It'll grow out...

One familiar Mabd lament... crappy hunter helms. Godawful haberdashery designed to break the hunter will. BRK is fond of complaining of Blizzard's repeated insults to the noble hunter visage with their sartorial efforts that, perhaps, only Bjork would willingly wear. (but didya see the stats on the swan dress!) Of course, AC members complain in turn about BRK's unwillingness to check that little button in the interface options... "hide butt ugly dwarf face..."

So it's all relative. Still... look at the picture. It aint just hunters getting the short end of the ugly stick. My god... who knew the hamburglar was an affliction lock? That's just wretched! Not since tier zero pally gear (you want fries with that?) have I been this shocked...

The original Oxford English Dictionary relied on a mass of submissions by volunteers. Some of them were quite... interesting. I wonder if Blizz has similar lunatics working the design counter?

And does this preface the massive and complete lock nerf to end all nerfs we've been waiting for?

Obligatory sunday post...

Its gotten so I feel guilty if I doan post every two days or so...

Anyway, was running Unbound the enhance shammy through Mana Tombs. Itsa sad state of affairs when the 65 warrior looks at the group and says... "all we need now isa tank!"

So group had Unbound the 66 shammy, a 66 mage, 64 pally, and two 65 warriors.

And even with spirit weapons (30% reduced threat from melee) and BoS... I was pullin aggro. Still, a group with a backup healer is nice... and shammies kick ass in 5 mans.

But the completion of MT left unbound with one big hole in the Instance register... slave pens and underbog... so I get into a SP group...

They need a tank.. and get a 61 warrior.

They need a healer... and get a mage.

"Unbound, looks like you gonna have to heal."

Looks like you gonna have to find someone else. /leave.

Ima sorry. But Enhance shammies, even with shammy gear, heal about as well as a ret pally. Druids and Priests can main heal with dps builds. But not Shammies or pallys. It aint happening. Backup heals... fine. No problem. But main heals? Are you outta your mind? You wanna spend the next three hours corpse running, its all you. Now ifa it was a better group... 61 warrior tanking? enhance shammy healing?

I swear to god, I can't be the crazy one. Please tell me I'm not.

I should play a warrior...

Cuz I'm not a pussy.

And it's killing me. I play nice ranged dps types... snipers, cc freaks... ya know. People who require "teh touch..."

People who can't stand attention.

But the warriors I've been seein lately... my god. First, Pogar of Team Melvin.

"I'll just target whoever mabd targets... and go in as her backup!"

It just gets worse. Majeure was in EotS last night, unable to get the daily done. I led a raid on mage tower... followed by two warriors...

I stopped so they could go ahead and be the good meat shields distractions, and let Maj do her thing.

They stopped as I did, and waited for the CLOTH WEARING MAGE to lead the charge into the enemy.

Or the level 64 warrior who yelled at Unbound, the level 66 enhance shammy to "heal!" while we were both fighting for our lives...

You can tell teh n00bs in BG's. When all goes to hell, they start bitching about the healing. Anyone who expects healing in BG's is a goddamn fool. All the priests are shadow, all the druids are feral, and all the pallys are ret.

Well, no, not if they have a clue, but face it. If you think someone is gonna heal yo level 64 ass in a 60-69 BG, you stupid enough to believe anything.

Which is one of the reasons I don't feel ashamed to play unbound in AV... in that mess, all I do is heal, on the grounds that ANY healing more than earns my underleveled ass a place in a 40 man BG. Which is to be expected. Its not like I'm gonna kill anything or anyone 4 levels higher than myself. Healing isn't subject to the same silly dimishing returns of DPS against higher level targets.

Which leads to the point of my post... a response to the savage one.

It ain't gear. You can beat people with better gear. Melvin has 300 resil and 11k health. He gets schooled like girl in a plaid skirt. His latest bete noir... a rogue ganking in netherwing named Gallo. Its fun to listen to him try to explain talents he doesn't bother to read about. By his count, gallo is up 30-2, and is wearing "an epic bought entirely from honor farmed offa me!"

