Dr. Strangedust: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love PvP

Over the weekend, I headed into a bunch of different battlegrounds to accomplish Dinner Impossible, and present my fellow BG players with a Great Feast... the last task I needed to complete to get Hail to the Chef. Done, and done.

While I could have just presented my feast, bailed, and been done with it, I instead decided to - you know - actually play in the battlegrounds I entered. What a concept. I was thinking back to my attempts to get Aetherna her Matron title, and figured that if I was going to enter a BG, then I was going to play in that BG.

Along the way, I was reminded, multiple times, of the fact that I'm not a 20 year old twitch-gaming guru (not that I ever was, really). Rogue? Death. Shamman? Death. Paladin? Death. Frost mage? Death. I think I even had a ram kill me in AV. Seriously.

I managed a few kills here and there, but overall - with the exception of Eye of the Storm, with which I have some small amount of experience - I think I pretty much flailed around wondering what was going on, trying to remember what I should do and where I should go. All while cursing the fact that I didn't have Ice Block and Every Man For Himself keybound, and generally leaving bits of eviscerated, flaming, frozen, exploded, and life-drained magey bits behind me like some sort of squishy breadcrumbs.

Until I hit Arathi Basin.

I don't know what happened there. Maybe it was the fact that it was a little slower paced, so lack of insane reflexes and a laptop trackpad weren't limiting factors. Maybe it was the room to maneuver, so that I could pick the ground I'd engage on. Maybe it was a good set of teammates. Maybe it was because I was finally able to play the two roles I like most, defense and distraction.

"Oh, no, Mr. Horde guarding the stables saw me! How clumsy and n00bish of me! Why, whatever shall I do? Perhaps I shall lead him on a merry chase... at the conclusion of which I will most likely die! Oh, woe is me! My only consolation is the knowledge that I lured the feckless idiot away from his post, allowing my team to cap the node he was supposed to be protecting."

Highlight of my night. Well, that and hitting a belf pally with an Improved Counterspell when he was trying to pop off a Flash of Light. "Oh, gee. You can't heal? Or bubble? Or do anything, really, except auto-attack for the next 10 seconds? Aww. My heart bleeds. Oh, no wait - that's not my heart, it's yours. Bwa-ha-ha-ha!"

I'm thinking that maybe picking up a few more PvP achievements might be fun. You know, in a flaming ball of exploding pally kind of way :-)