Friday, January 11, 2008

Struggling to Multibox in Battlegrounds



A few days ago I told you all about my first real attempt at Battlegrounds since the disaster in the teens. I mentioned that my first WSG was a rousing success, and that I couldn't wait to go back in.

I've since run around 10 more matches... and have yet to win again.

First off, I'm a good player. I don't claim to be the best of anything, but I feel I can safely say "I know what I'm doing". I was a successful FPS (First Person Shooter) player and I held spots on several respected Counter Strike teams. WoW PvP, being significantly easier than FPS, is very within my range of ability, and I truly enjoy it. Multiboxing however, is taking time to learn.

Rarely are you picked out by the entire other team and rushed over an over when you play one toon. Once you're playing 5, you are SO worth it. :)

But there have been other issues. The "oogling effect", where players simply stay mounted and follow you around to take screenshots. It's terrible. Because the rest of the players blame me for them not helping.

Then when one of your toons die, you can sometimes spend alot of time recovering, trying to get your toons back in a group.

I was also victim to the terrible "Fear Bomb". As a multiboxer, FBs are your worst enemy. Demending on which directions your guys run, and how fast, you may never recover. As Shaman, we have two defenses to this.
  1. Always have a Tremor Totem or two on the ground to break fear as soon as it hits.
  2. Use your PvP trinkets.
The PvP trinkets are seriously expensive (2000+ Honor) which is easy to farm at 60, but takes much longer at 48. So my guys don't have the Honor to buy them just yet. The Tremor Totems have GOT to be a hotkey. And for whatever lazy reason, I still haven't set that up. I have them in my Totem dropping macro, but when you see a Priest or Warlock rushing you, you may not have 6 seconds to cycle through all your totems.

So tonight I'll put Tremor Totem on my Nostromo in a slot of it's own... then again, maybe I just need two different Totem macros.. one for Tremor and Grounding Totems (my panic defenses), and one for the rest. That way I can switch up the order as needed, and still only take up two slots... yeah. I dig that. I'll let you know how it goes. (can you tell I type as I think?) :)

Anyways, as I said, I did terrible. I tried to get a group of 5 buddies from my guild to come with me, but there just are not enough players who have lvl 40ish toons sitting around. There's not a whole lot of reason to keep a toon in the 40s.

Dispite the hate tells, I persevered. I kept going back in, and kept modifying my macros. It was tough to keep going, but I wanted to pvp.

Last night I decided to queue up for Arathi Basin, to see if my pvp improvements would show up where they failed me before. I was pleasently surprised. I took some advice I got on the forums over at Dual-Boxing, and I spoke before the match started. Here's what I said:

"Hey all. I'm multiboxing 5 Shaman. I'm new to this, so I may make mistakes, and I apologize ahead of time. Just hollar and tell me where you need me."

I was suddenly surrounded by players, saying "Cool!" "Holy crap check this out!" and even a "Don't worry about it bud, you'll get better. Just keep trying!". I was shocked. With this new team behind me, I set out and had a GREAT match. I was playing significantly better than I did before.

After taking the Mill myself from 4 other toons, they decided to rush my guys. But this time I was ready. I managed totems, I kept Bloodfury and Elemental Mastery up, I targeted the right players, and my boys only died once each the whole match. It was incredible.

I was multibox/pvping. I found my groove and was feeling success. We actually ended up losing the match, but only by... wait for it... ONE TICK. (10 points. 2000/1990) It was a fantastic game and great fun.

I unfortunately had two "Oooglers", which didn't help. So I did alot of traveling to keep up with the Alliance surge. Several of their players were either pissed, or just found it fasinating to attack me. After I'd swoop down and take the Mine from 3 players, they'd come back with 4 or 5, over and over, no matter how many times I'd kill them all. (I had a helper)

They kept trying new strategies, but I'd simply adapt. After they gave up, I ended up traveling around to find the action.

The point of this post is to encourage you. First off, avoid the BGs till the 40s. Second, avoid the BGs unless you have excellent blue gear on all your toons. (carebearing will do this for you.) Last of all, don't let the jerks discourage you, like they did me. Stick with it, and get in as many matches as you can. You'll figure it all out eventually, and when you come out, you'll be shocked by how easy PvE is. :)

Boom

1 comment:

Jon said...

Sounds like your boys are growing up fast.