Without him none of this would be possible
1 week ago
Friday, November 27, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Oh no, a rogue
This is an update post.
These days instances before Northrend have become quite unpopular, no doubt due to the fact that most players are geared in Bind on Account items which are as good as the loot you're going to find in an instance. However, as I don't have a level 80 sponsor, I have made an effort to join some instance groups while I level, and have on occasion had the opportunity to run one.
Finding a full group, and keeping them together until you actually get into the instance is the first big challenge. Once inside there are a few more challenges.
- I assume most of these players are alts, yet no-one seems to have a clue about group "roles". Only after the first wipe does someone pipe up with the idea "okay, who's tanking? And who's healing?". I actually had our druid healer say, after a wipe in Stockades "I was DPSing that fight". You can't just switch roles throughout the instance!
- I quickly got the impression that rogues have a terrible reputation in groups. Every time there was an accidental pull, or some kind of mess up, people assumed it was me. Fortunately I had people in the group own up to their mistakes, but did get a little irritated by always being blamed for anything that went wrong. Eventually I just got tired of defending myself and just became the martyr for everyone's screw ups. Oh, someone pulled the boss? Must have been the rogue. "Yeah, it was me".
- Other than Deadmines and Stockades it feels like Alliance have to pass through dominant Horde territories to get to most instances. Wailing Caverns is in the center of the Barrens. As is Razorfen. Blackfathom Depths is along a coast which is a major Horde quest hub. Shadowfang Keep is way out of the way, but even still not as bad as Scarlet Monastery. Most players expect to be summoned because getting to any of these instances usually requires going way out of your way, traveling long distances, and usually getting ganked a few times during the trip.
Here's a screencap of one of my better groups. We actually finished the instance. That doesn't happen often.
The best instance I did was Gnomeregan, where my brother ran me through it on his priest. I assume this is how anyone gets through an instance these days because its just too much trouble to do it the authentic way.
PS: Just wanted to give a shout-out to my friend Kordwar. Congrats on all your recent success in arena, bro! I miss hanging with you.
Samyon out!
These days instances before Northrend have become quite unpopular, no doubt due to the fact that most players are geared in Bind on Account items which are as good as the loot you're going to find in an instance. However, as I don't have a level 80 sponsor, I have made an effort to join some instance groups while I level, and have on occasion had the opportunity to run one.
Finding a full group, and keeping them together until you actually get into the instance is the first big challenge. Once inside there are a few more challenges.
- I assume most of these players are alts, yet no-one seems to have a clue about group "roles". Only after the first wipe does someone pipe up with the idea "okay, who's tanking? And who's healing?". I actually had our druid healer say, after a wipe in Stockades "I was DPSing that fight". You can't just switch roles throughout the instance!
- I quickly got the impression that rogues have a terrible reputation in groups. Every time there was an accidental pull, or some kind of mess up, people assumed it was me. Fortunately I had people in the group own up to their mistakes, but did get a little irritated by always being blamed for anything that went wrong. Eventually I just got tired of defending myself and just became the martyr for everyone's screw ups. Oh, someone pulled the boss? Must have been the rogue. "Yeah, it was me".
- Other than Deadmines and Stockades it feels like Alliance have to pass through dominant Horde territories to get to most instances. Wailing Caverns is in the center of the Barrens. As is Razorfen. Blackfathom Depths is along a coast which is a major Horde quest hub. Shadowfang Keep is way out of the way, but even still not as bad as Scarlet Monastery. Most players expect to be summoned because getting to any of these instances usually requires going way out of your way, traveling long distances, and usually getting ganked a few times during the trip.
Here's a screencap of one of my better groups. We actually finished the instance. That doesn't happen often.
The best instance I did was Gnomeregan, where my brother ran me through it on his priest. I assume this is how anyone gets through an instance these days because its just too much trouble to do it the authentic way.
