So, PvP is not for newbies?

[Eowaviel-silvermoon]

Sorry, but this is probably going to be a long post.

I’ve been playing WoW for 5 months now, but I’ve never been interested in PvP. It’s just not for me, not only in WoW, but in games in general. But, after levelling my first character to 120, I started levelling up adds. I really liked the idea of class halls and class campaigns with unique spec weapons and class followers, so I was taken by the idea of completing all classes’ legion campagns. But that’s not the case right now…

So, I googled ways to level up characters faster: how to do it faster, which quests to do and which skip, what addons to use, etc. One of the things that supposedly fasten levelling was Warmode that gave 10% incresed XP gain. The site that gave me that advice told me that most of people, who use War Mode during levelling really don’t care about PvP and, in most of the cases, they will ignore me as long as I will ignore them. For several weeks that was the case.

But then 8.1 happened.

Today I wanted to level up my frost mage (from who’s character I’m writing now) and found out that I’ll be having 30% more XP, instead of 10%. I thought “Nice! With recent changes in quantity of XP that you need to level up from 20 to 120 this will make levelling up much faster and more fun”. But I was wrong. I was levelling up in Duskwood and from global chat found out that some horde rogue kills alliance low level players (later I found out that it’s called “ganking”). And later I really did find him… After I came back to my body from cemetary I went on playing and after 10 minutes got killed again, than again and again and again. Ok, I don’t care about being killed with one hit by some high level player, there’s nothing, I could’ve done about it so it wasn’t infuriating… Much… But, few hours later in Northern Stranglethorn, I got killed by some Troll Hunter, just attacked from the back while I was fighting raptor. Most of my skills were on CD, plus I wasn’t at full health, plus he was already in melee range, which is, as far as I know, to me as a mage deadly. I tried to run away frost nova didn’t help, shimmer too, and polymorph he easily canceled. Ok, painful, enraging, but I got over it. After half an hour I got killed again by rogue, just came out of invisibility and started beating me up. There was nothing I could do, just spamming skills, stuns and interrupts. Ok, so world PvP is either not for me or just imbalanced as hell.

So I decided, as an experiment, to go to random BG, wanted to see what I could do in “fair” fight. The results were… dissapointing at best. I wasn’t at the bottom of the “results table”, but I had only 1 kill and of course it wasn’t 1v1 kill I just attacked someone, who was also being attacked by several other players and somehow got the kill. The rest of the battle was even more dissapointing. No matter who I decide to attack I did 5-10% of their health. Arcane mage, monk, undead warrior, no matter who I tried to fight with I was obliterated without getting even close to victory.

What am I doing wrong? I’m using heirlooms + the best equipment from quests I have, I’m trying to use all skills that I have (not randomly mashing buttons of course, but really use them as best as I can), but still nothing. Are mages are so useless at 40 levels? Or it’s just frost mage? What is the point of War Mode if you just getting killed from behind or invisibility. And how many new players are trying to PvP and actualy having fun or there are only masters of the game with hundreds of hours in PvP who know what you’re going to do even before you actually do it?

P.s. Don’t know why I’m “22 Void Elf Mage”, but I’m 43 now.

[Vaëyn-ravencrest (Vaëyn)]

I don’t think the 30% is intended to help you level faster, but rather make up for lost time when getting ganked, etc. So that you end up leveling at roughly the same speed, rather than 30% slower.

With world pvp, you don’t know if you will fight a noob, mid experience, or highly experienced opponent. That’s all part of the fun

I am no pvp expert, but learning as I go, slowly, and have not played Mage for years, mostly playing Feral - which happens to be a great spec for 1v1 pvp, my fav! But for pvp in general - each class has it’s deliberate advantages and disadvantages. Knowing what those are, and doing the right counter or attack at the right time is key. Reacting quickly, using keybinds really helps. And practice practice practice.

The thing that’s helped me the most though, apart from just doing lots of pvp is… feedback on my fights. Don’t feel bad about constructive feedback, it’s a good thing.

I thought I knew what I was doing before, but then got feedback from people watching my vids, and I realized… crap, I know nothing lol. So I took their feedback and have improved. But still much to learn.

If you can, it’s really worth recording some of your fights, success and failures, and getting feedback from community. YouTube is a good place for that ofc, you can always post links to your vids here or the bg forum. That helped me a lot. I am not pro from that feedback, but I have made a step, using tactics that I wasn’t before, and getting advantage from that.

Apart from that, just doing lots and lots and lots of pvp really helps. Fight players that are better than you if possible. It’s nice to win a fight, but against a noob you may not learn anything. Don’t worry about losing a fight. Think about what you could have done different, and get feedback if possible.

[Stroggs-draenor]

There is no balance in low level characters, so are the BGs on those levels. Its bad for leveling, xp point rewarded are nothing there, its bad like pvp experience overall. Its full of people who know how the low level gear scaling work and how to abuse it. No fun for a new players anyway.

If someone annoys you in open world - turn off pvp, get some time leveling without it, turn it on again after and continue. Don’t make it a big deal and don’t get upset. It is (once again) an open world, its filled with different people who have different intentions and ways of getting fun out of the game - some of then enjoy killing low levels just because they can. Thats why you have an option to cancel warmode. xD

[Menellost-argent-dawn]

I’ve recently levelled to cap my first character, so I’ve been and still kinda am in your shoes and can relate to the feeling of utter helplessness in battlegrounds. Hell, I never even had any heirlooms, so I’m always pleasantly surprised whenever I manage to 1v1 someone. But that’s the beauty of bgs for you - they have little place for solo play. Damage and kills aren’t that important too for that matter - it’s about being in the right place at the right time. You can contribute to victory without firing a single shot, or simply by slowing down enemy players that are chasing after your teammate carrying a flag.

If you play enough bgs, some you will win with sleep-inducing ease, some you will lose in the most humiliating way possible, but every once in a while there will be matches where both teams are equal in skill/gear/resolve and fight like rabid worgen, and these little jewels are more satisfying than anything else in this game, especially when you know that you had a hand in the success. Even a defeat feels worthwhile here.

In a word, don’t let yourself be fooled by your experience on low levels - gear, new abilities and azerite traits will eventually make you more than competitive in terms of dps, while time and muscle memory keep improving your reaction time. However, even if you are a genuinely bad player, you can’t be worse than me - I still often forget about certain spells or potions at the most critical moment, or fumble in panic for my awkward keybinds - and yet I manage to be useful to the team more often than not. You’d probably do better with some practice. Heck, as a mage, you already vindicate your spot on the team by bringing food to the table.