AV Weekend brings out the best in people, doesn’t it? Bonus honor! We totally award it for this macro.

We needed 12 Arathi Basin tokens to get our Merciless Gladiator’s Chain Spaulders. What’s the worst way to get them? Go 0-12 you say?

Wrong-O!

The worst way is to go 0-11, and then win the last one. A nice little /umph at the end to let you know that you could’ve won, if the rest of Alliance wasn’t so Elune-awful at AB.

And we did lose eleven in a row, nice and tidy.

On the final match, we told the Alliance that they had better not dare to win it. We didn’t want a FTL group, but we had just been demolished 0-5 in eight minutes the previous match, we needed one more token, and there was just no way we were capable of winning.

So of course, when it mattered the least to us personally, miracle of miracles, we won.

And then we cursed our teammates, for showing us they could actually win, but just wanted to stick it to us after twelve matches.

B@stards.

Now we’re gonna camp Alterac Valley for a new trinket.

www.pockethealer.com - A holy paladin who latches onto furylols and BM hunters in battlegrounds for fun and profit.

www.getthed@mnflag.com - Warsong Gulch strategies for every class.

www.igotfarm.com - Arathi Basin for the noob.

www.cantgetnosatis-faction.com - Eye of the Storm and why you should play it, even though you get nothing but badges.

www.westartinSTV.com - Alterac Valley for Horde, only.

www.theirvendorsarepansies.com - Alterac Valley for Alliance, only.

www.everythingbutfourletterwords.com - How to get your raid to do a better job without resorting to {bleep}-{bleep}, {bleeping} cursing.

www.mercilessandgreenies.com - You don’t need epics or blues to do well in PvP.

www.fearbomb.com - The most powerful spell in battlegrounds and how best to use it.

www.youcanseetheforest.com - Tree-druid heals everything, tops the charts everytime.

www.youtouchamytreeibreakayouface.com - The husband rogue of YCSTF.com and how he destroys anybody who touches his raid’s healer.

www.allianceD.com - Your raid wants to rush the Relief Hut? That’s not Win. Here’s how to hang back and destroy the Horde by playing defense.

www.thatflagisntempty.com - Advanced rogue-hunting techniques. ’cause they need to DIAF.

www.justsaynotoFTL.com - As much as you want to give up, here’s why you shouldn’t, and how to keep your teammates from quitting.

We hate Arathi Basin. Not the concept of the battleground, but the fact that Alliance is so Elune-awful at it.

It makes us want to punch babies.

We’re standing on goldmine, capping the flag. What was a 4 on 4 is now a 2 on 1, in our favor. All the other guy has to do is control the other hordie and we’ll take it. We’re in the process of capping it, we’re at least halfway done. The other alliance just has to give us 4 seconds, and it’s ours. Attack. The. Horde.

He starts to cap it with us. /facepalm

Hordie attacks us, attacks him, reinforcements arrive for them, not for us, we die, and never take the flag.

And we let loose in battleground chat with many colorful and foul invectives.

Having lost eight in a row, we think we were a little entitled. We watched the Horde steamroller us 0-5 five matches in a row. We watched them seemingly have ten players on four different flags at once. We watched three Alliance rush into a flag guarded by five Horde over and over again.

We wanna reroll Horde, ’cause this is blatantly insane how great they are at AB.

So we told our “partners” off, telling what they were doing wrong, and how dumb they were being. In our favor, we were only directly rude to one person, who accused us of talking instead of fighting. To which we replied,

“Not only are we #1 in damage dealt, total kills, and killing blows, but we’re also #2 in healing. Why don’t you just keep lighting up the bottom of the charts, it seems to be what *you’re* good at.”

We were mad, and yes, we went above and beyond the call of being an @ss.

We post many PvP shots and stories where everything comes out looking great. So in the interest of fair and balanced reporting, tonight we came off looking like a tool, and we thought we should write about it.

Emberstorm Alliance, we apologize for our behavior in AB. We shall restrain our furious anger more adroitly in the future.

Emberstorm Horde, we need six more tokens. May we win two ABs tomorrow? We’ll never go back again, we promise.

“This is your brain speaking. Are you awake?”

Hey brain! What’s up?

“Have you had your coffee?”

Yes! It was scrumptious.

“Good. Now if you have a moment, I have some concerns.”

