvP at all? They fit that as hard as they can.

I'm on the Ruin group, I think. The actual 'battlegrounds' with even sides tends, so far, to be about 60/40 in favor of the Horde, but I haven't played enough at 80 to be sure. I lose a bit more often than I win, but not that much. But Wintergrasp? I've seen it won once. I've seen Alliance holding it maybe three or four times over the last few weeks, and I've been looking because I had something I wanted to buy.

[Dren]

Our server is stacked in favor of Alliance wins nearly everytime for WG.  Yes, that means Horde gets a ton of tenacity, but our numbers just overwhelm them.  On the weekends they will sometimes get a big enough group to hold off destruction of the towers while they coordinate a 12 seige run at the walls.  That is typically too much to handle regardless of numbers.

Most the time I have a hard time just getting the "Kill 10 Horde" quest done before we win.  The other day, we didn't get the "Destroy 3 Seige Vehicles" quest done.  They didn't build a single one.  Not one!

We did have a great battle on Saturday.  We held it until about 3 mins left and they took it just barely.  That's what PvP should be.  Although, part of their success was some Hunter and Shaman perching above the GY in the keep.  They were freeze trapping and killing people that ressed there throughout the game.  We spent some time killing the hunter, but he would just get ress'ed by the shaman (out of sight.)  With their tenacity stacks it would have taken 10 alliance to leave WG and then reenter on top of the building to kill them.  Yeah, that wasn't going to happen.

[Drubear]

Most the time I have a hard time just getting the "Kill 10 Horde" quest done before we win.  The other day, we didn't get the "Destroy 3 Seige Vehicles" quest done.  They didn't build a single one.  Not one!

Quick FYI - you can do the "Kill 10..." by taking out the enemy NPCs that your side NPCs are fighting throughout in-between the battles. Took me a couple weeks to figure that out.

[Dren]

Most the time I have a hard time just getting the "Kill 10 Horde" quest done before we win.  The other day, we didn't get the "Destroy 3 Seige Vehicles" quest done.  They didn't build a single one.  Not one!

Quick FYI - you can do the "Kill 10..." by taking out the enemy NPCs that your side NPCs are fighting throughout in-between the battles. Took me a couple weeks to figure that out.

Yeah, I do this now before doing anything for this reason.  Also, it counts towards being able to build seige vehicles too.  Heck, when we are on the offense, I go about 10 minutes early to finish the "Get me 10 items" quest and to kill 10 guards outside of the fortress walls before the event even starts.  For some reason when I do that, the first kill I get when the event starts lets me build catapults instantly.

The "kill 3 seige vehicles" quest is a tough one to get around if none are ever built!

[Threash]

Our BG's have constant bitching going on.  Sometimes I'll get somebody whining before we even begin.  I like to play BG's, but I'd really like to see battlegroups increased in size or something.  Hardly anything changes in ours.  I'm also waiting to see what the Cata changes will be for PvP in BG's, etc.  If they can limit the amount of premade groups constantly owning pug's over and over all day long, I'm all for it.  It should be PuG vs. Pug or premade vs. premade, nothing else.

I even stepped into a premade group to see if it got any better.  Hell, now it is even worse on the other side of it.  Complete roll-over on the other side.  The real kick in the pants is that since it isn't for a random daily, I get less for a win than I was with a loss for the random.  Plus, I have no chance at my 25 Arena Points.

I'm finding it hard to understand why premades do it in the first place.  For the feeling of the wins?!

Uh, isn't winning worth a whole lot more honor? why else would they do it?

[Dren]

I'm finding it hard to understand why premades do it in the first place.  For the feeling of the wins?!

Uh, isn't winning worth a whole lot more honor? why else would they do it?

Yeah, I meant to come back and correct this.  I ran with this group again last night and figured out I was looking at the wrong system message after each BG.  We hit AB over and over and were getting like 3.5k each win.  I can't remember what I was looking at, but it was saying something like just 1k and I took that for the total.  My mistake.

The leader of that group is transferring off server, so that group is done.  I'll try to find another even after my initial bitching.  Last night was a lot of fun, not in the cases where we totally rolled the competition, but when we actually had good players in a PUG fight back and do pretty well.  The battles we had were epic feeling and great fun.  The last one we did was our partial premade against nearly a full premade from another server.  That was a great battle that lasted a long time with us winning.  This got me to thinking that the rated BG's in Cata might be something to consider long term for me.

[fuser]

Destruction warlock are fairly easy fun.  Three buttons ftw.  Actually 4, but most of it's three buttons. Cast immolate, keep Chaos bolt and Conflag on cool down and cast incinerate when they are.  They blow things up right fine.  They are real fun in the 70 pvp bracket.  That's where you three button people.  

I'm playing a demo which is amazing pug damage. Short pack fights seed/meta (with its charge/cleave/aoe damage). Long fights keep CoD/Cor/immolate up and shadowbolt to <35% then soul fire.

[Morat20]

Yes, that means Horde gets a ton of tenacity, but our numbers just overwhelm them. 

Come to my server, feel the opposite side's pain...

Last time I won, it was following a zerg -- obviously pre-made group, actually, of about 20 people who went straight to the westmost-garage, killing NPC's along the way, managed to all be Lts, built 10 seige engines all with gunners (I was one) and simply rolled up and battered their way through while the bulk of the Alliance was fighting around Sunken Ring with the bulk of the Horde.

They weren't even anyone on the tower guns on the West side when we blew through. We saw reinforcements showing up right as we hit the innermost wall.

Also, I notice most Alliance don't seem to know how you can ask the Spirit Healer to move you to another controlled graveyard.