Spicytuna» Arena http://spicytunas.com Thu, 05 Apr 2012 18:25:24 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 36 Minute Arena Match http://spicytunas.com/2010/02/36-minute-arena-match/ http://spicytunas.com/2010/02/36-minute-arena-match/#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2010 11:16:26 +0000 Tuna http://spicytunas.com/?p=4533 The beginning of all my Arena Sessions usually start with, “Let’s do our 10 games for the week!” That leads to, “Let’s keep Arena’ing til 7pm!” On good days it leads to, “Let’s get XXXX rating so we can get our next piece of gear! We’re so close!” Sometimes it ends up with, “OMG let’s get our rating back and quit!”

This week we’ve busy and couldn’t get any games in til Monday night- the night before ratings are calculated and points are given out. Apparently this is usually the time where some of the good players queue up to collect rating off scrubs (like us), and we ended up only getting 15 games in before I ran out of time and had to leave.

We started off the night with just trying to get our 10 games in for the week so we can get Arena points for the week. We had a pretty bad losing streak so we ended up playing more games so we can get our Rating back up to at least where it was. Well we gave ourselves til 7pm before we would stop, but we ran into a team that just wouldn’t let us stop at 7pm.

36min-arena-match
Over 1 Million Damage AND Outhealed the other Paladin!

My Rogue partner got wtfpwn’d by the two Paladins early in the game. Then they went after me. Thing is, they got over confident and the Holy Paladin decided that he didn’t need to heal anymore. I guess the Retribution Paladin didn’t think he would need to bubble either, and I got a few good crits and and killed him. Now it is just me and the Holy Paladin left.

It was a chess match with us trying to out-mana each other. A long, long, loooooooooooooong chess match. As the match went on, I got less and less help from my partner over vent too!

1 Minute In:

“He’s at 50% Mana, you’re running low, Sheep him and use Evocation!”

2 Minutes In:

“You’re running low on Mana again, try to get out of combat and drink up.”
“OMG he has water too! Go interrupt his drinking!”

5 Minutes In:

“He’s trying to rez!”

10 Minutes In:

“… be right back, I’m going to go get a drink…”

15 Minutes In:

“WTF the match isn’t over yet?! We better get like 100 Rating for this Match!”

20 Minutes In:

“Holy shit, you’re still fighting?!”
Me: “Yea I think he bubbled like three times…”
“Okay I’m gonna go do something, yell in vent when its over.”

35 Minutes In:

“… okay you should just text me or something when this is over or something.”

Man I really really really hate going 1 on 1 against healers. It is such a different fight. You stop looking at Health bar and all you look at is the Mana bar. I have save all my cooldowns and keep an eye on all my timers.

There was a few mistakes the Paladin made which led to me finally winning the match:

  • He blew a bubble thinking it would keep me from interrupting him from resurrecting his partner.
  • He buffed himself with Greater Blessing of Wisdom. Thanks!
  • He didn’t bring more water than me, and ran out. Mage FTW!
  • He chased me out in the open (not near middle grave or entrance) and couldn’t LOS Squirtle and my final bursts of damage at the end.

Good match Mr. Nomixus of team ROADHOUSE! Hopefully we won’t cross paths again, I don’t think I can handle another epic battle. This was longer than when I solo’d old Onyxia.

We ended with a 7-8 record for the 3rd week of Arena, with a 1343 Rating. I think we ended up losing 5 Rating from what we previously had last week.

]]> http://spicytunas.com/2010/02/36-minute-arena-match/feed/ 2 Season 8 Arena: Week One http://spicytunas.com/2010/02/season-8-arena-week-one/ http://spicytunas.com/2010/02/season-8-arena-week-one/#comments Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:03:07 +0000 Tuna http://spicytunas.com/?p=4524 The first week of Arena with my new Rogue partner was very fun. It felt really good to participate in Arena matches again. All these feelings I’ve had the last time I arena’d are coming back to me- and I’ve missed them all.

The rush of ending a match only a few seconds into the match; the thrill of beating a composition you were having trouble with all night; pulling off a victory as the last man standing after your partner has died. Being angry at yourself for doing something stupid; forgetting to buff yourself and hoping your partner didn’t catch it; cheering on your partner to win the match after you died already.

