Adventures and Misadventures in PvP

I finally switched my offspec to marksman and put on the PvP gear.  I have enough now for it to be somewhat useful.  While it is not great gear, mostly 496 gear with a couple of 522, 483 and 476 pieces it is a start.  Only missing one trinket and one ring and of course the weapon.

The transformation to PvP is almost complete as I work to fill in those last pieces of gear but we all need to start somewhere.  At least now I could gem and enchant and reforge for PvP and actually work on my PvP binds and get used to them again.

It has been a long time since I played marksman so that would take some getting used to again and it has been an even longer time since I played it in PvP.  But, as I said, we all start somewhere, and might as well start getting some play time on it.

So while I still need a fair deal of PvP gear I decided to do some arenas as it is a much more controlled place to work on setting up my keys so I can get comfortable with them.  I will get back to battlegrounds to fill out those honor pieces while collecting conquest to start getting some 550s.

I thought it would be fun to share some of my successes and failures when it comes to PvP thus far.

My New Bane:

I am at a complete loss when it comes to feral druids and I do not remember it ever being like that when I used to PvP.  Rogues were always my issue, still are to some extent, but I have been getting my ass handed to me by ferals whenever I see them lately.

After having countless one on ones with a feral in battlegrounds and arenas and never once seeing myself get the upper hand of a battle I finally got my revenge on one last night.  Not once but twice.  When all was said and done he won the war taking me out later a few times and won the battleground because, well, he was horde so of course he would win, but at least I finally had my one little moment of victory.

After taking the lumber mill everyone ran away and I was left alone to defend.  As tempted as I was to run with everyone else to keep in the fight I wanted to stay until we got the flag, at least.  I did what I normally do and threw a flare on the flag and an explosive trap in "just the right spot".

Not sure how he managed it but the druid got the jump on me, did not even see him from the flare, did not hear the woosh sound you hear when there is someone stealth around you and he had me on the defensive immediately, as in I was heading off the cliff and I needed to save my life.

A quick turn and disengage and I was back on the ledge and on the druid.  I do not think he expected that at all, most times when you knock someone off the ledge they are gone, but not so with a hunter.  He had a shaman come up behind him, so it was me and him but he had a healer.

A quick glance to the flag and I noticed my explosive trap expired.  So while I was beating on my, trying to control the healer, and basically making it nowhere and idea came to mind.  Trick him into killing himself.  I fired a new explosive at the flag and kited him to the area between the flag and the ledge.  Then positioning myself inward again, I hit deterrence and just turned tail and ran.

The druid did exactly what I was hoping he would do.  He ran straight into the flag to take it but my explosive trap made sure the only thing he would take is a short flight down.  When my deterrence wore off I turned to the shaman, now alone without this druid beating on my and made him regret ever deciding the help the druid in the first place.

The druid did not die from the fall, damn cat form, but he came running right back up as fast as he could.  By the time he got to me the shaman was dead, he was still at around half life and had no healer, and I was feeling awesome about myself for that one moment where I tricked him to throwing himself off the cliff.  I killed him quite easily by lining up an aimed followed by chimera and double kill shot.  I stood victorious for once against a druid, against a druid with a healer.

It would not last long however.  The druid and I met again up there three more times, but not really alone, or mostly alone, like we had been.  He got the better of me every single time.  And a priest in his group really got the better of me.  I managed to trick the druid again.  Put the explosive at my feet and backpedaled over it.  People will always follow you if you are backpedaling, remember that.  He walked right into the trap and went flying again.  I could swear I heard him yell, at least in my mind, but a priest life gripped him back on.  Awesome freaking reaction speed from the priest.  That is something you can not teach, plan or even practice.  That type of reaction is why I am going thought my paces here practicing, so I can get that good.  Props to the priest, nice job.  But why did you have to save a freaking feral druid.  Yeah, he came back and killed me.  Bastard.

My Flag:

Last week, while still only PvE geared doing some battlegrounds with my friends we got into a twin peaks.  Three went to the light house and myself and a healer ran to mines.  When we got to mines there were three horde there.  They all went for the healer, which worked out well being as he is fully PvP geared and I am not.  If they all went after me they could have killed me and then taken out the healer.  Their mistake for ignoring the extremely, as in no geared, under geared hunter.

