BG = Waste of Time... Isn't it?

[Mercurio]

I was all prepared to spend the weekend AVing. I don't enjoy it, but was going to bite the bullet.

Then I did an analysis for about 4 hours putting together a big spreadsheet of all the stats from every possible upgrade from Heroics, Arena, Honor, and Badges for my ele shammies.

What I found shocked me. Honor is not worth much to me. Badges and arena give you better or equal versions of everything you'd want and in a shorter investment of time. Just losing 10 5v5 arena games each week my guys have about 2500 arena points saved up already and S4 is at least 2 weeks out. Farming badges is simple and makes a lot of money at the same time. Now that PvP belts, boots, and bracers are sold for badges (one season down, but still), why would you BG?

(This assumes that you have heroics on farm and have at least 5 toons to lose in 5v5 arena - 3v3 and 2v2 is doable but would take longer)

Let's take one example where the badge/arena items aren't better, just equal: 25 badges or 9500 honor for the PvP bracer (both one season down). Oh, and you have to get 20 Warsong Gulch Marks, too. Even on AV weekend, I can crank through 5-7 heroics faster than I can build up 9K honor, have a shot at epics, and I get gold too.

Am I missing something?

[kllrwlf]

You can do BGs brain-dead.

Defend the flag, die, rez, go to flag, get flag, defend flag, die, rez, go to flag, get flag, defend flag.................
Or, go to mine, fight, die, go to mine, fight, die, go to mine, fight, die, go to lumber, fight, die.....................
Go to Captain, go to tower, go to tower, go to boss, que, go to captain, go to tower, go to tower, go to boss, que...................

Personally, I think after a point, getting any new gear gets to be pointless... but that's me.
I'm currently getting close to shelfing WoW until the next expansion because I don't need to get the best possible gear after grinding X hours... only to replace it when the next xpac comes out.

[Tdog]

I don't enjoy PVP much at all. Occasinally I'll get the itch but it's rare. As for the gear I usually only go for the weps as they are usually decent and maybe the neck/rings if they are a major PVE upgrade. About the only reason I can think to really farm BG's is to gear up for Arenas in your team's downtime.

[Diamndzngunz]

BG's help you learn. I have learned alot doing them all the time.

[Mercurio]

Lets not forget that the new arena point system requires rating for every piece of gear. If you loose every single game, sure you'll get points - but you won't be able to buy anything.
For now it isn't that big a deal.

Gloves/belt: no requirement - get Brutal (S4 version)

Legs - 1550 requirement - if you can get to +50 from normal get Brutal, otherwise settle for Merciless

Chest, Head, Boots, Bracer - No requirement (and cheaper) for Merciless (S3)

Weapon, Shoulders - Rating requirement on both Merciless and Brutal - have to honor grind for S1 (or S2 when S4 comes out), or just get other options that are almost as good - Heroic SP shoulders, Heroic MgT 1st boss dagger

But if they continue this rating requirement thing in the future, it will become a much bigger issue.

[opt]

i found bgs to be a good source of gearing once i had hit 70. Now I have a number of epics up my sleave im finding that i can start doing heroics with not too much of an issue now. After I get my epic flyers ill start doing heroics more, my repair bills are still to high for a couple of badges.
I actually enjoy taking a shaman or 2 on a pug if i cant get them all into a kara raid,
But the thing about BC is there are just a number of different ways of gearing characters up, it depends on what you love about the game.

[Coltimar]

I plan to do enough PvP to get a weapon for each toon. I need the S1 mace for tanking with my pally and the healing mace is very sweet as well.

[Mercurio]

Yeah, looking through my spreadsheet (I'm such a geek), the weapons are by far the best buy using honor points compared to other "uber weapon" options. If you want over +200 spell damage, you'll spend 24,500 honor or 150 badges. Now that's an area where honor is by far a faster way of getting what you want.

[kllrwlf]

After I got weapons for all my toons, don't have much inclination to continue with that grind.

Luckily, it wasn't bad of a grind because I was doing 5v5... didn't matter if you win or lose, get points, save 'em, then use them for weapons.

It's good training like what someone else said... so weapons and a bit of training and recovering from fear bombs.

[Tamu]

I find it much more enjoyable to do heroics than farm AV. If I could get into the preform group I used to run with while single boxing, then it might not be so bad. But, after I lost 9 AVs in a row I gave up on that and switched to farming badges. Granted, my shamans have only been 70 for four weeks, but I've picked up some nice gear from badges and heroic boss drops already.

