Cross Server BG

[Watto44]

Anyway, TBC should make all of this irrelevant... and meanwhile it'll be a synch to get Exalted in all 3 BGs. I went from about 5k into Revered to 9.5k in about 3 hours of AV. Let's see how difficult it is to move up from Rank 7. I am guessing with the new system, very.

Will it make it worse? I'm not sure it will in the long run. As people move through - and therefore out of - the system, it becomes easier to gain rank as competition decreases and teams solidify. (In the recent months, people have been taking a day off during their rank 14 grind!) Couple that with the increased percentage of players that can reach rank X*, then you see a decrease in the time required to grind a rank.

Stormscale has always had a strong Oceanic community, which meant WSG or AB were generally running 24/7. Yet even then there was a limit on how long the main PvP team would run, and the length of that run decreased over time.

However, I'm not expecting to gain much rating this week due to the surge of PvP activity. It will be a matter of seeing how it pans out over time.

With the social thing, I am missing seeing familiar faces. However, I'm really enjoying chatting to new people as well. It's just really nice to meet so many new people in the 40-49 bracket.

PS. Bolty, that quote in my signiture was from a priest that I thought I'd pinch. I also hate dying before I get out of the charge stun. :rolleyes:

* I'm presuming that's what blizard has done to "ease the honor grind". It's what they did last time, and makes a certain amound of sense. I'd still prefer to see them drop the decay percentage a little, but... (Yes, I know the patch mentioned a reduction in the multiple kill penalty. However, if Blizzard doesn't understand how that will have absolutely zero affect on the honor grind I'll go hee.:)Again, it's just a matter of waiting for the system to be reverse engineered so we can see what the changes are.)

[Brista]

It rocks for healers

Other servers' pug players are better than our native Horde pug players, they hunt in packs not as lone wolves. Our server had become obsessed with the "do not join raid, do not share kills, grind to rank 14" mentality and the gameplay suffered. It's now much easier to lurk in the middle of the pack and heal

I'm feral/resto now and I have a much bigger impact being able to heal than having to gank the wounded in kitty form or slog it out with a Warrior as a Bear

Full battles help healers, zero queue time helps everyone

[Watto44]

The cross-realm, cross-forum trash talking has begun.

I feel somehow complete, whole for the first time in patches. :whistling:

[Tsunami]

On [EU]Kel'Thuzad, waiting times multiplied. There are 15 AVs, 47 WSGs, 53 ABs and always a waiting time of 40+ minutes. I guess the faction imbalance is nearly the same on all servers in the battlegroup.

[LavCat]

On [EU]Kel'Thuzad, waiting times multiplied. There are 15 AVs, 47 WSGs, 53 ABs and always a waiting time of 40+ minutes. I guess the faction imbalance is nearly the same on all servers in the battlegroup.

I may be wrong but I don't think faction imbalance is the issue. I suspect there is hardware to run only so many battlegrounds, and you don't get in until those ahead of you have finished. On Stormrage last night people were waiting hours, or at least over an hour, in queue for WSG. In contrast AB averaged about ten minutes.

Given that I am totally new to BG since last weekend, I don't have a lot of experience to compare. I do know that it was a lot of fun, even with the problem that Mongo described with getting in and the other problem of being stuck in the BG and unable to get out. Other than one AV (where I have no idea what is going on) all I did last night was AB.

The worst AB was losing in moments with no HK's and several deaths. We never saw what hit us. The most interesting was when there was someone who took charge of an alliance PUG and seemed to know what they were doing. He/she had macros set up and assigned people to tasks at the beginning. The leader explained that AB was all about defense and asked us to "refrain from glory". Baguette's job was to take the blacksmith's shop and hold it. Which she did. Only one banner, 3 KB and 5 HK for Baguette but we won handily. And she didn't die.

The most annoying person in BG (actually from the night before) was a warrior friend of a friend who kept complaining about not getting healed. I said: "Find a healer."

The most frustrating moments were losing one on one to an undead priest and another when I thought I had gotten away from an out numbered fight, with no mana and a shred of health, only to be caught.

We also had some long, come from behind victories, which were very sweet.

The last two AB of the night were loses, but Baguette led the Alliance stats. From an operations research point of view (not that I know any more about operations research than than about BG) I don't know what strategy is best. As I understand it we are really competing with our own faction for honor, not with Horde. I'm not sure whether the object is to win games or not.

