BOA exp/on twinking

[petergandalf]

I've become discouraged with exp/off twinking (I don't want to rehash all the reasons why) and so I have rolled a few untwinked characters to play in exp/on battlegrounds. This was the first I had played in exp/on battlegrounds since before the changes.



I learned to my surprise that twinking is alive and well in exp/on battlegrounds. About 1/4 of the players have several BOA items plus other semi-twink gear and have twice the hit points of your normal player. They were dominating the battles just as much if not more than twinks did prior to the changes. Once they level out, they can either just keep going in the next bracket or reroll and pass the BOA equipment down, endlessly



Part of me wanted to laugh, and part to cry. Laugh because Blizzard's anti-twink changes have been completely defeated in intent. Cry because of the unfairness of it all--old twinks have the utility of their characters destroyed while new BOA twinks get to replace them in the food chain with little effort.



Which leads me to 2 questions.



1. Should there be a forums category here for EXP/ON twinking? You can't very well choose a single bracket since I imagine most of these BOA twinks go from 19-49.



2. What character classes would be the most fun/successful to play all the way through the first four brackets? This is a more interested question than which classes would you like to play at 19, or 29. or 39, or 49.



The object is not to completely retwink for each bracket, but to use the BOA gear and the WSG and AB gear that you will earn along the way to create a decent semi-twink. I think I might be willing to pick up a critical BOP item every so often if it was not too much trouble, and to throw some inexpensive enchants on things.

 

[ninedash]

Xp-off with boa's isn't twinking as I've come to learn/love it over the past few years.



Leveling a toon or deleting him to re-level him is not twinking as far as I'm concerned.



Cool, good way to level, but that means you're pugging and changing gear frequently and really, where's the theory craft in anything revolving around ever-changing gear.



A twink as I've read on these forums is not someone with decent gear, its trying to be perfect, and stay that way while honing your skills against other poeple with a similar mindset.





All of this leveling with boas in gulches and what-not is not twinking, its just leveling.

 

[Grabco]

sorry in advance for the lengthy reply but there are some interesting discussion points here.



The other day I met a level 19 pally with xp on. Basically this guy thought he was owning people in wsg and said. "...and I just dinged 19 I can pwn people for a whole level!"



This must be the "new" mentality. I am guessing some of the BG leveler half twinks will use resources like this site to gain an advantage over their opponents.



However, there may actually be something to the OP's concept. If I was going to reroll at lvl x9 I would probably turn xp on and off frequently to get key pieces of gear yet maximize my time in the xp on bgs (simply for the pops). A key point would be toggling XP at x6 and x8 (where you finish most of your gear).



As for the OP's main point lvling through the BG system while maximizing your gear isn't true twinking. Its just wanting to own lowbies and give yourself the best possible advantage. There would be no theory craft and you would be wasting your time/money if you had more more than one piece of gear per slot or the best chants.



It is an interesting concept which would test your knowledge of the easily-attainable-best- in-slot-gear in each bracket. I don't think you will be getting Fishing hat/SF, Deadmans hand or PoD...



I've thought about using the BG leveling system to level up and at the same time maintain a competative advantage over my opponent. This would probably be the best way to attain the title of battlemaster! But at the end of the day the reasons I twink is to avoid the mindless end game gear grind so leveling through the bg system would just be a dead end for me.

 

[souvlaki]

1- get all the boa gear that you can gather

2- send it to a lvl 10 alt

3- migrate the alt to an active xp-off battlegroup

4- gear yourself up with remaining BiS gear

5- PLAY WITH PEOPLE WHO ARE ACTUALLY CHALLENGING

 

[Nype]

This^

lol10chars

 

[Grabco]

I think there is a place for a commentary on XP-on Bg's providing the easiest and most pain free BG leveling experience with gear and baseline enchants necessary to be competative yet effecient at leveling. This would help someone who wishes to PvP level to get to their desired bracket. That is, someone trying to get to 29's or 39's might want to know what 19 gear to get besides BoA's and the PvP gear without grinding for the fishing hat or popping for a treebark or darkweave (two gear pieces that came to mind that are usually over 150-200g) and all the best chants.



I would be interested to know 2 things about XP-on Bg's just out of curiousity. If XP-on BG's are working as Blizzard intended for the purposes of leveling is there better class balance or are there still an overwhelming majority of hunters?



Because BG's provide XP for winning and capping flags, do people farm HK's or are they more focused on actually returning/capping flags?



Personally, I don't see a point in a semi-twink futile cycle of leveling-deleting-rerolling but I think there might be a niche environment (not sure what you would call that, you certainly wouldn't call them twinks) for someone that just likes to play WSG often with decent gear but not grind for AGM fishing hat or max professions. And if you really wanted to maximize your time in the BG you wouldn't want the experience gain from BoA's.



