Hazek has made a new voice commentary video for your viewing pleasure which you can find here.

It was very well done and shouldn’t be missed!

Tags: Rants

Well, I hope that you guys use this spell with abolish because you can cure poisons extremely fast. Unfortunately, we don’t have cure poison on the ATR, that is if you are a tauren. You silly night elves get it, but horde, nope. I decided to make a petition because maybe they were unaware of this. And magically they were unaware. I got a forum post from a Community Manager and everything. I also made a ticket in game and this is the part that scares me. I really appreciate their help, but check this out…

“Greetings Sean,

Thank you for contacting the World of Warcraft Game Master Department and for bringing this matter to our attention.

Unfortunately, we were unable to provide the restoration you have requested. Please remember that restoration is not always guaranteed. There are times where restoration is not possible. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience you may have been caused.

For further information please check our Restoration Policy located at (http://us.blizzard.com/support/article/20457)

Thank you again for contacting us. We hope you continue to enjoy your experience in World of Warcraft!

Regards,

Sheritarl
Specialist
Blizzard Entertainment
www.worldofwarcraft.com”

So I guess my restoration request was denied… el oh el.

Tags: Rants

The ATR really is for everyone, as predicted in a previous rant - there are tons of very novice players and a ton of very great players. If PvP is your thing and you play actively, it really doesn’t hurt to sign up for the experience. You get to play against or with the best of the best as well as be entertained by the worst of the worst.

Speaking of the worst, a couple days ago we were picking up a 3rd for some practice games with me as the Mage and a friend of my playing Rogue. At first we tried a Shadow Priest, he didn’t use a PvP trinket but instead replaced it with the healing trinket. After multiple games of him dying without doing any notable damage (or anything), we moved on to another recruit. Now this one claims to have 2100+ experience, Rogue with some what proper gear and spec. First thing he asked was “why don’t we have a healer???”, I thought 3 DPS 3v3 would be pretty well known by now? So we go in the games and do pretty well, this guy would scream “omg we need a healer I’m taking damage” every time he was focused. Finally, he died first in a game and team quit right after (saved me the hassle).

After that interesting encounter, we decided to take his advice and find a healer. When we managed to grab a Druid that required his partners to be of 2k+ experience, we thought things would finally kick off! My hopes were shattered by the time he spoke: “OK GUYS, keep the other team off me because I move VERY slowly in tree form”… followed by a shift in to tree form and walking out of the gates with it! Needless to say, anytime the other team poked him, he dropped. Further dialog: “OK GUYS, make sure you all stay near me because this arena (blade’s edge) is very hard to heal! Do not LoS or out range me, I will be standing in the middle.” After a few games of speechlessness, we were surprised by his fast learning ability: “OK GUYS, since they’re always killing me first I think I will start in cat form stealth.” However, a quick and direct shift to tree from cat ended his dream of staying alive past 20 seconds. After deciding we couldn’t handle anymore of this high quality entertainment, we called it a night.

Now originally I had plans of playing with some very competent players and form a couple solid teams. Those plans didn’t pan out too well - conflicting schedule playing a huge role. In the end I got my most enjoyable games as a scavenger, of the top players. There will always be times where some of your teammates decided to take the night off and hit up a bar or whatever else reason they cook up (I have heard things from watching TV to broken keyboards). Even the top players are not immune to these nights, and this is when we snatched them over for games! I was able to get in some quality time playing RMP with kintt and lipstick last night. I must say now I understand how it’s possible for RMP to take home so many titles, Alliance RMP is simply 2-3 times stronger than horde RMP! The RMP play style with perception and dwarf Priest is drastically different from what I was used to from live servers but it’s definitely much stronger. Sadly, Shadowstep will be the only viable spec for this style.

Anyways, after an hour of suffering from a very strong Mage Lock Druid team which forced our Mage to stop messing around with AP PoM, we easily broke 1950 at end of the night. The experience of playing with some of the best players in game holds a high level of satisfaction and brings back good o’ BG6 memories. Eventually, a sad fact dawned upon me when dozens of close games slipped through our grasp due to my errors. For the first time, I felt that I was clearly the weakest link in our 3v3 team.

To make excuses first, I do get 280 ping playing on ATR, however I can feel being totally out of practice for the top level. Ever since I transferred over to BG9 Tichondrius, things haven’t been anywhere close to expectations. Prior to the transfer, I had high hopes of capturing different footages of top teams from the perspectives of all the different lineups I can imagine. After the transfer I was quickly shown the fact that it’s all about having your own ‘crew’ to transfer with. Without a stable array of teammates already dedicated to play with and abandoned by the one I transferred with, I struggled to break 2100 in 3v3 with whatever mediocre teams I managed to scoop up. Looking back, even through I have learned much from seeing what different ‘top’ teams of BG9 are capable of, it was at a great cost of personal growth. When I first transferred, I was able to keep up or outperform the best of my class like Neilyo. But after half year of rotting on Tichondrius, I can say for sure my game is barely of 70% what it used to be, if that - while the players I used to play with on BG6 have all improved.

All in all, the ATR experiences so far have been very refreshing as well as entertaining. I urge those that haven’t signed up to check it out even if you’re busy with other things (like PvE lol).

Tags: Rants

As we all know, the further away we are from a server the more we lag - hence Australia players struggle with high ping when playing on our servers. I was surprised to discover unusual high ping playing on the ATR, 260-290 ping when Tichondrius gives me 80-120. At first I thought it was just the realm lagging from too many users, which was understandable. However after further investigation, I found that people playing from the east coast are getting ping as low as 40! This leads me to conclude that the servers are located on east coast, seeing how my other west coast friends are all suffering from high ping.

If you have played a melee class, you should know the difference between 50 and nearly 300 ping - it’s huge. Not only does it make it much harder to stick on Druids, it messes with your stunlock timing as well as interrupts like Kick. After Shadow Stepping only to get sent further behind a moving target for the 5th time, I’m forced to question blizzard’s decision on not setting the arena server to a more ‘fair’ location, such as central / mountain zone.

One man’s misfortune is another’s fortune, for those that are located at the east coast, this is perhaps the best time to shine. Many BG9 servers were located on west coast and those east coast players have been playing under 200+ ping the whole time. Now the tables have turned and unfortunately for the west coast, at a time that matters the most. With most decent teams hovering around 1750 - 1850, I wasn’t surprised to find the following screenshot. Aside from the long queue time, it is obvious that the rating is impressive as well. I don’t want to take any credit away from them, but last time I checked they were located on east coast…

Tags: Rants

So I been messing around on the TR, looks like the place really is a harbor for both the best and worst. First Rogue I checked out had the following talents for a 20/0/41 ShS spec:

I’m not sure either to cry or laugh but after finding out that most of my friends will not be playing on the tournament realm (most are 2k-gladiator level), I’m lead to believe that the realm will be a safe harbor for the really bads as well as the best of the best.

Hopefully there will be enough mid level players so that it won’t be a farming feast of the bads.

I still notice a surprising amount of players using trade channel on TR to LFM, if you see anyone doing so or know a friend that’s still looking, don’t forget to point them towards our listing strictly for the use of 3v3 Tournament LFM.

Tags: Rants