[Concillian]

As I understand it we are really competing with our own faction for honor, not with Horde. I'm not sure whether the object is to win games or not.

Well, I am seeing only 2-3 people from my own server in AV. I assume this is similar to other's experience, with PvP realms probably seeing higher attendance. In this case it should be good to try to win, as you are not in direct competition with most people in the BG, only those from your own server.

With the 10% decay rate instead of 25% on HKs and the huge increase to the number of potential players you kill, there is possibility for some incredibly huge honor totals. I expect it will be difficult to honor grind right now.

[Ashock]

Well, I am seeing only 2-3 people from my own server in AV. I assume this is similar to other's experience, with PvP realms probably seeing higher attendance. In this case it should be good to try to win, as you are not in direct competition with most people in the BG, only those from your own server.

With the 10% decay rate instead of 25% on HKs and the huge increase to the number of potential players you kill, there is possibility for some incredibly huge honor totals. I expect it will be difficult to honor grind right now.

Check out WoW's PvP forum. AV is completely breaking the whole Honor grind. Looks like you have to PVP 24/7 now, and do it in AV.... which is really not PVP anyway. Looks like Blizzard's good intentions have made things much much worse.


-A

[Mavfin]

Check out WoW's PvP forum. AV is completely breaking the whole Honor grind. Looks like you have to PVP 24/7 now, and do it in AV.... which is really not PVP anyway. Looks like Blizzard's good intentions have made things much much worse.
-A

*Actually*, we have no way of knowing this for sure until next maintenance, *after* the first week of cross-server BGs.

[oldmandennis]

*Actually*, we have no way of knowing this for sure until next maintenance, *after* the first week of cross-server BGs.

Yes you do. Ask a AV pugger how much honor/hour he gets, and compare it to somebody playing on a pro AB/WSG team. If they are in the same ballpark, it's broken more then it was before.

My guess is the relms that had already figured out how to race AV are sharing that knowledge with the less PvP inclined ones. Everybody will realize that the sky really is falling, like I tried saying a month or so ago.

[Ashock]

Yes you do. Ask a AV pugger how much honor/hour he gets, and compare it to somebody playing on a pro AB/WSG team. If they are in the same ballpark, it's broken more then it was before.

My guess is the relms that had already figured out how to race AV are sharing that knowledge with the less PvP inclined ones. Everybody will realize that the sky really is falling, like I tried saying a month or so ago.

Yeh..... I have 130k Honor for the week, not counting today. Let's see if I lose rank.... AV is a joke with teams not even bothering to PVP and just rushing toward each other's Generals. You stop by to kill someone - you get cut off from your group..... not even worth it now. AV is pure PVE now. Takes 20 min to finish the game and with 10 HKs and a loss I can get more Honor than from a win in WSG. Bleh, this sucks. I've stopped equipping my PvP trinket.... Why bother? Carrot on a stick FTW.



-A

[LavCat]

*Actually*, we have no way of knowing this for sure until next maintenance, *after* the first week of cross-server BGs.

Well I, or rather Baguette, went from nothing eleven days ago (6 lifetime HK) to ranking 67. Essentially all from AB. I will have to compare notes with friends who were doing primarily AV. My satisfaction tonight was being out of mana and wining a knife fight with a rogue.

[LavCat]

Sort of as an update, after four weeks of PvP (lifetime 6 HK four weeks ago) Baguette is now up to rank 9 and was third in the Stormrage standings for the week. She skipped rank 8 which people told her was impossible. She still spends most of the time in AB but does some WSG and AV as well. She has two new pieces of her ugly priest set.

Because Fafner has to spend a fair amount of time raiding (we finally got Razorgore and she is now exalted with the Hydraxian Waterlords), Baguette does not have as much time for PvP as she would like. Yet it was gratifying in BG tonight to get a whisper from stranger on another server "You just tanked a rogue," to which she replied "That's why I use a dagger."

I would think that grinding honor would probably be harder, not easier, on a PvP server where presumably a higher percentage of the population was in BG. Oldmandennis what has been your experience since cross realm BG was started?

[Ashock]

I would think that grinding honor would probably be harder, not easier, on a PvP server where presumably a higher percentage of the population was in BG. Oldmandennis what has been your experience since cross realm BG was started?

I play on a 3 month old PVP server and last week with about 160K Honor I got 1/2 rank going from 8 to about 8.6. As far as a higher% of ppl being in BGs compared to a PVP server, don't be so sure. I bet many people (especially Alliance) who play on PVE servers are starving for some PVP, so maybe at least for a while longer they will actually que up more. Also, our ques have been almost instant even before cross-server BGs.

