PvP as a Blood DK

Well, for the last few weeks I've been taking part in rated battlegrounds with my new guild - and having a great time. My rating is now 1601...and still going up! :)
Generally I'm loving the new guild and now awaiting only two votes before I become an official member. You can find my 'tldr' application here.


My role as a Frost DK has always been to be part of the attack group. My DPS is high and I have some valuable CC in the form of Hungering Cold, Strangulate, Mind Freeze and the very useful ability to stack on enemy flag carriers...Necrotic Strike.


I've also been target caller, mostly because the best target caller is a melee class and I'm one of those people with a clear/loud voice that can be understood pretty clearly. However, I have little RBG experience and this has shown in my target calling - I know pretty much who I would like to see dead first, and who I'd like to see CC'd but there are certain situations and compositions of teams that I've not yet come across and they require the calling of different targets.


The worst of it is, that people keep telling me I'm doing a good job, but I'm lacking so much confidence I'm constantly wondering to myself if I have called the correct target, especially when I see team members attacking a target different to who I've called out. But, I've recently found an addon (thanks to a guildie who discovered the addon first) that I plan on using from now on. It is called Battleground Targets and can be downloaded through Curse. It lists the enemy team and each person's class and role and can be used to target that person. It shows how their health is looking, but perhaps the most important tool for me as a target caller - it shows how many people have a particular player as target.


However, as much as I have been enjoying calling targets, I know there are much more experienced players in the team who would most likely do a better job, but are not suited to the job because of perhaps having a poor microphone, or they play as a ranged damage dealer or healer. I only hope that the team are willing to allow me to learn with them and appreciate that sometimes, it is easy to make a mistake - especially if it is been a long day or things are going on in real life which means the RBG does not have as much of my attention as it should. (There has been some trauma in my personal life recently, that's not appropriate to go into here - but it is my excuse for sometimes failing recently...and I'm sticking to it :P )


However, the team is consistently short of flag carriers - I assume this is a pretty widespread problem as most places are short of tanks for PvE too. At the moment, I know that Blood DK's are the most favoured Flag Carrier, because of their ability to stay alive. I've had in my head, the idea of taking blood as my off spec and so being able to step in as a FC if one is required. (I think that being able to be flexible in which spec I play will give me a better chance of joining the team as a full member.)


So, I finally got round to it. I started farming honor to replace gear so I could gem and enchant for Stamina and Resilience rather than Strength, and I've finally got my Jewel Crafting up to 525 in order to take full advantage of jewelcrafter's gems...101 stamina is luverly! ;)


So I started to scour the internet for a good Blood PVP guide and came up pretty much empty handed. There are excellent guides on places such as Arena Junkies but they only cover Frost and Unholy, and like other places don't mention Blood - or if they do, it's in passing. So I've found that I have had to look at PvE Tanking guides for some tips - so my plan is this...Over the next few weeks/months as I get more experience and play time with my Blood DK in PvP I am going to start compiling a Blood Guide. It's only going to be my opinion, so unlikely to be amazing or ground breaking ideas but it'll give me a chance to collate some research regarding various ideas I have, and see if they work, and see if other players agree.


As I started to play Blood in normal Battlegrounds, I found I was trying to play like Frost - but half way through my fourth Twin Peaks, something clicked into place. I'd already learnt my rotation and some tricks such as using Vampiric Blood just before sacrificing pet with Death Pact, to get a boost to the healing it does, or using Icebound Fortitude when I reach about 40% health or I know I'm about to take a massive blast of damage for example, but I realised I was trying to be too offensive, I was trying to kill the other player like I would in Frost and then I realised. It's not about me killing them...it's about them being unable to kill me.


After that, it clicked into place, single handedly taking on a warrior, paladin and warlock and slowly but surely getting each one of them down and emerging victorious with still half health felt amazing. Yes, I know that they were probably pretty badly geared, and there is no way I'd survive that in an RBG on my own against very well geared players...but the point is, if I'd have been Frost and fighting them - I wouldn't have survived.