PS: Just wanted to give a shout-out to my friend Kordwar. Congrats on all your recent success in arena, bro! I miss hanging with you.
Samyon out!
Sunday, November 1, 2009
What the funk?!
While browsing through some forums today something caught my eye. At first I thought it was just a mistake, but seeing as how I've been away from the game for a while I decided to investigate. This is what I found.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=19820331742&pageNo=1&sid=1#0
What this blue post isn't telling you is that the level 51-60 Alterac Valley battleground has now become a level 50-59 battleground. This change completely eliminates the formerly impressive epic PvP gear sets (High Marshal and High Warlord). They're basically just for show, as their stats (while impressive) are not enough to compete with Outlands gear. The steep honor pricetag on each piece of this gear results in players only being able to afford only one or two pieces if they've been BG grinding from level 1, thanks to the death of twinking.
Such a shame.
This post could easily become a long-winded lament about the "good ol' days", so I'll end it here.
Peace
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=19820331742&pageNo=1&sid=1#0
What this blue post isn't telling you is that the level 51-60 Alterac Valley battleground has now become a level 50-59 battleground. This change completely eliminates the formerly impressive epic PvP gear sets (High Marshal and High Warlord). They're basically just for show, as their stats (while impressive) are not enough to compete with Outlands gear. The steep honor pricetag on each piece of this gear results in players only being able to afford only one or two pieces if they've been BG grinding from level 1, thanks to the death of twinking.
Such a shame.
This post could easily become a long-winded lament about the "good ol' days", so I'll end it here.
Peace
Thursday, October 29, 2009
It stirs! 3.3 changes, and more!
To all my loyal readers - I owe you an explanation as to where I've been over the last few months.
WoW had been growing a bit cold for me after nearly three years, and getting a bit tired of the perpetual grinding. Grind BGs for honor, grind heroics for emblems, grind dailies for money or rep, etc. It felt like I was running on a treadmill, and never really getting anywhere. Whenever I finally achieved a goal, a new patch was released making my accomplishments easier to obtain, and my rewards inferior. So I decided to get away from it all for a while, at least long enough to make the game feel fresh again (when I return).
So no, I have not returned, yet. However, I do keep in contact with some close friends from the game, and I regularly review sites such as MMO-Champion, Nihilum, Wowhead and others for updates.
I felt compelled to update my blog after reviewing some of the anticipated changes looming over the horizon with patch 3.3. I wanted to share my thoughts.
Paladin Changes: Sacred Shield (an ability that allows holy paladin to absorb some damage when attacked, and reduce their cast time on some heals) will now proc every 30 seconds rather than every 6 seconds. Aura Mastery (doubles the effect of an aura) lasts 6 seconds, rather than 10. The big change is that Lay on Hands will no longer be castable upon yourself.
Firstly, while these seem like big hits for the holy paladin, most of them seem very appropriate. The Lay on Hands change isn't a nerf; it should have been that way from the very beginning. Paladin's have always been notoriously difficult to kill, with a bubble, a stun, freedom from CC, self-heals, and let's not forget the plate armor. That Lay on Hands was just overkill, and the only people who should argue this will probably be paladin. Unfortunately, these changes barely lasted a day before Ghostcrawler wrote a post saying they may not go ahead with this changes. Geez. Paladin are notorious moaners, and prone to being over dramatic. I guess their wailing got to the Blizzard staff at a record time. My opinion: go ahead with these changes. They won't effect PvE, and in PvP the holy paladin needs to be a little less invincible.
Will of the Forsaken: Now shares a cooldown with other pvp trinkets, which means it can't be used for 45 seconds after another pvp trinket has been used.
