warbringer

The air dry and heavy with electricity that made the fine hairs stand up on the back of her neck. Ripples of energy twisted and turned in the air, creating great ribbons of light that played tricks on the eye and distracted the senses.

She stood alone at the entrance of the Blood Elf tower, the battlefield stretched out before her, the ground littered with skeletons, weapons, and the burnt discharge of magick. Distantly, the sounds of warfare echoed back to her, the clash of blades and armor as the Alliance and Horde faced off for control of the area. For the time being, she was ignored, but with every minute that passed she became more consciously aware of just how vulnerable she was. With a quick glance in either direction, she twisted bands of magick in her palms and threw down a flare, the area around her feet instantly glowing with flickering orange light.

“Scared?” asked the voice of her hidden companion.

“Cautious.”

“You reek of fear.”

“It’ll wash off.” She felt the air twist around her, Fallapart’s form illuminated briefly by the flare’s light before it sputtered and died. Frowning, Saelym twisted another into existence and tossed it to her feet. “Any sign of them?”

“Three coming from the road.” Fallapart’s voice moved away as she scouted the perimeter. “Hunter. Shaman. And a Warrior, I think.” The Rogue chuckled. “I like Shamans.”

Reaching to her back, Saelym pulled free her crossbow and held it ready at her hip, her fingers tracing the smooth shaft of the bolt already locked in place.

“Two on three,” she murmured, and a coy grin touched her pale features. “Good odds.”

After reading a compeling post, then entire blog, and then the entire allaince forum of the Blood Cartel, I had to comment on 1v1 PvP.

First off, I love 1v1’s. Absolutely love it. My skills, my ship, my mistakes, my loot. I can’t blame anyone for the ship loss. I don’t have to share the loot. I get to brag unrestrained. What’s not to love?

I will be making a mini KB page on this blog for 1v1 kills (hopefully no losses).

I mostly fly BCs in 1v1. Mostly the drake as it were, because as we know, the ferox sux. I would fly more frigates or cruisers, but without turret skills, most would probably be ISK donations.

The rules I usually use for 1v1 are as follows:

1. Honor the 1v1.
2. No fleet boosters. Usually I try to get in a fleet where no one is set booster.
3. No ECM modules or droned. Not really PvP if one of you can’t shoot.
4. Must have a point. This goes with 5
5. PvP fit. No tanking specifically for opponent.
6. If you leave, you must admit defeat. Not really a problem due to 4.
7. Loser pays. Winner gets loot.
8. If the fight is to structure (rare) it defaults to ship death if both ships enter structure near same time.
9. Not really a rule, don’t fit faction/complex/officer cause I will loot it.

Not all of these rules are set in stone but it is a good place to start.

If you would like to try your skills against mine I fly in Syndicate, Placid and The Forge, but will travel for a good fight. Convo/evemail TweakBoy and let’s pew pew.

Thanks for reading….

It seems blizzard has this damned leash around my neck, and I am blind to see it. I gaze upon far off lands of angelic avatars in other MMO’s, and yet it seems I am earthbound.

All of which is a fancy, RP way of saying that I am back and interested in WoW just as much as I ever have. I am now attempting to do arenas competitively, though I am not the most motivated to find a good team. Everytime I think of doing test runs with yet another person, I begin to think of the Sons of Hodir dalies and how much I’d rather be doing them if it would only delay the torment.

How did I get into arenas? Well, I submitted myself to the pain of joining a 3’s team. The only reason I obliged is because it was a good comp (RMP), and I knew the priest was at the very least decent. So things went well, la de da, and we start to get up there in the rating a bit. Dreams of fancy weapons and glorious titles surface, and then… the priest leaves the team because they “really need the money for an epic flyer, so I am just gonna sell rating”. Yea whatever.

So I join my guild’s 5’s team. Whatever, just for kicks. The team was made just to get people points for the week that might not get them otherwise. So we get the team together, and feel pretty good about it. We got a paladin, warrior, mage, resto shaman, and resto druid. We got dispells covered, damage, healing, and CC covered (yay mages). Then bam, we rise up in the ranks really fast, all to find the resto shaman is potentially quitting the game, and until he decides he is only playing on Tuesdays for about an hour and all day on Sundays. So we ask for him to pass lead of the team, and he insists on keeping it, and thus limiting us to his time frame and not allowing us to play more games should we feel the need.

Now, I don’t know if any of your arena. Hell, I don’t even know who you are or if anyone but people who misclicked a link and got here, but if you know anything about being on a 5’s team, you know its pretty damn hard to get all five people on and ready to go. And to restrict your whole team to the only two teams you are able to play and not allow them the ability to get someone else on the team to heal in between? Absolutely ass-hattery.

I digress.

Worgan transformation animation is now out and viewable on youtube, along with a few other gameplay videos for both worgan and goblin starting zones! And let me tell you, worgans look pretty damn cool when you transition between human and wolf form. However, you will run very awkwardly and have a strange and unpleasant jump animation too.

Oh, and according to MMO-Champion, someone finally can say they beat the game.

And I finally posted a PvP tip page. It has some stuff up there, but it’s incredibly hard to just sit down and transcribe all the little things you could possibly tell people to do better. And so, the page will never be truely finished as it will be ever changing as I find new/better ways of doing things. I hope it helps some unfortunate soul who is tired of getting camped by the opposite faciton.

So here goes, the first post. To start it all off by introducing myself.

I am Enapay or Alexander if you like. At the moment i study in Norway, but i originally come from Sweden. In my free time i like to do sports like handball, running and of course to play WoW, which i have done since vanilla having a few breaks in between from time to time.

So while playing WoW from a Newbie to a semi-casual raiding arena player, i have had great use off the WoW community so i wanted to give something back, but how? After some thinking i decided i wanted to start my own blogging project to help shamans and other WoW players by trying to write good, interesting and informative articles both for the casual and the more hardcore player.

So that’s pretty much where i am today, trying to progress as fast as possible up the arena ladder and the pve content. What more can i say? Stay tuned for more posts in the future.

-Enapay

So it all started with a new wormhole, as always, 2 wormholes away there was a nullsec exit, which had a wormhole in it, inside this last wormhole was a bunch of random ships mining etc.