So, I'm excited about playing as Blood - part of me wants to get stuck in right away, part of me knows I'll be extremely nervous when the time does come...and what if I die really easily? What if I let down the team, which in turn leads to us losing, and the team losing rating? It's nice to know that whatever character and whatever class or role I play...my insecurities are here to stay.


Afterall, "Each one of us requires the spur of insecurity to force us to do our best."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

August Round-Up

Well, I've been absent from this blog for a month, partly because I haven't had much to say recently and mostly due to real life stuff.

So what has happened?

Well I've turned into something of an alt-o-holic at the moment. I'm currently levelling a Druid, Shaman and Mage and my current favourite? The Shaman. I'm not entirely sure why, but it's something a bit different. The trouble I have is I get bored with Alts quickly, and think I like playing around with the character selection screen more than playing the actual characters...

We are finally settling  in to life on Sylvanas, a world a way from Blade's Edge. We have finally found a guild that we are happy with and in called <Emeritus>, but we are still on trial at the moment and awaiting votes to become full time members. The atmosphere is nice, the players are experienced and friendly and it has a feel of <Drama> about it, which is what I was looking for in a new guild.

Sadly though, I haven't been able to devote as much time to the game and the new guild as I would like. I've become a bit annoying- I signed up to an event recently, and then didn't turn up. I should have at least explained why I couldn't make it, and I used to hate people who signed and then didn't turn up - but we have real life things going on.

We were away for 2 weeks at the beginning of August on holiday on the Greek island of Kos, we had an amazing time - weather, hotel, location, food - none of it could be faulted and we got back and its taken us a while to settle into our usual routine. Then we received some other news. I'm not in a position to talk about it just yet, but it's life changing and so we've had the shock and excitement of that to deal with and the fact that WoW will have to take a back seat until eventually sometime next year, we'll have to stop playing altogether. This is by no means, a goodbye post - It's just a heads up that things will change both in the game for us and regarding the blog. As soon as we calm down a bit, things will be running with some resemblance of normality for a while anyway.

Target Calling

I've been spending alot of time recently getting to grips with Rated Battlegrounds and been running in quite a few with the new guild, I've been given the role of target calling. At first, I was nervous and worried because my experience in RBG's isn't great. Husband did the reassurance thing and I got on with it. I have an idea in my head of who I want to kill in order and who I want to CC, and who I want to leave till last or just control because they don't do anything - and Ive had some really good feedback, so I cant be doing it too wrong. I think I was chosen simply because I have this BBC accent, which is clear and understandable for everyone. I'm also loud, I talk over people and be heard - granted there are times when I'm not listened to, but on the whole I think as a team we are doing pretty well and my rating is almost 1500 (1490)

So who are my targets?
It's completely dependant on the situation.

Holy Paladins and Resto Shamans are always my first choice for CC as they are in my opinion, harder to kill than Disc Priest and Resto Druid. Priest and Druid healers are usually my first kill target calls.

If we are trying to capture a base, I like to take out rogues, mages and warlocks because of their AoE abilities, they are really annoying when trying to capture a flag to continually get frost nova, or ring of frost, fear, or fan of knives. If we aren't trying to capture the flag, I still like to take down rogues after healers because they can be nasty with CC against our healers and then Death Knights are my next target mostly so they don't get the chance to spam necrotic strike and because Frost DK's without a healer are pretty squishy, but left alone can do significant damage.
The rest of the order completely depends on the situation and which battleground we are in. I like to kill mages fairly early on, or at least have them CC'd - but there is no specific order of which class is best to kill first. One thing I have noticed is that Warriors and Blood DK's tend to get left till last.
Also, if a healer is OOM, there is no point in killing him, he can't do anything and killing him would mean he came back with full health and mana - they are best just controlled - kept in CC and they can only watch as their team mates are picked off one by one ;)

We also took part in a raid, to kill the leaders of the Horde. We had no trouble getting into Undercity, Thunder Bluff and Silvermoon, but after one wipe at Orgrimmar, the group disbanded which was a shame. It's going to take a lot of organisation and alot of people to get into Orgrimmar and be successful.

Well, I think that about sums up my August Adventures in Azeroth. Any advice, questions or tips - please don't hesitate to send them my way. Until next time...

"Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution."