[Anozireth]

I've been 70 almost 4 weeks and still have trouble with some normal instances. Maybe it's time to drop the boomkin in PVE and roll my pally as the tank full time. Her prot gear is about half greens and half blues though, so even there I'd have some gearing up to do before I could think about heroics. I doubt my resto shammy is up to par yet either. Maybe once I get the weapons from PVP I'll be up to it.

[Zzyzxx71]

/pulls out his "I suck balls" stand

Currently I 4 box. My spec (at least last week) wasn't appropriate for arena, I lost 10 last week. Since I only have 4, I can't do heroics for badges yet. I have a 5th, but he's only 14 right now.

I'm at this nasty hump - I rape regulars, but dont' need anything from them. I can't do heroics with 4, and don't have the gear for success in arena yet.

So whenever I have spare time and the dailies are done - it's BG's for me.

[xtobbenx]

I am curantly gearing up my shammys and i'm doing a mix of both atm. I do SP HC each day as i up till today wanted/needed that shoulders from the last boss. which i got the last of 4 out of today, grats to me :D And then i make sure to atleast do the PVP daily and i normaly do some more as BGing/pvping for me is what i enjoy in wow mainly. And i have lots of fun BBQ'n hords in BGs :D

But a good tip for AV that id like to share is:

When i enter and is w8ing for the gates to open i normlay will have the lead so ppl will notice me and i say in /BG something like this: "i'm a 4elly shammy boxerer and i need 1 healer and a few other dps to join me defending DUN(allie)" and ppl normaly go "count me in".... they all get this really friendly like we will win with this guy on our team additude. And i take them down to the brige before DUN, stand on a spot where the towers will suport... Add a healer to your grp and tell him to keep you alive and you will kill anything.. tell the other dpsers to kill melees that attack you... That way i normaly will hold the bride unpasabol for the hords and the normlay pve allies will do as allways, galv, towers, drek and we win with the hords standing and pushing on me the whole game. :D

Try that and i think that you will enjoy it alot more then the run down to drek and make sure you have all the tons with you etc..

[xtobbenx]

BTW.. about the losing in 5v5 thingi... i had 4-6 the first week when i hit 70 with my ellys + 1 frost mage that i randomly found.. all had greens and some blues and we owned some full epic teams.

I have a few more epics now and is keeping it steady around 1400ish.. aiming to get it to 1500 before the s4 where i will get all the new gear and and remove my greens. So i dont know what you guys are doing but wining some 5v5 even with crapy gear is really posibol, just get in 1 extra guy to help you out and try as good as you can.. at some point/rating you will start to win and learn. :D

[Jorai]

if you aren't having fun then it is surely a waste of time. i'd say the same about heroics and raids. when the game becomes a job grinding for gear then all you have is a pseudo-materialistic desire fueling your actions which is a waste of time, isn't it?

i like battlegrounds because it's just more random than arena. arena is alot more like PvE than people realize - with all the guides and strats against specific team combos. you won't find yourself charging a group alone in an arena. at the same time, alot of people doing battlegrounds are easy prey and that can get a bit boring too. best is fighting against premades in BG's.

doing heroics alone might be more of a challenge, but doing heroics with a good group is easy, and to me boring....i was never into doing instances conventionally. i leveled my first character with 2 friends and we 3-manned most instances as pally, warrior, rogue. it was very difficult lol .... but rewarding. we made new strategies for things that could be easy with just one or two more people.

now i am enjoying PvE again because doing instances with just 3 locks or 3 locks and 1 priest seems pretty challenging and fun.

low level battlegrounds are harder than 70 bracket because of the twinks.. if you are not a twink and you have to fight twinks it gets more difficult....but 3x drain life and 9 debuffs downing a twink rogue or warrior is priceless :D

[Anozireth]

My latest gig is running AV, and taking Galv. down. Then I normally turn around and head back to play defense. I've found that I can hold 10 - 15 horde at the bridge by myself for a long time. Then once a few others figure out I'm playing hardcore D. it turns its an epic turtle match - giving the offensive alliance players longer to win.This is similar to what I do, but I'm not dirty alliance. :P First, Balinda dies ASAP. By then, the allies have usually killed Galv and taken IBT, so I head back and recap IBT, usually with a couple of curious folks in tow. After recapping IBT, IBGY and then TP, I find that they're quite easy to hold most of the time. Usually alliance has taken FWGY and rushed the RH so they just spawn there and stay out of the way. Holding the two towers buys our offense the time they need to make it to Vann. There's no chance anything short of a T6 geared, prot-spec tank with equally geared healers is surviving with two WMs still up (and how often do you see those guys in BGs :D ), so the allies just wipe over and over at Drek.

[Codam]

*edit* Sorry, that was a really dumb question to ask, and I found my answer in a big fat sticky on the official WoW forums, PVP section *edit*