I was musing the other day over how many horde players dominated our battlegroup. I would say about 80% of the top 100 teams are all horde. So I decided to review Arena Junkies to take a look at the top international teams, and again I found that horde are heavily dominant. The most common race in these top teams is the forsaken. Infact, one of my favorite icons, a human rogue named Mercader (Check out his blog here), has recently changed to a forsaken as well. The fact that the forsaken have a reputation for being the best choice in pvp is enough to justify this nerf. Honestly, while I don't feel as though this nerf is entirely necessary, I do think it's an important step in providing racial balance. Now that race and faction changes are available, I would hate to see all the serious pvpers flocking to a specific race just because it's believed to have the best racial bonuses. The sad thing about this change is that I fear it will instead just send all the players over to another race instead.
LFG: The "Looking For Group" feature will receive a dramatic upgrade. It will now simply be called "Dungeons", and will operate similar to a BG queue. You put yourself in the queue under the specific roles you can perform and the system will search cross-server in your battlegroup to match you up with other players. You will then be instantly transported to the dungeon. There will be many other changes, which you can read about here - http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/underdev/3p3/newdungeonsystem.xml
Bravo Blizzard. I think this will be an incredible, and well timed feature. A massive boon to PvE'rs, but a big disappointment for PvPers who like to gank people at summoning stones and instance portals.
With server population down, this cross server feature is a lifesaver for instances. Not only will it allow you to find a group faster, but it will also be offering additional rewards to players that use this feature daily. This means that even geared, experienced players will be looking to run a dungeon every day. While I can understand how some top geared players may be disappointing by how easily this new system will allow fresh 80's to gear up, from a completely biased point of view, I think it's very encouraging for the rest of us. For those who are not yet 80 (and feel miles behind everyone else), players with not as much free time, or even the players who just enjoy running instances (especially without the trouble caused by terrible pugs, ninjas, loot hoarders and afkers), this new feature is as sweet as a halloween bag of candy.
Patch 3.3 will include alot of other changes, but these have been the ones most important to me. You can learn more about the upcoming patch at the following link.
http://www.wow.com/guide-to-patch-3-3
I especially recommend checking out the new warlock duds. Some sexy stuff.
As for me, I can say I've been missing WoW, my friends, and updating my blog. Before I stopped playing I was a few updates behind, so I mean to bring the Samyon blog up to date before I return. More Samyon adventures coming soon!
WoW had been growing a bit cold for me after nearly three years, and getting a bit tired of the perpetual grinding. Grind BGs for honor, grind heroics for emblems, grind dailies for money or rep, etc. It felt like I was running on a treadmill, and never really getting anywhere. Whenever I finally achieved a goal, a new patch was released making my accomplishments easier to obtain, and my rewards inferior. So I decided to get away from it all for a while, at least long enough to make the game feel fresh again (when I return).
So no, I have not returned, yet. However, I do keep in contact with some close friends from the game, and I regularly review sites such as MMO-Champion, Nihilum, Wowhead and others for updates.
I felt compelled to update my blog after reviewing some of the anticipated changes looming over the horizon with patch 3.3. I wanted to share my thoughts.
Paladin Changes: Sacred Shield (an ability that allows holy paladin to absorb some damage when attacked, and reduce their cast time on some heals) will now proc every 30 seconds rather than every 6 seconds. Aura Mastery (doubles the effect of an aura) lasts 6 seconds, rather than 10. The big change is that Lay on Hands will no longer be castable upon yourself.
Firstly, while these seem like big hits for the holy paladin, most of them seem very appropriate. The Lay on Hands change isn't a nerf; it should have been that way from the very beginning. Paladin's have always been notoriously difficult to kill, with a bubble, a stun, freedom from CC, self-heals, and let's not forget the plate armor. That Lay on Hands was just overkill, and the only people who should argue this will probably be paladin. Unfortunately, these changes barely lasted a day before Ghostcrawler wrote a post saying they may not go ahead with this changes. Geez. Paladin are notorious moaners, and prone to being over dramatic. I guess their wailing got to the Blizzard staff at a record time. My opinion: go ahead with these changes. They won't effect PvE, and in PvP the holy paladin needs to be a little less invincible.
