Triptych is back into the 1300s after loosing eleven straight games last night. The way we were playing we deserved to loose. Granted a couple of the teams were clearly better than us but most of them weren't.
I can't completely put my finger on what we were doing wrong. However I think the main thing is we had come to rely on talking via Skype to coordinate our attacks and crowd control. It doesn't matter though, we will just have easier teams to fight next week.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Annihilated!
Friday, May 30, 2008
Legendary Bow drops off Kil'jaeden
The first ever drop of a Legendary bow, Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury from Kil'jaeden went to the lucky hunter Stefang of Last Resort on the EU Boulderfist realm. This has to be a very happy hunter as this bow not only has amazing stats but does not require ammunition freeing up a bag slot. The 15% attack speed increase on Thori'dal compensates for the lack of quiver as well. Legendary weapons are known to last, Thunderfury is still considered an excellent weapon. So despite what many people say about upgrading epics to greens at level 71, I would expect Stefang to be using this for a fair while.
Congratulations Stefang, you are making a lot of people around the world very jealous. Now can you please re equip it on your character so we can see it in the armory!
Wotlk Frost Wyrm Whelpling
Some pictures of a cute little frozen undead looking whelpling have been floating around the internet that I assume were leaked during the Wrath of the Lich King alpha testing. Frost Wyrms were a unit in Warcraft 3, they are undead dragons raised from dragon graveyards in Northrend where dragons went to die. It is speculated that this whelpling will be the pet included in the collectors edition of WotLK.
A lot of people, collect non combat pets. Alassiel has a huge number of them, bringing out different one for every group and instance. She has spent a fair amount of time attempting to increase her collection as well. Blizzard have put a lot of things, such as non combat pets, into the game to make it fun and give players all sorts of different things to do. While collecting non combat pets is unlikely to be the pastime of a hard core end game raider it is something that can provide a sense of achievement to a player who can only log on for a few hours a week.
If you want to find out more about non combat pets have a look at the website Warcraft Pets or view the complete list on Wowhead.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Loot Card Items
Have you ever wondered where you can get this Riding Turtle everyone goes on about in the general chat? Or where that cute Hippogryph Hatchling drops? Well the answer is loot cards. Loots cards are rare cards found in Warcraft Trading Card Game packs. There are some really amazing items including:
- A Hippogryph Hatching - Non combat pet
- A Dragon Kite - Acts as a non combat pet
- A Riding Turtle - Mount
- A Fishing Chair - A chair you can sit in while fishing
- A Spectral Tiger - Mount
- A Paper Flying Machine Kit - Makes planes which can be thrown like the Heavy Leather Ball
- Papa Hummel's Old-Fashioned Pet Biscuit - Increases the size of your non combat pet
- A Goblin Weather Machine - Creates a weather effect above the users head
- The X-51 Nether Rocket - Mount
In order to get one of these items you need to find a loot card in a pack of cards. With the exception of Papa Hummel's Old-Fashioned Pet Biscuit these cards are very rare. The only alternative to finding one of these cards in a pack is to buy one off ebay. Loot cards can sell for between a couple of dollars for a Papa Hummel's Old-Fashioned Pet Biscuit to over $500 for a Spectral Tiger. These are the prices I have seen when Curiosity stuck one day so some cards could sell for more than that.For a complete list of cards visit the wowiki page.
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Tuesday, May 27, 2008
So Much for Oceanic Friendly Maintance
Well without any notice on the login page the servers went down again at 8pm local time.
I usually check the login page when I get home on Tuesdays to see if there is scheduled maintenance. If the server is coming down early I can play for a bit then make my dinner once it is off line. Tonight I checked and there was nothing, I thought great went off and had my dinner. I came back and 20 minutes into my play time I get the message... only 15 minutes left. Quite disappointed, I could have got my next Gladiator item tonight.
Movment of the raiding front
On Sunday Children of Stormwind had two raid groups running simultaneously, one in Zul’Aman and one in Karazhan. This means we had a total of 20 level 70 players raiding at once. In addition to this a couple of people couldn’t attend Karazhan because they were already saved to a different raid ID. This raises the possibility of trying out Gruul’s Lair. We aren’t really in a position to run it regularly but we could give it a go. It will just be a matter of getting all of those people to again log in at one pre specified time.
