They Both Have a Plan
One’s more optimistic than the other.
I am not a natural PvPer. With the exception of mosquitoes who must and will die the moment they get within my reach, I generally operate somewhere between a “live and let live” type philosophy and a “leave me the hell alone” sort of lifestyle. I don’t derive much enjoyment from the notion of beating an opponent, skilled or otherwise – I’d just rather not deal with said opponent in the first place.
My friend Goa has been attempting to get me more into PvP these days. Because I think that you should be open minded about things and I like to hang out with my buddies, I agreed to give it more of a shot. He crafted a set of PvP armor and a good axe to get Mechalis started, but overcoming my personality and habits is still uphill work. So far, he can get me into maybe three or four random battlegrounds, max.
Usually, one or more of the following will happen multiple times:
- I finally get to the site of action, only get my head smashed in by four or five different players at once before I get more than one skill off.
- I get rogued in the back, and have to stand there stunned while I get my head smashed in by four or five different players at once.
- I get rogued in the back, and the rogue proceeds to cheerily mince my kidneys before dispatching me with a solid stab to the spine.
- I get left alone at Blood Elf tower and I lose the joint to the Alliance.
- A priest will let me try to smack them down, then get bored with me and Fear me. By the time I am un-Feared, said priest is gone, and so is my dignity.
- A boomchicken will laugh at me. THEY MOONFIRE ME EVEN!
- I get left alone at the Farm and I lose the joint to the Alliance.
- I get really cheesed off by the way all my opponents insist on jumping around like monkeys on crack. STAND STILL WHILE I WHACK AWAY AT YOU FOR GAWD’S SAKE, IT’S NOT LIKE I’M GOING TO GET ANYWHERE ANYWAY!
- I make the mistake of reading the bg chat.
- I make the mistake of responding in bg chat.
- I make the mistake of doing both in the same bg.
- I try to kill the healer, but nobody else is helping me and I’m terrible, so the healer just keeps on healing his/herself back to full.
- Speaking of healers: I get rogued in the back, and I survive the initial stun and ensuing damage to my vital organs, but while I am trying to murder said rogue in a blind rage, a healer comes up and heals the blasted cad back to full health.
- I click fruitlessly at the warlock candy or potion button, waiting for the rogue to stop rogueing me in the back already so I can at least pretend to do something here. THEN I DIE.
ROGUED AGAIN
Rogues, they’re like an infestation. OF DEATH.
I get that the element of combat (and hence regular personal death) is part and parcel of PvP. I’m fine with dying, I really am. It’s just that I suffer from a feeling of intense hopelessness when I’m dead two seconds after waiting twenty-eight seconds to resurrect, or when I die immediately after running all the way to where the fighting is. I end up feeling frustrated that others can smash me to pieces so easily when I can barely put a damn dent in their armor.
A lot of it’s skill, which I lack. (I’m not gonna lie about that.) But it definitely helps to be alive (and not stunned/feared) in order to use what skill you have! Goa assures me that PvP is much more fun if you have the gear to survive it, but there are two major problems for me in this approach. First, I had hoped the fancy PvP set he made would make a clear difference in living when compared to wearing full PvE stuff, but it seems that the best use of the crafted PvP set is upping gearscore to get into LFR. Second, since it pretty much is like wearing tin foil when actually PvPing, that must mean you either have to gear up in tandem with everyone at the beginning of the expansion (which is what Goa did), or have such a burning love of PvP/proving your skills/being the best/SOMETHING that you’re willing to get your ass handed to you in the same settings day in, day out, until you finally can afford the fancy gear that will actually protect said ass.
Reflecting on my weak attempts so far, I can think of TWO times I had discernible fun.
- Violaryn somehow managed to get the flag from the Alliance base all the way back to the Horde one without getting horribly mangled. I am pretty sure the Alliance was sleeping at the keyboard.
- I got my camera angle turned around taking a picture, and in trying to straighten it up, I fell off the boat in Strand of the Ancients. I had to spend the entire bg swimming in to shore.
The first makes PvP sound promising – if I could do that more, that’d be great. The second makes me think that if I find swimming to shore that much more enjoyable, I may never like PvP.
But I don’t want to give up just yet. So HOW do you make PvP fun if you’re incompetent at it and very undergeared? Here are my ideas:
- Go in wearing nothing, because underwear always makes things funnier, and it’s not like your gear does a darn tootin’ thing for you anyway
- Attempt to screenshot the most spectacular deaths ever, like being mind controlled off a cliff while on fire while wearing one of the “Love is in the Air” holiday dresses while riding a Swift Forest Strider or something
- Go in wielding something stupid, like a Dark Herring, and really believe that people notice it
- Magically convince Blizzard to make a bg set on the Isle of Giants, where you can use Primal Direhorns to literally squish other players or Primal Devilsaurs to eat those same Primal Direhorns, because everything is better with dinosaurs
- Magically convince Blizzard to separate groups by gearscore as well as level
- Go in so drunk, you can’t see a thing
I’m thinking 1 and 6 sound the most reasonable.