So we geared up and headed out, plan was to sit at the wormhole entrance to their space until we got a warp in point.

Whilst waiting for this, the lowsec had a bit of a spike and a ‘flashy red’ appeared, a few brief moments later a pilot cried in local at getting ganked, knowing the attacking pilot would be caught by its GCC at a gate we narrowed it down to a gate, deciding we needed soe fun i warped to gate and pointed the ‘red flashy’.

At this point it was me and one other corpmate in local, the pilot i pointed was in a phobos, knowing how big a tank he had didn’t worry me as local spiked with my friends, i couldn’t break him on my own but nor would he.

Unfortunately though, before my gang appeared in there cruisers, the phobos pilot received backup in the form of a maelstrom pilot.

The fight got worse for me instantly as he had a decent range on me, my gang landed and started on the phobos, in hindsight the maelstrom should have been primaried.

I died, poof went the harbinger, warped my pod to the wormhole exit and awaited the glee and happiness of being on a phobos killmail, when i left he was touching structure.

Alas, the pilot seeing his plight de-aggressed and got through the gate, near 10% structure from what i gather.

Fail but fun.

http://anr.griefwatch.net/index.php?p=details&kill=83

It’s impossible… to find a ui I like. They’re either too small for my poor eyes, or they don’t have enough bars, use pixel fonts… urgh. I went with caith ui, but that doesn’t like dual spec, lol. Not very good. I’ve spent the last… hour looking for one, ended up with one with no bars and pixel fonts… I’ll screw it up by adding a heck load of bars onto it, lol. Ages ago, there was one I loved but I can’t seem to be able to find it– let alone even recall it’s name. If this one screws up I have two backup options.. One of them I am very fond of. I don’t know why I never just carried on using that one??

Been playing my priest– a lot recently. I was saving up for my epic flying on my bank alt, saw I had about 2kg and said “oh what the hey” and got her a dual spec. Shadow/Disci, perhaps holy/disci at 80. I love my priest. And disci priests just own in bg’s? I want a super awesome absorb everything sheild?! I got it! What about a nice, strong and quick heal?! I got that too! And a dispell to get out of roots or ice nova? Well… apparently I’m the only disci priest with that skill.
One priest who was carrying it, got snared by roots and then died. I just sighed and said “dispell magic.” All I got back was “I’m trying.” Obviously you weren’t… hotkey freaking dispell magic for bg’s, it’s a LIFE saver.

And mages– wtf? Last time I played one it was squishy and I died so fast. I don’t remember being able to kill anything… there’s this firemage on my old battlegroup.. if you were against him, all you heard was “oh shit.” Fire owns in PvP, he was one shotting everything– me on a paladin, hunters, warlocks… everything! I hate mages…. so much! It makes me want to level an arcane mage, just because arcane mages in PvP? All those resistances? Juicy!

Also… I don’t know what I was thinking earlier, /sigh at me! My druid has been back and forth between feral and boomkin for a very long time. I find boomkin so boring, but easy so I don’t have to think. It’s good for being lazy… But on feral, I love tanking! I hate the dps, can’t stand cat form at all. My off spec is resto… so I’m thinking for now, I’ll just keep resto main spec and my dps boomkin if there’s another healer in the group. I don’t know why I even did it… boomkins get a huge nerf next patch… Maybe it was because I so dearly wanted one of those boomkin plushies so I decided to get a boomkin instead.

I’ve also noticed my weird habbit of not rolling classes without actual feet. I have tauren.. an undead and a troll… and I just feel so ‘urgh’ when I see them without ‘proper’ shoes on! So everything on my horde side is now going to be orc and belf. I’m glad we can trade BoA items to our ally counterparts next patch… I might feel inclined to roll a nelf or human.

Last week I was over at a friend’s house apartment, for parties and stuff I guess (WHO THE HELL BURNS POPCORN? COME ON!), and near the end of the evening ended up playing some WoWzors.

It being the AV holiday weekend, and my paladin still needing a few honor pieces, I queued up for that and away I went, smashing faces in and so forth, whilst me and a couple other WoWheads discussed PvP balance.

We were initially talking about arena matrixes, and discussed how well unholy DK/ret/disc would run in 3.3. After all, Unholy’s getting a few buffs and ret isn’t being nerfed for once, and I casually mentioned that poor retribution had been nerfed every single patch since LK shipped.

And you know what my friend said? He said “yeah, and you guys are STILL overpowered!” I mean it was meant as a joke, his main is a death knight after all, but ARGH ret pallies aren’t OP anymore!

So a long discussion was launched, in which I enumerated the many areas with which ret paladins are seriously lacking, about the lack of control, snares, gap closers, interrupts, and so forth, all the while kicking ass in AV.

At the end of my lengthy tirade, the same friend spoke up and said “That’s great and all, but I just watched you kill fifteen people in under three minutes, by yourself, without using major cooldowns, and you were fighting no less than three of them at a time.”

Which was, of course, completely true. My defense?

“Well… yeah… but… they… uhh…”

I mean how do you say “I was better than they were in nearly every way” without sounding like a complete tool? I had better gear than them, I made few mistakes, they made many, I knew how to play defensively to win and how to use CC properly, they didn’t.

Which brings me to a completely different point.

The vast majority of people in battlegrounds have no idea how to PvP, in the broadest sense.

I’m not talking about how to PvP with their class. I’m not talking about, say, a hunter having no idea how to use traps/deflection/disengage properly or a mage not knowing when to use counterspell.

I’m talking about PvP in general. As in, PvP skills that you use no matter what class you play, no matter what game you play.

Defensive play, for one thing.

The number of people I meet who can play defensive is surprisingly low.

To use the broadest possible sense, there are two modes to PvP: offense and defense. At all times, you are trying to defeat your opponent (not necessarily killing them).

When you are in offense mode, you are actively trying to kill. A frost mage using Deep Freeze and unloading a hasted frostbolt and two ice lances into a target is offensive play.

When you are in defense mode, you are actively trying to survive. A frost mage ducking out of LOS for a split second to dodge Unstable Affliction is defensive play.