Downing a 25 player raid boss is really the next step for Children of Stormwind, so it would be good to see us at least attempt it. Just having a go is how we managed to finally make some progress in Zul’Aman, perhaps bitting the bullet, setting a time and trying the best we can may be all we need.
However there was one difficulty, Team Speak. On Sunday night when most of raid groups were logged into Team Speak and the guild member who hosts it was attempting to play Team Speak collapsed. The Zul’Aman group reverted to using Skype but this indicates we may not be able to have a full 25 player raid using Team Speak at once.
Monday, May 26, 2008
More WotLK Alpha Leaks
Last week I posted an article about some major information leaked during the WotLK Alpha testing. There was a lot of controversy surrounding this leak with Blizzard very against the republishing of leaked information. Although Wow news outlets have removed information when requested by Blizzard articles have continued to be posted covering leaked information linking to the information but not including it in the article. The Wowhead forums also have some discussion on the leak topic with the Wowhead team permitting leaked information to be posted (for the time being). It is understandable that Blizzard would be angry that leaks have occured, after all it does spoil surprises they would probably like to control. But in my opinion these leaks are building a lot of hype around the expansion. Perhaps if Blizzard wished to have the content of WotLK more secure they should have conducted their alpha tests in a more secure environment as opposed to distributing a client.
For those who are interested, information is continuing to come out, here is a video posted on Vemio showing the Tier sets for Priests, Warlocks, Mages, Rogues and Hunters.
Some of the sets are not quite complete but they still look fantastic! It seems that they are somewhat slimmed down with less over exaggerated spikes. There are also some excellent visual effect as visible on the priest shoulders. Will be good to see the Druid, Paladin, Shaman and Warrior sets too.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Triptych makes it to 1500
Last night Triptych finally broke into the 1500s. We played eleven games of which we won six and lost five. We lost against two teams, one of whom was so far above us that our loss resulted in no rating change. The other team we lost against was a Druid, Mage and Shaman combination. It appears that their DPS and crowd control abilities outstripped us. Sadly although we did reach into the 1500s we lost our last two games and dropped back to 1493.
Some of you may be wondering what all the fuss is about, well 1500 is the rating new arena teams start on. When Triptych first started this season we lost quite a few matches becuase the team was made up of random players who just wanted a few arena points. Also, as a new team, you tend to loose a lot over your first couple of weeks. So reaching 1500 means we are finally in positive territory winning more than we have lost. For players somewhat new to Arena using a mixture of gear that in Squiggle's case still includes at least one green item thats pretty good.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
WoTLK Leak
Have you been wondering about how your character will change in WotLK, well details from the Alpha testing have been leaked and posted on http://wotlk.wikidot.com/. The accuracy was confirmed by Wow Insider but at the request of Blizzard they have removed the details in their articles. The original wiki is still available but there is potential for the information to have been altered by now so should not be completely relied on.
Personally I quite like the look of some of the Warrior and Priest talents that have been added but I am expecting there to be many changes before the final release.
Leaks in the wiki include:
What do you think of the talents so far?
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Changes to maintance?
Has Blizzard finally changed it's maintenance times for Oceanic servers? For the second time this week restarts have been scheduled for the local off peak period (5am AEST).We can only hope this is the start of a recurring pattern. According to posters on the customer service forums this has happened before but fell by the wayside for whatever reasons.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Zul'Aman 3/6
The Children of Stormwind pulled it together and downed three of the Zul'Aman bosses last night. Nalorakk the bear avatar went down on the third attempt, Akil'zon the eagle avatar on the forth attempt and Halazzi the lynx on the second. None of the encounters seemed particularly hard and wipes were mostly as a result of learning the encounters.
Participants were Ironarm and Skyer Tanking, Kaith, Brotherrog and Phro healing and Alassiel, Stragoth, Paf, Sellia and Swaggy as the damage dealers. The three items to drop were Pauldrons of Primal Fury from Nalorakk, Amani Punisher from Akil'zon and The Savage's Choker from Halazzi.
