The Virtual Battlefield

Player versus Player

I’ve been extremely busy lately, what with the Big Move looming overhead and a lot of little details to work out.  In particular, I’d been worried about what to do with my two mischievous ferrets.  I had originally planned to ship them across the United States, but the horror stories that I read while researching the matter about ferrets that suffered from heat exhaustion or even died quickly put me off of the idea.  So that clearly wasn’t the solution that I had hoped.

Did you know that there are only two ferret-friendly airlines in the entirety of the United States?  Two!  Only Alaska Airlines and Delta Airlines would consider allowing me to bring the monsters aboard the plane and stay inside of the cabin — and many airlines wouldn’t let them come aboard at all even as cargo, despite the fact that larger dogs and cats were allowed on those very same flights!  This prejudice against ferrets is very disappointing.¹  So I ended up selecting a flight with Delta that was both cheaper and better suited my schedule.  Plus the young woman on the phone who helped verify each flight detail² was extremely helpful.

And I feel a hell of a lot better knowing that the two monsters will be under the seat right in front of me for the trip.

That said, a lot of my time in-game has been spent doing a lot of Battlegrounds.  And I mean a lot.  For one, my lust for player versus player content has been surprisingly reignited, though the fact that I may be joining some of the Badgers in Arena teams is further incentive to grab as much of the Honor and mark gear as possible.  For another, heading to the Battlegrounds is a ridiculously easy thing that I can do on my own with little preparation; I don’t have to sit around waiting for nine or twenty-four of my buddies to show up, I have fun doing my own thing, and I can even bounce out really quickly if the need arises.  Though I still feel a bit guilty when I do.

Overall, my experiences on the battlefield has been pretty positive.³  I haven’t run into any of the rampant asshattery that I saw earlier last week and many of the matches have been wins for us; those that we didn’t win were often extremely exciting matches in which either side could have won.  I enjoy those sort of fights because I like challenges and a near-win is always more fun than when we overwhelm our opponents and win by a landslide.

I had been doing a lot of Arathi Basin matches, but noticed that I was near to maxing out those tokens and decided to hit Alterac Valley for a bit⁴ and then Warsong Gulch.  I have very fond memories of Warsong Gulch in particular, since it was here that my kal’dorei huntress Eszti really first made her name; she was a terror on the battlefield and exceptionally skilled in flag defense and recovery.  I remember one match in particular where she managed some forty returns within the course of a single game, earning her some infamy on the forums that weekend.

There was one match in particular over the last week that really stuck out.  It was in Warsong Gulch and lasted for some forty-five minutes.  By the end of the game, I had almost half a million effective heal performed and that completely disregards the effects of Prayer of Mending.⁵  The group’s paladin and I spent the vast majority of the game being the flag carriers; with the full extent of the flag debuff applied I made the surprisingly better flag carrier.  I think it had a lot to do with my survivability and instant-cast abilities.  I had at my disposal Power Word: Shield, Renew, Prayer of Mending, Desperate Prayer, and so on.

We ended up losing that match, but it was still a hell of a lot of fun and I think that I surprised a number of people who had claimed that Csilla was far too squishy to be an effective flag carrier.  I may not be Discipline since I tend to raid more than compete, but I am pretty handy to keep around — especially since I know many of the tips and tricks that will keep me alive and ahead of the pack!  I may take the opportunity to write up a short article outlining how to be effective in the Battlegrounds as a healing priest.

Oh, and meet Dendrin of Draenor US, who has become my newest bestest friend in the entire universe.  This gentleman was the best flag carrier that I have ever met in my not-so-illustrious career on the battlefield.  Not shocking, mind you, given the fact that he had almost 90,000 Honor Kills to his name.  While I might approach those numbers when you combine all of my girls over the entire duration of my World of Warcraft experience, the idea of possessing that many with a single character blows my mind away.  I burbled happily to myself when match after match he showed up in the roster and cried a little inside when he didn’t.

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