Proper defensive play can’t really be taught, you have to go out and consciously learn it. You can’t tunnel vision, you need to be aware of LOS, know how to use it properly, know how to prevent your opponent from using it, you need to be aware of what cooldowns you have and what cooldowns your opponent has.

I’ll give you a few examples to try and describe what I mean. Hopefully you learn something.

The scene: My ret paladin, wintergrasp, a southern workshop. 4 horde, including me, versus 9 alliance.

Largeish battle going on. A hunter disengages from a warrior, landing directly in front of me at half health. A quick crusader/judge later, the hunter bites the dust. I get hit with curse of agony and corruption, which means there’s an afflock out there. Destruction warlocks don’t use CoA and rarely use corruption, they use curse of elements, then immolate to fuel massive chaos bolt/conflagrate crits.

UA and haunt are coming right up, even though I don’t see the warlock yet.

I’m near a drop off, so I take a quick couple steps and drop out of LOS. Cleanse corruption… oh hey look, the warlock followed me! Standing right above me on the edge. Felhunter just dispelled Sacred Shield, which means the warlock can’t dispel anything from himself for 8 seconds. He’s too far away for me to melee, which means I can’t autoattack or get in any crusader strikes. But he’s in range of everything else. Hammer -> judge -> DS -> exorcism -> hammer of wrath -> dead warlock.

The scene: My ret paladin, warsong gulch, alliance tunnel. Myself versus a hunter and two ret paladins.

I’m currently exposed in the tunnel, a survival hunter at the top of the tunnel ramp and two ret paladins bearing down on me. Impossible odds. I duck right, out of LOS with the hunter, popping a quick FoL off before the rets are on me. I retreat, the hunter doesn’t follow, so I go out into the open to fight the two rets.

The draenei paladin is in deadly glad gear with the 219 axe from the Black Knight. The human paladin is in significantly better gear, 1800 rating relentless sword better gear.

Quick question. How do you beat someone in melee if their melee is way better than yours? Simple. Don’t.

The plan: if at all possible, avoid being in melee range of either ret paladin at all times. Fight using judgement, most likely every Art of War proc will be needed for healing. Use DS only when both paladins are close enough together for me to hit both of them. Judicious use of freedom (it counters JoJ), hammer, and repentance. Hit the draenei first, it’s a lot easier to fight a good player one on one if it actually is a one on one fight.

Both paladins seem extremely confused by my strategy, constantly running into melee range, then stopping for a few seconds before chasing me again. Almost as if they expect me to stay in melee range, you know… being a melee class and all.

Draenei paladin is dropping like nothing. So far, I’ve landed every DS on both of them every time, they’ve missed every single one of theirs. Learn to circle strafe guys!

Draenei pops Lay on Hands. I laugh. Goddamn OP ret paladins! I bubble at 4% HP (autoattack for 5k whut), but only heal myself back to 60%. That draenei needs to die. CC chain on the good paladin (repentance, HoJ, belf silence) while I click off divine shield and go full out melee. Draenei dies, but it cost me. Human pally trinketed out of repentance and nearly killed me.

Low health, low mana, ret paladin mirror match, except he’s got better gear and weaponry than I do. The plan? Just stay out of melee range, attacking via judgement only. Using Art of War procs, get myself back up to full, then simply delay long enough for hammer to come back up.

Wings + AP trinket + Hammer = dead ret paladin.

I win, and I’m left wondering why a paladin with an 1800 weapon didn’t freedom HoJ. Maybe I’m blind and it was actually a blue polearm or something.

The scene: Euripedes, arcane shatter spec alone at Lumber Mill, owned by alliance, having just defeated the moonkin/horribly undergeared resto shaman (17k hp) guarding the place.

Half a second away from capping the stupid flag, a warrior charges me out of nowhere. Damn it, I hate it when they do that. Night elf warriors… I swear those dudes just stealth and watch you, waiting for the best worst possible moment to enter the fray.

Whatever, sheep the warrior, it lasts 10 seconds, capping the flag takes 8. I got this. Aaaand there’s a trinket, and ow, that was 70% of my hitpoints just now. Friggin PvE geared raiders.

Root the warrior, keep slow up at all times, bounce ice lance off spell reflect, throw in the odd arcane barrage so maybe he thinks I’m actually trying to beat him. Just stay the hell away from him, that’s the plan.

Poly DR wears off, I throw a full duration poly on him, and evocate. Pop AP; a couple 11k frostbolt crits later and it’s all over.

The scene: My warrior, 30-39 bracket, versus another warrior of equal level.

The opposing warrior is at full health, I’m at 40%, having fought fierce fights. No horde anywhere to be seen, but there’s a few rezzing soon, including my healbot druid.

The plan: sword and board, kite the opposing warrior back to the graveyard. When my healer’s back, bust out the arcanite reaper and put this warrior down.

Hamstring the warrior, thunder clap for the melee attack speed reduction (I probably don’t need it, but why take the risk?), waltz away from him while he follows me like he’s trying to fight a frost mage. No juggernaut yet, can’t charge in combat. Combat drops, I charge him first, refresh hamstring and thunder clap, again running away. I see him swap to Fury stance, which means an intercept is coming right up. I pop shield wall.

He intercepts, and the followup heroic strike/overpower combo hits me hard enough to have killed me had I not used shield wall. Hamstring, run away, intercept him myself for the stun and keep running. Druid’s respawned and is on his way, but I still need to buy some time. I pop Intimidating Shout.

PHOOM oh I have never been so glad to see a Healing Touch. 16% health, jeez. Disarm the warrior, bust out the 2H, he goes down like a sack of potatoes.

You: Big and strong.
Me: Big but weak.

You: Fast and healthy
Me: Slow and sickly

I’ve got the WSG daily.

I’ve been hanging onto it for a few days now because I either haven’t had time, or have fallen in with the wrong crowd.

Last night about 1/2 a hour before logging off I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to get it done.

I smell Rats

I join the queue and it pops practically immediately.

A bad sign I think to myself. More often than not, an immediate invite indicates rats leaving a sinking ship.

I was relatively happy to find that while the battle had already started, we were only one down with 22 minutes still on the clock.