Personally I was very impressed, last time we tried Zul'Aman we couldn't even clear to the first boss. I had expected we would get to him this time but not three of them.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Ironforge Airfield
A short while ago one of my guildies mentioned that they were wandering around the airfield above Ironforge. This got me started, I had flown over the area many times and the the thought of being able to explore the area got excited.
After spending a while looking at you tube video and madly jumping up ravines I started to get very frustrated. There was video evidence it could be done but no matter what I did I just couldn't make it. I went back to youtube and finally found another method of getting there, slow falling from the Ironforge graveyard. I did it using the priest Slow Fall ability but apparently you can also do it with a Parachute Cloak or Noggenfogger Elixir.
I spent a while running around up there taking screen shots. There is a nice panorama of the airfield which you can see at the top of this post. I then slow fall jumped down towards The Wetlands so I could check out the little farming community on the hillside. More screen shots, another panorama and some running around led me to discover a tunnel that lead to outside the map mesh.
There are several other "hidden zones" which I will be exploring soon. A return to the airfield is in order as I forgot to hike to the top of Ironforge.
Triptych (3v3)
Elfarol and I started Triptych with a rogue friend of ours ages ago. Ironarm was in the team as a protection warrior to get enough arena points to buy The Merciless Gladiator's Shieldwall (in my opinion one of the best easily available tanking shields around) and some extra gear for solo work. Over the last month or so Elfarol and Squiggle resurrected the team with the help of Mudoken and have been playing our ten games per week.
It started off pretty bad, i think the first week we lost almost every match but since then we have been steadily improving. The majority of the teams we fight are of a similar level to us so the games have been really fun. At the moment Squiggle is pretty much the weakest link of the team. If I can stay alive we can usually beat our opponents as I am almost always the first target. As Squiggle gear improves so will our rating. We currently sit in the mid fourteen hundreds but give it a few weeks and a couple more pieces of Gladiator's Satin Raiment and I am confident we can crack 1500.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Thankyou for Making me Smile
Today I decided to have a quick look at the official WoW forums in my lunch break. I am often wary of all the official forum (Beginners Forum excepted) as it tends to fill with complainants, anger and trolls making everyone feel lousy. However, feeling brave, I popped my head into the general section to see whats been happening. The first thread i opened was entitled "Thank You" and upon reading it I started to smile. Go and read it and feel better about the world!
The author Bellwether is a night elf druid on the Dark Iron server. She also has a blog viewable here.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Entry Level Tanking Gear
I have chatted to a few people in Children of Stormwind about getting starter tanking gear. Most people know they need to get 490 defense etc but are not sure where to go for good gear upgrades. Therefore I have created a post which gives you some examples of easily obtainable tanking gear. You will need to mix and match carefully to ensure you are uncritable and uncrushable while trying to maintain a high level of armor. As this blog is powered by wowhead you should be able to mouse over linked items to get details, if you want more information click the item and you will be taken to the wowhead site which gives excellent detail about where and how to get the item.