Melvin is terrible in pvp.

It's all attitute. And with season three, intro raiders are getting into pvp to get a coupla pieces of gear that are much better than anything they can get short of ZA or SSC. And these fools know NOTHING about pvp. One of my EotS games, 7 hordies decided to camp the flag. We were down 400, and the allies simply... held the flag... while raiding our towers and crusing to victory. All the while these idiots were stuck in the middle of the map doin NOTHING.

Mass stupidity > Bad gear, megan, my love. First, real pvp'ers know their classes a lot better than raiders. Cuz every pvp'er has had to run instances... ina raid/instance, you have to do yuir job or it falls apart and you get replaced. The reverse does not apply. Raiders rarely understand the changing nature of pvp. So, pvp includes a much more substantial moral hazard. Who the hell checks to see if you doin what needs to be done? Maj drives me crazy... she's at about 50 resil, and wont last a second if shes alone guarding a tower. But noone else wants to do what needs to be done, so Maj gets staked out like tiger bait. She rocks with company, but I never get another peep to help defend... so Maj as guard inevitably leads to lost tower.

Which has a cascade effect... mabd is an excellent guard, but leads in kills and damage if shes allowed to be on O. How do you get 2-3 of the nubs to stop group ganking on the road, and sit by a flag, actually earning honor instead of leeching it? I'd rather have 5 220+ resil 10k+ health at my back than 8 nubs. Yet the ones with the abilities are stuck filling in guard duties that really should be done by the scrubs, while the heavy armor sits and rusts.

Which is what makes AV so much more fun for horde. All the best players stay back and farm HK's on DEFENSE! While the nubs look at the mass of enemy pouring down on em, and rez elsewhere... The true pvp'er looks at 3-1 odds as a treat. Spec since they tend to be "soft targets..." This one time, Mabd against two locks and a fury warrior... ah, good times...

Remember nubs... you good for nuttin better than wiping on Vann. And guarding flags. Earn your honor, keep your mouth shut, and do your jobs till you EARN some respect.

Hrm...

"I'd never be pathetic enough to waste my time blogging about a stupid game..." - Melvin

Sorry, BRK... I asked.

I try to be original...

But I'm boring. So the hell with it. Ima gonna shamelessly steal stuff.

Like this...

Pardon me if this column seems to lack any flow or direction. I was quite distracted Sunday while watching all of the NFL action.

I've moved into a new neighborhood and the local kids keep telling me that every year around this time all the homes are invaded by some fat, costumed freak. Apparently he's been doing it for years. Well, not anymore. Not in my house at least.

I spent most of the day barricading all of my doors, but I hear he likes to enter through the chimney. So I'm keeping a huge fire going in my fireplace. And underneath the fire? A bear trap. If somehow he still manages to get in, I've left out some milk and cookies. (Supposedly this lardo has quite the appetite.) But I've laced them with rat poison.

Then I moved on to the socks. The rumor is this guy likes to put things inside children's socks. Well, if he does that at my place, he's in for a surprise. One sock I left out is full of vipers. The other? Another bear trap (a smaller one that I use to trap baby bears).

So I feel like I'm ready. I just wish the realtor had mentioned this about the neighborhood before I moved in. Anyway, here are …

12 Things I Think I Thought While Preparing To Kill Santa Claus

12. Is it a bad sign when you lead a charge to get the flag back in WSG, /yell "to the roof!" and then see the rest of em go straight to the flag room leaving you alone with the flag carrier and his 3 evil looking warlock bodyguards?

11. What the hell is the point of AFK stealthing right next to a GY flag?

10. Is it bad form to mock people who post "Just need tank and healer for ZA run?"

9. Why do people always talk about online economies being ruined by prices being moved up? Nuttin wrong with the economy, just with yuir cheapness. Monopolies are part of the fun. If you lack the spirit to go into business to break him, its all on you. (BTW... it's not that hard, and very profitable to crush the would be monopolists... it just takes time and wits.)