Even the “pins and needles” sensation I get in my hands and arms after a close match. It feels great to do Arena again.

season-8-arena-1

I’ve been away from competitive PvP for quite sometime, and I’ve pretty much had to learn to fight each class again. Learn to save my cooldowns for the correct time, and learned to save my Counterspells for just the right moment.

I had to learn what buffs some classes got, and what each spell animation looks like for whenever they pop a certain defensive ability. I’ve learned about the Hunter’s Deterrence ability the hard way. “WTF did he just deflect my Frostbolts!?!”

Our first week went fairly well. We were still learning how to play along with each other- learn each other’s play style. Also, I didn’t have a working mic, and my partner had to put up with playing with a mute Mage.

About 90% of our losses were against teams with a Hunter in it. For some reason, we just couldn’t win. They seem to cheat death like five times per match. Something for us to work on for the upcoming weeks.

We ended up with and .500 record and we stopped with a 657-ish rating for the week. Not bad for a new team with no communication.

Dear Blizzard,

Buff Mages.
Nerf Hunters.
Warriors are fine.

- Tuna

]]> http://spicytunas.com/2010/02/season-8-arena-week-one/feed/ 2 Over 1000 Resilience http://spicytunas.com/2010/02/over-1000-resilience/ http://spicytunas.com/2010/02/over-1000-resilience/#comments Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:31:59 +0000 Tuna http://spicytunas.com/?p=4513 So what did I do with all that Honor I farmed during the first two weeks of Season 8? New Wrathful gear! There are a couple of pieces you can pick up with just Honor that doesn’t have a Arena Rating Requirement on them. I made sure to pick them all up!

resilience

Patch 3.2 gave us a new change to how Resilience works, and an addition hotfix gave us more damage reduction from Resilience, making this stat even more essential to PvP. You won’t see players with a lot of PvE gear in Arenas as much now.

Reduces Chance to be Critically Hit

At level 80, every 94.27 Resilience rating will net you a 1% chance reduction. For example, I have 1125 Resilience, so that will give me a 11.933% chance reduction of being critically hit.

Total Resilience / 94.27 = % Critical Hit Chance Reduction

There is currently no cap to reducing your chances of getting critically hit- so essentially you can be “uncritable” if you stack enough Resilience.

Mana Drains and Critical Strike Damage Reduction

Not only does Resilience reduces the chance of you getting hit by a critical strike, if you do get it, it will reduce the damage of the critical strike! Mana drain reduction too! Resilience is a nice stat.

[Total Resilience / 94.27] x 2.2 = % Critical Strike Damage Reduction

So I take the 11.933% Critical Hit Chance Reduction I have from my 1125 Resilience, and multiply it by 2.2 to get the % of Mana Drains and Critical Strike Damage Reduction I will have: 26.246%.

Additional Damage Reduction From All Damage Sources

On top of all that, Resilience now gives you a straight up damage reduction- and by double the amount of your % Critical Hit Chance Reduction too!

[Total Resilience / 94.27] x 2.0 = % Damage Reduction

So again I take the 11.933% Critical Hit Chance Reduction I have, then multiply it by 2.0 to get how much Damage Reduction I will have: 23.867%.

TLDR: Get Resilience, it’s a good PvP stat.

]]> http://spicytunas.com/2010/02/over-1000-resilience/feed/ 13 Back into PvP Mode http://spicytunas.com/2010/02/back-into-pvp-mode/ http://spicytunas.com/2010/02/back-into-pvp-mode/#comments Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:01:34 +0000 Tuna http://spicytunas.com/?p=4493 When Patch 3.3.2 was released, it marked the beginning of Season 8 of Arena- which will also be the last season of the Wrath of the Lich King Expansion. It also gave me a new reason to start PvPing again, and more reason to kill Horde.

107k honor
107k Honor in one day!

Since I am now on a new server, I will have to find myself a new Arena partner too! A guildie was looking for a Mage to do Arena with his Rogue- sounds like a pretty good 2v2 composition!

