I’ve been running a lot of WoW Battlegrounds recently. It’s sort of become my favorite part of the game. I have several characters at various levels who I use with interesting results. But the main thing I’ve realized is that my long ago post claiming there was no battlegrounds problem is very very wrong.
I used to only run BGs on the weekends, and that was part of my blindness. It’s during the week that the twinks come out. (Sidebar: Just looked up that term on Urban Dictionary and was surprised to see the original meaning of the word is “An attractive, boyish-looking, young gay man.” And keep reading to find out why. *sigh* Why is everything homophobic in the MMOs?) A twink (in the MMORPG context) is a character who has totally maxed out gear, the best of the best, probably afforded by sending money from a higher level character owned by the same player. In WoW specifically, there are a couple of obvious ways to twink. If you can afford it, by the best gear - blues all the way. But a much worse problem is enchanting.
One of the professions in WoW is enchanting, which lets you put buffs on your gear to increase your health or stats. Unlike every other profession in the game, there are no level limits on enchantment. So you can put the best enchantments in the game (which might require the caster to be high level) on the lowest level items. These uber-twinkers run around the battlegrounds with awesome blue gear enchanted with buffs that can effectively double their life or other stats. Here’s a thread in the offical forums on the topic (subject to disappear at any point, as usual).
Running Warsong Gulch during the week is the worst. I see the same players, over and over again. They never level up, they just hang out at 19 or 29 (or 39 or 49) and dominate. I decided to combat twinkiness with the same. I have a level 29 Priest, Raelle, on a PvP server who I never play because I’ve decided I really dislike PvP servers. So I decided I would just run BGs with her. I took a look at her gear this week and realized I was well on my way to being a twink. Last I played her, this friendly enchanter had given me a bunch of enchants for free, just because I asked what he was offering. And when I looked I realized just how high level some of them were. Not quite as crazy as what some of these guys have, but definitely better than what I “should” have at this level. So I went out and spent all my gold buying some blue items to make Raelle even better. Then I took her to the BGs. Well, turns out a twinked Priest is no match for a twinked Rogue. I still went down in about 2 hits to the rogues. But when I managed to not get attacked, and just healed, I could keep one teammate alive versus 3 people. Haha!
I tried WSG with Shaleyla, my 46 Tauren druid, for the first time in about 20 levels. Again, this was during the week. Every time I played but one (about 3 times) , I encountered a group lead by a 49 Mage called Zohar. One time one of my teammates said “Oh no, it’s Zohar” and just about everyone on our side left. Rightly so, because this scheming Alliance crew seems to know uber tricks to break the game. They just destroyed us over and over. And not because they had better strategy (though they had good strategy) but because we just couldn’t seem to hurt them at all. Something isn’t right there. Then one battle was not against them and we just destroyed the Alliance. So it wasn’t a lack of ability on our part necessarily.
As I started by saying, BGs are currently on of my favorite parts of the game. There are unbalanced issues going on. I think that Blizzard needs to level limit enchantments so that high level enchants can only be placed on high level items, just like everything else in the game. That would go a long ways towards fixing the problem. A team with good strategy should win, so I don’t mind coming up against well-practiced well-played strategies, as long as there’s no “cheating” going on.
I love BGs because I can destroy a level 39 Warrior or Druid with my 33 Mage (mages rock!). I love BGs because a level 25 Druid chased my 29 Priest into a corner and thought he could take me out. I laugh! Priests can kill, and I took out that foolish Druid with aplomb. It’s the successful encounters that really stick with me. The flag carrier assists that help win the game - the sheeping of the FC that gives my team time to come in and take him out. Oh, BGs are fun, they just need a little bit of fixin’.
7 Responses to “Battlegrounds, the Bad”
I understand why you feel like you are being cheated when a team of “twinks” destroys you, but the fact is they are not cheating just b/c they have the time and money to get all the best gear. I am a twink rogue on muradin( lvl 19) i have over 1400 health points and can destroy quite alot of people before the can take me down. it took me almost a month and about 300 gold to get all the gear and enchants i have. I put all that time/money into it because i love to be able to own people and it would be ridiculous for blizzard to stop allowing people to do that. And how you were talking about unbeatable teams; i run BGs with my guildies and we join wsg in a 10 man group while we talk on teamspeak, all we are is strategy. so really its not cheating its just were putting more effort into winning so to speak.
LOLZ! I know what ya mean about twink rogues and their enchants! Gah! The best strategy is to gang up on him/her (cuz twink rogues often seperate from the main groups), mages slowing them down with frost spells the entire time your melee fighters are hacking them down. My mage Nevr is unfortunately alliance (Horde FTW BTW) so i have gotten used to merciless slaughter. I just keep coming back for more. Back this lil mage into a corner and I go AoE nub-style on yer arse! LMAO!
yo what would be the best gear for my 19 twink gnome rogue…
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I understand your frustration in BG. While I don’t consider myself a twink, I do like watching the AH and getting the best stuff I can; and just a few moderate enchants.)
As a 39 Rogue (for the last month and a half), I have had my butt handed to me more times than I care to remember. Which led me to read more about twinks and what they do to bolster themselves. I refuse to put so much time and effort into enchanting every item I have to the max. (This is my first guy, and I would like to take him to the ceiling.)
As I get killed more times than I can count, I try to watch strategies others use…and I pick up tips here and there. And I am trying to learn how to manage my skills.
Usually I die so much more than I kill, but I enjoy playing for those rare moments of ecstacy where I own a twink. (Lots of sweat and swearing in between those moments folks.)
But to address your original gripe, I understand your position, but I personally feel that BG are a separate arena (no pun intended) of play filled with a multitude of possibilities. Sure those twinks are jacked, but you could be too if you had the gumption. And besides, the times you do win are so much sweeter aren’t they? You would never enjoy a kill as much if you always won.
As for me, I will endure a bit longer at 39…pick up a few more memorable kills, and then continue up the food chain.
You clearly have not done your research. Enchants do have level requirements - the item level is the requirement. So higher level enchants require higher level items, and higher level items aren’t _useable_ by lower level characters. The enchants (minus weapon enchants, which are in fact a balance problem) are designed to be equally useful at all levels. So your basic chest health enchant at level 19 should be about as good as the much higher health enchant at level 59. Like many things in WoW, you seem to be getting better but everything else gets better along with you, so you are relatively the same. That is why people make twinks. They want to break the somewhat depressing game schema that the typical character doesn’t get RELATIVELY better than his surroundings even though he advances in level. Twinking is about getting a relative advantage, and that is a perfectly legitimate goal.
And besides, if you don’t like it, just don’t play the 19 or 29 brackets. Hardly any of the gear you can get from them is worth the time anyway. You won’t have nearly as much, or at all, of a problem at higher levels.
Hehe. I wrote this post almost two years ago. They *introduced* level requirements for high level enchants with Burning Crusade. Enchants prior to that didn’t (and still don’t) have level requirements. You can put Crusader on a level 1 weapon, check it out http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=20034. ONLY the enchants from the expansion have level requirements. A level 60 enchant is still completely broken on a level 19 character.
Just go inspect some teammates in a level 19 bracket, you’ll see their stats are many times what they should be. I’ve seen a twinked out level TEN hold off a full set of 10 people. That is not right.
And I like to run the battlegrounds to take a break from leveling. I’m not *staying* at level 19 to BG, I’m passing through and wanted to stop in and fight for a little while. But it isn’t reasonable to do so at all when people have enchants that make them able to one-shot kill me.
You are the brick! Reading stuff like this written in the way like this is a great pleasure for me.