8. Did WSG monday... mabd lost three in a row, with the allies capping before the horde could get more than 6 players. This happens all the damn time in BG's... WTH blizz?

7. Played Unbound the 66 enhance shammy in baby BG's. A ton of fun... won't work past 70 tho, cuz I shudder to think what happens to all my "on a crit strike" talents when my 20% crit ass attacks a 400 resil toon. Still, mega fun at this level...

6. Do not run into that cramped horde tower, little mabd. Doan do it... doan do it! Why look, a warrior, how did you know?

5. Wouldn't it be awesome if there was a paypal for WoW gold or honor?

4. My dad worked on XMas eve and Xmas day. My dad is 61. I doan know how I feel about this.

3. My brother didn't. I KNOW how I feel about THAT.

2. My 3v3 team holy pal wants to "be more aggressive" in Arena. To "take advantage of his dps and stuns." Sometimes, ya just gotta stare at the booze in the glass til the world starts makin sense.

1. The adventures of team melvin. Team melvin had a shadow priest. A RL friend of melvin and company. Anyway, palmy the s priest is a grad student... and is gonna fail unless he starts getting crap done. So he gave the account to his brother... who promptly transferred palmy to another server to play with friends. Anyway, this lasted two weeks. Palmy is back under original ownership, and in two months will return to lightninghoof.

So my question.

What do you say to someone who is letting the game ruin his life?

My left nut...

I'm just gonna express my disbelief and ridicule with a simple anagram. MLN.

AV honor holiday? MLN. No damn way they fixed that honor bug.

As much as I hate to say it... the allies have a point. They're getting shafted in AV. As a result... they're revolting.

/grouchomarx accent on

"I'll say!"

/grouchomarx accent off

Was in a game... allies did everything right, ran into 15 horde on d at frostwolf village, and lost. I begin to think that the way to tell the smart horde players from the absolute idiots is to see who's playing D. The short bus is the train heading north :(

"Why look! Noone is guarding SH bunker! Why even bother capping it?"

Horde uber eliteness... MLN.

Had dinner with Melvin the other day. (My xmas gift, dinner at Outback.) He informed me that in his considered opinion, druids are the weakest class at pvp.

MLN.

BTW... team melvin went 2-8 in Arena 5v5, and are at 1380 after two weeks. They still think they can get more points with 5v5 than with 3v3.

MLN.

Maj is gonna have to go frost. Pretty much the same reason Mabd went MM. So... 600g to regear to little wretch? Swap out the spell fire for the frozen shadowweave tunic, season 3 gloves and vindicator belt? What a drag. Worth the pain...

MLN.

So I pop a mage table every BG I go into with Maj. And four or five people grab all the grub. God I hate humanity. Social responsibility...

MLN.

Merry xmas to all! And may the life wrecking game spare you enough time for family and love! WoW as an acceptable activity over xmas?

MLN.

/cry

Lookit this. It makes me wanna hit a GM with an axe. Dammit, why do all female orcs come off as butch inbred hillbillies?

That top?

Screams "no trailer park can hold me!"

I mean really. Mabd is gonna have to go medieval on those orc baiting vermin. If only their miserable hides would be worth something after I skin em.

Now lookit noble Mabd. Pondering her next loss in AB.

Her motto:

"Death is a feather. But BG's these days are a motherf&%$r!"

AV the honor holiday for XMAS!

Nuttin says holidays like honor bonus. And with a 4 day holiday, the socially bereft should be able to grind at least an epic outta the holiday.

However, truth be told, Ima starting to burn out a bit. Maj helped Melvin and company fill out their 5 man last week, and I still feel dirty. However, it left me with one huge question...

Can an invisible mage see a stealthed rogue or druid if they've had detect invisible spammed on em? Which is to say... lotta locks out there, and locks tend to spam detect invis... so you gotta rogue that can see invisible, and the rogue starts arena in stealth. Will my invisible mage be able to spot him/her? This bears investigation...

