Adventures of GOINIO: WoW

[etiolate]

People just need to learn how to kill resto druids. Granted, I am just at 168 resil, but thats still a bit of resil and really all it takes is a stun locking rogue, or a mace stun MS warrior, or a fearing walrock with felhunter, or a counterspell before a nuke, or a shaman and I am screwed. Since Druid is such a small part of the population, I just don't think people ever learned how they work and are having trouble adjusting. I get some time of being uber defensive if I throw up some hots, have natural perfection pro and throw on barkskin and BEAR IT, but sweet jebus, thats a lot to throw up. It's like fighting a Holy Pally, it takes awhile but they can't do anything but survive a bit.

In fact, I fought a premade in WSG that had a resto druid on my warlock last night and we beat them 3-1. I just used fel hunter and banished him when he got cocky enough to go tree. That was a crappy premade though.

Sorta like what MAF said, I just sign up for AV + whatever the daily quest is for or the weekend is for. Also, AV is where you can get away with not having arena gear the most easily, since you  fight the NPCs as much as other players and the group is so large you can hide amongst the masses.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Ravenholdt&n=Emptybox

That is most of my pvp gear, but it took a long ass time to acquire.

[MrAngryFace]

Yeah, when youre in AV and you DONT have PVP gear, go with O, but dont expect heals till youre at least close to 70. If you are geared well you can take your pick and still have fun.

In a one on one situation I could take out a resto druid, but its never JUST that, and there is where the problem is. PUGs are a mess to start with, and organizing a focused strike is even harder. You wouldnt BELIEVE how many times I saw people attacking a warrior constantly getting healed by a DRUID IN THE BUSHES. KILL THE HEALER I screamed. Oi.

Anyway yeah, anything can be killed, but PVP is an extremely unpredictable beast. One minute im beating a resto druid with silences and burst dps, the next I have a line of 4 alliance hunter focus firing on me while their pets charge in. In any other situation the odds might be in MY favor, but i tell you, as a fire spec I am prepared to die in BGs, but I do as much damage as possible before I go.

Paladins are actually easier to kill than resto-druids now btw. The sheep immune issues with druids drives me nuts and the healing spells are a lot harder to counter spell. Part of the reason I went 17/41/3 was to get improved counter-spell to deal with druid regeneration

[etiolate]

How does counterspell work? I am getting counterspelled when not even casting lately. I always thought the target had to be casting for it to work.

And yeah, there is no accounting for dumb teammates. I was on my resto druid for wsg weekend, figuring I could work it easily, but the first BG I go into I had 2-3 horde who stuck like glue to me. A warlock, a hunter and one or two others always on me, even when I wasn't near the flag or the flag carrier. They stood right by the paths leading into horde base waiting for me. I was like 45 yards away from the hunter, so I stealthed and his pet found me. I would try to escort our FC and the followed me, or if I went to their FC, boom they were on me. I figured if I am attracting this much attention, surely my team can take advantage of their numbers right? Nope, couldn't run a flag or return one once. I had 3 or 4 people stalking me the whole game and  my team still just withered.

[MrAngryFace]

Improved Counterspell = 100% chance of 4 seconds silence. Basically it removes my NEED to nail an opponent on a spell cast. HOWEVER, I still get the 8 second silence if I hit them during a spell cast for that particular school of magic.

Basically it took a lot of guess work out of dealing with druids, but I still wanna try and hit the cast period against anyone. Druids just have a lot of really fast regenerations spells n crap, unlike the paladin. Hell, paladins are so predictable you know when their about to bubble.

As a belf mage I have mana torrent, dragons breath, improved counter spell, and the chance of impact from fire spells to jolt an opponent out of a spell cast. Mages are a REAL pain if they focus on their utility spells in group combat. Generally tho I focus on tabbing through opponents and burst dpsing away the last of their life.

Unfortunately we are still really squishy. I was helping some guild guy through BRD the other night (which sucks as fire spec) and he lol'ed at my mana pool, so I had to explain the difference between PVP gear and Raid gear. Its like wtf dude, sorry im not raid equipped dont usually do this crap.

truth be told, I have no clue what to do when I face an alliance mage and warlock at the same time. Definitely a mages worst situation.

