Saturday, September 18, 2010

Shared Topic: The Best of Wrath

The shared topic on Blog Azeroth is our favorite _____ in Wrath.  I'm going to take a cue from my guild mate and expand it just a bit.

Gear:

I really do love my armor set, I think its amazingly cool and very hunterish.




There's just one small problem with it. The helm is a bird house with a horn.  Why...just why.



But lets be honest, hunters don't play for the armor.   We play for the weapon.  I know everyone has it by now but I love my bow.  Even down to the tooltip it oozes cool.















How can you not want to play the coolest class in the game after this?

Mount:

Now that San has his I can safely post my favorite.  I've wanted a black drake from the moment I first saw one.  Honestly when the xpac started I never expected to be in a position to get it.  It did come with some guilt, I didn't realize at the time that some were going for the 100 mount achievement and that I should probably not have rolled on Bob.  But destiny will not be denied and now we live happily ever after.




Dungeon:


Yes yes Gundrak is an odd choice.  But seriously, Ice Trolls with god complexes what's better than that.  Its a fast and flowing instance with in reach achievements.   The fights require situational awareness and really for the first time in Northrend it requires some skill with your class.

Raid:

I need to say this and be highly unpopular.  I really hate Ulduar, the raid and both five man instances.  Don't get me wrong its all visually stunning and the lore is amazing.  But the fights are so bloody hunter crappy I can hardly stand it.  I just never found it to be any fun. 






Naxxramas.  The big daddy of "vanilla wow", the last of the 40 man raids.  I didn't get far into it then and it was a disappointment.  I was so pleased to see it resurected in WOTLK where it fit in perfectly.    Its a nostalgia pick but hey I'm female and can pick stuff just because if I want.

Zone:

Oh I so love Grizzly Hills.


Don't get me wrong after about 10 minutes I turn the music off but the rest of it just rocks.  The return of Harrison Jones, the Shade of Arugal, the bear god Ursoc and the poor, imprisoned troll Drakuru.

Its such a pretty zone, a forest in the winter.  Big full pine trees, clean white snow, crisp cold waterfalls.  Its like a vacation in Northrend. 

Quest Chain:


Guru of Drakuru

I know its technically two chains but you just can't not do both.


Admit it, after you finish the Grizzly Hills portion you said "hey dude WTF?!?"  It was so fulfilling to exact revenge in the second set of quests.  Gotta love it.


This has been a really great expansion, its lived up to the hype.  I could go on and on but I have a date with the PTR and some Cataclysm testing!

Thursday, September 16, 2010

I now rock the Rhok (Now with Shiny Screenshots!)






Tonight I rammed through the quest for Rhok'delar.  Sort of anti climatic since I'm in no danger of dying to the demons.  They should ramp those demons up a bit, be more fun.

But I'm happy to have it :)






















In a strange added bonus, turning in my black sinew implies I somehow killed Ony at level 60...at 80...in a world where the level 60 Ony no longer exists.

The waiting is the hardest part

So going on day two of the attempt to download the PTR client.  Can't character copy yet but I can at least start a baby hunter and learn focus from the ground up.  However the client is flipping HUGE.  Hopefully it will download a buttload while I'm at work.  Did I mention its huge?

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

PvP 101: Alterac Valley

My little warlock just hit the 50s and finally aged into Alterac Valley.  This is the one battleground that I find to be more fun prior to hitting 80.



The Alterac Valley battleground is physically located in the Hillsbrad Foothills at the foot of Alterac Mountains.  The Frostwolf Clan is lead by the blind Shaman Drek'thar, who taught Thrall the ways of Shamanism and helped found Orgrimmar.  The Stonepike Guard is lead by Vanndar Stormpike, a Mountain King.   AV is the long time home of the Frostwolf Clan but also the sight of many thought to be lost dwarven artifacts.  Both sides struggle to remove their opponents from the land entirely. 














AV is a 40v40 battleground with level ranges 51-60, 61-70, 71-79, 80.  

The game can be won in two ways: killing the enemy generals or whittling down enemy reinforcements to 0.   Each side begins with 600 reinforcements, which can be reduced by achieving certain objectives.