Battlegrounds are just a damn pain at this point. Went 0-6 in AB on monday, losing twice with Mabd, herself. Both times popped into a losin game against a premade, but still... anyway, AB was the BG quest on tuesday, and Mabd signed up... nother premade. Still, we managed to barely squeeze out a win. They didn't have the gear, and Mabd gives good D.

If I'd been playin Maj, we woulda lost. No doubt.

So anyway, I'm beginning to note a massive divergence in BG's between the haves and have nots. We're really beginning to see the point in the post BC world of warcraft where you can't simply gear yourself out in the AH and compete in any meaningful way. I mean, Maj has awesome gear. She's around 850 +spell unbuffed (Melvin has been raiding with less for months) and well within spitting distance of 1k with a coupla gear changes/enchants. That's easily SSC/Gruul level gearing. And yet she's decidedly average in BG's. One on one with another char, with my cooldowns blown, and itsa coin toss.

Mabd, OTOH, is singlehandly responsible for most of the WSG wins she's in. Either she slaughters the other side, or draws so many of em into a pointless quest to kill her that the rest of the team can run without fear. What about you guys? You been seein something similar in BG?

This was too damn weird not to share...

If ya ever wondered what Arms&Fury was like in real life...

Well... that last post should've given ya a clue. Here's another one.

Nerd Central.

Only with some otherworldy sex appeal. And yes... I was once tortured with a two hour lecture on a green lantern story arc.

The pride of the horde

First read this. Then take a look at the picture. I'm beginning to suspect Blizzard has taken CERTAIN MEASURES to increase the suckitude of the horde, at least as far as pvp is concerned. Well, this is ONE theory to explain my horrific string of losses in battle grounds. The cruelest nerf of all...

Rats... ya might wanna put yuir pants back on. We wouldn't want anything to happen to yuir orc pride, now would we? Oh, and... Sylvanas asked Maj to ask ya why you ain't been round UC lately. Damned if I know what this is about...

Why I hate humanity part 7,601 of too many...

So maj is cleaning out quests... and runs Crypts with a group.

So so group, get to end... and they boot me from the group after the end boss dies. No time to run back to entrance to turn in quest, I gotta port or get my hs blown.

Of course I beg them to reinvite... but they either doan understand or doan care.

Then they try to recruit me to their guild. (Hey, you were a pretty good mage, looking for a home?)

12 minute waits for AV.

WSG is the BG quest for third day in row.

And the entire ally army is camping the holiday quest sites.

Why are my pvp options limited to just the other faction?

...

Mabd ran outta mana in AB and had to beat a dwarf pally to death with her axe.

I feel so... orc... now.

Doan multi-shot me, bro!

Itsa more and more amazing the diff between Mabd, queen of death, and Majeure, the soft crushable one. Maj has pretty much enough gear to raid Gruul or SSC. She has next to no PVP crap.

Now the vicious one, (may the gods of MMORP never put her in a battle group opposite me...) Became involved in the ongoing hate fest between the pve'ers and the pvp'ers. And the epics involved.

Asa resident on a pvp server... the argument is settled.... everyone grinds BG's for the handful of epics required to get from 70 (n00b second class) to 70 (stilla n00b, but with a chance in hell...) Itsa helluva lot easier than grinding epics in heroics. Lets face it, as BC gets older, the spread between new 70's and old 70's will widen. Blizz tried to keep greens, blues and purples closer together in the expansion. But you doan keep chumps grinding unless they get uber-gear cookies. The problem... there is a progression track in pve... kara, the lowbie 25's, ZA and the upper 25's...

There is no progression track in pvp. And thassa shame. What is needed is growing arena costs for the new gear, and much more reduced costs for previous seasons...

Who in their right mind would buy season two if they could get season three? 20% off is WAY still way to expensive...

