The PvP Grind - how do you do it?Follow

So I've been 70 for a few weeks on my feral druid, hitting instances when I can to pick up better gear. I'm to the point where I need exalted with CE (as does every feral druid) but the invites to party have pretty much dried up due to people not running non-heroics often. I can run heroics but it's a total crap-shoot and the odds are I'll end up with a bad healer or no CC in party. Been there, done that.

I've been looking into the PvP gear as it's 100% drop and I can eventually work my way there but the grind is killing me.

I've been doing PvP as long as I can stand (maybe a few hours before I'm burn out) and I've only managed to knock out 8k honor so far, not even enough for a single piece of gear.

My experience thus far is that almost nobody likes to heal in PvP. I've been throwing on my PvE healing gear (6k hp, ~850 healing) and throwing out healing all over the place and can usually manage top 3 healing, sometimes top spot by 300%. If I'm top we usually win; oddly enough as it means nobody on the other side is healing.

I also do not have an arena team because I don't want to drag someone else down with my complete lack of skill in PvP.

My questions is this - how do you manage the grind to pick up PvP gear and how long does it take you to get a piece?

Here's random thoughts from a fellow PvE player that realizes the gearup value of PvP. I've actually come to enjoy three out of the four battlegrounds. WSG can bite me.

BATTLEGROUNDS for HONOR/MARKS

• If you really don't enjoy battlegrounds, just run the daily and hope for a win in your first 1-3 attempts. It'll make that one win like two for you. If ya don't get it and aren't having fun, abandon quest and try again the next day.
• Focus your battleground action into the weekends and just run whatever BG is that week's special for phat bonus honor.
• Don't run Warsong Gulch. Ever. Some people say it rocks for druids as flag carriers, and I've had fun doing so, but in my experience its exponentially more likely than the other BGs to turn into a long drawn-out match. (edit to point out that this is purely personal non-preference based on countless bad experiences in WSG, you should actually run it in case it doesn't **** you off like it does me.)
• Every time you log on, fly out of Shat real quick to see the timer on the towers around Auchindon for the "Spirits of Auchindon" quest. It's the easiest gold and honor in the game. 9 times out of 10 (higher % in my experience but I don't wanna jinx it) you fly to the tower, /sit until it unlocks and fly away with the equivalent of a BG win like 30 seconds later, maybe a minute, I've never timed it.

ARENA
There's plenty of you (ok, us) that use and abuse the arena system for the "free" purples. Just find somebody else that doesn't mind watching a rating plummet match after match and squeeze off 10 matches once a week. It's amazing how fast 10 losses come when you suck like you (ok, we) do. : ) And for the record, I have TRIED to be non-worthless in arena, I just don't have it. I'm too old, too slow, too stupid, whatever, I just can't do it well even with decent gear as feral which I'm comfortable with or the "arena resto spec" that supposedly makes us OP in arena. (I'm PvE feral so not used to PvP or healing or cc...add it all up and I sux)

Edited, Sep 22nd 2008 8:19am by JeeBar

Especially since you're undergeared, I would go to AV. Heal like you've been doing; it'll be more helpful than DPSing, and since you'll be in the back, you're less likely to get butchered except by a stray rogue once in a while. With a ton of people, one person's lack of skill/gear will NOT bring down the group. And even with bad matches in AV, you'll usually walk out within half an hour with 250-400 honor. More on the holiday weekends (best time to grind honor).

In respect to Arena... I suck at Arena. Hey, I play feral anyway so I don't expect to be that great... but I really suck. My highest rating has been like a 1400 (and that was 10 matches, with 8 losses and 2 wins, or something like that).

Suck it up. Advertise in /trade on a Monday: "Looking for an arena partner just to get some points. We'll go through 10 rounds fast, and disband tomorrow. New to arena, or just want a boost this week? PST!" I did that for two weeks in a row, and ended up getting around 250 arena points each time. Since I had previously played with some friends (who are now off the game), even by forming a team almost guaranteed to lose, I still made enough in the course of a few weeks to buy a piece of S3 (gloves). Now, it's not fast, but it takes time to get up your PvP skills and gear anyway, so you might as well get points while you wait.

And DON'T put it off until next week. Do this tonight. WotLK comes out Nov. 13th, and Arena Points get wiped. So get them ASAP, and buy your piece or two of gear before the expansion!

bging alone sucks. bging with friends, even just one other friend, is LOADS better. my best advice to you is to grab a friend of yours and duo some pvp together instead of just soloing. granted, you can solo too, but having a friend along helps keep burnout at bay and makes the time just fly. its also a nice buffer against the inevitable horrible teammate scenario, meaning you two can find your own little niche in the map and farm honor, turning an otherwise fruitless endeavor into something profitable (if not fun).

A woman at my work has her kids run BGs for allowance money. That could be an option if you have kids.

I have done arenas with a guildy. Me on my feral and him on either his Holy Pally or his Hunter. Our success rate is about the same with both combos (1400's usually). The big difference is that the 2 DPS team has matches that last 2-3 mins and the DPS/Healer team has matches that often last 10+ mins. I know which one I prefer! 1 hour to get the 10 games in or 2-3 hours!

One last thing about the PvP grind in AV...

If you're going for honor (and you are), I would recommend NOT going in solo to cap the towers. HKs have a long range (maybe 100 yards), but outside of that you won't get any of that honor. Unless there is a clear and winning strategy for you to go stealth, or you're going to lose entirely (ie, turtle at the bridge, and you've capped no towers), it's not worth it, IMO. They'll just retake it (nothing you can do to stop it), and while you're waiting around, you're missing out on 50-150 honor from being in the range of those HKs.

Some people might argue with the morality of being a lemming, but those people either don't need gear or would rather win the battle than the war :)