He managed to keep himself up, I managed to keep pressure off him as best I could with binding, traps, scatter, whatever I could, as I picked off one at a time that was trying to kill him.  Oddly enough, after I killed 2 of them the third one decided to come after me.  Ever heard of too little to late buddy.  With a healer at my back even PvE geared I was able to rip him a new one.

We took the mine and my friend said, lets stay here and try to keep it.  Who am I to complain, he is the experienced PvPer.  Then something odd happened, something that I could not refer to as anything other than one of those old karate movies.

The horde kept coming at us, but they kept coming at us one at a time, sometimes two.  But never once in full force or even with enough to come close to taking us.  They would come up, I would take them out one at a time.  They would always go for the healer first, I would always kill them before they could even put a dent in his armor.

This continued over and over and I wish it had continued more so I could have gotten the achievement for 50 kills and no deaths because I never died.  Heck I do not think I ever dipped before 90% life.  Neither me or the healer.  You would think we were playing an allaince team with as poorly organized as these people where.

No one ever came to mines to help us, we did not need it.  And horde never made a real effort to get it.  But toward the end of the match we were having quite a laugh as people would revive and start running out, see us, and then turn to run along the beach.  It became quite clear that no one on the horde side wanted anything to do with us.  Me and my healer.  My flag, and you can't have it.

Kill The Healer:

Often I hear that.  Be it battlegrounds or be it arena.  Kill the healer.  Well, it is a lot easier said than done, healers are god mode if played well, even more so if played well against someone of my limited PvP skilled and gear.

A few times however I get lucky, where everything seems to fall into place and timing is perfect and I can get the upper hand on a healer.  I have two such stories from arena last night that fit that description.

I was told to go all out on the healer, our healer was going to stay back and the other DPS was going to try and peel for him.  My job was to pressure the healer as much as possible that they could not get in range of the DPS so we could pick off the DPS and healer at the same time.   It is a good strat and one I used to use when I did do arenas.  The idea is to make the healer forget about others and force them to worry about themselves.

One fight, with a holy priest, I think the only one I have seen in PvP arena or battleground, I went in hard, using my spider I land locked them so we could quickly get the distance where they could not heal their team mates that were going after my healer.

I think kept him slowed with concussive so he could not get in range and put on the pressure. Aimed, stampede, crows, fervor, aimed, aimed.  Okay, healer is now successfully only worried about himself.  Now time to take him out mixing control with shots.  Scatter interrupts a heal, steady, silencing shot interrupts a heal, chimera, steady, explosive trap knocks him back to interrupt a heal, aimed, freezing trap interrupts a heal, I know he just called for help because my healer says on voice chat they just left him alone and are heading for me.  Too late, healer is dead.

There is no greater feeling than taking out a healer in PvP nowadays being they are so damn powerful.  At this stage in the game I think when I beat a healer it is more then doing something wrong than it is me doing something right.  But it still feels good.

Another fun healer kill was with a druid healer.  Myself and the other damage dealer went after their healer.  The others went after ours.  Whoever gets their healer dead first wins.  This is what it seems arenas are all about now.  Whoever kills or controls the healer wins.

We did have a lot of fun with this druid however.  Using the pillar in the arena the druid kept trying to LoS us.  But I kept throwing a trap on one side and circling the other.  While the melee would chase him, I would run right into his face.  He would go here, there and everywhere around the pillar but it seemed he was always running into one of us.  At least until he had the bright idea to go cat and run.  Scare beast baby.  Not exactly bound in a very friendly place for me right now being I do not use it often but Alt - and the healer was effectively dead. Stopped his get away dead in its tracks.  And as luck would have it, he was scared directly into both of us who then unloaded together for once and killed him and then, of course, went on to win the match.  Whoever kills the healer first wins, so kill the healer.

I've been having fun with a little PvP here and there lately.  I could post failures, but that is not fun.  Just be aware, there were a lot more failures than there were successes like these.  I am still learning and that is the fun of it all.  At least now there is some new gear for me to aim for.  And wow, I love the conquest catch up system and my 11K cap.  Awesome.