EZ fretted all Monday evening as she was forced to wait until after the Monday night football game to get some game time (a thoroughly unimpressive start to the season for the Chargers, despite a 24-20 win).
It was past 10:30pm server time before the game was over. Ando was on, back from his own extended absence, and was still in need of a pair of bracers from Ragefire Chasm. Mel volunteered to help, and after a half hour and four runs, Ando had his bracers.
EZ and Ando decided to turn xp back on, paid their 10g to the rogue that hangs out with the battleground masters, and signed up. With xp turned on we had a better chance of getting a match, and with our almost complete twink gear set, we should have an edge against lower level and lesser geared opponents. Of course, the alliance would also have their share of almost twinks.
A glitch in the invites to the battlegroups put Ando in a match without EZ for several long minutes. A spot opened up midway through the battle, though, and EZ joined the horde team.
EZ has had a rough time figuring out pvp from a DPS perspective. Wild has been primarily a healer over the course of his long existence and so has not been much of a help to his family in learning the DPS or pvp ropes. Sage advice from both Red's and Myst's cadre of pvpers have helped and EZ continues to draw on their experience and knowledge. Like all new things, though, it's practice, practice, practice that builds the reflexes and improves the decision-making in the heat of battle.
EZ has gone through a number of phases since first embarking on the pvp lifestyle as a DPS instead of a healer. She was very gung ho to be a melee pvper, and built a gear set heavy in +agi to raise her crit for those Fiery Weapon and Flametongue enchanced close combat assaults. That approach ignored a major element of a low level shaman - EZ's offensive spells. With little spellpower, her spells such as Earth Shocks and even her spell enchanted blade were much less effective. Melee crits alone were not enough to survive in the pvp battlegrounds, a fact supported by additional research by Red and confirmed by EZ's problems in her earliest visits to Warsong Gulch.
EZ started over from scratch, building a new gear set heavy in spellpower but also not ignoring stamina (to keep herself alive) and mana (the juice that fuels her spells). EZ rebuilt herself from the fashionably color coordinated wardrobe of +agi "Fanglord" gear to a look more like a young mage wearing her mother's too large robes. The mismatched set of gear had the stats, though, and EZ began learning a new approach. Now it was Earth Shock, drop totems, escape with ghost wolf to heal, lightning bolt when the enemy runs, and so on. There was more of a ranged DPS feel to it than the in-your-face melee.
That was how EZ fought in that first WSG battle. With help from Ando's healing, EZ did fairly well, getting 6 killing blows (KB) in that match, more than a Wild toon has ever gotten in a single match. Not that that is much of an accomplishment; I've seen Red get many many more than that. But it was a start. We also won the match.
EZ made another major mistake, however. She forgot about her blade. Playing a pvp shaman properly is not a matter of all melee or all ranged DPS, it's using spells and ranged attacks as well as wading into the fray and letting Dawnblade, EZ's fast, fiery dagger, slice and burn opponents still disoriented from the ranged attack. Ando reminded EZ of that.
EZ did her best to incorporate all this advice filling her head. In the second match the allies got off to an early lead and it appeared they might have the edge in higher level, geared toons. They soon became frustrated by their inability to kill Ando, though; between his bear form armor, self-healing, rooting the enemy in place, and escape artist travel form, he could not be brought down. I think Ando carried and capped the allie flag at least two of three times in the match, which we eventually won.
For EZ, she still needs lots of practice getting a routine down and reacting faster to events on the field. For now, she remains a somewhat klutzy work in progress, which she will readily admit to with a smile. "It's all fun," EZ says. "I can't wait to do it again!"
EZ with an unidentified blood elf "friend" that seems to like EZ's new garb
What did your dps look like after the second game and the change in tactics?
ReplyDeleteDPS was up, but I still need to work on staying in melee range for auto-attack once EZ moves in. Been my downfall with pvp all along - I ain't got the reflexes to stick with a moving target that the xbox generation has. :)
ReplyDelete