Head
Felsteel Helm - Crafted by a blacksmith
Myrmidon's Headdress - reward from the quest The Warlord's Hideout
Neck
Mark of the Ravenguard - Reward from the quest Brother Against Brother
Shoulders
Shoulder Guards of the Bold - Drops in Shadow Labyrinth off Murmur
Warchief's Mantle - Reward from the quest Return to Andormu
Back
Cloak of Eternity - Crafter by a Tailor
Chest
Breastplate of the Warbringer - Reward from the quest Forge Camp: Annihilated
Jade-Skull Breastplate - Drops in The Mechanar from Nethermancer Sepethrea
Vindicator's Hauberk - Purchased from Quartermaster Endarin when revered with The Aldor
Wrist
Sha'tari Wrought Armguards - Reward from the quest The Soul Devices
Hands
Thatia's Self-Correcting Gauntlets - Drops in The Arcatraz from Dalliah the Doomsayer
Felsteel Gloves - Crafted by a blacksmith
Waist
Sha'tari Vindicator's Waistguard - Reward from the quest How to Break Into the Arcatraz
Legs
Timewarden's Leggings - Purchased from Alurmi when reverd with The Keepers of Time
Felsteel Leggings - Crafted by a balcksmith
Boots
Sha'tari Wrought Greaves - Reward from the quest Into the Heart of the Labyrinth
Rings
Andormu's Tear - Reward from the quest Hero of the Brood
Iron Band of the Unbreakable - Drops in Old Hillsbrad Foothills from Lieutenant Drake
Trinkets
Adamantine Figurine - Drops in Drops in Shadow Labyrinth off Blackheart the Inciter
Regal Protectorate - Reward from the quest Overlord
Darkmoon Card: Vengeance - Reward from the quest Darkmoon Furies Deck (Note this is an expensive quest to complete)
Weapons
Honor's Call - Purchase from Logistics Officer Ulrike when exalted with Honor Hold
Grom'tor's Charge - Quest reward from The Cipher of Damnation
Crystalline Kopesh - Quest reward from Wanted: Durn the Hungerer
Shields
Dawnforged Defender - Purchase from Eldara Dawnrunner when exalted with The Shattered Sun Offensive
Netherwing Protector's Shield - Reward from the quest Ally of the Netherwing
Merciless Gladiator's Shield Wall - Purchasable for Arena points but in the future will be available for honor
Platinum Shield of the Valorous - Drops in Shadow Labyrinth off Ambassador Hellmaw
Ranged Weapons
Melmorta's Twilight Longbow - Drops in The Black Morass from Chrono Lord Deja
Gyro-Balanced Khorium Destroyer - Crafted by an engineer
Some Less Known of Enchants
Nethercleft Leg Armor(crafted) - Legs
Greater Inscription of Warding(Aldor Reputation)/Greater Inscription of the Knight(Scryer Reputation) - Shoulder
Glyph of the Defender(Keepers of Time Reputation) - Head
Video from MMO Champion
On looking at the information on Wrath of the Litch King I discovered this video. A nice compilation of video showing a good amount of Northrend. Click the HD button to see it in High Definition.
Wrath of the Lich King 10 Minutes Trailer from Boubouille on Vimeo.
All this hype, I am starting to get quite excited about WotLK. It will be nice to progress the whole way through the story line in 10 man raids!
Monday, May 12, 2008
Spell Haste
In patch 2.2 Blizzard introduced spell haste as a new attribute to gear. Spell haste like expertise is an attribute on many of the newer items introduced to the game since patch 2.2. Not fully understanding what it does many players tend to overlook it in favor of other stats.
However spell haste is a very powerful attribute that can give you a constant increase in DPS. Spell haste does three things:
A spell haste rating of 15.7 converts to a 1% haste bonus. That means that an item such as the Drums of Battle will give you a haste bonus of 5%. Another way to think of this is that with a haste bonus of 1% you could cast 101 spells in the time it takes to cast 100. In addition to all this spell haste is applied after any talents that reduce the cast time of a spell! When considering this Spell Haste becomes a lot more relevant as a method of increasing your DPS.
But don't just take my word for it Wow Insider recently reported that almost every member top raiding guild Nihilnum had taken up leather working exclusively to take advantage of the haste rating buff from the Drums of Battle.
(Statistical data sourced from Wowwiki Casting Speed picture from Wowhead)
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Dornaa (Warning Spoilers)
Children's Week is up there with my favorite and most rewarding World of Warcraft festivals. Sure you can get drunk at Brewfest, pick up free presents at Winter Veil and Kill an angry guy with a removable head at Halloween but for children's week it feels like your giving something back to the people of Azeroth and Outlands. It all begins when you offer to help an Orphan see the sights and sounds of the world.
As the story unfurls you learn that Dornaa isn't just an ordinary orphan but that she has a significant role to play in the future of the Draenei. When we take her to visit Farseer Nobundo we learn that she talks to the farseer in her dreams and she can control the powers of the elements. In the Caverns of Time Zaladormu stops the guard from attacking her saying "this girl has done nothing, and will not be held accountable for what she might do, or fail to do, in the future". She does mention that she would like to have a dragon as a friend one day when we complete this quest. All this seems to indicate the start of an important storyline. I would really like to see this story continued in Wrath of the Litch King even if it is not concluded.
