Monday (11 Jan) - Gunslinging Trio

Monday (11 Jan) - Gunslinging Trio

Battlegrounds pvp is a simple game, really. Two teams face off with a goal to complete a set of objectives within a certain amount of time. Complete your objectives first, or deny the opponent team their objectives, and you win. The two teams may not be of equal strength, and in reality the two teams are almost never of equal strength given that with rare exception the players on the teams are a completely random mix.
There is the opportunity for strategy, and a less capable team in terms of experience level, class makeup, etc, can still win if players work together. But throw any random bunch of people together, give them sixty seconds of preparation and then toss them into combat, and things like "strategy" and "coordination" go pretty much right out the window. Then it becomes a free-for-all, with each player deciding what role to play, how to play it, and when. Sometimes something coordinated evolves out of that, more often not.

The moral of the story is that any time even smaller pockets of coordinated effort can come together, good things can happen. On Monday night's pvp fest in Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin, the alliance players, for the most part, out-gunned and out-matched the horde. There was a pocket of horde coordination, though, that at times could wrest victory from defeat. That pocket was the gunslinging trio of Ando, Lao, and EZ. Our team of druid, priest, and shaman wrecked mighty havoc on the alliance because we worked together as a team. All three of us can heal, which makes for some powerful survivability all by itself. Wielded with intention, few allie teams could keep us from our goal.

EZ was the point of the spear, a role I rarely play but am really getting into. Ando was the medic, magically healing all wounds and giving EZ the freedom to go into all out attack. Lao balanced the team, adding additional strength to the attack as needed or healing if that was what was required. Lao was the highest level at 25, in a contest that allowed players from level 20-29. EZ and Ando were level 22.

Frankly, shaman don't really scare opponents, particularly at the lower levels. Shaman can be crowd controlled, we have no instant heals, we have no heavy armor, we can't drape protective bubbles around ourselves, we have no pets to help out. Shaman are a hybrid, part caster and part melee, and not quite as good at either compared to classes dedicated to those roles. At level 22 EZ must mix it up in hand-to-hand to be successful, slicing and dicing with his fire enhanced dagger while casting a range of spells to confuse, slow down, and overwhelm an opponent. And with Lao and Ando at his back, even level 29s eventually go down under the barrage.

EZ got to experience first hand many times the sudden realization in the eyes of a powerful melee class like a rogue, or a warrior, or a hunter, when they are down to their last bit of health and EZ is still in their face, still hammering away, still keeping them even from escaping. They know they are going to die. At the hands of a shaman.

Ando is a fierce healer, and gleefully recounted the frustration of attackers who find that they can't kill EZ with Ando backing me up. Then they go after Ando - and find themselves in a endless chase with an instant cast self healer who can outmaneuver them and still pot shot them with moonfire. All the while EZ is slowing the allie down and closing in on him again. With the three of us together, few groups of any size could stop us, at any level. There were some magnificent pitched battles, where as many as half of each team descended on one spot to contest an objective, and to be still standing at the end of it is really something to experience.

We had one ninja moment during a Warsong Gulch match where the horde heavily out matched the alliance. We quickly capped their flag twice, going up 2-0. We mixed it up mid-field for awhile, getting some honor points, and then invaded their base and took their flag the third and final time. The horde flag carrier, though, decided not to cap the flag. Most of the horde team were in our own base, and there was nothing the allies could do to stop us, although they tried mass assaults on us several times. That's fine - for awhile. But despite louder and louder protests from the rest of us, the player refused to cap the flag, argued with us, told us he'd hold the flag until time ran out, etc. We told the rest of the horde not to heal him. Even though he was a pally and could heal himself, he could not survive a concentrated attack if he got no help. But a couple of other horde liked the game and they kept him going.

The allies retreated back to the field, and they were hunted down, many of them probably leaving the fight in disgust, and eventually time did run out. It was a win, but not one I could appreciate.

Overall it was a superb night. Our trio couldn't be everywhere at once, though, and the allies had their own pockets of organization. We won a few matches, and they won a few. With the help of Ando and Lao, the level 22 EZ finished in the top four in total damage in almost every match. In our best match, in the Arathi Basin with a team of 15, EZ led in killing blows with 14, and the only player who beat EZ in honor kills, 46 to 45, was Ando, credit to all that healing. Lao did awesome DPS and healing and was among the leaders in capturing and defending bases.

EZ had her own gotcha moment, too. Ando must have noticed something odd about EZ's melee attacks, and mentioned that EZ might want to look at improving the skill rating of her dagger. EZ has been using the dagger for awhile, and weapon skill usually increases pretty quickly when being used. At the end of the evening EZ checked her dagger skill rating. It was a 3. A level 1 player, wet behind the ears and just minutes old, can get a weapon past skill 3 in less than a minute. A dagger with skill 3 against level 20+ opponents is going to miss almost every time. Misses won't skill up a weapon. So much for being the "point of the spear." EZ's dagger "point" was more like soft rubber.

EZ must have equipped the dagger after she stopped levelling and never used it anywhere other than in pvp. That's an easy fix, though, and the silver lining is that she'll have honed that dagger to razor sharpness by the time she enters the next battleground.