I briefly wondered why someone would dump the BG so early, then I got down to business.

Which of you punched the holes in the side of the boat?

I guess I didn’t notice the water lapping against my ankles.

I raced to the enemy flag room to support our flag carrier. As I ran down the field I kept an eye on the map.

People rezzing at the GY and people midfield.

Surely someone would be racing to the flagroom too. Maybe those that were rezzing just had a failed attempt at the flag.

By the time I reached the flag room it was obvious I was on my own. My team mates had other priorities, giving honor kills to the Horde.

What’s a Resto Shammy to do?

So I did what any stupid, but self respecting FC healer would do under the circumstances.

I carried it myself.

At least I made it to midfield before I got jumped by 8 Horde, their pets and probably their grandmothers.

I rezzed… I headed to the FR… Surely I would have company this time?

No?

Wont make the same mistake twice, right?

So I did what any stupid, but self respecting FC healer would do under the circumstances.

I carried it myself.

This time I made it 1/2 way up the map before the Horde zeroed in on me. This time I got some support. Heals and DPS, a DK at least, as the guy slicing my back open disappeared in a puff of purple smoke.

I kept running, littering my path with totems, straight up the tunnel to…

TO CAP!

Holy Worg poo BatGnome!

I have never capped before, because you know, I am support, not FC material.

I run straight back out the door and head for that Horde flag once again. Surely my team mates are feeling inspired? Surely a real flag carrier will come with me…

No?

I must be thick!

So I did what any stupid, but self respecting FC healer would do under the circumstances.

I carried it myself.

Yep, again. This time I mixed it up and charged through their GY. I even made it most of the way up the field without attention. Of course that was probably because the Horde hit squad was taking our flag.

I didn’t get to cap again. We gave it a good hard crack in our flag room, but their 7 overwhelmed our 3.

It happens, no problems.

What was nice was that as soon as they capped again, someone else from our side grabbed the flag… Finally…. A little too late and unfortunately I was at the wrong end of the BG to get you healing support.

We lost, but I guess I should be thankful that some of you remembered how to play once this squishy Resto Shaman proved it could be done.

The thing I wonder is why it is that you let me, with my paltry 16k health lead the charge, when I saw 30k even 40k health pools?

I wonder why you all spent the first 5 minutes I was in the BG skirmishing in midfield without even feinting towards the FR, let alone making an attempt at it.

We were already losing, not capping wasn’t going to change that.

• Were you scared you might get chased?
• Were you scared you might get hit?
• Were you scared you might get lost on the way home?
• Were you scared you might fail?
• Were you scared you might win?

Come on folks. Honor kill achievements are all well and good, but they are a side effect of being a good player.

There are achievements for winning you know and they are kinda harder to get. I promise I will help you do quick runs and 3 caps in a row, if only you promise to win (or at the very least try)

Be a good player 1st and an achievement whore 2nd!

Pugnacious Priest mentioned Psuedo-Premades on Bloodlust. Of course I fear I might be one of the ones that pissed her off in the past… worse, I not only read blogs, but I write them! I wonder if she was that awesome flag carrying priest I was talking about a little while back…

Anyway I need to track those details down.

I want to win.

I want to play with winners.

I want to proudly compare my BG achievements against Fikkle rather than be the opposite side of his statistics.

What’s wrong with you?

Let’s pwn those child eating Horde and WIN!

Ohh and speaking of being pwned, remember tomorrow at 3pm Aussie Eastern Beero time, I will be pwning Fim and Nib on Twisted Nether.. come along, join in!

Gnomer and Out, Squidly and Stout!

http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/11/27/what-is-wrong-with-you/

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Happy Turkey Week!  Jov and Seri are traveling, spending time with friends and family, and preparing for a serious case of food coma.  Special thanks for the guest posts for taking wow posting off our plates, and leaving us with more room for sides…

I thought I would write a guest post for Snarkcraft (one of my favorite priest blogs!) about a topic not often covered:  Arena PVP.  I’ll start with some basic arena strategies.  I am assuming you’re just starting out, and that you’ll be a Priest, specced Discipline.  Holy really isn’t arena viable at the moment.

General Arena Helpful Tips

1. Don’t Die
2. Don’t Let your Partners Die
3. Blow Defensive Cooldowns when the other Team blows Offensive Cooldowns
4. Blow Defensive Cooldowns Earlier Rather than Later
5. CC and DPS when the target is low
6. Drink – a lot!
7. Pick up a PVP trinket – don’t leave home without it.

How to gear

As a priest, you wear cloth and lots of it.  You’ll want to wear as much resilience as you can get your hand on.  Once you start feeling comfortable (for me this happens only once I’m in the 1000+ range), start stacking stamina and spellpower.  Get the spirit set, although you can double dip the shadow set, getting the 50 resilience bonus from both sets, but you’ll notice the lower regen.  You will be able to go offensive much better though, so it could depend on your playstyle.  Get at least 4% hit so your fears connect a reasonable amount of the time.  Yes, it’s that important.  Pick up the +hit offset pieces for cloak, ring, and neck slots, and you should do fine.

Glyphs – Pick up Pain Suppression and Inner Fire, especially while still gearing up.  Glyph of Penance is 100% necessary 100% of the time.

How to survive

You have no real escapes, especially against warriors/undeads.  Priests in PVP essentially tank in cloth.  I know it sounds crazy, but it’s crazy fun when you can pull it off!  Anyway, keep moving, cast PW:shield->Penance->Prayer of Mending->Renew->stop and flash as necessary.  Remember to dispel any dots or snares that you can – especially against DKs (Chains of Ice and Diseases) and mages’ frost novas.  You’d be surprised how much dispelling what amounts to these classes’ damage buffs reduces the amount of damage they can dish out.

Line of Sight (LOS) – Line of Sight is your friend in Arenas.  Anyone who says otherwise, or says that LOS is cheesey, plays too many battlegrounds on their hunters.   Good LOS play can significantly reduce the damage you take and the scariness of enemy target switches. You’ll notice some teams will try to lure you into their LOS.  Shield/Penance your DPS when you can, but be aware the other guys have some dirty tricks up their sleeve…

Fearing Defensively – Save your Psychic Scream for when you need to get a cast off, or you see an opportunity to gain distance or get out of LOS.  If you are in an emergency situation, however, blow it.  There’s nothing more embarrassing than dying while your cooldowns are still up.