I'll miss you too Dornaa!
Friday, May 9, 2008
The Great Hunt Begins
"What Jubei'Thos Down again? Stuff this i'm rolling a Horde"
Since I started playing I have wondered what Horde characters are like. I have killed and been killed by them but never experienced life from the other side. It seems like I am only playing half of the game. So in a moment of frustration at Jubei'Thos going down again I thought I would give it a shot. I choose a newish server (Dreadmaul) and a Tauren, the least freakish of the Horde races. Decided a shaman could be nice and off I went. Five minutes later I was bored. The Tauren starting area is huge, well it feels like that anyway. This along with only having one spell again turned me off big time. So Bloom the level 2 shaman was ditched in favor of fighting the lag on Jubei'Thos again.
One day i'm sure i'll go back and try again but for the moment the thought of going all the way to 70 again with no help and no friends was too much.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
That First Down
After weeks of struggle its a great feeling to finally get that boss down. I think the first time was Blackheart the Inciter in Shadow Labs. We had been repeatedly attempting him for over a week with little success, it was one of those time where we were sure we were doing the right thing, we had read all the guides, but for some reason just couldn't do it. Well when we finally got him down there was much rejoicing, though not so much as the first time we got Curator. An occasion early on in our attempts of Karazhan where I actually had to take off my headphones due to the loud cheering coming through Skype.
I know for myself that these moments of success are one of the reasons I really enjoy this game. Downing that boss, or an excellent Heroic run can really turn my day from bad to good. Sure I have successes at work and in life generally but the wins in World of Warcraft can really take the cake. Perhaps it is because you are immersed in a world where you are hero and you can really make a difference. Or maybe it is that you are working with a group of other people and through your teamwork you have succeeded. I guess it helps as a tank knowing that those nine (four or twenty four) other people, really couldn't have done it without you.
All this comes from someone with a regular nine to five job and a life filled with friends, outings and fun times. What about those who are sick and unable to leave their house or have a job with no fulfilling moments. Then these precious moments would become even more important.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
2.4.2 What to Expect
Arena Points Calculation
In order to fix problems with players riding the arena win ladder two changes have been made to how players earn points and how teams are matched. If a players personal arena rating is more than 150 below the team rating their will earn points based on their personal rating. Also if the average personal rating of the teams players is more than 150 below their teams rating they will be matched using their average personal rating. This will mean that even if you have two very well geared friends you will still have to fight your way up the ladder.
Cooldown Changes
The cooldowns on many profession spells have been reduced again. A while back Blizzard reduced 24 hour cool downs to 23 hours and 4 day cool downs to 3 days and 23 hours. This has been reduced again by another three hours meaning cooldowns are 20 hours and 3 days 20 hours. A great change this makes crafting that bit more flexible.
Polymorph
Where a players Polymorph spell heals the target as it wanders around as a sheep/pig/turtle. Well the NPC version will cease to do this. I will be interested to see how this changes some approaches to the Aran encounter in Karazhan.
Mount Speed Trinkets
One undocumented change that has been seen on the Public Test Realm relates to speed increase trinkets. Apparently these will now function like enchants for your mount. You will need one such item (eg riding crop) per mount. It is slightly cloudy as to how this effect Warlocks and Druids who have a mount created by a spell.
Sounds
Many sound errors have also been fixed. Hopefully this means I wont be able to hear that priest shielding from the next zone.
Mail Boxes
I use the mail box as my bank, mailing all the junk i want to sell to an alt. It has annoyed me no end that when they made all those great changes to tracking that they didn't allow you to track mailboxes. My wish has been granted, I will not be able to track the pesky buggers!
The official Patch Notes can be found here.