Well, the application to the guild was accepted and we joined and then a day and half later - quit. It started so promising but disagreeing twice in the space of less than 24 hours meant that something was seriously wrong. What the guild had advertised was not how they were in reality. We decided to move on.

I saw an advert on the forums, and in trade chat for a new guild - and by new I mean it is only level 2. They are purely PvP. They also advertised that they required a minimum of 2k rating in Arenas and Battlegrounds to get an invitation. Nevertheless, I thought cheekily that the fact they are only a level 2 guild and brand new, they'd be perhaps more lenient on their entry requirements than say a fully established level 25 guild.

The only thing that stopped us from immediately jumping at the offer to join was that we were only prepared to join if our real life friend could also join. Now, she is in almost full season 10 gear but has never experienced Rateds or Arenas, but we were assured she could join as a Social member and so, welcomed we were.

Now we joined the guild at about 6.45pm server time, and at 7pm invitations for the evening Rated Battlegrounds were going out. I got invited which meant that dinner had to go by the wayside, but it was worth it to make a good impression.

I got the vent details, and log in. Say 'Hello' and suddenly Vent springs to life..."omg who is that?" "is that a girl?" I've had that sort of reception before, but in every rated battleground I've taken part in, there has been at least one other female, but from what I gather - me and my real life friend are the only females in the guild.
Which leads to comments like this....

"When Nilaa (Woman) is with us we get 'Presence of a Female Buff' which increases hormones by 20%"

"but we get -50% intelligence."

So the team gets over the initial shock of being joined by a girl playing a Death Knight and we join the queue. We did 4 battlegrounds, and lost only one of them...but it was very close.

It was interesting because we used rather different tactics to how I've done RBGs in the past. It could have been that the situation was just different but in the past we've always avoided killing the healers out right and just keeping them CC'd and out of mana with the idea being that with no mana they cant do anything and we can keep them occupied, but if they die they come back with full health and mana and can create issues. However, we did things differently. We kept the healers CC'd and Interrupted whilst we killed off the DPS and then finished off the healers...just before all the opposition were dead a group of us would then go fast to complete the objective. We worked much closer as a team. We had targets called out and we often switched between targets. If for example in Twin Peaks we died we would then resurrect and help defend our flag carrier and then once we had disposed of the group attempting to attack our carrier we would rush to the EFC and get the flag back whilst they were stuck resurrecting at the graveyard.

In Warsong Gulch we would meet the opposition and attack right in the middle to prevent them from reaching our flag, meanwhile we would send a tank and healer to go and ninja their flag. Once we had killed the group we would help escort our flag carrier and then regroup up and send a rogue to identify exactly where the EFC was hiding and then attack as a big group leaving our tank flag carrier, a healer and possibly one DPS. (depending on the situation)

In Battle for Gilneas, we identified a DPS and Healer to stay at Lighthouse, and the rest of the group went to attack Waterworks, we then arranged on a DPS and Healer to remain at Waterworks whilst the rest of the group including one healer would stand in between the two bases and react according to what the situation required. It was a tactic that worked so well for us that the Horde opposition actually ran back to their original starting position and went AFK. We were only about 350 points ahead when they realised that they just couldn't compete...so we headed down to the boat and lined up for a screenshot...

We decided to be graceful in our victory and as the Horde stood on to watch us...we didn't attack, instead we went and danced with them. 

So all in all, had a really good and productive evening with the new guild. We all communicated well on vent, and worked as an intelligent team. I even managed to get my RBG rating up to 1100 in one night earning me the title of 'Private.' However, my real life friend decided this wasn't the guild for her and after we saw discussions on the official forum about the reputation of the guild - we too decided it was time to cut our losses.

Finding a guild is hard work, but i'm sure we will get there eventually!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In other WoW related news,  decided it is high time I see more of the old raids. I've seen Karazhan, so when my real life friend told me she wanted to tame a pet from the Molten Core, I jumped at the chance to experience the instance. I roped the husband into healing (although he worked more as a DPS) and the three of us set off. We completed it really quickly, as you would expect for a level 60 instance but seeing Ragnaros close up and personal was very very cool.