[MrAngryFace]

Haha, oh jeeze. I got bored of PVP BGs so I took a chance and wandered out into BARRENS and found a fight. 3 70s and a 46. The 70s were bouncing around between xroads and camp t. They had a warlock, priest, and paladin. A nightmare for a mage alone so I recruited a priest and paladin of my own, along with a 64 warrior from my guild. We beat them down at Camp T, which isnt much to brag about as the guards aggroed. By the end of the fight I was chasing a imp counterspelled priest away from Camp T, a crit fireblast knocking him down. Then our group spread out and hunted them down as they resurrected. Eventually we chased them to xroads where they peeled off to ratchet to catch the boat out of the barrens. We converged on ratchet and met them at the docs hanging by the guards. We didnt have the warrior with us but we attacked them and the guards. They died again, and when the boat showed we watched them limp onto the boat, at which point we waved them off and screamed BURR till they were out of sight.

Oh the lolz. Too bad you get crap honor for that stuff, but its fun.

[Invertibrate]

Hey all reading this thread got me to sign up and post since I am generally a lurker.

PD grats on leveling through with a Prot spec war.  That is difficult to do, I know with mine I leveled to 70 dps then switched over to Prot.  Though I am currently farming some pvp gear in dps spec again.  Wanted to comment on your Prot build.  Here is a build I use for 5 mans and Kara level stuff. 

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=Li0cZVZbEtoIMzcxst

The biggest thing I see in your build is Iron Will, Anger Management and Deep Wounds are wasted points.  For Iron Will, most dungeon stuff, particularly bosses you cannot resist their stuns or charms.  On trash those effects are either very temporary or will generally not target you.  Anger Managements gains are very minimal in the full scheme of things and to spend the extra points to get to it are not worth it.  Deep wounds is a nice dot for dps, but your crit chance is so low because you don't have cruelty that the benefits are not really that great.

Get cruelty.  Nothing generates aggro like crits from shield slam and devastate.  Imp def stance is good really in raid situations, but for 5 man stuff it is really not all that useful.  I like the rage cost reductions to sunder armor/devastate as well since deviate will be in your rotation of abilities used.  The rage cost reduction to heroic strike is nice as well since it is a good way to spend rage if you have plenty, generates higher threat and is not on the global cooldown.

If you decide to go down the PVP route I would recommend not doing it as prot spec.  It can be done, and you will be hard to kill, but it starts to get frustrating.  My current spec is fun for PVP if you have a good 2 hander.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Kilrogg&n=Lemmywinks

I will say though you will have all the gear you could ever want if you stay prot.  If you are a solid tank you will have opportunities to group and do 5 mans, heroics and 10 man stuff with few issues ever getting a group. 

If you are tanking a dungeon you should be the group leader.  You set the kill order and the cc targets and you initiate all actions.  Initial aggro from a pull is key to you keeping it.  If a hunter is not pulling to you with misdirect, but rather just pulling, throw that fool out of your group and get a replacement.  All that leads to is frustration and multiple wipes.


Last advice I have to give is this.  Get rid of the damage meter, it will just make you crazy.  Measure your success as a tank on people not getting smoked, not on the amount of dmg you or they take.  If you want to run a meter run a Threat meter like Omen.  This will show not only if you are generating threat fast enough and sustaining it, but if people are pulling it off you by playing like fools.  Your job is to generate aggro their job is to not pull it.  My main is a rogue and the biggest thing any dps class has to learn is how to control their aggro so they don't needlessly die.  The only people you need to worry about with aggro should be healers on multiple pulls.

[T234]

Lvl 19 Rogue advice plz.

[cubicle47b]

Lvl 19 Rogue advice plz.

Sinister strike the mob a bunch of times.

[MrAngryFace]

Hey all reading this thread got me to sign up and post since I am generally a lurker.

PD grats on leveling through with a Prot spec war.  That is difficult to do, I know with mine I leveled to 70 dps then switched over to Prot.  Though I am currently farming some pvp gear in dps spec again.  Wanted to comment on your Prot build.  Here is a build I use for 5 mans and Kara level stuff. 

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=Li0cZVZbEtoIMzcxst

The biggest thing I see in your build is Iron Will, Anger Management and Deep Wounds are wasted points.  For Iron Will, most dungeon stuff, particularly bosses you cannot resist their stuns or charms.  On trash those effects are either very temporary or will generally not target you.  Anger Managements gains are very minimal in the full scheme of things and to spend the extra points to get to it are not worth it.  Deep wounds is a nice dot for dps, but your crit chance is so low because you don't have cruelty that the benefits are not really that great.

Get cruelty.  Nothing generates aggro like crits from shield slam and devastate.  Imp def stance is good really in raid situations, but for 5 man stuff it is really not all that useful.  I like the rage cost reductions to sunder armor/devastate as well since deviate will be in your rotation of abilities used.  The rage cost reduction to heroic strike is nice as well since it is a good way to spend rage if you have plenty, generates higher threat and is not on the global cooldown.

