Alterac Valley

Alterac Valley was the last battleground I needed marks of honor from to buy myself a PvP mount. Knowing that there is a certain PvE element involved, I stayed in Protection spec for the seven battlegrounds necessary to get the marks required.

For those who don't know, Alterac Valley has the distinction of being the only battleground with a highest bracket of 71-80. What this means is that in addition to fighting level 80 opponents, there are also opponents below level 80 to fight. And, with the addition of XP gains in battlegrounds, there seemed to be a LOT of under-80 characters on both sides.

As a Paladin tank with 35k health self-buffed, fighting against under-80 opponents is not fun. At least not when they're alone. They do minimal damage, and I crit with Judgement for about 1.5k, crit with Hammer of the Righteous for just over 4k, crit with Shield of Righteousness for just over 6k, and mid-70 opponents don't have all that much health.

However, fighting teams of under-80 opponents is ridiculous amounts of fun. While one person stands no chance of killing me before I kill them, a group of three, four or five of them do. And, in the midst of a swarm of mid-70 Horde trying to kill me, there was the occasional surprise of a level 80 opponent as well.

I was hacking and slashing with my axe, slamming with my shield, and throwing out holy judgement in all directions. But I wasn't dying until I ended up against a mid-70 mage, rogue, death knight and an 80 Warlock without a healer present (I had killed this same group earlier when I had a 73 druid healing me).

I am Ironman

I've spent the last few days doing PvP when I haven't been raiding or doing Tournament dailies, generally focusing on the three vanilla battlegrounds to get the necessary emblems for a PvP mount - I had a black war horse on my first character, a 70 Warrior (pre-Wrath) which I PvPed with exclusively, and decided I wanted one on my Paladin too.

I'd been getting close to Ironman for a while, generally managing to capture two flags without dying. My best attempt was two flags without dying, and no opposition from the Horde to speak of (I assume they were busy being graveyard camped by the rest of my team), but a rogue on the Alliance side decided to be a prick and capture the third flag himself. Admittedly I didn't tell him that I was going for Ironman, and he may not have realised I'd already done two of the flags, but still.

If there is one thing I've learnt from my Ironman attempts, it's that holy shit I can take a beating. Between Lay on Hands healing me back to full, Ardent Defender putting me back on 30% health when I should have died, and the 35k health I have self-buffed, there have been times where I have had two DKs and a rogue trying to kill me, and been able to survive with almost no heals from the Horde base to the bottom of the tunnel in the Alliance base.

I just hit autorun, spam cleanse to get rid of as many DoTs as possible, use Hand of Freedom whenever possible and necessary, and watch my health go down gradually, with the occasional spike upwards when I do have somebody heal me.

So I have 27 Warsong Gulch Marks of Honor, and only need three more. I step into Warsong Gulch in Protection spec, and run for the flag. I grab it, I start running down the long tunnel, and get attacked by a rogue. I kill the rogue, carry on running. I get met at the end of the tunnel by a druid healer, and start making my way across the field to the Alliance base. I get attacked nearing our base by two mages, but they die quickly to a gathering group of Alliance. One capture.

I repeat the process twice, each time getting close to dying but not actually dying. I have no idea how many DoTs I cleansed from myself or how much damage I took, but I finally captured that third flag. I am Ironman.

And, by the way, I wrote this entire post while listening to Ironman. It just seemed appropriate.