Why did I choose that class
When I first chose a warrior I didn't know what tanking was, I had no idea about PvP or for that matter very much at all about warriors. But I choose a warrior for a couple of reasons, firstly I didn't want to be the same class as my friends who has just stared (Rogue, Warlock and Paladin) not that I had a clue about group composition I just wanted to be different. Also in previous RPG games I had played Ranger type characters but they always seemed so fragile. I had watched my friend with the warlock play and it seemed like a cop out standing back there like a wimp while a demon did all the hard bits. So I figured why not play the character that wears the thickest armor and beats the crap out of things. Now if you are ever going to be a warrior you have to be a Dwarf, I mean dwarfs are tough, they are like chunks of rock with arms and pointy weapons. The funny thing is I tend to play in PvP like that, run at stuff flailing and hope i hit things.
Squiggle was my second character, I rolled him to I could level with Alassiel. My intention was to create a character for PvP as I didn't want to respec Ironarm all the time in order to PvP. At this point most people wonder why I choose a Priest for PvP as opposed to a Paladin, Druid, Warlock or rogue. I mean generally if you want to heal a Paladin or druid would be considered better and a warlock or rogue is generally easier if you just want to do damage. Well to be honest it was a bit or the "I don't want to be like everyone else" syndrome (ironic considering 10 million play this game and at least a good few hundred thousand would play shadow priests). In addition I wanted to roll a Draenei and that limited my choices some what. Thus Squiggle was born, now all I have to do is learn how to melt faces like a pro.
Monday, May 5, 2008
The Great Healing Experiment
Two characters had their first attempt at healing yesterday, Alassiel who decided to respect restoration and heal for heroic Mechanar and Squiggle. Well Alassiel passed with flying colours with a couple of deaths but over all amazing work, especially since it was Raynor’s first attempt at tanking a heroic. I guess having 1500 bonus healing helps like that. Squiggle on the other hand didn’t fair so well.
After accidentally agreeing to do “Durn” thinking they meant the giant angry gron in Nargrand Durn the Hungerer he founding himself healing for Durnhold. I mean it's called Caverns of Time: Old Hillsbrand Foothills but thats a separate problem. Squiggle is shadow and after that experiment he is stay that way. Healing is either really boring because all you have to do is drop renew on the tank or horrible when suddenly everyone is taking damage at once and you have no Mana. We did final finish Durnhold but it took a few attempts, far more than it should have for a group of all level 70s. People think tanking is hard but at least as the shit starts to hit the fan your are getting more rage as opposed to healing where you keep loosing mana. Healing is expensive too, Ironarm may have a 30g repair bill but he generally only uses a couple of Elixirs and some food each run, Squiggle ran through 10 mana potions last night in addition to god knows how many sacred candles let along the repair bills. I was defiantly making it harder for my self as a PvP shadow priest but I still enjoy tanking a lot more.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
My Top Web Comics
We all waste time on the internet looking up 'stuff'. Well my one of my favorite things it to read web comics. My top three are as follows.
1 - PvP Online
Revolving around the employees of a computer game magazine PvP online is easily my top pick. There is a good level of nerd in this one with plenty of computer game and general culture references. Somne of the earlier comics are really a trip down memory lane. My two favorite characters are Skull the Troll and Scratch Fury: Destroyer of Worlds. It is written and drawn by Scott Kurtz, who has done a great job with balancing funny with serious with many story lines that give you that nice happy feeling.
2 - Dark Legacy Comics
Dark Legacy is a series of comics about and in World of Warcraft. Probably not funny to someone who doesn't play the game Dark Legacy picks on many of the inconsistencies in the game and generally pokes fun.
3 - Hero By Night
Written by DJ Coffman, Hero By Night is actually a printed comic. But because DJ made it big with his web comic Yirmumah he has posted almost all of this series online as well. Hero By Night is a classic hero comic hosting magic rings and super villains. It is really well written with a great story line and looks great as well.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Karazhan Finally Clear
Finally we have cleared all of Karazhan. With Netherspite's timely demise the Children of Stormwind have now killed every boss. We cleared it all in one week to boot. My estimates put it at six months assuming we stared in mid November. Heres to hoping we can get through ZA a bit quicker, though I hear even those completing tier 5 content can struggle with it.
Not that I am going to stop, but I have throughly enjoyed raiding. This is only the start of the fabled "End Game" content but it has provided great challenges and wonderful rewards. Now I might go polish my epics and get some sleep.