If you decide to go down the PVP route I would recommend not doing it as prot spec.  It can be done, and you will be hard to kill, but it starts to get frustrating.  My current spec is fun for PVP if you have a good 2 hander.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Kilrogg&n=Lemmywinks

I will say though you will have all the gear you could ever want if you stay prot.  If you are a solid tank you will have opportunities to group and do 5 mans, heroics and 10 man stuff with few issues ever getting a group. 

If you are tanking a dungeon you should be the group leader.  You set the kill order and the cc targets and you initiate all actions.  Initial aggro from a pull is key to you keeping it.  If a hunter is not pulling to you with misdirect, but rather just pulling, throw that fool out of your group and get a replacement.  All that leads to is frustration and multiple wipes.


Last advice I have to give is this.  Get rid of the damage meter, it will just make you crazy.  Measure your success as a tank on people not getting smoked, not on the amount of dmg you or they take.  If you want to run a meter run a Threat meter like Omen.  This will show not only if you are generating threat fast enough and sustaining it, but if people are pulling it off you by playing like fools.  Your job is to generate aggro their job is to not pull it.  My main is a rogue and the biggest thing any dps class has to learn is how to control their aggro so they don't needlessly die.  The only people you need to worry about with aggro should be healers on multiple pulls.

Yeah, generally damage meters are only useful for WoW Forum people who like to play at theory-craft

[Phoenix Dark]

Hey all reading this thread got me to sign up and post since I am generally a lurker.

PD grats on leveling through with a Prot spec war.  That is difficult to do, I know with mine I leveled to 70 dps then switched over to Prot.  Though I am currently farming some pvp gear in dps spec again.  Wanted to comment on your Prot build.  Here is a build I use for 5 mans and Kara level stuff. 

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=Li0cZVZbEtoIMzcxst

The biggest thing I see in your build is Iron Will, Anger Management and Deep Wounds are wasted points.  For Iron Will, most dungeon stuff, particularly bosses you cannot resist their stuns or charms.  On trash those effects are either very temporary or will generally not target you.  Anger Managements gains are very minimal in the full scheme of things and to spend the extra points to get to it are not worth it.  Deep wounds is a nice dot for dps, but your crit chance is so low because you don't have cruelty that the benefits are not really that great.

Get cruelty.  Nothing generates aggro like crits from shield slam and devastate.  Imp def stance is good really in raid situations, but for 5 man stuff it is really not all that useful.  I like the rage cost reductions to sunder armor/devastate as well since deviate will be in your rotation of abilities used.  The rage cost reduction to heroic strike is nice as well since it is a good way to spend rage if you have plenty, generates higher threat and is not on the global cooldown.

If you decide to go down the PVP route I would recommend not doing it as prot spec.  It can be done, and you will be hard to kill, but it starts to get frustrating.  My current spec is fun for PVP if you have a good 2 hander.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Kilrogg&n=Lemmywinks

I will say though you will have all the gear you could ever want if you stay prot.  If you are a solid tank you will have opportunities to group and do 5 mans, heroics and 10 man stuff with few issues ever getting a group. 

If you are tanking a dungeon you should be the group leader.  You set the kill order and the cc targets and you initiate all actions.  Initial aggro from a pull is key to you keeping it.  If a hunter is not pulling to you with misdirect, but rather just pulling, throw that fool out of your group and get a replacement.  All that leads to is frustration and multiple wipes.


Last advice I have to give is this.  Get rid of the damage meter, it will just make you crazy.  Measure your success as a tank on people not getting smoked, not on the amount of dmg you or they take.  If you want to run a meter run a Threat meter like Omen.  This will show not only if you are generating threat fast enough and sustaining it, but if people are pulling it off you by playing like fools.  Your job is to generate aggro their job is to not pull it.  My main is a rogue and the biggest thing any dps class has to learn is how to control their aggro so they don't needlessly die.  The only people you need to worry about with aggro should be healers on multiple pulls.

Thank you for the advice, and welcome to the forums

After I switched my 43 prot talents around I couldn't really think of anything to put the rest in, so I decided to put 12 points in arms and get Anger Management; I'm going to definitely get rid of it now thanks to your advice. I didn't really see an improvement in my rage generation with it. With Iron Will I've been noticing that I'm still getting stunned by enemies, so those points could go somewhere else.

I'm gonna add those extra points to Improved Sunder; I didn't know that effected Devastate as well.

I think I'll keep Goinio prot spec. I'm not particularly interested in PVP that much, and I'd like to tank Kara level stuff. I'll use an alt for PVP.

[Invertibrate]

Lvl 19 Rogue advice plz.

