I hopped into a PUG last night and ended up with an… interesting group in Utgarde Keep. We wiped fighting trash mobs in the drake pens, and we were unable to discern who was at fault. Our healer claimed they were getting hit while trying to heal, so the tank finally took blame. Our mage – who later turned out to be a bad apple – made fun of the tank for losing aggro, but we moved on. We cleared the rest of the dungeon with little fanfare and dropped Ingvar the Plunderer’s two forms lightning quick. Once he fell, that mage I mentioned earlier (named Shiifty), needed on everything and once he got them quickly dropped group. We agreed that he was the problem from before and peacefully went on our way. He had been making rude comments and mocking everyone the whole run, so we should have seen it coming. In the end, none of the loot at the end was useful, so he didn’t get away with anything, but I’ll remember him later.

Today I opted to join a battle in the Eye of the Storm battleground, and failed miserably. Oh, I got in a battle, I just died a resounding 11 times, second worst on the Alliance. This is how I saw most of the battle. I’d res, run to a fight, and die. I was good for 52 honorable kills, but I couldn’t hold my own when I’d get ganged up on constantly. In fact, my entire group sucked. To wit:

This was actually how most of us saw the battle. We had no chance. Apparently the Horde on my battlegroup are way better then the Horde on my server.

In response to the overwhelming success of the Random Dungeon system, Blizzard is unveiling the Random Battleground system in the forthcoming patch 3.3.3. I’ve only partaken in Isle of Conquest from patch 3.2 and most recently Strand of the Ancients, but I would like to try some of the older ones. My observation however, is that the battlegrounds are – by large – empty There’s not a huge contingent of battleground instances running these days, at least not on my battlegroup. This new Random Battleground system could change that. With the ease of the Random Dungeon setup and streamlined PvP rewards, this could make battlegrounds a big thing like they used to be when they were first introduced. I hope so, and I’m interested in the influx of newcomers to battlegrounds like there were to dungeons. Like with the dungeon system, those newcomers would include the likes of me, so I’m looking forward to seeing if the tolerance that eventually developed among these new-age PUGs shows up in battlegrounds. You had to come to terms that some folks – like, say, me – weren’t experienced dungeon delvers, so the hard-core instance runs of the past are often left at the door for random dungeons and heroics. That makes for a lower-pressure environment, and that makes more people take part. That, to me, is the big bonus of these new systems. More people = more fun in an MMO.

Gav stormed the beach in the Strand of the Ancients battleground for the first time last night. As you can see here, we took the keep in less then four minutes. I took allot of hits, but I never died thanks to timely heals by myself and some healers we had. I was near death only twice, and my bubble saved me both times. My arch-nemesis on this night was a Tauren druid named Marburg. This pain in the butt and I fought to a standstill about five times. I’d pound him, he’d go tree and run, and then come back for more, where I’d pound him again, and the cycle continues.

I did finally kill him once after I finally got some help. A Tauren shaman and I also went head-to-head a number of times, with me winning two of the three fights (the third was a draw as I bubbled near death and he was run off by my allies). I was amazed how many times my Art of War proc’d here. I almost always had an instant cast Flash of Light or Exorcism ready. In the end, I did the third most damage on the Alliance and healed the fourth most, almost all on myself. Best of all I netted a couple killing blows, the second-most honorable kills and I never died. Go Gav!

Now this is more like it. I queued for a Heroic today, and after 10 minutes of waiting and one failed group (the tank declined his invitation), I got to go into the Nexus today. This, for once, is a dungeon I’m familiar with. I’ve healed it before and I’ve done DPS here, so there’s a comfort zone in place. I was last or next to last in DPS for all but the last fight when I reached 2nd highest. Our mage was putting out almost 3k DPS and I was second with 1.8k. Not great, but I’m still rusty. Anyway, when Keristrasza fell, she dropped the Flame-Bathed Steel Girdle, and I won it on greed. It’s not better then my Girdle of Arrogant Downfall (especially since I just socketed it with a Bold Stormjewel – vice a Bold Scarlet Ruby – from today’s Bag of Fishing Treasures), but it’s nice to actually have a memento from my adventures.