Whatsamattah, brain? Talk to us.

“Your performance in Alterac Valley last night is giving me pause.”

We rocked AV!

“You did not.”

We went 8-1. That’s ‘rocked’ in anybody’s book.

“You were a train wreck of insanity and non-conformance to basic PvP rules. Frankly, you shut me out almost the entire time.”

We crushed ‘em! What you talkin’ bout, Willis?

“Question #1: Where did you get the mage bread?”

…

“Where. Did you get. The mage bread.”

No idea. We started the first AV and after taking IB Tower, it was in our bags. We never clicked on a table, nobody opened a trade with us, but there it was, a nice 20-stack.

“You have no idea how you got it.”

None.

“You obviously clicked on a table.”

We didn’t! We swear! Tell us when we clicked a table.

“I have no idea either, hence my confusion.”

Maybe we can make bread all by ourselves… we’ve morphed into… OMG, we’re a Mag-unter!

“Right. Question #2: Why did you charge that 5-man team defending IB Tower and how did you survive?”

We charged it because… we didn’t have Track Humanoids on.

“I told you to turn it on, didn’t I.”

Yes, you did.

“But you didn’t do it, did you?”

I hit the macro.

“You hit your Fel Mana potion, doofus.”

Oh, so that’s why we only had 14 of them left, not 15…

“Yup. You slammed a Fel Mana pot, charged into IB Tower with Track Elementals cooking, ran into a 5-man team guarding the tower… and lived.”

We did! /cheer!

“How?”

No idea.

“DO YOU REALIZE HOW MAD THAT MAKES ME!”

Totally understandable, but it was awesome! The mage went down so fast, then we put Hobbes on the priest and the warlock tried to Fear but Bestial Wrath FTW and the warlock ate hot arrows… and maybe the paladin fell off the tower…

“Yes, the paladin fell off the tower, that’s why you lived.”

We crushed that tower!

“You lucked out, you punk.”

Whatever. We got the tower.

“So why did you leave it?”

Um… because someone whispered us to go take SH Bunker.

“So you left your tower unguarded and tried to take the bunker.”

We TOOK the bunker!

“And they took it right back.”

Not for three more minutes. That helped us win that battleground!

“How did you know there was a rogue and priest going to SH Bunker with you? You forgot to whisper the people back and say you were going!”

We did?

“Yeah. You got a whisper saying, ‘Go take SH Bunker!’ and off you trotted. Did you ever think of communicating with them to find out who was going and who was going to guard your tower?”

No…

“Leaving a tower unguarded is pretty dumb.”

Horde never took it!

“Dumb.”

We won…

“D.U.M.B. Now, about that mage.”

Ooo! The frost mage we beat into a pulp! Yeah?

“You had no cooldowns.”

No, we didn’t. That was a mistake. We were going to make him eat Bestial Wrath, but it wasn’t ready. Neither was our PvP trinket. But we killed him!

“How did you manage it?”

Not a clue. He was Blinking and freezing and cone of cold or something and we just jump shot in-place and sent Hobbes with Mend Pet and the mage died before we did.

“You had 118 health when he died.”

Yup.

“He just had to call your mother a bad name and you would’ve been killed.”

Yup.

“You were fighting inside the base of the west Frostwolf tower without any cooldowns, against a full-ready frost mage, and you won.”

Yes!

“And you don’t have any strategy you made up or wisdom you can impart as a result of your victory?”

Not a sausage, no. Don’t be stupid and go against a frost mage when you have no cooldowns, that would be a good lesson.

“I hate you sometimes.”

It was a beautiful thing!

“How did you end up pulling the entire Horde pack of vendors into Drak’s room?”

OK, now that was pretty cool.

“Can’t wait to hear this one.”

We were taking the east Frostwolf Tower, and we got blown off and landed right next to the Shaman cave…

“Blown off the tower? You didn’t fall?”

No! We flew and flew waaay down the hill into a huge pack of horde vendors by the cave where the Shaman hang out. We might have been hit by a snowball, remember those?

“Of course; remembering stuff is my job.”

So all these vendors attack us, we send Hobbes after them, we Feign Death, and then we ran all the way up the hill, back into Frostwolf camp, and attacked Drek. But Hobbes was following us, we had a Mend Pet on him, and the vendors just beat on him all the way with us and into Drek’s room.