Halfway between gold and horses
Okay I need to have a bit of a rant. I have previously written about Alliance in battlegrounds and the win vs loss ratios in Alterac Valley. Well I have just been playing Arathi Basin on Squiggle and I am astounded at the general stupidity of Alliance players. We were loosing, okay thats fine, but the reason we were losing was because half of the Alliance team were fighting at that midway point between the Goldmine and the Stables. I mean what were they expecting to achieve, do they not realise that you have to cap the flags to win?
I have been in Arthi Basin matches were our Alliance PUG has beaten Horde premade groups with superior gear because we had a solid strategy, we communicated horde movements and worked as a team. If only all Alliance groups could listen to others, talk about whats happening or has happened around them and work together. An easy example is to "assist" you allies, target what they target and burn it down together.
Sadly except for the rare occasion Alliance will not do this, we are doomed to fight in the middle and rarely achieve anything.
Karazhan and beyond
Children of Stormwind how now almost cleared all of Karazhan, with only Netherspite standing in our way (here is hoping for this week). It appears that once we have bested an encounter it comes under our belt pretty easily. This has happened for Moroes, Curator and now Aran who went down quiet easily last night with virtually no deaths. For reference purposes our strategy was to keep his health below his mana, CC/burn down the elementals and not have to be polymorphed. I think that using a Paladin or Druid as an off tank and then getting them to DPS/Heal on the one tank bosses is defiantly the way to go. Having Rogadodga along is pretty handy too as his healing set it quite epic.
This leaves the question “What next?” Well there is Zul’Aman which could be interesting but with 19+ 70s simultaneously online last night 25 man raids are within our grasp. I think we should lock in a time, call in a few favours and hit Gruul’s Lair or perhaps even Magtheridon's Lair. I can think of a few 70s I am friends with who might come and at least one smallish guild who might join us. In regards to loot, well I would consider winning anything a bonus so perhaps a master looter supervising a need before greed roll off.
Read Full ArticleThursday, May 1, 2008
Wow-Ku
I found an interesting article on a blog today about wow-kus. An amusing variation of the popular Japanese poem format, Haiku. The format is a three line poem the first line five syllables, the second seven and the last five. The blog can be found here and the Wow Insider article here. I composed a couple myself.
Thick plate steel armor
Stop those nasty crushing blows
Keep that shield handy
Semi translucent priest
death only one cast away
Dark shadow power
Battlegrounds - The Win vs Loss Ratio
I am trying to farm honor for Squiggle who I am making my PvP character. So I have been doing a fair few battlegrounds, I have also had some trouble with sleeping recently meaning I occasionally play at 2am local time. So I have noticed something in our battlegroup, Vengeance. Although the win loss ratio is pretty close (see Warcraft Realms) there are certain conditions under which Alliance or Horde have a better chance of winning. In my opinion there are two factors at play here the time at which you undertake the battleground and the number of other players who are participating. So I'm going to look at these in the context of Alterac Valley.
Prime time for Oceanic servers is generally a bad time for alliance in Alterac Valley. The evenings have a much worse win to loss ration as compared to the very late night and early morning. This holds more true on weekdays but tends to fall down a bit on the weekends. My conclusion to this is that during these times there is a higher ratio of US players in the Battlegrounds as Vengeance contains Oceanic and US realms. This leads to my second point.
The more people participating in battlegrounds the better the Alliances chances of winning. This links to the time factor becuase at 5am there are a lot of Alterac Valley battlegrounds underway and in prime time there are generally much fewer.
There could be several reasons for this pattern of Alliance win vs loss and I can only guess some of them. AFK players could be contributing with their number's watered down when more battlegrounds are underway. But more likely would be a comparison of the types of people who participate in battlegrounds and identify with the Horde or Alliance factions. Unfortunately i am not a psychologist and I don't have enough data to delve further into this topic.
In conclusion my recommendation for farming Alterac Valley for honor is to change your sleeping pattern to match when alliance wins; this however is a bit extreme. Easier would be to use the times where Alterac Valley is popular to get as much honor as possible. Really this is just one of many aspects of a complex game which is not only directed by Blizzard but also by wider societal and demographic factors.
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