How to heal

Penance and PW: Shield, Prayer of Mending – these are your most powerful heals in arena.  In my experience, greater heal comes close to the output of penance, but penance has the benefit of going off immediately, and going through line of sight.  Use PW:shield first, especially since it gives you a haste buff.

Flash heal – Flash heal is what you do when Penance, PW:Shield, are on cooldown.  Get a latency mod, like quartz for your castbar and spam that button!

Other odd heals you wouldn’t think to use – Greater heal, Divine Hymn, Binding Heal, and Prayer of Healing are heals you probably won’t use very often, mostly because they’re best when you aren’t being focused, which happens approximately 0% of the time.  However, if you can get them off, especially if someone has let their mortal strike debuff fall off for a second, you can really turn the tables.  I’ve seen 3v3 matches where I was super behind, and I popped Divine Hymn and Inner Focus and topped off my team.  And they say Priests have no reset buttons. 

Mortal Strike – Mortal Strike is your enemy #1.  Know what the debuff looks like, know how long the cooldown is, know how to get as many heals off as possible when the debuff is *not* up.  Hunters, Warriors, and Rogues can all apply versions of the 50% version.  Mages and Shadowpriests (do they really exist?) provide a 20% version.  Oh, and if someone has the debuff and needs a heal, heal them.  You just got outplayed, but you have a better chance of winning if your teammate is alive.

How to pressure

Dispel – Dispels at the right time can be sooo clutch.  Paladins and Priests should be dispel spammed if they are your DPS target.  Also, dispel any CC as often as possible.  Some classes have dispel protection – for instance, if you dispel unstable affliction from Haunt warlocks, you’ll get silenced, which is BAD…

Mana Burn – You’ll find that the one thing in your bag of tricks that will force a healer to go defensive is Mana Burn.  As a healer, learn this sound.  It will strike *sheer terror* into your heart… It’s fun to hold people on the other side of pillars with this.  Say your DPS is focusing the other team’s DPS.  Use Mana Burn to force the healer to LOS their DPS, then keep using it to hold them there.  They’ll only be able to get off instant casts, which means they’ll be way behind.  Just make sure you remember to heal your DPS in time…. Cast Shield, Psychic scream, and Power infusion, then spam Mana Burn at the other healer for fun and profit.

Mass Dispel – Mass Dispel has two uses in Arena.  One is when there’s a zergfest and everyone’s in range – you’ll dispel debuffs and buffs at the same time!  This is win. The other use is to dispel Iceblock and Divine Shield.  Especially against Paladins, it’s important to pre-load this so that you can get their bubble off and get the kill before their heal goes off.  Plan ahead!

Fearing Offensively – Psychic Scream is a powerful CC because it hits all targets within range.  Use that to your advantage, and try to catch the target and at least one other player.  Also, against healers, fear them when the target is around 30% health – they may think they are keeping up, and then BAM! They’re CC’d!  At the very least, you forced the trinket or blew their timing/global cooldown.  This is all huge, just from a 30 second cooldown!

How to DPS

If you are in a place where you need to out-and-out DPS to help force a kill or apply more pressure, you need to consider what situation you’re in.  IF the target is very low on health, cast Penance or Holy Fire->SW:Death.  This “Backloads” the damage from SW:Death (the damage will all come in nearly the same global cooldown, because the GCD from Penance is already done).  If you need to pressure, use your holy DPS spells.  These spells (Holy Fire and Smite) are at what amounts to 100% spell penetration because Holy has no resist stat.  Don’t forget your DOTs and Mind Blast, they do a surprising amount of damage!

Smite Spec – if you want to go really offensive, pick up the smite glyph and the low end holy smite talents – Holy spec, Divine Fury, and Searing Light.  Congratulations!  You are now a Mage with healing spells!

How to CC

Refer to Psychic Scream offensively, above.  One little thing to note here, do not ignore shackle undead!  Make a macro to target Ebon Gargoyle, and shackle DK ghouls whenever you can.  Also, DK’s who pop Lichborne are legal targets for Shackle as long as the buff is up…

When to trinket –
#1 – when your team needs a heal.  You just got outplayed, again.  Prepare to eat blind or sheep.
#2 – Against CC, try to sit it out if you can, and save the trinket for emergencies.  However, be aware that some comps can easily drop your DPS inside even really short CCs.  Refer to #1 and trinket.  Otherwise, refer to the LOS section.

How to Drink

Drinking is how to pressure, defensively, as a Priest and as a healer in general.  Most of the time, especially against Paladin and Druid healers, Priests just can’t keep up in the mana department.  It’s the drawback we get for being able to go offensive with Mana Burn.  If you can, have your DPS go defensive and get drinks off, early.  The longer you can postpone your shadowfiend, the more pressure you can put on the other healer in a mana war.  A few ticks of drinking can change the game!  Learn to notice when the other team is leaving you alone.  These are the best times to sneak off behind the nearest pillar and get a drink.  Do it at every opportunity! Remember, you need to buy special Arena Water for Arenas.

On a side note, make sure to dispel innervate and divine plea whenever you can.

Enjoy!
~Felade

I’m 790 Rep short of Exalted with the League of Arathor, which is realistically  close enough,  but I have a long way to go for Silverwing Sentinels.

Apparently working on 35 Rep a flag return and 23303 to go untill exalted   with the Sentinels thats  665.8 Flags I need or 221 WSG Wins ( 3 flags in a win) .

If I play all weekend on a WSG weekend I apparently get +10 more rep per flag -  

/sigh  my life will have to be WSG for  the next month or three.

Is it worth changing my race to human so I need 66 less flags? ( or there about)

Why would I do something so Insane?

I love Pvp.  If there was a title amongst all the titles that I felt meant something to me.  Justicar would be one that represented where a lot of my time and love and hate goes.   

