To Twink or Not To Twink

I tried some battlegrounds on Salanthe today. It has been a very long time since I last set foot in them. I worked very hard to earn enough honor for the non-set epic elemental gear and then I took a break. Well, the guild accepted a new resto shaman yesterday. This shaman is very good. The thing that has me a little worked up is the fact that he's also extremely good at pvp healing.

It's a long story, but I switched from healing in arenas to elemental several months ago. The primary reason was that I felt useless healing. Shaman are so poorly designed to do 2v2 arena well. I thought elemental would be better.

Anyway, this new resto shaman has me somewhat jealous. I've worked very hard to be good at what I do and I have a certain measure of pride in playing my class well. All aspects of my class, including pvp. To see another resto shaman succeed so well in pvp hurts me, because I'm so terrible at it.

So the reason I tested the battleground waters today was because I was considering grinding honor for off-set epic healing gear and switching back to resto for arenas. As you can probably guess, that didn't go over so well. I really, truly hate shaman pvp. With as much passion as I've ever hated anything. I told my private chat channel today that if I didn't have so much time and effort invested in Salanthe, I would quit playing her entirely. I'm dead serious about it too.

I play this game to succeed at it. I want to do well in all aspects of it. To hit a glass wall because the creators of the game designed your chosen class poorly is the worst kind of feeling. It is literally impossible for me to excel at certain aspects of the game because of the way my class is designed. It is awful.

This is one of the reasons I made my warrior. It is a more well-rounded class in terms of succeeding in the different aspects of the game. Warrior can be good at pvp and at pve. They are essential members of raids, as tanks and dps, and there is very little that they cannot handle. Not only that, but their buffs and abilities cannot be dispelled. They can get to and away from their opponents readily. It is, in many ways, the exact opposite of a shaman.

Making a warrior was a good choice, too. I love being able to charge into a battleground and not care about anything. I don't need to care about my health because there's nothing I can do about it. I don't need to care about anyone else's health because there's nothing I can do about it. If I want to kamikaze into the middle of a flag room in Warsong Gulch, I can do it without feeling bad. Moreover, I might actually succeed in killing my opponents, which is something I cannot do on Salanthe, resto or elemental.

I'm not sure I will enjoy the tanking aspect of a warrior that much, but I won't deal with that until I have to. (And yes, I realize that many people are annoyed with warriors that don't tank. That is another issue I will have to address at some point. For now, it doesn't worry me.)

The point of this post was not to whine about how terrible shaman are at pvp, or talk about how wonderful warriors are. What I wanted to discuss was the dilemma of whether or not I should twink my warrior. (Urban Dictionary: In an MMORPG, a veteran player who makes a new character and gives a bunch of top-shelf equipment from their older, maxed-out characters to the new character.)

I have been pvping a lot on my warrior. I had certain pieces of gear I wanted for certain levels and I had to earn the honor and marks to afford them. The more time I spent pvping with Zgu, the more I loved it though. That and it is very fun to spoil an alt silly. I've purchased tons of expensive weapons and armor for her, without the intention of twinking.

Now that she's reached level 39, I had a choice to make. Do I stop leveling her and twink her out at level 39 or do I continue leveling her? Complicating matters, several of my guildmates have level 39 twinks and I've been pvping with them lately. It's very fun!

Ultimately, I decided to semi-twink Zgu for level 39. I will keep her there until I earn enough marks and honor for her next gear upgrades at level 48. Only then will I consider leveling her again, if I feel like it. And if I do decide to level her, I'm thinking of making another twink for the 39 bracket, possibly a shadow priest.

I made a list of enchants to get for Zgu's gear. Overall, her gear is very good and only one piece really should be upgraded. Thus it's fine for me to spend a lot of money on enchanting materials to make her a true twink. I'm actually a little excited to try her out once she has all her enchants. She rips through opponents already and it will be awesome to see what she can do once she's a proper twink.