But halve that. Double the season three gear costs... or make the equivalent season two item a requirement for purchase. This way, there actually is a seniority to pvp.

OTOH, as the soul stealing wench likes to point out... upper ranks of arena shouldn't belong to gear monsters, but to the skilled. I can see it both ways.

I dunno... but BG's are getting freakin weird. You get into a game with a handful of season 3 on other side, ya lose. Maj gets pwned nonstop... and when Mabd takes the field, I can run into a mess of allies and come out with three scalps before they come close to dropping me. Partly this is the n00b 70's grinding for epics... and partly Mabd's uber twinked pvp build. Bloody hell, build really does make a difference...

Melvin is talkin bout switchin out all his +12 sta gems for +8 resil ones... and the sad thing is I'm begining to agree with him.

K, personal note. I dreamt that I beat up santa claus last night.

He was makin candy in my kitchen, and I had to stop him cuz it looked like a meth lab, and i was scared he was gonna burn the place down.

God, I have weird dreams.

Kiss it...

Did some more 3v3 with mixed results. Kept losing to War/Rogue/Healer teams. One we should have won, the others were just brutal. The war and rogue key on poor mabd, challenging the pally to keep up heals, while herk chases their healer around.

Sigh. Resto druids are too damn close to unkillable.

Anyway, teams that didn't have this build got squished. Ran into a pair of locks with pallies... crush crush.

Anyway, its time to speak out on the stupidity. As much as I enjoy the blog, Kestral, you dead wrong. BTW, I really enjoy the blog :)

Some history. Sad sad history.

My first char to 60 was a rogue. I was one of the first on my server with 300 lockpicking. (Actually it was 275 to open every box in the game back then, but who's counting?) This was when the first thorium boxes were showing up, and, well, you know how blizzard would NEVER, EVER drop the ball? Yeah. Rogue lockpicking was like that. You couldn't get skill checks via trade. The box had to be in your possession to get the skill up. And so, noone, but noone, could pick the thorium lockboxes. Getting lockpicking up to 275 was equivalent to the Frostsaber faction quest or getting neutral with bloodsail buccaneers. You had to run SM over and over, in stealth, and pick the locks of all the doors.

I was that kinda nuts back then. I aint anymore.

Around then, I started noticing the crazy start. People would ask in trade chat for "someone to help open x box." "Help open?" What the hell? Yeah, I'll hold the damn flashlite while you jigger the lock. Help? What is this help? The real comment should be... "Need someone to open x box as a favor."

Well, the help cry got zero responses... so came the age of "tipping." Goddamn, I hate humanity. I was in the hospital last year... $77k bill. How much do I tip the doctor?

NOTHING! Hesa professional. He getsa fee. Who do you tip? Haircutters, taxidrivers, waitresses, delivery people, maids, doormen. In other words, people who took over work that used to be done by servants.

Ya see how this works? You ain't a needy bastard who wants a job done by someone who poured life and soul into moving up a skill and getting all kinda rare patterns... you a master and lord, tipping a lowly craftsperson.

Screw you. Either honestly ask for your alms, or honestly pay for them. "Tipping" is insulting and belittling. Intentionally so. You DOAN have to tip. You DO have to pay yo doctor.

So anyway... saw someone wanting the major spellpower to weapon enchant the other day... now Melvin spent two days farming for that thing. (Maj got it on the first drop, at least thats the official story to help me slowly whittle away Melvin's sanity. That's right, Melvin. The game hates YOU personally...)

So anyway, I got the enchant... and I respond to the tell. The guy then forks over 250g in enchanting mats. I light up the enchant. Then he puts a 3g tip in the box.

So how much is my time and effort worth? About 1% of the cost of mats. Why doan you guys try that when you order pizza? Or get your haircut? I'd rather do it for free than take the insult. Oh wait.. I'd rather not do it at all. And then there are the BoE Patterns people pay 1k gold for... yeah, yuil make that up in a hurry at 3g a pop.