How does something so repetitious still be enjoyable?   It could be the pesky pally that JUST WON”T DIE!  Or the Warlock that chains me and goes  *opps when I have fear warded, and I have dotted him to death for a change.  The hunter who sends his pet after me,   and forgets to resend after I have Shadow Melded and his pet runs off and then I kill him, the thrill of chasing flag carriers – dispel fear, dot – the thrill of being the flag carrier.  Dispel, fear,  heal trinket ” HALP!”  Yelling at people to get out of the middle.   That first time everyone heads to the flag room in WSG and  your part of a team! untill the rogue stealth, some go up the tunnel,  some up the ramp.  Some one starts the fighting in the middle.  levitating off LM to BS and hoping no one sees you in time for a ninja cap.  The sound of your bikes engines roaring as you ride through the crisp clean snow in AV and so on. 

I get more out of Pvp emotionally then a raid.   So getting the PVP title would be more meaningful to me then my current “Of the Nightfall”  which while sounds cool – was done by bugging out Sarth, and dps zerging .  – how is that an accomplishment?

Lately i have found the corp has developed a thirst for blood like my own, to this end we have been roaming and attempting to find new ‘Volunteers’.

http://anr.griefwatch.net/index.php?p=details&kill=59

A standard gank, a Raven, a Vexor and 3 hulks where in a Wormhole.

Scanned down and warped to by our covops pilot, it was found the 2 hulks and the vexor where mining with 2km of each other, the raven was sat 28km off the mining group and the 3rd hulk was nearly 30km from the rest.

The plan was formed, warp in on the hulks, drop a bubble while the second bubble launcher would use a script to lock down the raven, if we got the 3rd hulk it would be considered a bonus.

It happened perfectly, we landed right on the hulks, bubble dropped, raven was infinity scrammed and the lazors started flying.

The hulks popped without delay and so did the vexor.

We landed so suddenly the raven pilot didn’t lock anyone for nearly 30 seconds and when he did he shot at the heaviest tanked ship, the devoter, didn’t even drop drones as we raced to him and popped him.

Unfortunately in out bloodlust we all forgot about the 3rd hulk – whom escaped.

And we forgot to bring HIC bubble within range of raven so his pod escaped, but we didn’t mind bloodlust had been quenched for the time being.

Question:

When exploring a wormhole, do you.

A: Use a covops cloaking ship with scan probe launcher, drop probes at a planet/midsafe and warp cloaked to a different midsafe?

B: Warp to a planet in a cloaked ship, drop probes and warp cloaked to another planet?

C: Warp to planet 5, which happens to be the middle of list planet, eject from your T2 fitted anathema and sit afk in your pod beside the anathema?

Bonus Question?

What happens when you do answer C?

Answer is, you get podded and have your ship stolen!

http://anr.griefwatch.net/index.php?p=details&kill=59

CCP Games-ის ოფიციალურ Youtube გვერდზე განთავსდა 1 დეკემბრის გაფართოვება Dominion-ის ოფიციალური ტრეილერი. EVE Online-ის ოფიციალურ ვებ-გვერდზე ხელმისაწვდომია ვიდეოს გადმოსაწერი ვერსიებიც.

ვიდეო:

წყარო: CCP Games Official Youtube Channel

For the TL:DR crowd, I’ll just sum up the new spotlight for you: bla bla bla pure gold bla bla bla.

I’m curious to see how the new collision detection works with bigger ships pushing smaller ones, and whether this might lead to future changes of say, mounts/warhulks pushing (or better yet, crushing) players. The combination of nerfed and fixed AoE magic, cheaper and more useful ships, and more ’stuff’ in the ocean should make life on the open sea far more interesting though. This also means a huge boost in value to seaside cities and hamlets.

And while this addition is clearly aimed at fixing/improving naval PvP, hopefully there will also be direct economic and PvE advantages to sea life in the future as well. Currently only a few mobs populate the water, and while sea towers will provide some monetary benefit, I think fighting over things like offshore mining platforms or some ocean-only resources would also be interesting. Grab your clan together, get on a boat, and head off on some water-based PvE adventure (with of course the ‘opportunity’ to get Pk’ed while doing so).

Assuming the hit their Friday deadline (ha), this might be a very busy weekend in DarkFall.

(DarkFall-related post disclaimer/reminder. If you click the image link near the top-right of this page and buy a DarkFall account, I get paid 20% of the client cost. If you believe this taints my views and reporting on DarkFall, your opinion is wrong.)

Die Tage flogen Burntime, unser neuster Neuzugang in der Corp (doch dazu später mehr) und ich mit Ruptures durch die Gegend auf der Suche nach Targets. Burntime hatte noch seinen Scanner-/Scout-Alt dabei in ner Covert Ops und nach einigen Jumps durchs Gelände, kamen wir nach Maalna. Der Scout ging vor und fand 24 Leute im Local, die alle der gleichen Allianz anzugehören schienen. Also war der Blob quasi schon vorprogrammiert, trotzdem warteten wir am Gate, während der Scout sich mal umsah und auch fündig wurde.
Retriever im Belt, beim munteren Minern. Leider warpte sie gerade Richtung Station, also warteten wir, ob sie nicht vielleicht wieder kommt. Kam sie aber nicht, dafür aber eine minende Exequror, die jedoch wegen einer spontan spawnenden Rat, Grösse BS, eine Drake zu Hilfe rief.

Was nun tun? Mit 2 Ruptures ne Drake zu killen könnte schwer bis unmöglich sein, wenn sie gut gefittet ist und bei dem potentiellen Blob im System war ein der Untergang eigentlich schon sicher. Andererseits hatten wir sonst nichts gefunden und ein heldenhafter Untergang war immer noch besser als mit leeren Händen heimzukommen, weshalb wir uns entschlossen anzugreifen.
Jump durchs Gate, warp in den Belt und die Drake als Primary setzen. Der Point war drauf, wir in guter Distanz und los ging das Spiel! Der Shield der Drake schmolz unter dem Feuer meiner EMP-Munition nur langsam und wir hielten den Blick auf den Directional, da wir ja fest mit dem Blob rechneten, zumal die Exequror auch rausgewarpt war, aber der Blob kam nicht.
Als der Shield zu Ende ging, wechselte ich auf Hail-Munition um in der Armor mehr Damage zu machen, und bemerkte ganz verduzt, dass ich keinerlei Schaden bekam von der Drake! Der Kerl schoss garnicht auf mich, also machte ich mir Sorgen um meinen Wingman und fragte nach dem Stand der Dinge. Aber auch Burntime bekam keinen Schaden, da der Pilot tatsächlich weiter auf die Rat feuerte und uns ignorierte! Nun gut, sollte uns recht sein, wir machten weiter, als eine Stabber auf dem Directional und dann bei uns im Belt auftauchte, wohl der Vorbote des Blobs.
Die Drake hatte mittlerweile ihre Rat gekillt, ging aber down ohne einem von uns Schaden zugefügt zu haben!