Will of the Forsaken: Now shares a cooldown with other pvp trinkets, which means it can't be used for 45 seconds after another pvp trinket has been used.
I was musing the other day over how many horde players dominated our battlegroup. I would say about 80% of the top 100 teams are all horde. So I decided to review Arena Junkies to take a look at the top international teams, and again I found that horde are heavily dominant. The most common race in these top teams is the forsaken. Infact, one of my favorite icons, a human rogue named Mercader (Check out his blog here), has recently changed to a forsaken as well. The fact that the forsaken have a reputation for being the best choice in pvp is enough to justify this nerf. Honestly, while I don't feel as though this nerf is entirely necessary, I do think it's an important step in providing racial balance. Now that race and faction changes are available, I would hate to see all the serious pvpers flocking to a specific race just because it's believed to have the best racial bonuses. The sad thing about this change is that I fear it will instead just send all the players over to another race instead.
LFG: The "Looking For Group" feature will receive a dramatic upgrade. It will now simply be called "Dungeons", and will operate similar to a BG queue. You put yourself in the queue under the specific roles you can perform and the system will search cross-server in your battlegroup to match you up with other players. You will then be instantly transported to the dungeon. There will be many other changes, which you can read about here - http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/underdev/3p3/newdungeonsystem.xml
Bravo Blizzard. I think this will be an incredible, and well timed feature. A massive boon to PvE'rs, but a big disappointment for PvPers who like to gank people at summoning stones and instance portals.
With server population down, this cross server feature is a lifesaver for instances. Not only will it allow you to find a group faster, but it will also be offering additional rewards to players that use this feature daily. This means that even geared, experienced players will be looking to run a dungeon every day. While I can understand how some top geared players may be disappointing by how easily this new system will allow fresh 80's to gear up, from a completely biased point of view, I think it's very encouraging for the rest of us. For those who are not yet 80 (and feel miles behind everyone else), players with not as much free time, or even the players who just enjoy running instances (especially without the trouble caused by terrible pugs, ninjas, loot hoarders and afkers), this new feature is as sweet as a halloween bag of candy.
Patch 3.3 will include alot of other changes, but these have been the ones most important to me. You can learn more about the upcoming patch at the following link.
http://www.wow.com/guide-to-patch-3-3
I especially recommend checking out the new warlock duds. Some sexy stuff.
As for me, I can say I've been missing WoW, my friends, and updating my blog. Before I stopped playing I was a few updates behind, so I mean to bring the Samyon blog up to date before I return. More Samyon adventures coming soon!
Monday, June 8, 2009
Spreading my wings
I've taken the opportunity to broaden my quest hub to include a few other regions, such as Ashenvale, Stonetalon Mountains, Darkshore, and even some Wetlands. I know this spreads me out too thin, but I was interested in sampling some of the quests out in these regions, as well as picking up some rep with other factions. One thing that amazes me about the Human race is how quickly they increase their Reputation. This is all due to their racial ability, Diplomacy. I'm loving this racial!
Darkshore
Ashenvale
Stonetalon Mountains
I've been hoping to work up some Darnassus rep so I can purchase a feline mount at some point. While I've always had a love for the ram mount, I'm not sure it will match my bulky human proportions.
The rogue class has really begun to take shape now, with such abilities as Cheap Shot, Vanish and Dismantle. Now I'm just looking forward to getting Blind.
I was also quite excited to meet a very successful, and friendly PvP rogue during my travels. He was kind enough to allow me to get a screenshot with him. His gear is from the Furious Gladiator's set, which requires an arena rating above 2100 for most pieces.
When I meet someone like this, who has accomplished with great success one of my goals in the game, I naturally want to interrogate them for hours and follow them around like a disciple. Of course I don't, because I'm sure they get harassed alot already, and usually they're quite arrogant and don't have time for others. Still, I'm always tempted, as someone who learns best from a mentor figure.
So my question for all my readers is this; what kind of players do you look up to, and how do you react to them?
