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Cross-Realm Battlegrounds... or not.
It seems like just yesterday (or was it actually yesterday?) that the cross-realm battlegrounds were the talk of the town. However, something seems to have gone wrong with the system, as illustrated in the screen-shot to the right, which was taken last night. One Arathi Basin up? One Warsong Gulch? One Alterac Valley? And interestingly enough, they're all full of players from my realm and only my realm. Now, I can't find anything about this on any of the official forums, but it seems to me that cross-realm battlegrounds are... well, not! Are cross-realm battlegrounds down for the count? Blizzard, say it ain't so!
The Puzzle of Battlegrounds Reputation
Since my current character-of-choice isn't running in a raiding guild, I've recently turned to PvP as a possible alternative way to acquire new and interesting gear for myself. In my travels through Azeroth's battlegrounds, I've noticed something puzzling about reputation gain in each - some are easier to get than others. Specifically Aterac Valley reputation - which has some simply incredible weapon rewards - seems to come a lot easier than Warsong Gulch or Arathi Basin reputation. So I sat down and decided to do the math and see how it really works out - is AV reputation given out like candy, or am I just imagining things? Read on to find out.
Breakfast Topic: PvP in Patch 1.12
It's no secret that there are PvP changes coming in the next content patch. There are going to be new cross-realm battlegrounds, auto-joining battlegrounds groups, world PvP objectives, and it's been hinted that the honor system in general will be a bit more lenient (though there haven't been any specifics on this). I've never made serious attempts at achieving the game's highest PvP ranks, simply because I know its impossible for someone who can't dedicate more time than I have to the cause. However, this patch may encourage me to head to the battlegrounds - or perhaps Silithus and Eastern Plaguelands - a bit more often for some PvP action. Am I going to hit rank 14 sometime soon? I doubt it - but the changes to the system may make it where I'll enjoy spending more time accumulating honor than I have in the past. However, what about the rest of you - are the changes to the system encouraging you to spend more time in the battlegrounds, or driving you away?
What Do Cross-Realm Battlegrounds Solve?
This question seems to be getting more and more play on the forums recently - and I can certainly see where this poster is coming from. When I played Alliance myself, I rarely participated in PvP battlegrounds for the same reason - queues tended to last about an hour and I always seemed to think up more interesting things to do than wait around. When I started playing Horde, I found myself doing battlegrounds much more frequently - and would consider ten minutes to have been a long battlegrounds queue. However, if most realms have higher numbers of Alliance than Horde, won't the problem be the same, only on a larger scale? CM Nethaera explains that "some people may see their time go up, others may see theirs go down" - as populations and queues are averaged across many realms. However, Nethaera also notes that cross-realm battlegrounds have not yet been tested on the test realms - and, in my mind, any test realm environment still won't give us a good view on how this will impact the live realms.
Healing in PvP
The priest I'm currently playing is the first character I've made any serious attempts to PvP with. And, no, I'm not blazing through Alterac Valley in shadowform - I heal, much to the amazement of people I end up grouped with. At first I was surprised by the shock of other players when I healed them, but after spending some time in all of the battlegrounds, I've come to realize that healing in PvP is quite a headache.In PvE groups and instance runs, players are arranged into parties. In a raid group, where there are multiple parties, there's usually a healer in each and we stick to healing our own parties. We move forward as a group by necessity - because a single player would be highly unlikely to stand on their own against the monsters we're fighting. I watch my party's health bars, and I heal them when they get low. Easy enough, right? But in a PvP situation...
The Waiting Game
It was 8PM, local time for me, when I got home. An hour's drive in traffic. I hop on the computer, intent on working out the stress of the day in some PvP matches, but there seems to be a 400 player queue to log on to my realm - that's another half hour. Well, okay - I can go find something for dinner and it will be done by the time I'm back. All I want is to run a few Warsong Gulch games, and hopefully get my new priest up to friendly with the Warsong Outriders - humble enough goals, right? But, wait - now that I'm logged on, there seems to be an hour's queue to get in to Warsong at all. Hmm, I suppose I do have a good book I've been meaning to read. But, honestly, I have to wonder - when did I start to spend more time waiting than I did playing? Because this new waiting game is not nearly as fun as the game I used to play.Of course there's hope - new servers and hardware improvements, as well as the possibility of cross-realm battlegrounds will both cut into this waiting game - but, until then, all there is to look forward to is more of the same. I know I'm not the only one out in Azeroth who's hit this wall - what do the rest of you do when all you want to do is play, but the game is, for one reason or another, out of your reach?
Arathi Basin Guide
If you're a relative new PVPer, Arathi Basin can be very intimidating. It has more players than Warsong Gulch, it is considerably bigger, and the objectives aren't nearly as clear.This comprehensive article over at OGaming is for you. Even if you are an experienced player, it is likely that you will find something in this article that you can sink your teeth into. As a moderately dedicated PVPer, I've never pulled off a 5-cap and I found their advice very helpful. I'll try for the 5-cap tonight and let y'all know how it works out. :D
