Advice For A Care Bear wanting to test the waters?

[Svpernova09]

I appreciate all the replies. Instead of jumping into 5 toons as a mixed team, I took my 3 shaman so I could get a feel for how things will be in BGs. You guys will be happy to know I spent all night in AV and AB (AB was the daily BG) AV was fun, but currently in Ruin-US, it's a Drek / Van zerg as soon as towers are up, and horde NEVER backcap, or we easily destroy their back capping team. So I saw a lot of action, but most of the lessons learned were in AB. I died A LOT, but I always died laughing, and I never died without taking at least 3 people with me.

Lessons from AB:
I spent a lot of time roaming. I don't have a lot of survivability unless I get 3 Chain Heals rocking. I even survived a bladestorming warrior just by spamming chain heals. I'm pretty sure he said "oh shit" when he came out of BS and saw me casting on him. Warlocks and Hunters are the most dangerous class to me atm. Warriors aren't much of an issue if I can nuke them before they get to me. Warlocks can just burst me down and I just need to start focusing them first. Hunters hurt, it's probably my lack of gear but they chew right through me unless I focus on them before they see me. Mages are cute, they think they can kite me but they always end up dead before they can out range me. Rogues are pretty tough, and it's very situational on the outcome.

I spent nearly 1 entire game defending mine (lame I know, but I didn't want to leave the flag unattended and the other people weren't very nice about sending someone to guard while I went out to hunt) So there I am, keeping all my totems down and it was very amusing to see people charge in. A Ret Paladin charged in, and he was dead before he could bubble. At one point, my main was sapped and then a lock, mage, and a resto druid charge in on me. I managed to kill the Druid and the Mage easily. I actually got a hex off on the rogue but it didn't last long. I Thunderstormed the rogue and was able to burst down the Lock. I killed the rogue, but lost one of my shaman. But it was a huge rush to kill so many people so quickly.

Lessons from AV:
Easy Honor. Crusader Aura blows. I have a hard time getting to Galv before the group kills him so I stopped worrying about him and just move forward since I catch up with the group as they're leaving his room. There really wasn't a lot of pvp here. I was able to surprise nuke a couple people that were playing peek-a-boo in Drek's room.

I did 2 WG battles as well, WG was a LOT of fun. Probably more fun than AV and I think I was learning just as much as I was in AB.

I cashed in all my stone keeper's shards and bought everyone www.wowhead.com/?item=Deadly Gladiator's Mail Gauntlets and one of my other shaman got www.wowhead.com/?item=Deadly Gladiator's Ringmail Spaulders from VoA. So not a bad night.

Thanks for all your info, please feel free to keep the discussion going, I'll post another update after another round of battles and such.



Edit: I didn't see ANY boxer hate, which was kinda surprising, although someone did offer me 5k for all my accounts. Not sure if he meant Gold, Silver, Dollars, or pounds, but he was amusing nonetheless.

[Svpernova09]

Oh, if you're Alliance, use and abuse Gift of the Naruu.

Yeah I need to finish my setup. I was running the default ISBoxer FTL wizard setup with a couple extra keymaps for abilities, and changed some of the bindings. I would have done better if I was more prepared, but I just need to get comfortable in the chaos of PvP.

[Ridere]

And for what it's worth, there are a ton more arena teams playing on Monday. I used to get my arena losses on Wednesday (20 total, 10 per team), and it'd be an evening-long affair. I did my 20 losses on my two new 80's teams yesterday (Monday), and queues were no more than 3-5 minute wait times. I hammered out my losses very quickly.

Wintergrasp and AV are definitely good practice grounds for PVP, as you can kind of hide in the pack and work on things.

[Svpernova09]

And for what it's worth, there are a ton more arena teams playing on Monday. I used to get my arena losses on Wednesday (20 total, 10 per team), and it'd be an evening-long affair. I did my 20 losses on my two new 80's teams yesterday (Monday), and queues were no more than 3-5 minute wait times. I hammered out my losses very quickly.

Wintergrasp and AV are definitely good practice grounds for PVP, as you can kind of hide in the pack and work on things.

I've seen people here talk about easy / quick ques on Monday nights, I created a 3v3 and qued, and waited for 45 minutes before giving up and heading to WG. and this was at 10pm Server time, so I'll try to get my games in earlier.

[Iceorbz]

wow... no one plays 5's on my realm (1062 rating and im 222nd ranked). And I never wait for a que except for the 1 minute lol.

[Ualaa]

A lot of people get their games done, primetime on maintenance day after the servers have come up.

And several people rush to get games done shortly before maintenance, for points that week.
Primetime seems the best for this as well.

In addition, there are a ton of people on weekends, but I'm not sure if that is a good time for arena games.

[BobGnarly]

...

Good stuff, glad you had fun. It really is a blast.

Hey, I'm on US-Ruin. You're right, AV is race, and I hate it honestly. In fact, my team hardly ever manages to keep SHB or IWB, so grats on the free wins thanks to the stupidity that is Ruin-Horde.

Maybe I'll see you in there sometime.

[thinus]

Good stuff, glad you had fun. It really is a blast.

Hey, I'm on US-Ruin. You're right, AV is race, and I hate it honestly. In fact, my team hardly ever manages to keep SHB or IWB, so grats on the free wins thanks to the stupidity that is Ruin-Horde.

Maybe I'll see you in there sometime.

Same on Bloodlust-Horde. We are a lot less organized than the Alliance. They don't defend capped bunkers or recap towers. Usually the Alliance will leave a good healer with 2 or 3 dps in a tower which is a nightmare to recap. So they end up capping the towers in mid. They recap the bunkers. And they kill Drek and we cannot kill Vann.

[gitcho]

Create an arena team immediately.
Play as few games as possible, where the team plays at least ten, and every toon plays at least 30% of the games.
The only objective here, is to be earning points; ten or twelve losses a week is just fine.
Even though you're only here for points now, observe how teams beat you.

<---- THIS. I have teams at 80 i'm not playing right now but still logging on to lose 10 arena games a week. That and doing WG weekly quests is getting me 1-2 peices of deadly each per week with less than an hour's work.

[Svpernova09]

Good stuff, glad you had fun. It really is a blast.

Hey, I'm on US-Ruin. You're right, AV is race, and I hate it honestly. In fact, my team hardly ever manages to keep SHB or IWB, so grats on the free wins thanks to the stupidity that is Ruin-Horde.

Maybe I'll see you in there sometime.

Awesome. Would be cool, (and probably painful) to run into another boxer in AV.