The various reinforcement-affecting objectives are as follows:
  • Killing the enemy Captain takes away 100 reinforcements. Captain Balinda Stonehearth is the Alliance Captain, while Captain Galvangar serves the Horde.
  • Burning down an enemy bunker or tower takes away 75 reinforcements. There are four towers per side, for a total of 300 reinforcements. Additionally, burning down a bunker or tower eliminates an Alliance Marshal or Horde Warmaster respectively. These elite NPCs serve as the Generals' bodyguards and increase the Generals' total health by 25% each (for a total of 100% additional health if all four are up).
  • Killing an enemy player reduces enemy reinforcements on a 1:1 basis.
Capturing a mine will grant 1 reinforcement every 45 seconds per mine controlled.

AV has the most asymmetrical battleground map in the game.  Both factions swear that the other has some sort of geographical advantage but I've played both sides, I see none. 




Don't worry about being confused for your first few games. The map is large and can be very confusing for new players. Take some time and get to know the landscape, particularly the locations and names of key points such as graveyards and bunkers/towers. Don't worry too much if you lose your way going to a place, and it's generally a good idea to follow the crowd for the first few games just to get into the flow of things.

Most players already familiar with AV will abbreviate all objectives and tend to be massive tools when it comes to explaining what they mean.  Here's a list of the more popular abbreviations.

Horde Related

  • Relief Hut - RH
  • Frostwolf Graveyard - FWGY
  • Tower Point - TP
  • Iceblood Tower - IBT or IB
  • Iceblood Graveyard - IBGY
  • Captain Galvangar - Galv
  • Drek'thar - Drek
Alliance Related
  • Stormpike Aid Station - Aid Station
  • Stormpike Graveyard - SPGY
  • Icewing Bunker - IWB
  • Stonehearth Graveyard - SHGY
  • Stonehearth Bunker - SHB
  • Captain Balinda Stonehearth - Bal
  • Vanndar Stormpike - Vann
Other abbreviations
  • Snowfall Graveyard - SFGY or SF
  • Starting points - The Cave (which spawned the term Cavedwellers)

It might seem overwhelming to have to learn so many terms and objectives, specially after the simple Warsong and Arathi maps, but it gets easy after a few games. There are many specific strategies to win Alterac Valley but there are a couple of important things to remember.

 
Defend what you tag
Players should never leave what they tag.  Just as with Arathi Basin, where it's a bad move to leave a flag unguarded, graveyards or bunkers and towers should be defended until they are captured or destroyed.  Careless defense of tagged objectives often spells the difference in close matches.

Be useful

This might seem like a no-brainer, but there are lazy players who tend to just 'soak' honor by entering Alterac Valley and not participating actively in the battle.   Report players them by clicking on their 'dot' in the map and selecting 'Report Player AFK'. There are many ways for players to be useful in Alterac Valley, from defending nodes to capturing them, as well as good old-fashioned killing enemies.  If you can, cap the mines. 

There are many honor rewards in this battleground.  The Alliance vendor for these items is Thanthaldis Snowgleam  Alliance battleground entrance. The Horde vendor for these items is Jekyll Flandring outside the Horde entrance.


There are a number of quests for completing AV objectives.  You can get all of these quests outside the battleground entrances, including inside the cave.  These quests go a long way to helping leveling up a character.


Alterac Valley is a player's first taste of large scale PvP encounters.  It takes a coordinated, concentrated effort to win efficiently but it's totally fine as a beginners to feel your  way around the map as there are many opportunities to be useful.  So queue up, get in there and contribute to the organized chaos!

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Information Needed

Putting this out there to the web at large. I am looking for a quality warlock blog, specifically one with an eye towards pvp. I'm trying clean up my lock's talent trees and I need an experienced hand.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Next WHU Event Scheduled

Just when Meh was about to get the best of me!!  I'll be starting up my little hunter tomorrow for sure.

 

WHU In-Game Event

Sat, Sept 11th — 6pm Server Time
Levels 1-30
Meet in Kharanos

 

 If you are unfamiliar with the WHU guild, you can read how to join up on the WHU Guild Page

 

Past WHU Events