I always thought it would be funny to turn XP-on to run around pwning or to see how much damage I could take but then again wtf is the point in that. Plus I am probably less than 1 cap away from leveling so if I got into an XP-on bg at the wrong time I would probably kill myself.

 

[Touye]

when my xp-off wont pop i log on my 53 rogue that is pvp lvling

 

[Touye]

There is a LOT of BoaTwinks, i get boosts each 10th lvl for items that i can use while pvping bast that bracket, and its awesome :> I'm against old lv39, 49 twinks etc etc ;>

 

[Mazurati]

There is a LOT of BoaTwinks, i get boosts each 10th lvl for items that i can use while pvping bast that bracket, and its awesome :> I'm against old lv39, 49 twinks etc etc ;>

no.. they scale with level now.

 

[User]

I started doing this too for the purpose of testing out an eventual shadow preist for 29's or beyond. Im sick of waiting on ques even on ruin (i play off hours mostly). The players arent all that bad and are flag focused, I even saw them doing wall jumps faster than some twink's do them (lawl). Hunters are still the gayness of course. But its pretty nice knowing that you can play a game whenever you feel like and its still challenging especially if your undergeared at the moment. Conversely as you level out of the bracket with maybe a few BiS you get to faceroll everyone as you move on.

 

[Pezin]

no.. they scale with level now.

I believe he's talking about PVP rewards, not heirlooms.

 

[Muskie]

people also make "paper twinks"



white gloves with +15 agi on them etc etc.

 

[Grabco]

oooh I like that term, first time i've heard that. this would maximize you're effectiveness at all levels while leveling through the bg system at least 1-19 i'm guessing. coupled with the pvp gear and BoA's this would probably be the most efficient way to level 1-19 in BG's with out spending too much money.

 

[petergandalf]

1. Let me be clear...I would be content to play non-twinked in the exp/on battlegrounds, except that the experience there is completely unequal. One must be a BOA twink just to be competitive with the other BOA twinks. There are definitely two classes of characters in the exp/on battlegrounds, and the one class (BOA twinks) own everyone else. The gap between BOA twinks and non BOA characters is perhaps even greater than the gap between our old fashioned twinks and non-twinked characters a couple of years ago. I cannot enjoy battlegrounds when I always start off with half the hitpoints of the best characters.



2. Is this properly a "twink"? Well, I'm not sure I care what term we use since it does not change the situation. But technically "twinking" since long before WoW even existed has been understood as the use of resources from higher level characters to better equip lower level characters. BOA gear is ALL twink gear, by definition, unless you plan to wear it on your 80.



3. Should I migrate to an active xp/off battlegroup? I have and I sometimes have some success there, but I miss the easy pops in the mornings and odd times I am available to play. If I depend solely on the active xp/off battlegroups for my fun I will wind up quitting, since the game holds no interest for 18 hours a day, weekdays.

 

[petergandalf]

And back to my original question. Part of the "theorycrafting" of a BOA twink is an understanding of how that twink will evolve and find success in four different brackets.



So which classes, and which gear, will "grow over time" the best as they do 19, 29, 39, and 49 battlegrounds? Which pieces of gear stay useful for more than one bracket, other than BOA?



So you see, there is a wealth of planning and thought to be done. Don't get me wrong, I would love to set the clock back. But since I can't, I'm trying to find another way to have regular fun in battlegrounds. And when exp/off is not available, and exp/on is dominated by BOA twinks, this would be an alternative.

 

[Novascotia]

I've become discouraged with exp/off twinking (I don't want to rehash all the reasons why) and so I have rolled a few untwinked characters to play in exp/on battlegrounds. This was the first I had played in exp/on battlegrounds since before the changes.



I learned to my surprise that twinking is alive and well in exp/on battlegrounds. About 1/4 of the players have several BOA items plus other semi-twink gear and have twice the hit points of your normal player. They were dominating the battles just as much if not more than twinks did prior to the changes. Once they level out, they can either just keep going in the next bracket or reroll and pass the BOA equipment down, endlessly



Part of me wanted to laugh, and part to cry. Laugh because Blizzard's anti-twink changes have been completely defeated in intent. Cry because of the unfairness of it all--old twinks have the utility of their characters destroyed while new BOA twinks get to replace them in the food chain with little effort.



Which leads me to 2 questions.



1. Should there be a forums category here for EXP/ON twinking? You can't very well choose a single bracket since I imagine most of these BOA twinks go from 19-49.



2. What character classes would be the most fun/successful to play all the way through the first four brackets? This is a more interested question than which classes would you like to play at 19, or 29. or 39, or 49.



