Leveling a new Priest!

One of my WoW related New Years resolutions was to blog more. Considering we're now into the second week of January I'd say I've not been keeping to that particular resolution very well. The holiday are always a busy period for everyone and I hope you all had an excellent time! Now that everyone seems to be back onto a regular schedule it's time to get back down to business.

lvl 56. Almost ready to head to Outlands!

I recently hit level ninety on my Mage, making her my fourth level ninety. I've been completely neglecting dailys and even gold making in favour of leveling another Priest on a different server. A server I paid to transfer off of a while back. A PvP server!

Having gotten a bit bored and restless during Cataclysm myself and a few friends decided to transfer off of our low population, PvE server in favour of faction changing and moving to a high population PvP server. For the first few weeks I enjoyed it but it gradually began to grate on me. As a player I tend to spend very little time within (the safety of) the City walls or in instances instead preferring to level alts via quests or potter around out in Azeroth. I post my auctions and I jet off somewhere. I've never been much of a PvP'er - I get panicky and flustered so being outside with people bigger and with better gear than me was horrifying. 

I transferred off of the server leaving my friends and what had become my raiding team. Not just due to being ganked multiple times by max level characters I just didn't feel at home there I really didn't enjoy the experience, I'm sure getting one shot by people didn't help the feeling of unease!

I'm much happier muddling away on my little PvE server on my own but it can get pretty lonesome. I haven't bothered to look for a guild as I'm not entirely sure I want to return to raiding. I do miss it and I miss the comradery but I don't miss the time restraints and those days where you just don't feel like it. I of course have my friends on Real ID but there are still certain things we can't do together.

So I've decided to level another Priest. I'm leveling along side my boyfriends Shaman which may be why I've seldom been attacked by people. We did get killed several times by a level 90 in Felwood but I shrugged it off and we continued questing. My plan for this Priest is to PvP. I hate having to constantly respec my main when I want to switch between doing dailys or doing Battlegrounds, heroics or LFR. I've toyed with the Idea of leveling a second Priest for a while as I have multiple max levels of other classes. I had just never felt the need for a second max level Priest. Korla was all I needed <3. However now with the introduction of Challenge modes I'd really like to have a character on my friend's server to join in with those and it'll mean having one Priest primarily dedicated to PvP and perhaps even venture back into Arena. 

You'll always be my number one Korla.

The end of PvP week!

PvP week has thankfully come to an end. While the week should have ended on Thursday I had pretty much given up by Tuesday due to a multitude of reasons.

• We're having pretty hot weather here. I hate heat, I get headaches, I can't sit still. I hate the sun! 
• Holy shit, people in battegrounds are stupid.
• I started playing my Warlock a lot more (who forgot to tell me they were pretty fun?)
• Have you actually been in a battleground recently? I'm pretty sure Blizzard have hidden a secret camera near my computer. Specifically selected as may mouth breathers from my battle group as possible just to laugh at me raging.
• Aside from being angry a lot I was often pretty bored. I'm a defender, a lone wolf protecting a base. Game after game of doing the same gets dull pretty quickly but if I don't protect it I know no one else will.

Wowcrendor sums up my pvping experience pretty well in his How to win at PvP video series. 

All in all the week was a success and as much as I may have complained about it, I did really enjoy some of it. My boyfriend plays a Retribution Paladin and we did a few games of Warsong Gulch together with him carrying the flag (mostly due to no one else bothering) we made a pretty good team with me healing. It's something I know I'm going to have to spend more time on even if that's just doing one battleground a day or trying to devote one day a week to PvP. I got some more honourable kills, I got a new set of PvP gear, I even managed to score a few achievement points along the way! Reputation was my most important part but I'm not even going to look at how much I have or haven't gained because I know how long that grind is actually going to take. 

Slow and steady wins the race!

PvP week!

Reputation and achievement points have always been the driving force behind me doing shit I don't actually want to do. I'm a sucker for them especially rep (I'm sure there's a deep rooted psychological reason for this but we can explore that later).

Looking at my achievement summery it's glaringly obvious which side of the game I neglect. I'd love to get the justicar achievement. There are many others I could get along the way. So I've deemed this week "PvP Week!"  I thought giving it a title (albeit a not very good title) would make it feel more fun and interesting. It technically started on Monday the 14th of May however I've slacked several days only managing to do two or three battlegrounds so I'm starting over - or extending it to two weeks, whatever.

So what is "PvP week!"? I hear you wonder. It's a week (or two) in which I force myself to PvP my face off instead of idling around Stormwind or doing anything else remotely enjoyable in game (I jest I'm just awful at PvP).

"But wait, I thought you hated PvP so much so that you even transferred off of a PvP server?" Well that's not strictly true. I do enjoy controlled, organized PvP (especially with friends and some kind of voice communication). It feels very much like PvE in the sense that my main focus is playing whack-a-mole with Grid much like I would in a raid. Except instead of avoiding fire on the ground I'm trying to line of sight the Mage while also keeping a Rogue off of my back at the same time. I just don't like the "if it's red it's dead" attitude of many players on PvP servers. Preying on lower, lesser geared players. Hurtling after players who have been caught out while doing their daily quests perhaps already low on health and taking advantage of it. That's the part I don't enjoy dishonourable killing. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

The Justicar achievement requires you to gain Exalted with all three of the Alliance forces. My current reputation is as follows.

Silverwing Sentinels        352 / 12000 Honoured
Stormpike Guard             999/999 Exalted
The League of Arathor     5214 / 12000 Honoured

That's actually pretty depressing. I know I'm not going to get all of these to Exalted just by PvPing for an entire week (or two) I'm not that naive. These are pretty harsh grinds to do but I'm up for the challenge! While I'm really doing this for the reputation, to take my focus off of the daunting task ahead of me I've noted down a few achievements which I want to get in the process. I'll head out to obtain those and take any reputation and additional achievements I get as a nice bonus for now.

47,296 Honourable Kills.

Battleground wins need 100 of each.

Alterac Valley  52

Arathi basin  51

Eye of the Storm  21

Warsong Gulch  61

Strand of the Ancients  26

Isle of Conquest  21

Battle for Gilneas  2 (Troll face)

And 8 Tol Barad Wins.  Need 25.

Sporting the PvP recolour of Priest Tier 6 during this en devour just feels right.

Is there a side of the game you particularly avoid due to your own dislike or your lack of time/ability? Are you willing to just grin and bare it to get that achievement or last recipe you need from a reputation grind?

Want to take part in PvP week with me? Or your own version Send me an @ reply on twitter @SocoWow.

We'll meet back here in a weeks time to catch up on how things are going!