Talk about time poorly spent. I queued up for a random Heroic this afternoon and spent 15 minutes waiting for a group. When I got in to Drak’Tharon Keep, I saw bodies. Not my party… dead bodies. Of everything. These folks were at the back of the dungeon, killing the final boss. So, for 15 minutes of waiting I saw zero action and got no gear – just the two frost emblems that come with running the daily random Heroic. Yeah, that was worth my time. Not allot of fun if you ask me, and the only thing that could have made it worse would have been dying in the process. Oh well, the frost emblems were what I queued for, and I got ‘em. That’s all that matters, I guess.

Here we see Ineveitable taking his pet Mistsabre out for a flight. How nice. Now if druids were supposed to be able to ride their land mount in flight form, that’d make this a boring shot. Instead, it makes Sights Seen. Sometimes glitches are more fun then features.

Here’s a quick topic: When is a custom UI too busy? For example, here’s mine after a run through Heroic Forge of Souls a while back.

Do you see what I mean? At what point is a UI too busy to use? Does it take no being able to see the world anymore, unmanageable lag, crashing, or is it just when it looks crowded to you? I’ve got a ton of add-ons running here, and yes, it is a little slow. My biggest issue is that I want all of the information before me that I can get. If that means sacrificing a little speed or visibility, that’s ok. That’s just me, though. I know that allot of other games prefer a minimalist approach to their UI. I’ve tried to cut back, but losing information that I’m accustomed to is frustrating. I guess to each it’s own.

Dual specs have changed WoW, no doubt about it. I would never toy with off-specs if I couldn’t keep ret while doing so. For those that were swapping between specs be it for PvP, dailies or helping on instances, this has saved them a ton of money. It hasn’t saved me much, though, because aside from my main ret spec, I can’t settle on a build like.

I’ve tried holy for healing instances, I’ve tried holy for PvP, I’ve tried prot for PvP, I’ve tried holy/prot for PvP, I’ve tried prot/ret for PvP… hell, I tried a screwy holy/prot/ret hybrid spec for PvP and that didn’t work worth a damn (ever hear the phrase, “jack of all trades, master of none”? that was me). What I need is to settle on a spec and stay with it. Right now, my PvP spec is 0/66/5, while my main ret spec is 5/5/61. I like my ret build. I does everything I need at the moment. My PvP spec, though, is fluid. I can’t tell what’s working, so I keep playing with it.

Anyone with a tip on what to do with my PvP spec, drop me a line. I’d love to hear it. Also, anyone else who has this problem, I’d love to hear your story as well.

Let me know I’m not alone here.

Ah, my raid. I’m so proud of ‘em.

What happened was that I was in Wintergrasp this morning to try out a new prot PvP spec. I’d built it not long after getting my subscription started back up, and had spent about an hour practicing my spell rotations on the hapless wildlife in Storm Peaks. I got to Wintergrasp right after the queue started (15 minutes before the match), and stayed until the match began. When it did, I noticed this little icon near the top of my name, like a little crown. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, so I let it go. As the battle wound down, I got a faux achievement from my Wintertime plug in. I was curious, but didn’t have time to look it up at the moment. When we won Wintertime gave me another shamchievement.  I congratulated the raid on the win, and came through in chat with the prefix [RL]. Raid leader? Oh, so that’s what the icon meant. The two notices from Wintertime were for leading a full raid and leading a defensive victory. Big deal.

I died five times early on (really out of practice), but was alive through the last half of the battle. I actually went the first 2/3rds of the fight before remembering to use my talented Hammer of Justice on the horde. Oops.

Well, I did nothing of note, and got the job via random dumb luck, but I can at least claim – in all honesty – to have lead a successful defense of Wintergrasp. I’ll just leave out the part about not knowing about it until the match was over.

That kinda ruins the moment.