Are you twinking a 19 rogue, or just getting started?

[MrAngryFace]

I went Arms with my warrior till 39 then made a mage and havent touched him since. Arms spec is a lot of fun for PVP and solo

[Invertibrate]

I went Arms with my warrior till 39 then made a mage and havent touched him since. Arms spec is a lot of fun for PVP and solo

Yeah that is my alt so I use him to pvp as well when I feel like getting into it.  Arms warriors are just mean in pvp, and if I have a healer I am damn near unkillable, especially against the alt level 70s wearing greens that are often in battlegrounds farming their welfare epics.

[Phoenix Dark]

As a prot warrior what do you often do when first engaging a mob? I run in and throw down a thunderclap, then start Devastating each mob with the help of a cool tab macro. And at the same time I constantly shield block, setting up Revenge for use.

[T234]

Lvl 19 Rogue advice plz.

Are you twinking a 19 rogue, or just getting started?

What do you mean? This is my main. I'm in a guild that gives me free greens and enchants and shit on occasion.

[Invertibrate]

As a prot warrior what do you often do when first engaging a mob? I run in and throw down a thunderclap, then start Devastating each mob with the help of a cool tab macro. And at the same time I constantly shield block, setting up Revenge for use.

Shield slam is your highest aggro generator, but you can also preload a heroic strike on a mob so that lands for the first hit as well.  If you are doing a multi-pull thunder-clap, Demoralizing shout and cleave work well to grab packs.  Usually the biggest thing to make sure of is that you can keep the target being killed on you, so save shield slam for that target, while at the same time ensuring the other mobs stay on you and don't go after the healer.

[Invertibrate]

Lvl 19 Rogue advice plz.

Are you twinking a 19 rogue, or just getting started?

What do you mean? This is my main. I'm in a guild that gives me free greens and enchants and shit on occasion.

A cool young dude is basically a character that gets to a level, say like 19 but never goes further to play with in battleground for PVP.  These character have the best gear, enchant and other things available at that level to destroy people in battlegrounds. 

The thing with rogues there is no right or wrong way to use them while leveling.  All 3 trees have their uses and all 3 have talents at the top you will want to have.  Most of it is based on what kind of weapons you will be using, but setting up a rogue to a specific weapon while leveling is kinda meh since you essentially should be using the best mace, sword or dagger you have available to you.  The subtlety tree is nice if you solo a lot to be able to stealth around and pick off mobs.  Pure dps comes out of the combat tree, especially if using maces and swords.  Assassination is good use of poisons and such, which I believe you get at 20.

[T234]

I'm going full-bore combat spec. at 70-80, I'm going to go assassination spec so as to try to meet my goal:

KILLING THE KING OF THE GNOMES

[MrAngryFace]

Arms warriors have some MEAN DPS and can still stance dance to zerk for fear management, I was never good at stance dancing tho, so whutver, but yeah get a good fast two hander on an arms warrior and OMG LOOK OUT. I know jack about laate game warrior tho as I never got mine past 40. The only class I know two shits about is mage.

[Candyflip]

MAF is your mage 70 yet? Someone transfer a char to the PTR and duel me

[MrAngryFace]

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Muradin&n=Vynitha

Finally got my pendant. My spell power is meh, luckily fire mage dps is naturally high. Now that I have enough stam to lose (thanks to pvp gear) im going to start earning the gold for spell power chants to get that number up. I also still need the bracers, belt, boots, rings, staff, and the improved insignia before I can really take a break and feel remotely satisfied with where my character is

I WAS going to use the honor for a staff but its been a long week and I had to have something NOW and I wanted to replace the amulete of unstable power anyway since it gave crit/spelldamage boost but no stat boosts. The belt is probably the next thing to go as it is teh sad.

PD: I also saw youre still using the carrot, save up 115-150 gold and get a riding crop at AH

[Invertibrate]

He can't use the riding crop till 69.  Though when you do get to 69 definitely get one.

[MrAngryFace]

Do they stack? I've always been curious. Its also amazing how few people have them in AB/AV/EotS. I mean you can still swap it out for insignia once you get to where youre going.

[Invertibrate]

Do they stack? I've always been curious. Its also amazing how few people have them in AB/AV/EotS. I mean you can still swap it out for insignia once you get to where youre going.

No they don't stack.  They basically made it as an all in one replacement for the previous solution which was the carrot stacked with the glove enchant and mithril spurs.  It also does not stack with Pally crusader aura.

[etiolate]

I don't sell/make that many riding crops as a LW. They don't apply to flying mounts and people rather have their fear trinket and a trinket for their class spec.