This also means I will be doing Battlegrounds regularly now for the PvP Daily, as well as collecting marks to turn in for more Honor. I’m just glad that I have enough Eye of Storm marks saved up that I won’t have to enter that BG unless it is the Daily. AB and WSG still remains as my favorite two BGs to play.

ab-drunk
Dropping down that Pony Keg was a BAD idea!

I gotta go now! Have… to… farm… more… honor…

I’m going to put together some sort of Season 8 starter guide sometime in the near future so look forward to that. Look forward to more Arena Pictures too! I know a few of you have been bugging me to show off my MS Paint skillz.

]]> http://spicytunas.com/2010/02/back-into-pvp-mode/feed/ 1 Arcane Mage PvP: Never Give Up http://spicytunas.com/2009/03/arcane-mage-pvp-never-give-up/ http://spicytunas.com/2009/03/arcane-mage-pvp-never-give-up/#comments Mon, 23 Mar 2009 20:35:18 +0000 Tuna http://spicytunas.com/?p=3327 arena-banner

Here is a video from Round 4 of the second Best of Five Grandfinals match between SK Gaming Asia and HON. Yea I don’t know what means either, I’m just quoting what I read from the description. All I know is that this is a match between two well known Arena teams, and Mages were involved. Thanks goes to ex-ViewFromBehind Rogue, now ViewFromAfar Hunter, Doomilias for showing me this video.

It was a 3v3 Arena match, and each team had the same class set up, Rogue/Mage/Priest, or RMP for short. The video shows how versatile an Arcane Mage is in PvP, and goes from barely escaping a 2v1 disadvantage; to bursting down an opponent, leading to a victory.

First Part:

Both Rogues were taken out of the match, and it was Mage/Priest vs Mage/Priest. When HON’s Priest goes down, Orangemarmelade, the Arcane Mage, is forced into a 2v1 situation. While the announcers were calling the match over, Orangemarmelade keeps fighting, and evens the match by taking out the opposing Mage. Still, for a Mage, playing against a Discipline Priest is very tough.

Second Part:

The match keeps continuing until the time limit of the match is reached, and a victor is decided by whoever does the most damage. SK Gaming Asia needed only to win that match to win the $30,000 prize, but Orangemarmelade not only prevented that, but him and his team won the next match also, giving them the $30,000 prize.

Final Match:

This match shows how quickly matches can be decided in a Rogue/Mage/Priest set up. Watching these videos makes me want to start participating in Arena seriously again. But I’m lazy… and don’t feel like respecing. Maybe I’ll start up again after Dual Specs are out.

]]> http://spicytunas.com/2009/03/arcane-mage-pvp-never-give-up/feed/ 2 Mage PvP Gear: Season 5 http://spicytunas.com/2009/02/mage-pvp-gear-season-5/ http://spicytunas.com/2009/02/mage-pvp-gear-season-5/#comments Tue, 17 Feb 2009 09:08:21 +0000 Tuna http://spicytunas.com/?p=3025 While I was on an honor farming spree last week to upgrade my PvP gear, I made frequent visits to various sites, and took note of which gear is out there that I could acquire. I took note of how much honor or emblems I needed to help plan out what my goal was to farm.

pvp-frost-mage

I got a few requests for this, so I took the list that I had and expanded it further to make a PvP gear guide players can use to plan out which gear to get. Here is a list of various PvP gear you can pick up, from starter gear, to the best you can get for his season.

Frostsavage Gear is a great place to start if you are just looking to get into PvP. They are all crafted by Tailors, and the mats are fairly easy to farm, or fairly cheap to purchase of the Auction House.

If you are starting off with no honor and no emblems, this is the perfect place to start looking for gear. These pieces of gear act as great fill-in gear for any slots you still have open. It is also good gear to use to farm honor with.

Savage Gladiator’s Gear is the next step up from the crafted PvP gear. In order to obtain this gear you will need to have to farm a lot of honor, run a lot of heroic instances, or have a few arena games under your belt.

