Alliance sucks in BG's, Redux

I've previously made the claim that Alliance sucks in Battlegrounds, based purely on anecdotal evidence. But is that really the case? I think people tend to remember the losses and forget the wins.

So, I'm going to track every battleground I do and see whether or not Alliance really does suck (at least from my perspective anyway). You'll notice a new "Battlegrounds Record" sidebar on my blog which I will keep updated.

As of this writing, I'm even on Eye of the Storm games and positive on AV games.

You probably won't see many WSG games. I hate with a passion WSG with PUGs. The games last approximately 14 hours each, as each team grabs the others' flag but neither is coordinated enough to grab it back. At least with Eye, AB and AV, you know the game will finish one way or another within 30-45 minutes at the worst. A WSG game, as with diamonds, lasts bloody well forever.

McRaidNoMore Part Duex

Realistically, I'm done with raiding - I still like it but real life schedules don't quite allow for it. I have epic mounts for my 2 lvl 70's. I'm done with leveling alts (all 7 of them).

I enjoy PVP, and I especially enjoy Arena PVP. There's nothing else in the game that forces you to think so fast on your feet. Every encounter is different. There's only one thing that gets my adrenaline going in this game, and it's Arena matches. As an added bonus, PVP can be done almost anytime without need for scheduling. You don't need 10 to 25 people to coordinate their real life schedules to accomplish what you want to do in the game.

I love being feral spec. Being able to switch between crazy silly kitty dps and crazy silly bear survivability is fantastic. As a feral, you can solo so much content that theoretically is small group content. There's so much you can do, and so much you can contribute to groups and raids.

I've already mentioned how well resto druids do in 2v2 and 3v3 arenas. My guild isn't raiding, so they don't need a feral tank. I'm biting the bullet. I'm going resto to try out the vaunted arena spec (8/11/42). Uninterruptible cyclone, feral charge and lots of buffed Hots.

McRaidNoMore

My guild, consisting mostly of friends, coworkers and friends and family of coworkers is very small. Nonetheless, we've been able to run completely through Kara more than enough times for me to hit exalted twice over (yet despite this, no StrangleStaff, Longboots, Great-Ring, Treads or T4 Gloves!). I call Shenanigans.

We've cleared 3 bosses in ZA (bear, eagle and wolf - at least I think he's a wolf).

However, over the holidays, key people in our runs have lost interest in raiding, and I have no interest whatsoever in finding a(nother) guild that does only 10 mans on a late night schedule (10pm+ server). You can see from my earlier post here why.

So what does that leave? PVP! Arena's and battlegrounds. Doesn't matter what spec you are for battlegrounds, but it sure does for Arenas - and by general wisdom - feral druid is not a competitive spec. What am I to do? Respec resto, I guess. More on that later.

1 + 1 = 0.2

1 feral druid + 1 arms / prot warrior = 20% 2v2 win rate.

Well, it did anyway for Kneegasher and myself (1-4). Anecdotal results that support the statistics in my last post.

Typically the other team would focus dps on me. I'd shift to bear, and soak up the damage. Problem was, I could not shift out to heal myself and the other team could heal through the damage that KG and myself could put out on their dps player. Shifting out of bear to attempt to heal resulted in my prompt death. Feral hots + leather < bear.

The two warlock team was just a disaster. They feared both of us, dot'ed us up and we died very rapidly.

Wrong arena spec FTL

Some chap at sk-gaming.com scoured the Armory for the top ranked (>2000 rating) teams, and computed the popular team setups and the popular class talent specs.

For 2v2 teams, the most popular setup by a large margin (22.6% to 11.4%) was warrior/druid.

For the druids on the 2v2 teams, the most popular build by an enormous margin is uninterruptible cyclone/feral charge/resto (8/11/42). Variations on 8/11/42 added at least another 18%. Only one feral build made the top 5, and it was at 2.7%.

The implication is that if you're a druid playing 2v2 arenas, if you're not resto, you don't stand much of a chance at achieving a high rating. Feral does not appear to be a viable 2v2 spec.

Molten WTF

Mages learn a new spell, Molten Armor, at level 62. It causes 75 damage to attackers, increases the mages chance to crit by 3% and reduces chance to be crit by 5%.

I have ~2500 AP in the gear I typically use in battlegrounds, and druids have a 1.0 attack speed. At 14 AP per 1 DPS, this means I should be putting out about 178 dps against a target with no armor. This ignores crits and special (yellow) attacks.

How do these statements correlate?

When I attack a mage, I'll be hitting him every second for roughly 170 damage. And in return, he's hitting me back for 75+ damage. That's a whopping 44% of the damage I deal, he's dealing right back at me without doing a single bloody thing. WTF?

Of course, that percentage is much lower in reality due to crits and yellow attacks, but it's still a very sizable number. I don't like it one bit.

Why does Alliance suck in battlegrounds?

No, I don't have the answer. Others have speculated.

Yesterday it took 8 games (7 losses) for me to win an AB game and meet the requirements for the pvp daily quest (sidebar: why no arena daily quest?). Only 1 of those 8 games did the horde appear to have a premade group (10-2000 points!).

This is not an atypical experience.

Better communication? Better gear? More mature players? Less AFK players? I have no idea, but it sucks.