Mend Pet

When was the last time you queued for a battleground?  The other day I decided to try Isle of Conquest, and I hopped in the queue.  And that’s when I realized how spoiled the new Dungeon Finder has made us: it’s “Estimated wait times” are actually pretty accurate with that system.  But for BGs, the queue timer has been useless since the day it came out.

Here’s where I think it fails.

See that Last 10 players note?  What does that even mean? It’s a ambiguous.  For a BG like Isle of Conquest, which requires 40 people per side… how does the average over the last 10 players help me?  It doesn’t.  This number means nothing.  All it does it give people a false sense that they might get into the battleground in that time, while in truth only about the last five people to queue had wait times below that time.  The other 35 had to wait much longer.

They seem to have managed to get the estimation working for Dungeon Finder, why they haven’t just ported that system over to the BG queue is beyond my ken.  In fact, it might be simpler because there are no roles defined or needed, just numbers.

They should either improve this estimation or remove it entirely.

When Blizzard added Achievements in patch 3.0, they also added a less noticed feature called “Statistics”.  It’s that fun little page that tells you how many times you’ve killed Hogger, and how many times you’ve died to falling damage (5 for me…)  Of course, it only records your statistics starting from patch 3.0, so all the stuff you did before then doesn’t matter, unfortunately.

Well, the other day while I was waiting in the Random Heroic queue, I decided to have a closer look at my statistics, and I found a few interesting things.

First, under the “Player vs. Player > World” tab:

No world honorable kills?  Hm, that’s odd.

But on the “Kills > Honorable Kills” tab:

Well, that’s a bit better.  I guess all but 6 of my kills are in Wintergrasp?  Because I clearly didn’t get 773 kills from Northrend any other way on a PvE server…

Alright, moving on… if you know anything about me, you know that I don’t do Arenas.  I’ve set my foot in their once, right after they were released in BC, and that was it.  But since it was so long ago, it shouldn’t be on my statistics page.

From the “Player vs Player > Rated Arenas” tab:

Woo!  They got one right this time!

From the “Kills > Honorable Kills” again:

Well, 1 out of 4 isn’t bad…. (did I mention the 1 time I did arenas, it was 5v5?)

Now, from under “Deaths > Arenas”:

I bet I’d have a pretty good arena rating if I’d really killed 25 but only died 3 times!

Now, time for a quick math lesson:

779 + 294 + 957 = 1792, right?  WRONG!  It equals 2030.  That means my “Total Honorable Kills” is off by 238.  It would have made more sense if it was 294, meaning the weren’t counting my imaginary arenas, but no:  238.

One last thing… I can’t really say whether this is true or not.  But either way, it makes me sad that almost 30% of my player deaths have been caused by MY OWN FACTION:

I decided to hang out with Ghugh most of the weekend.  I’m finding that the more I play him, the more I love him!  Ret Paladins are so OP.

Got him from 46 to 51 this weekend, as well as a boatload of achievements.

With the help of Bellbell of 4Haelz, I was able to take a stroll through one of my favourite dungeons (we even had a picnic!)

The strangest part of my weekend though was getting the [I Found One!] achievement on Ghugh.  I didn’t bother with any of the Noblegarden stuff (already did it on Brajana and 2 other alts).  But as I was questing through Un’goro, I stumbled upon an egg.  Why would someone put an egg here? And why wouldn’t they open it up?  Who knows!  But it was about as free as an achievement can get.

I also spent some time in Alterac Valley at 51.  Determined to get my [Ice Barbed Spear], I suffered through a 50 minute Alterac Valley war of attrition.  It was painful, as the battleground was full of level 60 Death Knights decked out with 10k HP, when little me had barely 3.5k.  But I got a boatload of achievements as well as picking up the spear, so I certainly can’t complain!

Hope your weekend was as much fun as mine!

