A Summer Of PvP

Man, is it me, or is the blogosphere quiet lately? Most of the blog I read are, anyway. I probably need more blogs to read. I suppose I'm part of the silence lately as well.

Anyway. 4.2 has been out for two weeks now, and I've been enjoying the game quite a bit lately - the dailies and progression along the Molten Front is actually fairly engaging, and I really love the achievements you can get out there. My favorite one so far has been King of the Spider Hill. I died way up high on my first attempt and had to take a spirit rez for the first time in who knows how long.

Last week was also the first time a few guildies and friends pulled together a ten-man and ran a couple of Rated Battlegrounds, and we actually won our third match against a guild from our server. It was fairly hectic but a lot of fun, and my 2v2 partner and I also moved up to a 3v3 team and went 50/50 in our first week with what is, I think, a sub-optimal composition (Retribution/Holy Paladin/Shadow Priest) but I think we'll get better as the season goes on.

We're still getting used to having a third person in our team and figuring out how to incorporate her - I'm thinking Shadow Priests might be in the same role as Affliction warlocks, which is more of a pressure-and-control role and I'm finding that I can bring a lot of burst forward when I put my mind to it. Thanks to our mid-range MMV from last season, we were up against some fairly decent teams, and we saw one very good team three times, winning 1 and loosing 2 against them. They were kind of like our twin - two paladins and a warlock.

I'm finding 3's to be more interesting and dynamic in terms of what's actually going on - there's less of chasing a healer over half of creation just to get them to OOM and more about setting up kills with your team which is far more engaging, and crowd-control is a vital, vital tool and I often have to decide whether I want to eat a CC or break out of it. I also really need to get better at my Repentance usage and being better at off-heals.

After about 15 matches, I think our strength, as it was in 2s, is against any kind of cleave team - we have so much off-healing and survival, that if we play defensively and survive whatever burst they throw at us in the first 30 seconds of a match, we have the game.

Tonight we're going to try a few more rated BGs and see how it goes - hopefully we have enough people and are able to post a guild team. Whenever I start to feel the game getting a bit dull (not that it is, what with all the trash to farm, new bosses to kill, dailies to unlock...), PvP is always there to make things interesting again.