Well folks, after a long absence I am finally back.
I signed up for Wow before I knew the real difference between PvP and PVE. It's also been widely joked about in wow forums of the weakness of Paladins. I must admit that I was getting very frustrated with Adventar.
As I would travel through Desolace or places like the Badlands I had to come up with strategies to survive. Before I knew well I had to search high and low for advice and finally settled for some strategies that some might prove useful.
When I was a lowbie and was really terrible at PVP one of my strategies was to hide.
I'd hide on ledges to be unseen by horde traveling below or I'd hide in dead mobs if I had to leave the computer for a few minutes.
In this picture over here I am lying down inside this mob. This lying down techniques actually save me from being discovered on numerous occasions. But, I still got killed time and time again. Until finally I almost threw in the towel. I said to myself that's it I'm gonna see what happens if I do battlegrounds.
3300 Honor Kills later I learned a lot about how to defend myself!
To understand the complexity of World PvP life you have to understand the Three basic components of World Pvp Survival.
1. Avoidance
This might seem funny at first, but I am actually serious here. The first step to World PvP survival and Battleground wins is being able to avoid combat when necessary.
Maybe it's from taking many years of Martial Arts training that I just have it so ingrained me to never throw the first punch. Maybe it's following the golden rule, 'Do unto others...'. I hate getting ganked so much that I don't gank others unless they've stuck me first.
My point is to avoid ganking in World PvP. You don't want to be good at killing another player when their health is down. Striking an opponent while he/she is down or is a lower level makes for sloppy game skills. It allows you to garner bad combat habits. You want your skills to be sharper. You want to be good at taking down players at full strength. This forces you to be at the top of your game, where you want it to be.
Avoidance holds true in Battlegrounds where the objective is generally capturing the opponents flag or node, not HKs. In my opinion, this is the number one reason Alliance seems to lose the majority of the time in Battlegrounds.
I don't mean avoid combat at all costs. Don't worry even if you start to avoid PvP fights if you can help it, believe me you will still get into a whole lot of scraps. And if you are ganked and killed first, by all means get revenge.
2. Increase Survivability
Create a strategy for yourself on what to do to keep up your health while in combat. I highly recommend leveling up First Aid and stocking up on health/mana potions. Know every power/item/ability that can keep you alive and have it ready on your tool bar and have a key mapped to it. I've mentioned two ways to keep yourself alive just a little longer. As a paladin I can bubble and heal myself and lay on hands that gives me even more survivability. I'm sure you can think of others for your character.
Also, have an escape plan. Come up with strategies for how to get away if necessary. As an engineer I have invisibility which I've used successfully several times to get away or sneak past some horde to accomplish my goals.
3. Strength
Know your strongest hitters and have them ready to go. Understand when and how to use them. A couple levels ago I dropped my blacksmith talent. It just wasn't doing anything for me. And I took up Engineering. I've never regretted it. Now my strongest hitter is 'The gnomish death ray'. When I was a level 35 or so Paladin I can crit for 1900 not bad. I still use it once in a while, if things are neck and neck. Lately, my skills have seemed high enough that I've beaten other PvPers without it.
So, there you have it the three basic components of World PVP survival. In a future post I will get into more specific strategies for winning in Battlegrounds and possibly more specific details on winning in combat.
I hope you enjoy my first post after a long absence.
Your favorite Paladin,
Adventar