Majeure... 385 enchanter... friends only.

Running with mages...

This one was just too damn strange. Popped into WSG Sunday to do my daily pvp... and got into a game with neither warrior nor druid on either side.

We won, 3-0, but still... it played out like no WSG I've ever been on. The other side had a mage holding the flag most of the time...

And some fun with Melvin. He thinks hunters are OP now. But still claims not to have a problem with them. He's doin miserably in arena since 2.3 hit...

One fun thing on Melvin is his psychopathic hatred/fear of locks. Yeah, a lock can school a mage, but POM Pyro has a decent shot at em if ya keep yuir wits. The one big thing is getting that cs off when they castin shadow/fear (what does that shut down, all affliction, or all shadow spells? I've always wondered...)

Melvin can't time his cs like that. So melvin is lock meat. Maj, OTOH, has been having some success on locks in BG. Soul linked locks are still a cast iron bitch, but get that POM and fire blast off, and then catch em casting with cs, and between slow, and arcane missile, ya got em under control. Still a hellova fight tho.

She's been having problems with full glad bonus warriors tho. Too much life to whittle down before they get enough of those 2k hits on ya. Maj still needs more sta and resil... luckily, the next coupla pieces are in sight.

More on AV missing honor...

I been damn telling people we were getting shorted honor.

Looks like it was showing up in the "est daily honor" but not the end screen. And the "est daily honor" was wrong.

Here's the other side of what was goin on, Herk.

Take it honor farmers! Blizz LUVS you!

Btw... spending the weekend watching Wire, season 4. One of the main chars... a cop named Herc.

Uses force and shouting for everything. Sound familiar? I'm just saying...

He fell for it...

I just wish I'd gotten a screenshot...

He's almost as much fun to watch as lemmings are. Or gnomes that walk into snake traps...

Again, the horde disappoints... took 5 tries to get my EotS done. And the win was close, while I got 4 capped twice by pug groups.

It's starting to kill me.

A real bastard...

TJ... sweetie... A big wheel? I'm sorry... I thought you realized... I sent you snow for yuir birthday! Pure and clean, like my love for you! You didn't get it? I'll have em send some more...

Er... for X-Mas... it looks like I might inherit a man-whore. Would you be interested? He's not gay, he just strips for/sleeps with guys to pay for the drugs. He's gonna need a place in Maryland to crash over the holidays...

So anyway.. I hava problem with this whole blogging thing. I really doubt that I can add much to people's understanding of hunters or mages... so why bother writing bout em? Fun stories, yeah...

However, BG's are killing me. Maj lost four in a row trying to do her daily. I begin to think that the entire horde has joined a conspiracy to drive me crazy. So here's a guide, based on the teachings of one of the most ruthless and evil human beings to walk the earth.

Today... BG's in general.

First. The point of a BG is NOT to kill the other side. The point is to accomplish the victory conditions. The other side will try to stop you, and you will have to kill them to get them outta the way. But this is NOT the point. And if you go off killin allies (or horde) and ignoring all else, YOU WILL LOSE.

Herk was driving me crazy last week with the incredible missing honor mystery. He even said he sent in a ticket on it... He'd BG for a while, get up to 2k honor or so, then log in the next day, and a coupla hundred would be missing.

He didn't know what was goin on till I explained it to him. It really is something everyone should know by now, but it bears repeating. There is a diminishing return to honor kills. The first time ya kill an enemy char, ya get full honor. The second time, ya get half honor. Third time, ya get crumbs... after that, nothing.

This is done server time during rollover. The honor you see is the honor that your console estimates you get. It doesn't, and can't know, and can't calculate the fractions of honor you get from kills. (Remember, in BG's there are few unassisted kills, so you split the honor with others as well, leading to even more shrinkage...)

What does this mean? Killing the other side does you very little good, honor wise. So fer Christ's sake, leave the hell offa stupid fights.

