PVP marks still bad, random BG system good
Update to the silly battleground mark conversion! Not only are they worth barely any honor, but according to Tobold, the commendations you receive in return are Unique (10), which means you have to buy 10, click them 10 times to get the honor, and then go buy 10 more. I only PVP every now and then (except for a spree at 79 when I decided to enjoy the pre-80 bracket a bit, before you got experience for doing battlegrounds) and I still had 200+ marks prior to 3.3.3. It would be pretty annoying to convert those all in sets of 10.
I tried out the random BG queue yesterday as Rades, and got Eye of the Storm. I quite enjoy EotS, except I can never remember the base names other than Fel Reaver ruins. I love flag running, and the short hills & slopes in EotS are perfect for a ranged DPS to blow someone up from underneath, without them even seeing you. Having a giant, terrifyng red beast in their face makes it hard to focus, too. ;)
So Nuramoc and I spent a pleasant 15 minutes running around slaughtering Warlocks (it's funny how many just flail about and panic when they realize Fear is useless against Bestial Wrath), and netted a nice 6.5k honor for our efforts, 3.5k coming from winning a random battleground. That's a nice bonus, and 3k from the battleground itself isn't terrible, either. Looks like battlegrounds will once again be a nice source of honor (what an odd statement that is), instead of everyone relying on Wintergrasp for their huge semi-weekly chunks of epic gem funds honor. I probably won't farm them repeatedly, but I might do one a day to get that bonus.
Still, much like any "random X" system, I wish you could exclude one from the list, as I despise Strand of the Ancients. The only fond memory I have from Strand is actually getting owned by someone. I was driving one of the siege engines and smashing down the final door blocking us from the Titan Relic, and as soon as the door fell I hopped out, hit my rocket boots and sprinted for the Relic. Somehow, in the 1-2 seconds it would have taken me to reach it, I got sheeped. Amazing when you consider that I wasn't targetable until leaving the vehicle, and there was a good 10-15 people running around causing havoc - that mage was on the ball! Another of my teammates captured the relic seconds later, but I tip my hat to the impressive mage with the lightning reflexes. I still can't believe it.
Vidyala
The conversation is a colossal pain, and it's hilarious around the vendor, too. Golden explosions and all the races doing the "train" emotes, I had to mute my sound. It took a good twenty minutes to convert 'em all.
I did some random BGing yesterday too, mostly consisting of treeflail and what felt like my personal failure in WSG. (Hate WSG. So much.) I lost count of how often I died in that WSG, and I was a healer. It stopped being fun. I mean, I'm not a sore loser, I'm OK with losing, but when I can't take two steps from the GY and I've got eight Horde descending on me to pound me into the ground... It made me wish the rez timer took longer. I'm glad you got so much honour, though!
March 25, 2010 at 10:37 AM
Rades
Ouch, that sounds like a painful WSG experience. :( Where was the rest of your team?! They should be defending the poor tree!
I find healing battlegrounds on my tree just as painful though, at least for the smaller-team ones. Warsong is the worst, you always end up alone and ganked. Arathi and Eye are...somewhat better, if you can tag along with a few DPS and form a little squad. And Alterac is great for being just one little healthbar amidst the masses! ;D
March 25, 2010 at 12:15 PM
Vidyala
I've yet to have a WSG experience that wasn't painful, to be honest. And I don't know where they were - standing in the flag room, trying to avoid being ganked themselves... riding off at top speed to leave me frantically trying to clear the area!
(If a tree falls in the Ashenvale forest, does anybody care?)
I try to attach myself to someone who looks like they know what they're doing, which sometimes works out all right. Arathi has been better - I try to either be defending a strategic flag with some other people (when they don't ride off and LEAVE ME THERE, hello, I'm a tree?!) or else with the offensive force trying to take something. The one AV I had was actually fabulous, we blitzed it and I got the "under 6 minutes" achievement.
March 25, 2010 at 1:00 PM