They share the same item set bonus as the Hateful and Deadly Gladiator gear, so the Savage gear can also act as good filler pieces to have the set bonus while you are farming for the better pieces.

You can purchase these pieces of gear in three different ways. By using emblem of heroism, honor points, or a mix of honor and arena points.

Hateful Gladiator Gear is the next best thing you can get, and will require you to do a ton of 25-Man Raids, or require you to do some Arena matches. Some of the pieces can also drop from 10-Man Vault of Archavon.

Pieces purchased with emblems or dropped from VoA doesn’t have a required Arena Ratings to purchase or loot, but if you purchase them using Arena Points, you will need to meet the Arena Rating requirements in order to purchase.

Deadly Gladiator Gear is the best set you can get for season 5, and can only be obtained by 25-Man Vault of Archavon, or with just Arena Points. Only three pieces of the set drops from VoA, but doesn’t have required Arena Ratings. Purchasing them with Arena Points will have high Arena Rating requirements.

Now that we’ve taken a look a the set pieces, we have to fill in the rest of the missing slots in our PvP gear. You have a few options for those pieces as well.

Hateful Honor Gear is the PvP gear you can purchase with Honor Points which doesn’t have any Arena Rating requirements. You can purchase them at the quartermaster at the war room of your faction. Stormwind for the Alliance, Ogrimmar for the Horde.

Deadly Honor Gear are an upgrade to the Hateful gear, but cost more Honor Points and also have Arena Rating requirements attached to them. Like the Hateful Honor Gear, they can be purchased in your faction’s war room, but from a different vendor.

Wintergrasp Gear you can get by turning in the Marks and Shards you obtained by participating in WG and doing the daily PvP quests in WG. Shards can also be obtained by doing Heroics while your faction has control over Wintergrasp.

The Heirloom Gear you purchase scales with your level, and are Bind on Account, which means they can be mailed to your alts to use.

]]> http://spicytunas.com/2009/02/mage-pvp-gear-season-5/feed/ 1 Doing an Insane Amount of Honor Farming http://spicytunas.com/2009/02/doing-an-insane-amount-of-honor-farming/ http://spicytunas.com/2009/02/doing-an-insane-amount-of-honor-farming/#comments Thu, 12 Feb 2009 19:50:29 +0000 Tuna http://spicytunas.com/?p=2994 utada-farming-honorAfter my failure of a Season 5 Arena debut last week, I made it a mission to replace all my level 70 PvP gear, and to make sure I’m prepared for next time. I had plenty of time during the day Saturday and Sunday to work with. I would farmed more honor if stuff like food and going out into the city didn’t get in the way.

PvE for PvP Gear

I know a lot of people out there are against the idea of PvEing to get PvP gear, but if Blizzard is going to have it in the game, I am going to take advantage of it. I don’t really like the idea either, but I’m not going to complain. Good players are going to kick my but in PvP regardless of what gear I can get, but the gear does help.

One way to get really great PvP gear is to run Vault of Archavon. 10 Man VoA drops Hateful Gladiator gear, and 25 Man VoA drops Deadly Gladiator gear. You can only obtain the Gloves, Leggings, and Chest pieces, but this is a good way to get the gear you need. As you may already know, I already got two pieces of loot already.

Vault of Archavon Loot Obtained:

Another way to get gear via PvE is by turning in your [Emblem of Heroism] and your [Emblem of Valor]. You can turn in Heroism emblems for Savage Gladiator gear, and you can turn in Valor emblems for Hateful Gladiator gear. All 5 pieces of the set can be purchased. The price for the Gloves and Shoulders is 30 a piece. The price for the Helm, Leggings, and Chest are set at 45 a piece. I had a good amount of Emblem of Valor saved up, so I put them to good use.

Emblem of Valor Loot Obtained:

Emblem of Heroism were used to purchase the raw gems needed for all the gear I got. I am so happy that Blizzard added this vendor. I would still be using green quality gems without that vendor.

PvP for PvP Gear

All the gear I had so far took no effort (PvP-wise) to obtain, and I was able to get them in a relatively short amount of time since I already had the Emblems saved up for them. For the rest of the gear, took a lot more time, and was a lot more fun to obtain. The rest of the gear required Honor, and a whole lot if it too!