-A

[Concillian]

Sort of as an update, after four weeks of PvP (lifetime 6 HK four weeks ago) Baguette is now up to rank 9 and was third in the Stormrage standings for the week.

How much honor did that take? On Terenas Horde I think that would take somewhere on the order of 800k to 1 million to get #3, maybe higher, I haven't really been inspecting the high honor people. I know I inspected one guy with around 350k and he was around #40-something.

[oldmandennis]

Oldmandennis what has been your experience since cross realm BG was started?

Personally I was never really on the grind - there was a while where pugging BG's was fun for me, then it got not fun when the skill of my teammates and opponents didn't change. I got exaulted AV in a weekend on my hunter, and I go for 3-4 games a week on my shaman to keep repair costs low, or maybe a couple more if I'm bored and a guild team is running.

One of my friends is going for HWL, he and his twin play the toon pretty continuously when not in a raid. I believe he pulls down 800k-1.2 mil a week, and gets #1 pretty consistantly. He doesn't really have a team, which hurts him I think. Many of the real serious players that would form an actual team finished the grind some time ago, and are just now starting to play again at rank 2-3.

[LavCat]

How much honor did that take? On Terenas Horde I think that would take somewhere on the order of 800k to 1 million to get #3, maybe higher, I haven't really been inspecting the high honor people. I know I inspected one guy with around 350k and he was around #40-something.

I just checked. It was 608993 honor for last week.


Edit: #1 on Stormrage last week was Seagal with a little over a million.

[Tsunami]

AV is pure PVE now.

As the waiting times normalized on my realm (~15 Minutes AB and WSG, 1 hour AV), I started hitting AV with my Priest again. I tend to stay on defense, since most people seem too stupid to realize how important it is to slow the opponent down. Anyway, we were 2 Hunters, a Paladin, a Rogue, a Warlock and 4 Priests - and the Horde could not push past the SH graveyard, because the Hunters REALLY knew what they were doing.
I guess that many horde players returned to their base when they saw the turrets burning, but our crew of 9 kept 20 to 25 opponents busy for 15 Minutes. It was the most enjoyable PvP-experience I have had so far.

If you want to PvP in AV, stay on defense.:)

[Ashock]

As the waiting times normalized on my realm (~15 Minutes AB and WSG, 1 hour AV), I started hitting AV with my Priest again. I tend to stay on defense, since most people seem too stupid to realize how important it is to slow the opponent down. Anyway, we were 2 Hunters, a Paladin, a Rogue, a Warlock and 4 Priests - and the Horde could not push past the SH graveyard, because the Hunters REALLY knew what they were doing.
I guess that many horde players returned to their base when they saw the turrets burning, but our crew of 9 kept 20 to 25 opponents busy for 15 Minutes. It was the most enjoyable PvP-experience I have had so far.

If you want to PvP in AV, stay on defense.:)

I do. I rush with everyone else. As we are getting to FW, I check if there's not too many on D already, and if there are not, I hearth out. The only time when this is not timely is when the Horde uses the backdoor exploit.

Edit: Wait on my Realm for Alliance is AV - 3-7 min, AB 3-5 min, WSG - anywhere from 5 - 10 min. Life is good for those who love PVP :)


-A

[NiteFox]

Edit: Wait on my Realm for Alliance is AV - 3-7 min, AB 3-5 min, WSG - anywhere from 5 - 10 min. Life is good for those who love PVP :)
-A

I know, I've been running WSG near-consecutively for the last two days and haven't had to wait long (About 9 minutes was the most I've had to wait).

That said, I kept running into the same teammates over and over again. Which is good in a sense that I knew that if I stayed with some of these we'd form a pretty unbeatable defense (Only three times in something like fifteen flag caps by the Alliance did the flag carrier actually make it outside the mill. Intimidation+Concussion Shot+Frost Nova for the win) but it did sorta shatter the illusion that tens of thousands of other players on the realms were also competing for a place in the Battlegrounds.

That said, maybe it's because not many people play in the 30-39 bracket for all the twinks on the Alliance side.

[LavCat]

As a further update, after eleven weeks of PvP, Baguette has made Field Marshal. She is not sure if she wants to continue all the way to GM but she plans to keep at it for a while to see how it goes. Has anyone done GM and would care to share how long it took?