The other thing people know, but don't seem to realize. Dying can be an advantage. You die, you come back within 30 secs with full mana or health at a nearby rez spot. BS in trouble, and you at LM? Jump and die, and you'll get there faster. And don't be afraid to charge into the enemy. One nice rule of thumb for the armor classes... the more people you can get to chase you down and kill you, and the longer it takes... the better. Thats a swarm of idiots that wont be capping flags or annoying the rest of your raid. So what if you die? You lose nothing, and you wasted their time.

When it comes down to it, BGs are won by the team that reacts the fastest, and gets more people to the target site the fastest. Or as NBF put it... "Get there firstest with the mostest." (He was borderline illiterate.)

Keep an eye on the damn map. Know how many peeps you got where, and who's in trouble. God damn to hell all idiots that can't be bothered to announce incoming over raid chat. And when you do, say how many, and how much help you might need...

"at least 3 inc to BE, only got one here defending, plz come help..."

Another map based thing... if one of your sites is getting slammed... grab a peep and hit one of the enemy sites... 8 enemy against 6 of you on one of yuir bases is a fair fight... and leaves something unguarded...

Defense is a force multiplier... if your team isn't mind boggling stupid, and can keep the flag from being capped, or the other team from establishing enough of a presence to flip an EotS base... yuil win. Every time you die, you come back in less than 30 secs at full health and mana... every time they die, itsa 30 sec rez and at least a 20 sec ride. Being outumbered by a couple is no big thing. You SHOULD win, unless outgeared or outplayed.

This is what makes WSG such a nightmare. It always comes down to trying to take a flag offa guy standing in/near his own rez spot... and every 30 secs, the other team comes back at full strength...

Last... keep movin. Unless yuir on D, you should either be fighting or running to a fight. Know where the enemy is rezzing. You just beat off that attack by 8 on the BS with your 6. They prob aint comin back. Know where they ARE going, and get there first. Doan sit around scratching your ass. It aint rocket science, there's usually only one or two possible targets. For the love of god... don't try attacking a target right before a big rez. If they attacking the LM... and they control stable and mines... ignore the stables... rezzers will keep popping up there... the mine will be a much quieter target of opportunity.

These things are simple... they come down to mobility, aggression and ability to keep yuir mind on the objectives.

The adventures of team BlueRageBar

Enemy Druid: "Don't worry, my brave warrior, here comes a heal!"
Tazanian: "Stun hammer to the face! God, I hate treehuggers!"
Enemy Warrior: "Ain't *THIS* a bitch? /dies"

Team Blueragebar: "We win again! Way to cock block that heal, taz!"

****

Enemy Mage: "Frost nova FTW. Eat ice you stupid ugly cow warrior!"
Tazanian: /cast BlessingofFreedom
Herk: "Grrrrr.... /madcowspittle"
Enemy Mage: "Can't we just get along? EEEEP! /dies"

****

Of course the quote of the night...

Herk: "Sorry bout that, dude... I didn't see the rogue..."

So anyway, 7-3 for the 3v3 team, MM Hunter (Mabd), Herk the Hybrid warrior, and Taz the holy/prot/ret/insane pally.

Lost to two teams with shammies, and a Pall/Warr/Druid team. We'll get better tho. Spec when I replace the headphones/mic that blew out last weekend, and we can vent.

But uh... damn, arena is a lot nastier than I remember from last season... Melvin and Co are SCREWED. They'll either have to reform every week, or get used to 200 points a week. I've been trying to get magebert to respec his priest a bit to do some 2v2 with Mabd. What does he lack? Imp mana burn. "I've never really seen much use for it in Arena..."

Now a mm hunter and disc/holy priest should pwn in 2v2. And magebert aint a bad player... unlike, say melvin. He's just a raging idiot sometimes.