A great way to get Honor is by participating in Wintergrasp whenever it is up, and doing all the PvP dailies that is associated with the zone. By doing the daily quests, you will recieve [Stone Keeper's Shards]. You can also receive these Shards by doing heroic instances while your faction has control of Wintergrasp. With these Shards you can purchase a variety of item from the vendor in Wintergrasp.

Stone Keeper’s Shard Loot Obtained:

By participating in Wintergrasp, you will also receive [Wintergrasp Mark of Honor]. For a win you receive 3 Marks, for a loss you get 1 Mark. For my server, it is pretty much “whoever is on offense will win”. With the help of “Patch 3.0.8 Day” where the server would reset after every Wintergrasp game (which would also reset Wintergrasp), I already had a nice stockpile of Marks. You can also purchase gear using these Marks.

Wintergrasp Mark of Honor Loot Obtained:

Now normally there is a 2hr30min wait in between the end of a Wintergrasp game and the start of the next. So during the time between, I played a whole lot of Strand of the Ancient. Playing SotA yields a good amount of Honor, as well as [Strand of the Ancient Mark of Honor], which I used to turn in the quest, Concerted Efforts.

sota-scoreboard
Getting ~1k Honor every 15 minutes isn’t too bad at all.

Strand of the Ancient is now my favorite Battleground. There is a set time limit so there isn’t any “turtle-ing” done to waste time. There is a lot of fighting to be done on offense or defense. There is a lot of different type of ways to fight with the use of siege vehicles, anti-personnel cannons, and seaforium charges. Pretty much a mini-Wintergrasp battleground.

Honor Loor Obtained:

utada-pvp-s5
I’m liking the way the Mage Season 5 Arena Set looks.

Over 140k Honor earned, and over 2.1k Horde killed within two days, not too shabby. There is only a few more things left I need to farm Honor for, but I’ll say my Mage is all set for some serious Arena action now. She used to be at 15k Health, 760 Resilience, and 1200 Spell Power in level 70 gear. Now she is at 18k Health, 770 Resilience, and 1800 Spell Power in all level 80 gear.

]]> http://spicytunas.com/2009/02/doing-an-insane-amount-of-honor-farming/feed/ 4 Season 5 Arena: WTF is up with my Rating!? http://spicytunas.com/2009/02/season-5-arena-wtf-is-up-with-my-rating/ http://spicytunas.com/2009/02/season-5-arena-wtf-is-up-with-my-rating/#comments Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:29:03 +0000 Tuna http://spicytunas.com/?p=2979 I’ve been doing PvE content for quite some time now ever since I hit level 80. With all end game raiding content cleared for awhile, I’ve been doing pretty much the same thing over the past couple weeks, and I figured it’s time to do something different. Maybe some Arena for a change?

I know I am a bit late to start getting into Arena now since season 5 start like a billion weeks ago, but I figured I would just start doing the a few games a week just to start saving points. Plus I was waiting for my partner to level up to 80 for awhile (her Warlock is one of her many alts) so I was in no rush. We have been out of the Arena mindset for awhile now, so we haven’t been remembering to start playing again either.

I asked around to see what the average amount of resilience is good nowadays. 700 to 800 is good, 900 and up is great. I put on my old Brutal/Vengeful Gladiator gear, and swapped in the two pieces of Deadly Gladiator gear I got from VoA. Bought the new PvP Trinket and saw that I had around 760 resilience. Sweet I should be good now! WRONG! Dead wrong.

s5-arena-scoreboard1
Photoshopped and Exaggerated, but you know what I mean.

The level 70 gear we were sporting ain’t cutting it. We still take a ton of damage, have low health pools, and barely do any damage. The worst part is, every time we won, we got 1 – 7 points, every time we lose, we lost 18 – 25 points. Our arena rating took a skydive. After asking around and reading a bit, this is Blizzard’s way of putting you in the right bracket.