Currently I need Arcatraz for my lock to get kara keyed, and a primal nether so I can make the awesome engineering goggles. My Shaman needs to run mana tombs for the Creepjacker and Shaman helm.  I completely bypassed the dungeon warlock set, due to its lack of crit. I have two of the arena 1 pieces and have used blues with stam/int/crit/dmg instead. Plus, the 2 set bonus for the dungeon set is pretty useless for me.

I got one Mana Tombs group on my Shaman today, in which I had to heal. It made me wish I had some resto talents invested. I couldn't keep the tank up through the first boss, even when I non-stopped spammed lesser healing wave, which was hitting 1k-1.6k every 1.5 seconds.

[MrAngryFace]

etio: its important to have riding crop for the first few minutes of AB/EOTS and sometimes even AV. Trinkets cant be swapped. Those not using riding crop in these bgs are kinda dumbs.

Also do you know what raid instance drops the tomes to train mage top level foods? I need to get my guild to drag me through it

[Invertibrate]

The riding crop works with flying mounts.  If people do not own and use one they are rather foolish.

Yeah the higher level food books are dropped, but you can usually get them out of the AH or just use the refreshment table since I believe it is the same level as the food books, and makes the folks in your BG like you.  Not sure it has any cost if done during the warm up period of the BG as well.

[MrAngryFace]

Pretty sure the only cost during prep time in bg is the reagent, which is a WHOLE 26 SILVAR NO NOES! I seriously need those tomes, ill have to get some gold and camp AH for them. Im BUYING my own food and water right now lol.

Im thinking about going from 17/41/3 to 33/28 but I dunno yet. Im kinda stunned with wowwiki's point allocation in the 17/41 scenario. They throw the extra points not into elemental precision, but arcane fortitude (worthless talent) and talents that ONLY affect arcane spells when 17/41 IS still considered a deep fire spec. So their recommended 17/41 is actually a bizzare 18/43 build. They ignore the arcane missle talent which is probably FAR more useful to a deep fire spec than something than increases crit chance of arcane explosion, which is only used by deep fire at its lowest level for sloppy stealth detection.

IN short wowwiki needs to look over their talent builds.

[T234]

Pretty sure the only cost during prep time in bg is the reagent, which is a WHOLE 26 SILVAR NO NOES! I seriously need those tomes, ill have to get some gold and camp AH for them. Im BUYING my own food and water right now lol.

Is there really any use for food? I use bandages and free potions from mah guildies to heal.

[MrAngryFace]

Bandages require a high first aid level, which I havent bothered with, and potions for my level are $$$. Food is cheaper.

[Invertibrate]

Bandages require a high first aid level, which I havent bothered with, and potions for my level are $$$. Food is cheaper.

Not leveling first aid is a horrible mistake to make.  I did not do it on one of my toons and I am in the hell of going back and farming lower level cloth.

[MrAngryFace]

blah, so lazy

[Candyflip]

Sold two accounts in two days. $150 profit. I LOVE WOW OMG

Oh, and I've spent the last 4 days playing a Gladiator rogue (5/5 Vengeful, full Vindicator's, both weps and sholders). Now, rogues would be my most favorite PvP class by far if not for hunters. With that being said, this is imbalanced. LOL. I realize 95% of everyone that plays a rogue will never play with gear this good, but still. I've beaten ass on every flavor of Gladiator I've come across outside Durotar numerous times. This is MADNESS. Of course, I am specced ShS for dueling, but still. Now I understand why AR/Prep was nerfed.
OOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP

*goes back to killing 3 people at a time in Warsong*

[etiolate]

The riding crop works with flying mounts.  If people do not own and use one they are rather foolish.

Ah it doesn't work on flight form, which is why I didn't think it worked. Still, it has never felt like much a difference to me.

[MrAngryFace]

Well its pretty logical it doesnt work for a druid in flight form

[Eric P]

still unable to find a class which suites me better than lock/hunter i rolled a hunter and spent some of my weekend going through the blood elf content.

the blood elf voidwalker quest is an absolute bitch.  you get sent to the ghostlands to get the voidstone, then you take the voidstone to a dead elf city which is haunted and you have to go to the top of a building fighting ghosts with your fairly weak imp and then you summon and fight your voidwalker then you hoof it back to silvermoon.

[MrAngryFace]

Im pretty sure 'my class' is Mage. First character I got to 70, mostly decked out in S1 gear, and when I started a Druid I went Balance towards PVP Moonkin so I can pretty much play a NATURE MAGE haw haw

I think my problem with Hunters is that their talent tree is largely boring, and their combat is largely boring. Oh im sure there's some skill involved unique to the class that I am not aware of, but it just seems so zzzzzzzz.