Still, its nice having a 3v3 team with two people with decent reflexes... I still suck, but, well, I come prepared. We will get much better. And Taz and Herk both will scale nicely with a coupla pieces of better gear. The team makeup works well... Herk had some concerns about that... the typical team he's seen was Lock/Pally/War

I think Hunters are taking the places of locks in a lotta teams. Decent control, drain ability, higher dps and survivability. (SL lock is harder to kill but does a hell lot less damage... UA lock does more dps, but goes down much faster...)

And that 41' range silence is a killa.

More disturbing... Herk's single minded crusade against the entire mage class now that I explained the whole BoF thing to him. He is to mages what Michael Myers is to sex crazed teenagers. Note that I haven't actually *CAUGHT* him pleasuring himself over the bodies of dead gnomes, but that kinda creepy sexual tension is definitely there.

Have a confused friend, plz help...

First, I love Mabd's laughing skull battle harness. I'm gonna have a hard time givin that up. It just looks so cool.

Second, Maj is slowly getting the resil and health she needs to survive. We gonna try a 3 mage team soon, and see how that works. Unfortunately, its gonna be with melvin...

The prob with melvin... hesa BG player. And a BG player sits on his ass until someone else takes point. On arena teams, aggression WINS. First up, first in...

Case in point, was running WSG with Majeure the cruel. Allies are holding the flag in their flag room, we take it, flag caps. So there we are, 2 mages and a hunter, eating... and the flags respawn.

I look at the other two... no interest in them in taking the flag... so I gotta grab it and run, while still only at 80% health...

Meet another team member, a pally, in the tunnel. I drop flag... pally is MUCH better runner, right? He doan take it... so I grab again, and set out into the world of light and pain...

At this time, an ally grabs our flag... so I'm near mid field, and see this ally warrior with MY HORDE FLAG running at me... POM PYro, Fireblast, arcane... dead warrior... I recover flag, blink outta roots, and get to my keep... flag recovery and cap in same run.

God I hate WSG.

Anyway, in arena, ya gotta be agressive. Can't worry bout takin damage... if you become pew pew target, duck outta LOS, but Melvin will let someone with less health and resil take point so HE doan have to worry bout aggro. On such things are losses built.

Anyway, Arms&Fury and I are hanging with a pally. New player, needs help. Any links to good shockadin build/playing guides? As well as a few blogs on how to gear out a heavy holy pally who wants to do damage as well?

A coupla pics...

I'm just sayin... theres a dozen hunter archetypes those blizzard bastards coulda used... Brotherhood of the Wolf/Last of the Mohicans... Elves and Rangers from LOTR... but no...

They picked The Hills Have Eyes....

Hence Mabd, Princess of the Wild becomes Mabd, Daughter of Gruul.

Thanks a ton, bliz. And you too, Herk. Five sunders, huh? Revenge fantasies already? Shouldn't you be saving your bile for frost mages?

Sunday sunday...

So my friend had his big presentation yesterday. And it went well, apparently. So well they went out drinking.

And I get a call at 2am... "Dude... I just got into a fight with a bouncer... and won. Damn they hire pussies for everything here... anyway, what was yuir address again, the cab driver needs to know..."

So I got my vengence wrap made. A pure dps cloak. Yummy yummy. Since I needed primal airs for it, I responded to the following trade chat...

"WTS 4 Primal airs."

"I'll give ya 90 for all 4."

"But they're going for 27 each at AH!"

"Oh, so I should check AH for my primal airs? Will do!"

Later on I check AH again, and find 4 for 90.

Wow

I respecced Mabd a bit now that I'm getting the hang of MM... ask me how I like it... go ahead, ask me...

So my friend is in town, and we're having a blast. Even if he works with incredibly silly people. So he's all like... play this wow game, show me what its like...

So I log on with majeure, and start the av bg daily...

"You seem to die a lot."

"Yeah."

"Is that cuz you're not very good?"

"...."

We win, and I switch to Mabd.

"Whoa! What the hell was that?"

"That was me charging into two locks and pwning em."

"oh, its just that cute elf chick that sucks, then?"

"yeah, pretty much."