Kinless' Chronicles

It ain't over 'til the fat dwarf dies.

Three incursions into the Alterac Valley.

That the first would be a win was a given. We mounted up and headed north. Apparently the Alliance mounted up and headed south. Everyone. We captured the Aid Station within 15 minutes game time. I always thought: In a race, Alliance win. In a fight, Horde win. We had a race, and here we were pulling Marshalls. I wondered how the Alliance was doing. We got to Vann and I went in and just followed the man around his keep, banging on him with my Ice Barbed Spear. 20 other people hitting him so often and so hard it was like watching a puppet mistaken for a pinata. We beat him like batter for a cookie bakeoff. Almost felt bad accepting the Marks of Honor. Almost.

The second time in, what a difference. My gosh, we were strung out from Frostwolf up to Stormpike. At one point Alliance had turned every graveyard and destroyed every tower. I could not ride north for the life of me. Any avenue I'd take I was polymorphed, rooted, stunned, blinded, gouged, blasted, dead. I rezzed in the tunnel so often, in one moment of boredom I etched my name in the rock walls. "Msaker was here. Dead." Look for it. Eventually I make my way north, and was working on trying to help capture the Stormpike Graveyard. BOOM! Score screen pops up. Blue alliance name on top. "Horde Wins" above that. Son of a gun. How'd we manage that? Yeah, I was bemoaning our lack of plans, tactics, success in the raid chat and we won. Sorry about that. I'm going to keep my mouth shut from now on. (If you need to keep talking about Favre as we appear to be losing, that's okay.) Saying the obvious things like "WTF are you doing capping Snowfall?" and "Balinda? OMW." and "Lok is moving" I'll continue though.

Third time in. Well, maybe Horde is back to their usual mode. Being area rugs and door mats for Alliance wins. I helped defend Galv for a while. I think the alliance finally bypassed him for a while. I helped defend Frostwolf for a while. That's probably good PvP practice. The fights around the Stormpike Graveyard are different. In the wide open place around the Frostwolf Graveyard a Warrior can really start his stance dancing. Battle to charge, Berserker to intercept, etc. We lose Frostwolf eventually but I see we are soon going to cap the Stormpike Graveyard. We also don't hold the middle ground. I'm killed by some defense at Ice Blood. Rather than rezz in the tunnel and try again I come up with a new tactic: I run up to Stormpike Graveyard in ghost form. When I reach there I have just a few seconds before the Spirit Healer appears and offers me new life. I take it and ride into Stormpike. The group's light, but competent, and I'm soon pounding on Vann again.

Horde wins. Three times in a row.

Why? I wondered that. I'm suspecting the good players have been following the BG Weekends. Msaker is a scrub and has been working on Frostwolf reputation so that's where he's been lately. But this weekend we get all the good players in AV with us. Maybe the rule should be Good Horde vs. Good Alliance = Horde win.

Flush with the victory Msaker travelled out to Dreadmaul Rock and earned the last 15% of level 55 and dinged 56. Today I'm wondering how much higher the PvP rankings I climbed.

I have put together a little gear set from the Auction House and smithing. I have two pieces of the Imperial Plate set, Shoulders (that I made) and a Helm (that I bought). I have two pieces of the Valor set, Belt and Bracers (Auction House. About 30g for both You can make decent money selling off greens you don't want, and stacks of mageweave, etc. The Dreadmaul Ogres are fairly lucrative. Libram of Resilience off one of them netted me 55g.) And with PvP Rank 7 I'll be getting the Blood Guard Gloves and Leggings. That will net me 2 piece bonuses from 3 different sets. +200 Armor from the Valor. +100 Armor from the Imperial. +40 Attack Power from the PvP set. Not shabby bonuses for a Warrior levelling up to the likes of Dire Maul and the dungeons.