The object is not to completely retwink for each bracket, but to use the BOA gear and the WSG and AB gear that you will earn along the way to create a decent semi-twink. I think I might be willing to pick up a critical BOP item every so often if it was not too much trouble, and to throw some inexpensive enchants on things.

im not gonna endlessly level chars....

 

[souvlaki]

3. Should I migrate to an active xp/off battlegroup? I have and I sometimes have some success there, but I miss the easy pops in the mornings and odd times I am available to play. If I depend solely on the active xp/off battlegroups for my fun I will wind up quitting, since the game holds no interest for 18 hours a day, weekdays.

If people refuse to migrate to active battlegroups (or rerolling if money is an issue), twinking as we know it will die. If everyone who is QQing because he can't play with his twink would do something about it, twinking would be as alive as always.

 

[ArthurianKnight]

A few things bothers me in your post. but the fact that i am not seeing the same as you do is totally dependant ont he opinion of the person. still there are facts that prooves certain things you said aren't even close to what you said.

I learned to my surprise that twinking is alive and well in exp/on battlegrounds.

thats no surprise, we all knew it since the beginning.

About 1/4 of the players have several BOA items plus other semi-twink gear and have twice the hit points of your normal player. They were dominating the battles just as much if not more than twinks did prior to the changes. Once they level out, they can either just keep going in the next bracket or reroll and pass the BOA equipment down, endlessly

those aren't twinks since they aren't geared entirely and thus skips the goal of twinking to begin with.

Laugh because Blizzard's anti-twink changes have been completely defeated in intent.

there was no intent on killing twinks and that is a fact. blizzard said it often that it is a way to play and they wont go against ways of playing their games. to take their words entirely, if we are getting higher queues, it is just for the sole fact that our community is way smaller then we all thought of.



onto that point, think about it, if all the twinks in BG ON were to come back to BG OFF, would we even have this discussion ?

Cry because of the unfairness of it all--old twinks have the utility of their characters destroyed while new BOA twinks get to replace them in the food chain with little effort.

and this is exactly why i'm keeping into BG OFF, because twinking will simply vanish because of the sole fact that people, prefer to kill and own people in 2-3 shots instead of having real competition.



again if the twinks that are only BOA geared were to come back to the XP OFF BGs, we wouldn'T have the problem to begin with. the real problem is how the community, which is already small as it is, actually splitted in half for totally no reasons !

1. Should there be a forums category here for EXP/ON twinking? You can't very well choose a single bracket since I imagine most of these BOA twinks go from 19-49.

i dont think its anything to good to be even considering about it. this is my opinion on the matter, i dislike those who just choose the easy way just to own people and show that they are retards in doing so ! there is no glory in that !

2. What character classes would be the most fun/successful to play all the way through the first four brackets? This is a more interested question than which classes would you like to play at 19, or 29. or 39, or 49.



The object is not to completely retwink for each bracket, but to use the BOA gear and the WSG and AB gear that you will earn along the way to create a decent semi-twink. I think I might be willing to pick up a critical BOP item every so often if it was not too much trouble, and to throw some inexpensive enchants on things.

that question does not need to be, for with BOAs, all classes are good and all classes are fun to play with. if ya really wanna sink that low then i suggest you play hunter. it needs a bit of know how... but once you get that up, you'll totally own people.



conclusion of all this...

like everyone else, i think the problem comes from those small-time kids who just think they are king of the world by two shotting a new comer who barely know his class.



to all those BG ON people that actually reads this, come back to BG OFF, if you all do it, our queues problems won't be anymore !

 

[Touye]

I believe he's talking about PVP rewards, not heirlooms.

God yes... Comment was stupid lol

 

[petergandalf]

those aren't twinks since they aren't geared entirely and thus skips the goal of twinking to begin with.

Any use of gear provided by a higher level character to support a lower level character is twinking. Any lower level character wearing BOA gear is at least partially twinked.

there was no intent on killing twinks and that is a fact. blizzard said it often that it is a way to play and they wont go against ways of playing their games. to take their words entirely, if we are getting higher queues, it is just for the sole fact that our community is way smaller then we all thought of.

Sorry, I should have made clear that I thought the Blizzard's intent was NOT to end twinking but to segregate twinks into their own areas and leave the non twinks to exp/on areas. Instead what they have with EXP/ON battlegrounds is the same old inequality they have always had. Their "intention" to segregate twinks from non-twinks is a total failure.

i dislike those who just choose the easy way just to own people and show that they are retards in doing so ! there is no glory in that !

I agree, which is why I play exp/off whenever it is available to me. When it is not available to me, I would like to play exp/on. But I do not like being cannon-fodder for the BOA twinks in exp/on battlegrounds. If I am going to play there, then I want to be competitive. I'm looking for equality, not domination. What I have right now is domination--I'm the one being dominated!