Mages spend so much time zipping around and staying alive while messing with cooldowns and effects, it gets complicated.

[Eric P]

i hear that people complain about  a hunter just being a macro spammer, but they're playing the class safe and boring.

i like to go for multiple targets and just do crowd control making sure my pet doesn't die.

i think that warlock is the "safest" class in the game once you hit level 10 and you get your void walker.  send your pet in, unleash your DoT frenzy, set your wand to autoshoot then go get a sandwich.  your voidwalker will do crowd control for you and has enough hp that if you have gotten an add or two, your voidwalker will probably not be dead by the time you come back

so seeing how i just wanted to play with the new content for blood elf, it was perfect for me.

i have tried pally and that was ok, but that was a fairly boring time, and i don't really like warrior because it's too easy to get fucked if you get even just one add.

[MrAngryFace]

Warlocks can fight WHILE running away, of course they're the safest lol. I've played a warlock pre-bc, back when they werent OMG, I cannot imagine how easy they are to play now. I also heard they nerfed the infernal quest which used to be stupid hard, but worth it. Now just any ol nub can solo it I hear.

[Eric P]

i don't know i only played warlock to 52 before i got bored with not doing anything and went hunter

[Phoenix Dark]

Haven't played in some time; been living at my parent's house for a week since my heat went out. It's being fixed today I think. But now I got tests to study for lol

[Fragamemnon]

I was way better on my priest than I ever will be on my warrior, but god help me if I ever heal or buff again for the awful lot that play this game.

I did altfest Gruul's Lair this weekend, first time I ever have been in a raid group since I quit the game back in the Naxx days pre-TBC. It was much like I remembered-lots of sitting around and the usual raid mob shenanigans. I'll pass on doing anything more involved, just not worth the awfulness. I did get attuned to Karazhan at least and have a spot for a weekly raid there, which I suppose works.

Speaking of awfulness, AV on my battlegroup is basically 80 people doing a simultaneous D2 pindle run-completely clockwork, fast (10minutes or so start to finish), and if you do it enough you'll get what you want. With my gear it works out (my only decent gear is PvE warrior tanking gear), but man if there ever was a poster child for why instanced PvP is so awful, AV is it.

[MrAngryFace]

The switch from long games to short games to provide a location for more honor faster in a raid environment was not complete. Half of the instance quests can't be completed in the time provided. Summon frost lord? Good luck! Field Veteran/Elite troops? HAW. Get your wolf patrols out? HAHAH Two pre-reqs for that shit, both seperated by almost the entire map. FAT CHANCE. So the result is a game of 'strategy' as Blizzard calls it, dominated by bizzare bottlenecks and footraces.

The fact of the matter is Vengeance battlegroup was doing FINE with the footrace aka (Dual O) prior the 2.3.xx HP HOTFIX to Alliance raid bosses. Balinda WAS easy, but the time saved on Balinda has always been spent on the assorted bunker/field elites and tower kill-zone surrounding the aid station. Van wasn't exactly a push over unless you had a few good tanks or both bunkers had fallen leaving him alone. Again, this required time.

And Alliance back in the day did fine with this. Drek would require more time, but Alliance enjoys at least 3 ways into FW Keep, a location that not only has all Horde elite NPCs seperate from the Relief Hut, but also has a large stretch to the Relief Hut out of reach of Horde archers. Add to this the fact that Horde towers require very little NPC killing, as a person can pretty much run in the hut up top and camp out in a defensive posture that robs casters of their ability to fight (yay close quarters. Bunkers are much easier to take back, I dont care what anyone says to the contrary.

ALL IN ALL, back then I didnt mind the differences between the assault on RH and AS, as the time requirement horde side was mitigated by the midfield play Alliance had to endure.

THEN Horde got greedy, or maybe its not greedy so much as they looked at the event, got bored, and decided to WIN even more by monopolizing the midfield and participating in the 'stormstrike' strategy movement to keep Alliance at 0 honor per game. To be honest I dont understand the full details of this strat aside from people calling it the 'Scorched Earth' strategy to make it sound more dire than it is.

I understand Alliance not queuing for 0 honor matches, but this is probably where Blizzard should have seen the monster that AV has become. Winning no longer means anything in this battleground. Honor does. The battleground itself has NO REWARD aside from the number of honor dished out at the end. That points to major issues with GAMEPLAY. You could blame the issue of PVP epics, but if AV didnt exist, players WOULD adapt. Its existence in the form it currently takes IS the problem.