“You pulled the vendors into Drek’s room. Why didn’t you just put Hobbes on Stay, let the vendors smack him around, and when you got far enough away, Hobbes would’ve despawned. Then you could’ve Called him and he would’ve appeared right beside you, the vendors nicely resetting?

Hey, that’s a good idea…

“IF YOU WOULD LISTEN TO ME, YOU COULD’VE DONE THAT!”

We were busy trying to get tower and contemplating that bizarre flight into the vendors to really pay any attention to you at the time.

“You’re a colossal goober and the fact that some people listen to you at all is frightening.”

Did you see us ninja that graveyard?

“See you? I was screaming at you to watch out! You thought you were going on Defense and were going to ‘help’ at that graveyard, but you arrived and it was already captured by the Horde, and they forgot to defend it.”

Yeah! Then we captured it again, which totally stalled their offensive, and we won!

“You never looked to see if there were any Alliance attacking it or defending it, you just showed up and there was nobody there to stop you from taking it back. That’s not being a ninja, that’s being stupid and having dumb luck.”

We are a ninja; don’t take that away.

“You’re not a ninja; you’re a moron.”**

We took out their leader, a paladin who kept trying to take our graveyards, several times. We defended a lot.

“That paladin was a typical cockroach who you put Scorpid Sting on instead of Viper Sting.”

Really?

“YES! You didn’t even have Viper Sting on your action bar the entire night!”

Scorpid is pretty useless against a paladin…

“OH!? You don’t SAY?!”

No wonder he had so much mana…

“I’m ashamed to be related to you. You should sell your blog and give the proceeds to the Noob Society of America.”

Well, tonight we buy our Merciless Gladiator’s Helm thanks to all the honor we made yesterday!

“Fine. Just don’t screw up and buy the Shaman helm, OK?”

Honestly, we promise nothing.

** TJ approves this sentence.

“Dear BRK … I am primarily a PvE player but I do dabble in the [battlegrounds] from time to time. Recently some guildies and I had the notion of giving arenas a try. Now, I’m not expecting miracles but I also don’t want to be smashed into the ground a laughed at every match. Which brings me to my question.

“Am I better served playing my arena matches in my Kara and crafted epics or should I pick up the blue PvP gear available from the faction quartermasters?

“I know I will gain a ton of resilience and stamina but my other stats take a nose dive. Balancing act between survivability and damage output I guess. What do you recommend? Gothyelk“

Know this, new arena person: You’re gonna die.

You’re gonna die in the blue arena PvP set.

You’re gonna die in the epic arena PvP sets.

You’re gonna die in epic crafted gear, Kara gear, T5, T6, and Merciless and Vengeful and whatever else gear you get. Gear is not the savior of arena. It helps, no doubt, but there is something much more important:

Skill.

And you don’t have it. At least, not yet. And since you don’t have Skill, you’re gonna get destroyed by those teams that do. Wiped out. Obliterated. Smushed into dust.

But don’t look at it like that’s a bad thing.

Look at it as a Learning Experience.

When you die - and did we mention you’re going to? - don’t just queue for match after match after match. After you lose, take a minute and write down what you did, the team you faced, the tactics that beat you. Discuss with your partners what they saw, and tell them what you experienced. Talk about the terrain, the LOS issues, your group dynamics, and the abilities you used and when you used them. You’ll be shocked at what you find out happened.

You know, there are movies and descriptions and tutorials about raid bosses. There are numerous websites dedicated to raid encounters and tricks and everything a guild needs to progress from Attumen through Sunwell.

But it’s an extreme rarity to one-shot any raid boss, on the first visit. What you need is Skill, and practice gives that to you.

The same theory applies to arenas; you’re not going to go 10-0 your first time. Heck, you’ll probably go 0-10 your first time. But that’s OK! Your goal is not to Win, no it’s not.

Your initial arena-goals should be twofold:

1. Have fun.

2. Learn.

Now we have only participated in one season of arenas because we violated Goal #1; we didn’t enjoy it all that much. We learned as we went, got better as the season went on, and finished with a Challenger title. But we dreaded arena-Mondays and the stress they induced. We loved Tuesdays because it was the longest time before the next mandatory-arena matches. So we stopped and haven’t missed it at all.

There are loads of arena-bloggers who can help you with Goal #2. Megs of OutOfMana is the place we recommend you start.

