Most days we have a RBG session to ‘take out your real-life stress on those hordies – they totally deserve it’

We always try to make it a guild run (need 8 people to be from Jesters to make a win rbg win also count as a guild win) but try as we might, for many nights now we hadn’t managed to get that elusive guild team win. The days ticked by, tensions started to get a bit fraught.

There was a RBG starting last night, there was also an alt-run for ToT which got called a bit erlier than it could have been as some of us were going to do the RBG. We had a team of 7 so were a person short for the 8 but also had a spare spot going free too. Roly whispered that he could join in but he only had PvE gear. The Gulid Master coming along to get battered by Horde -or potentially another Alliance team? We were not going to pass up that offer! We then had Vinzlage offer to join us too, brilliant! We were all excited and ready to go. We had ten people ready so didnt need to pug for our last member.

We pugged a tenth member a few nights ago and he was a disaster. He wasnt healing anything (I say ‘anything’ as he wasnt healing us, he must of been trying to heal the rocks, but wasnt showing up on the healing chart at all…) and was telling us that what we were doing was poor tactics, even though there was all of us on TS talking about what we were doing etc. He then decided to go off and get the flag from the middle after we had spammed raid chat telling him not to. This resulted in the opposition team going nuts, taking our tower that had the flag and resulted in us losing the match. Our RBG leader was not happy. Shouting the odds over TS and typing the ‘groups’ feelings in raid chat. ‘Can we just kick him?’ ‘with pleasure’ *boot*

Vinzlage asked what our strategy was, It usually depended on what battleground we were in so we didn’t really have a plan. He gave us teams which didn’t go down well with the group organiser. We went into the first battleground. It was Warsong Gulch a capture the flag battleground. We had a brief ‘discussion’ before the doors went up about what we were going to do. We decided that the best plan of attack was to go with Vinzlage’s idea of splitting into teams of defending, attacking and brawling as we had followed the old tactics so many times and not got far. It was with a bit of heel dragging that our group organiser conceded to try it. The first flag was taken by the Horde and with Vinzlage giving directions over TS it wasn’t long before our organiser started shouting orders to us over what Vinz was saying. There was a tense moment as Vinz then graciously conceded that the leader wasn’t for turning and opted to follow his instruction instead.

In the meantime, Roly was finding life on the battleground a world away to what he was used to. Lamenting over TS that his holy spells were merely tickling the opposition rather than the crippling blows he was used to in PvE “they’re only doing 40k… I’m not used to this”. Unfortunately the Horde were not about to offer him any leniency and mercilessly set about bashing him into the ground at every opportunity. At gates up on the next RBG he asked if he was to defend again. “yes, because you’re very squishy” Vinz replied, there was no denying it for someone in plate, he was so squishy it was alarming.

Warsong didn’t end well, we were not in our flow. We lost 2-3. Not a huge margin but it was enough to make the organiser a bit fraught. “It was our first one of the night, our first ones are always bad before we get into it” Monknessa reminded everyone. Which was true, most of us had gone from fighting bosses that had a set pattern and now we were up against oppositions that we couldn’t plan a set tactic for. We queued again, slightly deflated but ready to get that win.

We ended up in Twin Peaks, another flag one. These are rapidly becoming my most hated battlegrounds. This time Vinz said that we were going for whatever the organisers tactics were. He picked Monkness and Marvv to go and get the flag and then the rest of us to scuffle in the middle. Monknessa asked if it was possible that Tauli could go for the flag as he was firmer than her in the whole squishy-not squishy stakes. So it was agreed that Marvv and Tauli would go for the flag and Monkness would join us in the middle. Roly stayed back as instructed from Vinz and the gates went up and we went for it. After Marv and Tauli went off for their flag we all stood on the opposite side of the river to our Horde counterparts and watched them put up a portal across the river. Roly tried to shoot it but to no avail which then lead to some more humorous grouching. It was like no-mans land in the middle and we were waiting to see if was actually safe to have our heads above the trench. We stood there for what seemed like ages but was only about 30 seconds. We then went to work, followed what we were being told by the organiser. Vinz was only interjecting to ask us to use more crowd-controls when after the first flag went we hit a snag. The organiser started to curse about our play performance, Vinz tried to keep everything calm. The rest of the team were used to it and just got on with things. The second flag went in the confusion and then the shit really hit the ‘flag’. The organiser said something incomprehensible and rage quit. We were down to nine men in a ten man battleground and were just waiting to loose.  We got out of the battleground, a little disbelieving about what had just happened. Vinz then took charge and we got a replacement and went for it again. It was to be my last battleground of the night but luckily it was my favourite one. Silvershard Mines.

We got in and most of us worked out we were Horde with out needing clarification. “What? We’re Horde?” Roly said, you could hear the confusion and slight twang of disgust. “yeah, there are two Alliance teams so were Horde” Marvv explained. “Someone had to play the scum” I added, a titter of agreement went around. I guess its worse when you’re playing people from the same side. These should be your ‘brothers in arms’ not ‘brothers ripping off your arms’…

We went out; two teams, to two sides. Lava was first and we got it almost all the way to the dock before it turned Alliance. As it was a lost cause everyone went up and we took another one back to the middle dock. every cart we got, they seemed to get another one that got them that little bit further ahead. We got control of a cart and it went from blue to red. “It’s gone red!? Oh wait, thats us” Roly voiced over TS, it did take some getting used to! After we had started out so well, the same thing that always seems to happen started. Crowd Control. This team wasn’t as good as previous teams we had played. The last team we dealt with in here would CC someone and everyone else would ignore them until the CC wore off and then someone else would put another one on. This team were putting them on but more often than not someone else would inflict damage and it would then be taken off. However, they were using it more than we were and it showed. Roly was getting grouchy about his CC taking longer to reset than another classes. I was being mercilessly picked on by another hunter. It was turning into a sorrowful performance. We kept loosing our carts to them resulting in us having to go and get another one. Eventually, by the skin of our teeth we were ahead of them to then be 500 points behind them. The whole bg seemed to revolve around us catching up and then falling away again. We seemed to be dying more but also seemed to be in the right place at the right time more. In the end, it fell down to CC and we came away with another loss.

At this point, I needed to go. So while I was loading, Vinz asked if he could kick me.

“omg, rejection” I joked.

“yes it’s I’m going to kick you.. but said in the nicest possible way…” Roly laughed

“It’s geettt ouuuuttt” I added

“Boot!” Said Monknessa laughing

“yeah, thats fine, I’ve only just finished loading anyway” My time in the group was over due to needing to get some sleep for work the next day.

I was listening to them on TS and Vinz was getting them to duel each other so they could practice CC’ing each other. So they could get a feel of the abilities and how long they would last, what the cooldown period was etc… After a few minutes of watching them I really did think that PvP was probably something I wouldn’t ever be any good at. As Roly said, PvP is really hard and I prefer having some sort of structure and order to what I’m doing. I like to know exactly what my team mates are doing, why and how as well. Which is only something you are really going to find in raid encounters.

After logging off, they went into another RBG and by God, they did it! The first guild RBG win!