I only had 15k Health, and a whopping 1200 Spell Power. Yep… Time to replace those gear!

mage-warlock-arena-4

The highlight of the day of arena is when we rode in, and my Warlock partner died in 1 second, and her killers vanished without a trace before anything could be called out. I thought it was hilarious, her, not so much. We saw this same team 3 times I think.

It’s ok though. I’ll start running battlegrounds again, and farm honor to replace my level 70 gear. She’ll do the same (hopefully!) and we’ll make our comeback. Plus Rogues got a PvP nerf recently, so she’ll survive a few seconds longer next time.

]]> http://spicytunas.com/2009/02/season-5-arena-wtf-is-up-with-my-rating/feed/ 4 My Arena Gear Setup http://spicytunas.com/2008/08/my-arena-gear-setup/ http://spicytunas.com/2008/08/my-arena-gear-setup/#comments Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:26:47 +0000 Tuna http://spicytunas.com/?p=1596 My Arena Gear setup is somewhat different from what most Arena experts would expect. Instead of stacking Stamina and Resilience like a good little Mage, I opted for more quick and destructive approach. So far it has proven to work in 2v2 and 3v3 quite nicely.

At a quick glance, you would see I have Season 4 Robes, Season 3 Helm, and Shoulders. You would also notice a PvE Weapon hanging off the side of my body (Off Hand is hidden when unsheathed). You can’t really tell what kind of Gloves or Boots I’m sporting, but if you saw me in Arena, you would probably think I’m in good a mix of S3/S4 gear. Mostly likely over 11k Health, and over 450 Resilience.

If you take a closer look however, you would notice that the color of my Shoulders aren’t quite right, but fortunately for me, in Arena you don’t get a chance to take the time to examine your opponents when you meet in battle. Especially with an Ice Barrier surrounding my Mage.

Here is a look at my gear:

As you can see, I have quite a bit of PvE gear mixed into my Arena gear. Even with all the PvE gear equipped, I’m not as squishy as you think. I still have amount of Stamina and Resilience. The difference is that I pack quite a bit of a punch now.

Looking at the stats, I have:

  • 9803 Health
  • 9776 Mana
  • 303 Resilience
  • 2532 Armor
  • 938 Spell Damage, 993 Frost Damage
  • 21.93% Spell Crit, 26.93% Frostbolt Crit
  • 279 Spell Haste (2.12 sec Frostbolt, 1.15 sec Polymorph)
  • +5% Frostbolt Damage

The best part of this gear setup is that I get both 4 Piece Set Bonus of the Tier 6 and the Arena gear. With the Spell Haste I have in this gear, when I pop my trinket and Icy Veins, I can do quite a bit of damage. I only wear this set up when doing 2v2s or 3v3s since I don’t have to focus much on staying alive, and I am free to pew pew.

In 5v5s, I have a different gear setup since I usually get focused on early in the game. I have to stack more Stamina and Resilience if I want to survive in 5v5.

In this gear setup, I have nearly 11k Health and 471 Resilience. I also have a lot less Spell Damage (849 Frost Damage), and no +5% Frostbolt Damage bonus.

I have still yet to get my [Medallion of the Alliance], so once I get that, both my sets will be in better shape.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sometimes I feel like I’m cheating by bringing in PvE gear into Arena though. In order to gear this way, you have to be able to clear the first three bosses in the Sunwell Plateau for the three pieces of Tier 6, and you need to have one other piece from Mount Hyjal or Black Temple. Not many players have access to this gear, especially if you just PvP.

What do you think of this gear setup? Would you gear it differently? Do you think this is unfair to other players?

]]> http://spicytunas.com/2008/08/my-arena-gear-setup/feed/ 9 Arena Woes http://spicytunas.com/2008/08/arena-woes/ http://spicytunas.com/2008/08/arena-woes/#comments Thu, 21 Aug 2008 13:28:02 +0000 Tuna http://spicytunas.com/?p=1528 Finally, I was able to get back to Arena. For the past 3 weeks, either me or my partner were unable to be on at the same time to get our 10+ games in for points. So after weeks of packing, moving, going on trips, power outages, internet difficulties, and sickness, we are back! But we were rusty.

