Screw You Kid, I’m Out Of Here

Orphan Achievements, done. Got the EotS flag cap last night. Approximate the Hunter and Invariant the Mage ventured in. Approx got his cap in the first bg; the Alliance played pretty well and we always had at least two bases and usually the flag. He actually then managed to get the flag and bring it to me twice; the first time I managed to hit Ice Block instead of clicking the flag (don’t ask) and the second time it bugged and wouldn’t cap. With only 8 seconds to go we didn’t have time to try anything else.

The next two EotS were utter fail; in one we agreed on a strategy but couldn’t accomplish it. There was a really skilled shaman who kept knocking our offense off the cliff to our death.

Finally we got a group of Alliance that knew what they were doing. I tried to get the flag several times but just died; my lousy pvp gear and fire spec give me the survivability of a snowball in hell. I went on defense and kept watch at the Draeni Ruins and Approximate ran the flag; he dropped it just outside the cap point, I picked it up and scored. Some of the others in the bg were confused about what he had done so he explained he had to get the achievement for his wife and had a couple “aww, that’s nice” type comments. And one “Darn it, I’m going to have to burn badges and get an entire pvp set just for this one achievement” comment. I don’t think that guy was having fun.

In summary, bring a friend or three with you. Let whoever is most durable and has the most tricks run the flag, while the others watch his back, and get that thing done. It took me a total of 7 EotS bgs to do; 1 AB, 1 WG, 4 AVs. Not too bad at all. Barely enough honor for one piece of gear. It was annoying while doing it at times but not as bad as I’d feared.

After that we went to Stormwind, turned in our orphans, and then headed to Shattrath to look after a cute like Draeni girl who has a great destiny. Wonder if we’ll see her again sometime? Apparently these underprivileged youths have a surplus of pets, because they gave us one. Of course Invariant has 63 noncombat pets right now so it’s not like she needed another but hey, that’s two closer to the Pet Fawn!

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I Remember This PvP Stuff Being More… Deathy

So, Orphan’s Week. I do holiday achievements on my mage Invariant. It’s sort of an apology to her for not being my main any more, plus Analogue has flight form and doesn’t need a proto drake. So there.

I’ve gotten to needing Flame Warden (accidentally did that one on Analogue), two Hallow’s End achievements, and Children’s Week, which is the one I’ve been dreading. Saturday I spent farming up the Lovely Cakes and such that we’d need (they had gone to 100g on the AH when I checked) so that we could concentrate on School of Hard Knocks.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy PvP. In BC when Invariant was my only max level character, PvP was my end game. Heck I got her all decked out in purple shinies including the staff that looked like it might have questionable alternative uses (the pink glowing rotating… whatever… at the top. What was that anyway?). All from battlegrounds because I am not and never will be any good at arenas.

But you see, I have a really great mage pvp strategy. I spec into fire. I hate frost, just don’t like the playstyle at all. Then I run at a bunch of enemies and do as much damage as possible in the ten seconds before I die. This strategy works great when I get in a bg mood, which hasn’t happened lately honestly. Unfortunately it doesn’t work well for the School of Hard Knocks achievement, which requires me to accomplish goals with my orphan out.

Still. Ok, activate pvp spec. Check what I’ve got for pvp gear… ouch, not much, I did some pvp at the start of Wrath but I have very little. Still what I’ve got gives me 250 resilience which is better than nothing. I queue up and get started.

Arathi Basin has always been my favorite BG. It feels like the right size of battle, I can usually contribute and I know the strategies. In this case, I headed right for the Gold Mine – the Stables was the noob “click on the flag with the orphan out” honeypot – and get it done. Ten seconds in, we’re good, now I can enjoy this bg. Well I stay at the mine with a few other orphan tenders and when a horde guy comes by, we let him cap and then they recap a few times, and then the guy wanders away…. by this time every point has exchanged hands a dozen time and I realize this could be a long battle.

I look around for action. For a while there’s a bit of a fight at the Lumber Mill, but then the Horde take it pretty solidly and the Alliance doesn’t want to press there. So I go the the Blacksmith. It’s currently ours and Horde keep coming by to try to cap. I hang out by the flag and every time a group shows up – Tab, Living Bomb, Tab, Living Bomb, Tab, Living Bomb PYROBLAST TO THE FACE! How’d you like that? MWAHAHA. We held that flag against all comers for the next ten minutes; it ended up being the only place in the BG that actual pvp was taking place.

Lost the battle, got the objective.

WG next  – I come into a battle that’s already started and a Tauren immediately tries to stomp in my head. I manage to finish him off and notice that there’s a Troll picking up and dropping our flag, so I get that achievement too.  The game stretches on… and on…. and on… There were about two players on each side actually trying to run the flag. They got nowhere until five minutes from the end when the Horde decided to go on offense and we had to really fight to defend the flag. It ended up as a 0-0 tie. And frankly the most boring battleground I’ve ever been in. I had thought the AB was bad until I got to the Blacksmith for the battle there; that was nothing compared to dancing in our flagroom waiting for something to happen. (Go run the enemy flag yourself? I hear someone ask. Dude. Fire mage wearing non-pvp gear. That’s just not happening.)

Alterac Valley – fun BG usually. My first two tries dumped me into mostly complete battles where the Horde set up a gauntlet halfway down the map ganking anyone who tried to get to the end. No chance to try a tower. The third one, Reversion brought his hunter Approximate along. Approx is his pvp and holiday achievement character, and has a motorcycle and pvp gear. He got me into a tower in time to cap it. Yay! And then we puttered around killing things until someone managed to zerg rush the enemy boss. I mostly died a lot. I need better gear.

Eye of the Storm. Never a fan of this place. And right now, it’s a nightmare. The objective for the achievement is to cap a flag. I’m not sure I’ve ever capped a flag there. I’ll find out when I get it done as there’s an achievement for the first time you cap a flag. The first one I went to, we got three capped and the Horde kept the flag. Miserable failure. The second one, I ended up rousing the troops, running a solid defense of the Mage Tower  and Draeni ruins, pushing hard at the Horde; we had the flag the whole time and won convincingly. I never got near the flag. Clearly I’m doing this wrong. I envision a lot of EotS this week to get the achievement.

On the positive side, I’m gaining honor. Got to check a list for PVP gear for Invariant and maybe respec… I took Dragon’s Breath out and a knockout is great for pvp… she’s got a few arcane points she doesn’t actually need.

On the whole, Blizzard succeeded in making me want to pvp again with this achievement. They also succeeded in making pvp kind of boring. There were battlegrounds where I only died once or twice. That… doesn’t happen, not with my gear like this. Hopefully I’ll stay in a pvp mood next week when it’s fun again. Right now – well sorry hardcore pvp folks, I’m in UR BGs being a N00b. And sorry achievement mongers – I’m just good enough at the bg to mess up things for you. Don’t hate me – hate the shiny shiny protodrake-shaped carrot on a stick Blizzard is dangling at you…

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