Monday nights are alt nights for me and the boy.  It was exclusively a time to work on the Mage/Prot Warrior combo, but since we’ve rerolled my priest and a druid to use the recruit-a-friend, Alouette’s had to get pushed to the backburner for a while, which means she’s stuck at 70.

But I do love my mage.  So when Gadgets called me to let me know he’d be working very late last night, I decided I’d play Alouette anyway.  I can’t level without him, and I was in a bit of a ludic mood so I tried my hand at PvP.

PvPing as a level 70 mage in the 70-79 bracket is not the smartest idea.  Do you know how long it takes a level 79 to do 6283 damage to a clothy? I’d tell you, but my timer doesn’t count in milliseconds.

I queued up AB and WSG, since I didn’t have any achievements in either.  WSG popped first.  I zone in to a game which was 2-0 for the Alliance, and I immediately realized all my macros were still missing from transferring!  D’oh.  So I sat in the flag room and fixed that while my teammates won me [Warsong Gulch Victory] and [Warsong Gulch Perfection].  Thanks guys!

After I’d fixed the rest of my macros, AB popped.  It was a fresh game… I was quite disoriented. Arathi Basin is my favourite battleground, but I’d never done it from the Alliance side before.  The map was constantly backwards in my head.

I spent the first 5 minutes without a single Honorable Kill.  Even though I was following a group of others around, two hits from a cat or a Death Knight and BAM!  I’m having tea with my dear friend, the Spirit Healer.

It was a very long and close game, and I quickly developed a nemesis.  A level 77 Balance Druid.  His name started with an H.  Let’s call him… Hogarth.

I claimed my post defending the Stables like a good little gnome, finger hovering over my instant cast and AoE keybindings.  as I look around, in the distance I see a giant bird-owl-chicken-beast thing coming at me with a gaggle of trees in tow.  He’s on me before I can do anything.

Trees everywhere!  Ah!  Feign Death!  No, this is a mage.  There is no Feign Death.

Ice Block!  But before I know it, I find myself asking the Spirit Healer if she knows where the heck I put that button on my bars, because I certainly don’t.

I’m quickly back into the battle, stationed at the stables… holding my position.  I turn around… it’s Hogarth again.  And his horrible trees.  Just as they are about to hit me I try to Frost Nova, but before I can… BAM!  A giant mysterious tidal wave hits me and sends me flying.  It takes out half of my health and the rest quickly follows with a Moonfire.

I ask the Spirit Healer how I’ve never in my life seen that spell before.  Guess I haven’t done much PvP since 3.0.

This means war.  I mount up and go Chicken hunting.  I’m gonna get him down if it’s the last thing I do!  I’ve got my battle strategy ready to go.

There he is!  His trees lay dead on the ground beside him already.

“You’re not going to take our horsies!” I cry as I power up my Fireball.

Fireblast!  Dragon’s Breath!  Fir– oooh, look at the pretty stars!

…

Once again the Spirit Healer hovers there, mocking me for up to 30 seconds as my little Gnome fills with fiery rage.

*BRRRING!*  The Horde has won the match!

I got out of there with 14 HKs, and at least as many deaths.

Someday we’ll meet again, Hogarth.

And I’ll be having BBQ’d chicken for dinner that night, if it’s the last thing I do.

Alright, so I have a dilemma.  When I gear, I tend to gear focusing only on my AP/Agi/Hit/Crit… and I sort of let my health and mana numbers follow along.  But now I’ve got a problem.  My health is a measely 7704… not nearly where it should be in the late T5 raiding scene!

So this needs to be fixed.  In my race to do the highest damage I could, my peccadillo was sacrificing my survivability.

I heard that in the Naj’entus fight, everyone should have a minimum of 8500 health.  Which means I need to pull about 800 health out of my rear end before we get there…

Any advice? I suppose PvP gear might help, eh?  I don’t really have any, and I have never been able to get an arena team together for some points.  Which gear pieces should I sacrifice for the extra health?

If anyone would be generous enough to check out my Armoury page and make some recommendations… I’d be very grateful!