So Alliance boycotts across battlegroups and instead of taking a long look at things, Blizzard hotfixes in the laziest way possible. They HP Buff Balinda and Vann. The Alliance players rush back to AV in large crowds and resume play.

GUESS WHAT! Dual O doesnt work anymore! Balinda took a lot of time before but OMG now she takes longer than VANN. Alliance STILL gets a crapload of elites all around AS while frostwolf keep requires the same amount of little effort to cap RH in Dual O AND there are still two points where you can jump the pikes into lower fw keep and ride past elites that will probably never attack you unless there are enough Horde to get them into a fight. I mean Alliance moves FAST now. We have ninjas at RH faster than we beat Bal. Additionally Horde has had to start leaving GYs open for Alliance to cap so we don't force a Turtle in their base.

So as a result half the games are long ass turtle games where one side or the other gets 0-188 honor + deminishing return hk honor or you get a super fast win where Alliance gets 400+ honor and horde gets 120-188 which isnt BAD, but its still not as fast as say EotS or AB on busy days. What really makes a low honor loss hurt so bad is the fact that AV is probably the most boring part of WoW right now. Dual O is boring, Turtles are BORING. None of the PVP encounters in AV are even remotely fair since both sides just zerg each other over and over. I think queuing wouldn't be an issue if AV was actually fun and half the shit in it made a difference.

Assuming Blizzard never completely rehauls AV, the best chance Horde has is to mirror alliance strat and skip Balinda like Alliance skips Galv and work AS south like Alliance works RH north. Its REALLY hard to convince horde to do this but it is almost absolutely essential thanks to the NEED to have such a large force to overtake the SP AS.

Ill keep playing cause PVP is kinda what I do. Once I get my S1 set complete I will queue AB and EotS and some WSG maybe even for the rest o my days until S2 becomes available and I must once against enlist for the soul crunching AV marathons. It sucks, but I want to PVP, not raid.

[Fragamemnon]

more av fun, coming in 2.4:

Alterac Valley will see a few very significant improvements in the next patch and we wanted to share the details of what we have planned.

The first change will be to move the Horde's starting tunnel back to a more equal distance from the first objectives, which will help evenly distance the starting points for each side across the terrain when the battle commences.

In addition, the General and Warmasters for each faction will receive a stacking buff from each other that boosts their health and damage. The more of them that are still in the battleground, the more dangerous they will all be. This will put a greater focus on destroying (and defending!) the towers that remove the Warmasters as players work toward defeating the appropriate General and conquering the land.

Also Balinda Stonehearth has been studying her spellbooks to become a more challenging opponent to the Horde and will do more damage with her spells. The additional health we recently added to Balinda and General Vanndar Stormpike will no longer be needed with these improvements and will be changed back to their previous amounts with the patch.

With these improvements teamwork and strategy will be more important than ever from beginning to end as the Alliance and Horde battle for victory in Alterac Valley. We'll see you on the battlefield.

Blizzard can keep changing things around, but in the end it's sort of like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park-the optimal PvE rush always finds a way!

[MrAngryFace]

Wha?! Horde can barely keep up in a footrace as it is! This means we'll see ninjas at RH or a zerg at RH before we even get halfway done with bal. Booooo.

I do think the Balinda change in the next patch is more thought out than the hp buff tho.

While I dont agree this will fix the fundamental problem with Alliance capping a GY right next to drek within 5 minutes without any elite npcs nearby to help stop them, it does look like they put one whole person on the issue.

[Invertibrate]

Wha?! Horde can barely keep up in a footrace as it is! This means we'll see ninjas at RH or a zerg at RH before we even get halfway done with bal. Booooo.

I do think the Balinda change in the next patch is more thought out than the hp buff tho.

While I dont agree this will fix the fundamental problem with Alliance capping a GY right next to drek within 5 minutes without any elite npcs nearby to help stop them, it does look like they put one whole person on the issue.

The fundamental change to honor by removing honor decay will help bring AV back.  Now a slugging match will result in better honor for both sides. 

Lost an AV over the weekend to a pre-made alliance group who did not cap a single Tower.  They killed galv, got a flight master back and summoned the forest lord.  They ended up with 50 more bonus honor than the horde for the win. 

[MrAngryFace]

Maybe remove deminishing HK gains from just AV and World PVP and revert AV to the old AV, but AB/EotS/WSG NEED that control.

[etiolate]

The last AV I played was a lost Zerg. Horde were hitting Vann by the time Snowfall had capped. So the distance addition may help that, but I still think FW needs an elite and SH as well. Or SH GY needs to be moved.

