Live, From Northrend

That's right. Yours truly got a beta invite!

I'm still waiting on Sal and Mio to be copied over, but I did get the chance to mess around on a death knight for a little while tonight. Got up to level 57 before becoming bored and switching to Zrii.

I haven't done any reading or research on DKs at all, so I was flying blind and just screwing around. My real interest in beta is learning how to play a resto shaman and I can't until Sal is copied over.

First impressions though: Quest lines are really neat. No spoilers, but there's some lovely lore involved in the DK quests. Weapon and armor detail is gorgeous. DKs also have the most beautiful mounts in-game, my goodness.

Back in Azeroth, I spent the rest of my evening sucking at pvp. I started on a pvp server and abandoned it as soon as I could because I hated it so much. I still hate it. For some reason, I keep thinking I'll be good at it. I even went so far as to twink! But I still suck and it makes me incredibly mad. I'm normally a very laid-back, calm player, but when I start pvping and in particular, losing, I get extraordinarily upset. Horde was on a bad streak in WSG and I was getting focus-fired. That isn't good for my temper, so I ended up deserting the battlegrounds on both characters. I can't even describe how upset I get. And it wasn't any better doing 2v2s on Salanthe earlier in the evening. Pvp is the only thing that brings me within moments of canceling my account or deleting Salanthe. I wish I were exaggerating, but it really does make me that angry.

I had hoped that distracting myself by writing in the blog would calm me down somewhat, but I'm still grinding my teeth. I guess I'll have to try for the Gold Medal on Zgu tomorrow instead.

Learning to Play

I didn't pvp on Salanthe at all until level 70. No battlegrounds, no world pvp, and certainly no arenas. After a series of duels I lost this morning with my baby shaman, I think that's why I suck so much at shaman pvp.

I'm making this twink shaman to replace Zgu in the 39 bracket. Her name is Zrii and I'm excited about her. I've got her gear planned out and already own quite a few pieces. All she really needs is some leveling. Well, I decided to mess around on her this morning; at least get her to level 10. As I was running through Razor Hill, turning in some quests, another level 10 shaman challenges me to a duel.

I have a level 70 shaman, right? I'm shaman class officer of the most progressed guild Horde-side on the server. I should be able to soundly beat this little level 10 shaman in cloth. Well, I didn't. In fact, I lost three times before the shaman left. How incredibly humiliating! I'm not even sure what I did wrong, except suck.

Now I'm torn. I don't know if it's a good idea for me to make a shaman twink. I'm pretty terrible at it, obviously, and a shaman might be too much pressure. On the other hand, I have this hope that by learning to pvp at level 39, I'll become better at it on Salanthe. And of course, hope wins. I'm still apprehensive though.

So Zrii is on her way to replacing Zgu, gaining 3 levels this morning. Heneli got some attention too, and thanks to a friend running me through RFK, RFD, and SM Cath, she's now level 31. Heneli will get her bony pony with the next patch!

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.

Warriors

I just have to say, warrior is a wonderful class. I spent all evening long doing battlegrounds. I was trying to get enough marks for the neck, bubble trinket, ring, and sword. About 2k honor later, I got all my marks and got all my stuff. Then I leveled to 38 so I could equip it all. Then I trained.

Somewhere in the middle of all my battlegrounds, I ran into another warrior from Moon Guard who happened to be wearing the guild tag of the best pvp guild on the server. We chatted a bit and it resulted in him inviting me to his twink guild! Oooh, so tempting! The networking alone would be worth it!

Unfortunately for Zgu, she is an alt and the reason she wears my main's guild tag is so that they can find me, since I've been spending so much time on her lately. I had to decline and it makes me very sad! It really is an awesome opportunity! Maybe someday, when Zgu turns into my main and this blog's title no longer makes sense. *shifty eyes*

After I got all my new gear and leveled, I hopped back into Warsong Gulch for one last hurrah before bed. I wanted to give my new stuff a test run. Well, this warrior I mentioned earlier invited me to a group and I ended up doing a few WSGs. In between matches, he queued us for arenas, which I totally didn't know you could do below 70! And wow, that was fun! What an awesome way to learn how to pvp! We were demolished by a priest/warlock team, but we demolished a priest/paladin team. Considering that neither of us were truly twinked, that's pretty awesome.

The point of this post is that warrior is incredibly fun. I'm still completely amazed that I'm finding it so enjoyable. I mean, I actually love pvp with my warrior! *shakes head* I can't believe it. I've been a hardcore pvp hater since I started playing this game 3 years ago. Playing a shaman didn't help my opinion either. But warrior has changed all that!

Accomplishments of note for Zgu tonight: Over 1k HKs, friendly with Warsong Outriders, reached level 38. Go go baby warrior!