Wir wanden uns umgehend der Stabber zu, die glücklicherweise nah genug war um gescrambelt und gewebbt zu werden. Aber auch hier erwartete uns eine Überraschung: Burntime wurde verwunderlicherweise von Railguns getroffen! Moment mal, Rails auf ner Stabber?? Wie fail kanns noch werden? Offensichtlich sehr, denn als wir die Killmail sahen, wussten wir, warum wir kaum Schaden bekommen hatten, aber die Stabber schneller platzte als eine gut gefittete Rifter.

Und immer noch kein Blob in Sicht… Wir blieben also erst mal gemütlich stehen und looteten, als der nächste ankam. Diesmal eine Vexor, die uns auf den Kopf sprang. Auch hier wieder hätte sie uns, wenn sie auf Range geblieben wäre und gut mit ihren Dronen umgegangen wäre, eine Menge Ärger machen können, doch wie zuvor: Point drauf, Web drauf, ein paar Salven (nicht viele allerdings) und Plopp! Eine Vexor in Eve weniger… Haben die keinen Intel oder warum meldet keiner 2 böse Piraten, die im Belt ein Schiff nach dem anderen zerlegten?

Kaum war die Vexor down, landete eine Exequror im Belt. Die zerbröselte sogar so schnell, dass ich beinahe nicht auf die Killmail gekommen wäre! Hat auch nur für den Disruptor gereicht, bevor sie weg war.
Und sogar den Pod hat uns der gute Junge noch überlassen. Da sagt man doch auch nicht Nein!

Das waren nun 4 Schiffe in 3 Minuten im selben Belt von der selben Allianz. Könnte man fast schon als Chain bezeichnen… Vielleicht wird bald ein Faction-Spawn daraus!
Wir haben uns jedenfalls gefreut, konnten garnicht alles looten, was gedroppt ist (die Vexor hatte hunderte von Probes im Cargo…) und hatten immer noch keinen nennenswerten Schaden ausser ein paar Schrammen in der Armor und ein bißchen angeschmorte Module.

Der Nächste war dann allerdings eine Rifter, die aber wohl endlich mal von uns wusste, denn sie sprang auf 200km in den Belt, so dass wir keine Chance hatten, sie zu tackeln. Vorsichtshalber richteten wir uns schon mal Richtung eines Planeten aus und dann tauchte auch schon die Rokh auf dem Scanner auf. Blöderweise (für sie) schickte sie aber keinen Tackler vor, sondern warpte selber in den Belt. Burntime und ich sahen uns an, zuckten die Schultern und warpten gemütlich auf nen Safespot. Dort warteten wir den Cooldown ab, während die Rifter uns zwar mit dem Directional fand und einen Safespot in der Nähe anlegte, aber ohne Probes konnten sie uns natürlich nicht ausfindig machen, so dass wir gemütlich den Heimweg antreten konnten und den mittlerweile gebildeten Blob aus Rohk, Harbinger und sonstigen Kram hinter uns lassen konnten. Sie versuchten dann zwar noch 2 Systeme lang hinterher zu kommen, aber da sie uns nicht erreichten, obwohl wir keine Eile hatten, wars das für den Abend von Rogue Elements für uns.

• Bekapcsolták a levelező rendszert, de még csak teszt jelleggel. Nem teljesen megbízható még.
• Néhány party skill hatótávolságán állítottak.
• Pár Bug kihasználását javították. Pontos információt nem adtak róla, nehogy valaki próbálkozzon.
• Frissített droplist a “named moboknak”.
• Változtattak a PVP sebzéseken. Csökkentették a sebzések mértékét.
• Már nem lehet játékoson kívűl mást feléleszteni.
• Fear, Sleep, Root és hasonló debuffok már nem 100, hanem csak 90%ra jönnek be.
• NPC védelem statjain állítottak.
• Transformation debuffok támogatása hozzáadva, mint a Fear és a Curse of Roots.
• Elyos nem használhat Asmo riftet és fordítva.
• Sky Temple környékén már lehet repülni.
• Remélhetőleg a party xp bug javítva. Már nem szabadna olyan kis értéket kapni mint eddig előfordult, ha nagyban eltértek szintben a karakterek.
• Sok quest javítva.
• Trade és storage funkciókon végrehajtottak pár javítást.
• Express mail rendszer hozzáadva.
• Frissített riftek, hogy a megfelelő npc modellt mutassák.
• Elyos nem tud éleszteni Asmot és fordítva.
• Sok spawn pont javítva.

Gyorsjavítások

• PVP sebzés módosítások.
• Javítva, hogy a magic boost nem adódott hozzá.
• Magic Damage javítás.
• Inventory javítás.

We find our hero in the Ebon Hold terrorizing the newbies with Munchy’s “War Stories”. Yes, he really did man the 50cal…

Generally as you live your life and do any sort of team sport/activity you will meet friends. With these friends you will complete the activity/win the sport together, and you begin to trust in them. You trust that they will always have your back if something goes wrong with your strategy, you trust that they will save you if you are getting hurt, and much more.

Then after spending so much time together with your new friends you can basically complete any activity and KNOW the person. By this I mean, know what they would do, if they were to have trouble, and basically work together so simultaneously you are surprised you are not fused to each other’s hips.

This is what we call Synergy, and you will find this in your WoW “life”. Everyone has friends/guildies that they know very well and will be able to work well with no matter what role you play (DPS/Tank/Healer). This is probably one of the most important ties that you can possible have, and one should make use of this tie.