[etiolate]

Oh and if you think Warlock is always easy mode, spec destruct and suddenly watch you VW not be able to keep aggro and your survivability drop like a rock. =\

My preferred classes are Hybrids, Druid and Shaman. Adaptability is great, which is why Pallies aren't as beloved by me. They have no ranged, but I think I'd like Prot Pally.

[MrAngryFace]

Haha, well Destruct IS a broken branch. As a fire spec mage I laugh at the few Destruct locks I see.

OH btw I was looking at the requirements for Druid flight form and noticed you have to pay for the flight riding training to use the swift flight form. Why is it that makes sense but druids cant use a riding crop. lol

[etiolate]

Ah have you not run into Nether protection? I just respecced my Desto for the 70% avoid pushback and nether protection as well and was killing locks that way outgeared me. I imagine they were pissed when they kept seeing "Immune Immune Immune" pop up. It should have the same effect on fire mages.

[MrAngryFace]

Ive yet to see it, then again not a lot of destruct locks out there.

[etiolate]

I just tried 5v5 arena with Dest lock. By the time I got done having my fears resisted, I managed one shadowfury/howl of terror to remove fear wards and maybe one shadowbolt before the match is over. I end up spending most of the match trying to CC and my team wanting me to just dot, but my dots are only minor annoyances. Makes me wish I had a insta cast like pom pyro. I have backlash and Nightfall, but those require luck or getting hit. Even for a PVP class like Warlock, there seems to be only one spec that works right in Arena.

[MrAngryFace]

Yeah, the Arena shit is serious business. Resilience caps at 450+ ish but if you actually max that youre resisting criticals and dot damage non stop. Ill consider arena when im in FULL S1 + trinkets/accessories, and even then I expect to get spanked. Arena strats are boggling. Truth be told burst dps classes are boo'ed out of arenas simply because resilience has killed the burst dps spec. Deep fire is simply NOT a top tier arena spec IN MOST SITUATIONS. A good player or a good team can make up for the fact that youre 25-35% chance to crit with various spells is fucked up by high resilience players.

On the lighter side I will admit a truth, I have been buyin the Fires of Outland booster packs in an attempt to get some of the cool loot "Fishin Chair" and "Spectral Tiger". I wasn't expecting to get the Goblin Gumbo Pot but its a really fun little item. I had all of AV burping as we raced at the Alliance forces. The effect of eating it lasts 5 minutes, random huge burps. The pot lets anyone in your raid/party take from it, and you can only hold one portion at a time, so its good to down the first one and grab some leftovers.

Not sure what im going to do with all the remaining cards tho, I have no interest in the game. Anyone here play it?

[Van Cruncheon]

maf just ran me through sfk, got some nice eq upgrades for my lvl25 priest and some shit OF TEH EAGLE to sell for ridiculous prices to twinx

maf

also BELCHING AT ARUGAL

[MrAngryFace]

Arugal had it coming

[MrAngryFace]

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=4311058635&sid=1&pageNo=1

someone fully documented the issues with FWKeep lol, with pics

[MrAngryFace]

GUMBOOOO FEAR IT

[Eric P]

Not sure what im going to do with all the remaining cards tho, I have no interest in the game. Anyone here play it?

i want to buy the cards for that stuff too

does it transfer to all your toons (like the LE pets) or just to that one?

[MrAngryFace]

Thats a great question. The way it works is you take the card code to the website, put it in, then you get a Game Code that you provide to Londo in Booty Bay. I suspect its a one time use code just like the original code on the card so I would GUESS not.

The trouble is the odds of the REALLY cool stuff are pretty slim. Im close to giving up on say the spectral tiger mount card which sells for like 800 on ebay. The fishing chair would be the next thing I aim for, in a realistic sense, but ya gotta look at this this way. Sure I could get another loot card, but it'll probably be the Gumbo again, since that and the chair are the two most common of the three. Additionally there are versions of the loot card WITHOUT the code. I have a non-code Goblin Gumbo card. Imagine getting a non-code Spectral Tiger. Oh the rage.

In any case the Fires of Outland boosters have the best loot cards imo. March of the Legion has a lot of short one shot deals like the rocket chicken and paper gyrocopter. The rocket mount is long lost in the booster packs for one of the first sets of WoW TCG so I doubt we'll see that one again. The turtle is neat but it moves slower than a REAL 40 mount and is there mostly for novelty. I think it clocks in at 20%, not the 60% of a 40 mount.

SO yeah I may nix my plans to hunt the spectral tiger beyond simply buying booster packs when and if I see them. You can buy most of the non-mount loot cards for 20-30 on ebay, and that potentially saves you money. It took me 9 booster packs to get the gumbo by chance. Its impossible to find places that sell WoW TCG tho.