So go get your buddies and do some research. Then queue up and go do some arenas. Go have fun. Go learn.

Go die.

And what’s really sad is that we had Drek at 38% when we lost. If this guy had actually helped do anything, we might have won.

The raid leader was a level 65 mage who made biscuits for the raid in the tunnel. Just goes to show that level means nothing.

And for those of you on Nordrassil, you have our sympathy.

Queues for Alterac Valley were averaging 12 minutes on Saturday, so we were boot-scooting on over to the Elemental Plateau to farm air and fire motes in between matches. We weren’t alone.

There was a horde rogue, flagged, farming as well. We don’t mind sharing, and we don’t want to be a jerk, so we farmed airs while he was on fires.

Then he came over to grab some airs. Alright, whatever, we’re not gonna /emo about it.

/gank

What the? How’d he attack us? Ohhh. We were still flagged from our last AV and he wanted the plateau all to himself.

He was a Shadowstep rogue. How do we know? He “shadowsteped” half-way across the plateau, got behind us, and stunned us six-ways to Sunday. He smushed us pretty quickly; we weren’t ready for that.

Fortunately, there’s a graveyard on the plateau, so running back to the BRK Corpse was fast. Rez, recover, Track Humanoid, find rogue, kite and… Vanish? Yes it prevents us from killing him for 10 seconds, but while he’s invisible, we slam Track Hidden, toss a Flare, sit on a Frost Trap, Feign Death and recover.

He tries to sneak up behind us, we see him, Intimidation and Bestial Wrath, down he goes. We’re now tied, 1-1.

We live on a PvE server specifically because when we want to farm, we want to farm, not PvP. We’re not going to corpse-camp; that’s not our nature.

We go back to mote-farming and hope the rogue does the same. And of course, he doesn’t. He attacks, we kite, he Shadowsteps, stuns, we die. We rez, attack, he Vanishes, we wait, he attacks, we kill him.

We do this sequence a total of three times, an even number of wins between us, 3-3. And then the AV queue pops and into the battleground we go.

As we start our offensive rush, guess who we run into! Yes, the same rogue who was fighting us on the Elemental Plateau! How awesome is that; karma at its finest.

Ummm… Our brilliance is so astounding that we just now realized that the rogue we were fighting in the battleground is from a different server than us; it wasn’t the same guy. The name was similar, but a rogue cannot be on the R________ server and Drenden at the same time. /genius!  /smacks-self

The Alliance offense presses our attack, we sick Hobbes on that rogue, Hunter’s Mark, and Serpent Sting him every time we see his little nameplate popup on our screen. And when the battle starts to go against him, what does he do?

He Sprints.

Notice that the guy avoided dying completely. And our two deaths came at his hands; he was gunning for us, too.

But what did we do that he didn’t? We didn’t run away from the battle. And why is that important?

If we can make you run from the battle, we can turn our ferocious artillery onto another enemy, basically killing two people at one time. If you’re out of combat, you’re more than just eliminating your DPS from the fight, you’re letting some other member of your team die in your place. /cast [target=you] Dummy

Dying is not The End, and in many cases can be tremendously useful.

If you’re Horde, defending your Relief Hut, and make us spend 10-15 seconds trying to kill you, the rest of your team will be able to support and heal you. And if you do die, you’ll rez at the Relief Hut, fully healed.

If you’re Horde, defending your Relief Hut, and you Sprint away, you won’t do any damage to us - you’re as good as dead - and we’ll start killing your team’s healers. What sounds more tactically advantageous to you?

As Megs preaches: It’s not the Killing Blows that wins matches, it’s the implementation of sound strategy that does. In this battleground, that rogue should have stayed in place and allowed us try to kill him as many times as possible. If we’re killing him, we wouldn’t be nuking the Horde’s healers, which is our favorite thing to do.

We were grinding honor in Alterac Valley on the MacBook Saturday afternoon - the empty action bar slots give that away - and somehow we ended up in a turtle. But as the Horde threw themselves against Stormpike Graveyard over and over again, a bunch of Alliance did their turn-ins and sent the Druids on their way.

Bing, Bang, Bum, we’ve got Ivus.

Have you seen an hour-long Alterac Valley recently? Even the attrition-fights usually only go thirty minutes or so. Alliance and Horde worked really hard to stretch this one out. Great job, everybody, it was a blast.