After not doing Arena for 3 straight weeks and coming back, it felt like a whole new game. We weren’t in sync, and we go into a fight not thinking on the same page. We would lose to class combos which we normally have no problems dealing with. I was making a lot of careless mistakes. I was letting Warriors get Charges off, Blinking at the wrong times, missing my Counterspells, etc.


Warlocks are OP

Warlocks! This week, they have renewed my hatred towards their class. Fear lasts an eternity in fights, and it seems to NEVER break on damage and their Fel Puppy can pretty much solo me. They have a billion hit points, and their healer partners don’t even need to jump in to help. Okay, a little exaggeration, but yea, boo locks!

Okay, so we started off slow, then we had a mirror match which put us back into the game. Mage/Warlock vs Mage/Warlock. The match started and we went after the Warlock while I tried to Sheep the Mage. Our opponents thought the same. So me and the Mage play fake out with our casting, while our Warlock partners are killing each other. Then both locks died. Cool, one on one with a Mage, I can handle it.

Then all of a sudden, something hits me. Something I haven’t felt since my freshmen year of college during my Freshmen Engineering Design Project presentation on Implementing Solar Panels on Cellphones. My heart rate jumps up, then my arms and hands starts getting numb. They were getting the pins and needles feeling as if blood circulation was being cut off. “WTF!?”, I thought to myself, “Stupid hands! Now isn’t a good time to be not functioning!”.

With my hands operating at 50% capacity, the fight went on. The Mage made a mistake of popping his Water Elemental while I was far away, and I manage to escape behind a pillar and get an Invisibility off. I ran my Invisible behind to a random pillar and began eating hoping he wasn’t near when I popped out. Good, he wasn’t near, and he was still running around looking for me. His pet disappeared, and I show up with full health, full mana, and all my cooldowns. I eventually won the fight, but as the match went on, my hands were getting worst and worst.

After the match, I called a timeout to my partner (to hold up on the next queue) to take a short break. I looked at my hand, which are now shaking. You know in some movies where the hero takes a life for the first time, and stares at his hands which are covered in blood? Yea it kinda looked like that, you know, without the blood. So I went to used the bathroom, then went downstairs to grab a drink.

After I calmed down a bit, we resumed Arena, and it never happened again. Weird… normally I can remain poised under pressure, I had no idea where that panic attack came from. Maybe it was because I didn’t want to lose to a team that was the same as us. Or maybe it was because I didn’t want to lose to a fellow Frost Mage.

Anyways, we ended up hitting 1652 rating for the week, going 12-8. We stopped because we wanted to get our Season 4 rings (which requires a 1650+ rating). Things didn’t go as smoothly though. We then had a conversation which went something like this:

Me: Yay 1652! We can get our S4 Rings now!
Lock: Yay! Then after that we can get to 1700 and get our S4 Helms!
Me: Yea good idea, lets grab our Rings first incase we drop in rating.
Lock: Okay!

- one minute later -

Me: Uhh… How much honor did you have saved up?

Lock: Dammit! I just remembered I just spent it on xxxx piece yesterday!
Me: >_< I only have 1935 honor right now!
Lock: I have 235! LoL!
Me: Maybe we should queue into Battlegrounds and farm some honor?
Lock: Alrighties, which BG you wanna do?

- one minute later -

Me: On second thought, I think I’m just gonna take a nap or something…
Lock: Haha yea me too. We can do BGs tomorrow or wait for a preform or something.

Moral of the story, have your honor points saved ahead of time. And take your vitamins* or something to prevent panic attacks.

Ahh Battlegrounds… I have such love/hate relationship with it (I can probably do a whole separate post on this). I really do enjoy PvPing, it’s just sometimes I have to deal with afkers, or players running off doing their own thing. This usually results in a loss, which I don’t like. I have a pretty competitive nature, and I don’t like to lose. According to Euripedes, I am an “Enthusiast” turned “Pro”.

So I do like 3 games of Battlegrounds now then get bored and stop. I now have about 7800 honor saved up for the ring. I need like 8000 more honor to go. Hopefully I can get that sometime before my next Arena matches.

*vitamins most likely had nothing to do with it.

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