I have just completed a crazy week of grinding AP to get the Empress title - and what a week it was!
I was on holiday and decided on a whim how I really fancied the beautiful costume that came with achieving Empress - not into the title or the status, just really wanted the lovely looking costume
(Oh and the dye is nice too - thanks for pointing that out
@raviour )
I haven't really PvPed much as I am so useless at it - anyone attacks me and I generally panic and mash as many buttons as I can in a hope of either healing through their attack while I run away (rarely works!) or to fire off enough skills to get them (again rarely works are there are so many accomplished dedicated PvPers), but anyway I thought I would give it a go - yikes what was I thinking!!
So I jump into Black Water Blade on my last non vet Char - Shamash a level 43 NB Kahjiit, I mostly levelled her with cake so she didn't have lots of skills and had totally rubbish gear - but hay-***, I had to work with what I had got (on reflection a bit of preparation would have gone a long way!) Post lfg in zone and off we go!
Healing worked the best as my DPS wasn't so good with my less than optimal set up and gear! After doing fairly ok, I ended up joining the group of the current leader on the leader board
@HouLiGaN - this was an opportune chance and resulted in me being able to get to my end goal. So along with
@raviour, we worked around the map chasing and creating fights the AP was flowing (yay). Eventually after not sleeping all night and some amazing fun (who knew pvp could be so entertaining) we got to the end with an epic fight Blue Road Keep and Houli got crowned! So happy for him and I had made some new friends along the way and cemented current ones.
Fun was had running along side our newly crowned Emperor, but we needed to sleep and Houli gracefully abdicated to give me a chance of the crown!
I was in 4th place at this stage - wow!
Unfortunately I had picked a week when a truly hardcore player was also determined to go for the top spot!
So continuing to join lfg's and repairing keeps like a crazy person, I edged my way up the leader board over taking an old friend - felt bad about that but I was on a mission and nothing was going to stand in my way.
Got to second place only 40k stood between us, then I had to take a day's break to go out with friends (I was on holiday and didn't initially intend to spend all day in doors hammering away at my keyboard!) while I was away in the sunshine I came back and he had pulled the gap even wider back up to 90k - does this guy never sleep!?
This was the point that I almost threw in the towel, I thought shoot I am never going to get there, but then thought what have I got to lose, I have had such great fun, met some truly amazing people, helped another chap get the crown and got a char that is maxxed out on skills - win win what ever the outcome!
I got into a very organised, dedicated group who knew and worked the map brilliantly lead by Cassiel Hellscream (don't know his gamer name sadly!) and I went with them taking keeps, defending keeps, stealing scrolls and generally have a blast!
By this time I had reached and passed V1 so couldn't log out, and was so close to the chap in 1st place no sleep for me then! 30k to go, but every time I got any AP he seemed to mirror the amount (turns out most of the time we were fighting alongside each other so no wonder!) Finally his AP stops going up - he went to bed - yay!! I kept getting gifts of armour in the post so my gear was a bit better at least!
This was my final opportunity to go for it, it was now or never!
I swept the map repairing everything in sight (had been a busy Sunday fortunately so lots to do!) Pushed forward and was in 1st place - 1st place an achievement in it's own right, a total PvP Nooblet, who had no idea what she was doing on a bizarre hybrid character had somehow managed to claw her way to the top - I just kept giggling about how improbable it all was! So whatever the outcome now I had made it to number one (mostly because the other chap finally needed to sleep more than anything!)
We also miraculously had 4 home keeps, can this be true - Empress is actually within my grasp - calm down Aims don't get too excited, we are not there yet!
So Rav and I rallied the troops got a small group of guildies and friends together - Caranti, Smiley, Rav and others I can't remember after 2 days not sleeping my brain had turned to mush! (it was hard to pull people together as it was now 6am in the morning)
We decided to attack Arrius keep which was currently owned by AD, got to the 2nd flag and got ninja wiped by EP, maybe I won't get the crown after all!
Then Smiley came up with a plan of getting one person to attack one keep while we sneakily ninja another, which worked and we were down to the final keep!
We dashed to the last keep took the flags and amazingly I was Empress!! (I had a little weep as it was all so overwhelming - people had been so sweet and kind along the way and I was a bit exhausted too!) I had grinded so much that I was now V2 so again couldn't log out.
After helping keep the fight going (badly of course getting Empress doesn't make you a good PvPer! But as Houli said think of dying as Empress as a way of granting people the killer achievement - love it my way of thinking!) I decided I needed to sleep, bade farewell to the lovely people in Baby PvP and logged - which meant I abdicated, I had out levelled the campaign
, but the great thing was it gave the guy in 2nd place (who had overtaken me again once he woke up anyway - so technically was in 1st place!) a day in which to gain the crown!
Sadly I used up my last non vet slot so can't return until DB DLC and I can buy another spot - but I will definitely be back!
Would I do it again - probably on my next holiday in November, but next time I will be more organised!
Anyway I thought I would share my story it was a truly phenomenal week - exhausting but fabulous, I actually really enjoyed PvP - I am stunned to be making that statement!
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