Next post will discuss some of my experiences with other natives to the server, as well as details about my Gnomeregan and Scarlet Monastery adventures.
Darkshore
Ashenvale
Stonetalon MountainsI've been hoping to work up some Darnassus rep so I can purchase a feline mount at some point. While I've always had a love for the ram mount, I'm not sure it will match my bulky human proportions.
The rogue class has really begun to take shape now, with such abilities as Cheap Shot, Vanish and Dismantle. Now I'm just looking forward to getting Blind.
I was also quite excited to meet a very successful, and friendly PvP rogue during my travels. He was kind enough to allow me to get a screenshot with him. His gear is from the Furious Gladiator's set, which requires an arena rating above 2100 for most pieces.
When I meet someone like this, who has accomplished with great success one of my goals in the game, I naturally want to interrogate them for hours and follow them around like a disciple. Of course I don't, because I'm sure they get harassed alot already, and usually they're quite arrogant and don't have time for others. Still, I'm always tempted, as someone who learns best from a mentor figure.
So my question for all my readers is this; what kind of players do you look up to, and how do you react to them?
Next post will discuss some of my experiences with other natives to the server, as well as details about my Gnomeregan and Scarlet Monastery adventures.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Duskwood...so far
You want me to go in where? That dank hole in the middle of a graveyard swarming with undead, that leads underground? And you'll give me a cheap green reward and a few silver? Swell.
I'm in! That wasn't so bad. :P
Do you hear something?
Oh crap.
Sprint, baby! Sprint!
So in reflection, it probably wasn't wise to start dancing in the middle of a den of undead.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
The Defias Threat
Starting anew on a server can be challenging; you often have no connections, a small budget, tight bag space, and few resources. Now on Dalvengyr I have two more obstacles to face - I've got no experience with the Alliance quests and lands, and there are few people my level interested in running Instances. The majority of people my level are wearing Bind on Account gear from their level 80 sponsors, while being carried through most Instances, and decorated in glowing enchants and other gear steroids. So naturally I'm beginning to feel a bit outclassed.
However, I do have two things working for me; I have two brothers already playing on the server (who owe me big time), and alot of experience in WoW. Since my PuG experience has been so grueling, my brother offered to help me through Deadmines.
For those readers who've never played an Alliance, or followed the early Human questlines, the Defias brotherhood play a major role as antagonists from about level 15-30. The Deadmines (also known as VanCleefs Hideout) are where pretty much all the quest roads lead to. I've run it before as Horde, but now the Instance has far more significance and meaning to me. A really great Instance, and also quite profitable - I ran it once and got two new weapons, a colorful macaw pet, and a dozen items to disenchant. Check out my previous post for a screenshot of my new gear. XD
My brother has asked me not to take any screenshots of his character Nibo until he's left that awkward Outlands fashion phase. I'll oblige, as he did keep me alive through Deadmines.
I'm heading to Duskwood!
What are you talking about? This place doesn't look scary at all. >.>
However, I do have two things working for me; I have two brothers already playing on the server (who owe me big time), and alot of experience in WoW. Since my PuG experience has been so grueling, my brother offered to help me through Deadmines.
For those readers who've never played an Alliance, or followed the early Human questlines, the Defias brotherhood play a major role as antagonists from about level 15-30. The Deadmines (also known as VanCleefs Hideout) are where pretty much all the quest roads lead to. I've run it before as Horde, but now the Instance has far more significance and meaning to me. A really great Instance, and also quite profitable - I ran it once and got two new weapons, a colorful macaw pet, and a dozen items to disenchant. Check out my previous post for a screenshot of my new gear. XD
My brother has asked me not to take any screenshots of his character Nibo until he's left that awkward Outlands fashion phase. I'll oblige, as he did keep me alive through Deadmines.
I'm heading to Duskwood!
What are you talking about? This place doesn't look scary at all. >.>
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)