650+ honorable kills.
35,000+ honor earned.
One flag capture without my orphan out :-(
And one flag capture with :-)
Achievement Earned: School of Hard Knocks
Achievement Earned: For The Children
Title Earned: Matron
At the end of it all... yeah, I do have a sense of achievement. I generally run around on my mage lady with my Loremaster flag flying, but I think that I'll wear Matron for a while now. Because the flag that I got the achievement with?
I pried it from the cold, dead hands of the enemy flag carrier.
Yeah, you heard that right.
Oh, yeah, sure, there was a pally involved at some point - there generally is, in these sorts of affairs. He was quite a fine gentleman, too! Once we downed the flag carrier, he saw that I had my orphan out, and let me grab the flag. Then he and a few other teammates escorted me all the way back to the capture point. I picked up the flag about halfway to the Fel Reaver Ruins, and while I was running it back, we lost control of the Blood Elf Tower. So I ended up having to carry it all the way back to the Draenei Ruins to get the capture.
I was literally shaking the whole way. Popped Mana Shield immediately and kept it up the whole run. "Come on, come on... can't I run any faster? Who's behind me? Oh, they're on my team..." Fingers on my keys for Frost Nova and Every Man For Himself the whole way. Swiveling the camera around, wishing that I had thought to chow down on some Blackened Worg Steak so I could see exactly who was around me.
As I approached the Draenei Ruins, I spotted an Orc warrior standing just a few yard away from the flag capture point, and my heart skipped a beat. I just about screamed. So I gritted my teeth, made sure Mana Shield was up, popped Presence of Mind and got ready to break stun and hit him with an instant Polymorph, and ran for the capture point.
I don't know if Mr. Orc Killing Machine was distracted, or if he was less concerned with me and more so with the teammates behind me. Maybe he saw my orphan out and decided to be gracious. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, and presume the last. In any case, he left me alone, and a few seconds later, I captured my second (and probably last) EotS flag, got my achievement, and ...
... immediately turned and ran to defend the Fell Reaver Ruins. Because they needed reinforcements, and I've learned that holding towers is what you do in EotS, don't you know? Yeah, I wasn't about to abandon the battle just because I got what I wanted out of it. That would be... rude and inconsiderate. So instead of breaking away to celebrate immediately, I helped destroy a warlock, priest and hunter who thought they had the stones to try and take FRR back from us.
Less than a minute later, the battle was over, the Alliance had won the field 1600 to 1593, and most importantly of all, I had managed to capture my stinking lousy good-for-nothing flag. Doing it the right way, thank you. Sure, I had a more than a little help along the way, but... hey. Teamwork for the win.
Do I have a better feel for PvP on my mage lady now? You betcha. Do I find myself longing to get back into the battlegrounds and litter them with the bodies of my enemies? No, not really. Though I may head back to EotS this week to help some other poor souls capture their flags. Turns out dropping a mage bomb in front of pursuing enemies is just what the doctor ordered for letting a flag carrier get those precious few extra yards.
Teamwork FTW, doncha know :-)
Posts
Hooray! Congratulations!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Cyn :-) Heaven help me, though... I'm wondering what Strand of the Ancients and Isle of Conquest look like, since those are the only two battlegrounds I haven't seen yet. So despite Blizzard's ham-handed mockery of an achievement, they may have actually managed to stoke my interest in PvP. I'll give it a week to let things settle down and see if the urge is still there :-)
ReplyDeleteNeither strand of the ancients nor isle of conquest is really terribly compelling. Strand of the Ancients suffers because someone has to sacrifice their own interest (gaining honor) in favor of you know, actually playing to win (by manning cannons and/or siege vehicles).
ReplyDeleteIsle of Conquest is sort of overcomplicated. You capture these different facilities that give you different vehicles, which you then use to attack the enemy fortress (or hurl/drop yourself inside it). I *think* it probably has a fair bit of strategic depth, but put together thirty random players (or was it 40?) and it becomes hard to perceive it. If you play it I recommend going out with the first attacking wave to capture whatever it is you're going for, and then going back to defend your fortress. In isle of conquest, having a third or a half of your team on defense and the other half on offense pretty much always beats an all-offense strategy (unlike, say, WSG, where traveling in one huge aggressive mob is often full of win...).