Raiding is like a Soccer Team, you have your players and are all part of the same team striving for the same goals (no pun intended, but it’s there anyways). If a few people do not do their jobs, you will wipe or lose the game for your team. Now if the team is full of synergy, you WILL not fail because you all know each other’s strengths, limits, weaknesses, and ability. Working together with perfect synergy is essential for both activities to succeed.

The Backstory

Yes, I joined a new guild, a 25m Raiding guild with high ambitions and two very great Raid Leaders with my friend, Bigblakbul and some other of the “core raiders” from my other guild. So far it has been pretty good, we downed everything up to the Val’kyr and decided to finish them off last night.

Just one problem, we didn’t, we sat there and wiped for quite some time until we finally just called it. Was it a Tanking problem? Hell no, Blak and I brought our A-Games for sure. The Healers were pretty good as well, but what was wrong, was the DPS. There were quite a few Melee DPSers that never switched targets throughout the night, as I am sure there were a couple of Ranged, but melee was our largest problem of them all. So what does this have to do with Synergy?

The Back Story After the Backstory

After the Raid our RL (Boomkin/Feral Tank OS) and our other RL (Prot/Ret Pally) asked Blak and I to hop into a private channel in vent with them. I knew that we had not done anything wrong, but I feared for the worst anyways. Here is (basically) how it went down, and luckily my fears were proven completely wrong!

RL: El, Blak, how familiar are you with ToC?

Me: We have both done it and lead it multiple times, why?

RL: Well, the way this used to be done made things become very “cliquey” now Co-RL and I have Tanked together and know each other very well, just like you two are comfortable Tanking with each other. What we want to do is not make this cliquey so that all of us (Tanks) are familiar with each other, because face it we will not all make it to every Raid and will have to Tank with each other regardless.

All: Damn Straight (In multiple variations, but that one sums it up)
RL: What we hope to do is to gear up people and get familiar with each other in 10m ToC, because the guild has more than enough people to do these full-guild we will be splitting off into 2 groups. Me and El will Tank the first one together, and Co-RL and Bigblak you guys will Tank the second so that we can break up any “cliques” and get to know each other.

All: Sounds good!

After, we talked about times that would suit us best and what-not, but I thought this was an extraordinary idea and it should work out very nicely. There is very little loot competition between the groups except for Trinkets/Rings/Neck/Cape and it will be easy to create a synergy since the groups can/will be swapped around once and awhile.

Skiiing! Yay!

How to Create Synergy

What my RL suggested was a great way to create Synergy between Tanks, you simply Tank with the people you will most likely be grouped with. After a few sessions you will know the person like he was your own brother in terms of Tanking. Once this happens, it will be a very powerful and effective tie for your Raid to have. Sure, the best geared Tanks in the server could do a great job Tanking some boss, but they will never know each other’s limits if they do not make a bond with the other.

Synergy is stronger than gear, being able to seriously know the person you are fighting beside is a huge advantage in any field, especially WoW. But are Tanks the only ones that need synergy?

Hell no! In fact there are multiple synergies that can be created in WoW, there are exactly 6 different combinations. These include:

• Tank to Tank
• Tank to DPS
• Tank to Healer
• Healer to DPS
• Healer to Healer
• DPS to DPS

So how does one actually create synergy? Very simple, just like our RL has done you “force” each other into playing alongside one another until you create a very strong bond. With said bond everything becomes easier because you have someone you can always count on to get the job done.

What does this have to do with my performance?

You are a Rogue and your best bud who you play all the time with is a Healer. Your buddy KNOWS that you are not always aware of fire and will be sure to top you off accordingly. The Healer buddy just saved your life and allowed you to keep DPSing your heart out. See the connection? Without that synergy your Raid would be left with one less DPS, and that can make a significant difference as to if your group will finish or crash and burn on the spot.

Let me take Klinderas for an example. There are points when my Runes start to stay on C/D and can be very tricky for me to get Aggro, as a great Hunter and friend he knew when to pop an MD on my ass and keep me Tanking when it really mattered. Hell, there were times back in TBC where he would put a Trap on me to lessen the inevitable chance of my death, it felt good to be able to count on someone.

As a Tank we will generally pop our OH SHI- buttons when needed, but depending on the Healer’s capabilities we may have to pop them earlier than we expected. If [Insert Healer friend here] and I were in the middle of a fight and I know when his heals start to dry out due to synergy, I press my shiny buttons and save both of our hides for a few more seconds.

This is very confusing, what is the point of this?

Look, we all establish ties with someone, and as *ahem* awkward as it sounds a bond with a friend is extremely valuable. Synergy is when this bond grows to the point of us being able to successfully complete tasks as if we were somehow turned into that person, and by doing so we know each other’s next move and limits. With this knowledge we can have a more wholesome experience in our Raid/Everyday life because we know who to count on and what they can do.

Synergy, it has saved my Raids, will continue to save my Raids, and makes the game that much more enjoyable because I KNOW that I have friends that I will entrust my virtual-life with.

Happy WoWing!
-Elno

On a Separate Note

@Baenhoof was taking requests for a free fully colored commission of their WoW character. All we had to do was be the 1st to tweet her with a screenshot of said character at the loading screen. Guess who got that commission?

No, I'm not taking off my pants, that costs extra!

Me! Still I question why no woman wants this hunk ‘o Blood Elf love. Those aren’t tattoos ladies, them be fightin’ scars!

Pacing and gameplay evolution are very important and at times overlooked factors in any MMO. The actions and motivations of a day one player are very different than those of a two year veteran, and good game design takes that into consideration. What can be enjoyable in the first month might very well be considered a ‘grind’ one year in, and something that might cause confusion after a few weeks could be a key feature keeping someone around month after month.

Themeparks get off easy in this regard because the developer is always in control of the rope pulling you forward, and they decide what is available to you day one, day one hundred, and ultimately on your last day. On the other hand a sandbox by design does not have such a rope, but rather multiple points-of-interest that server to motivate and influence, but never force, player behavior.

DarkFall has not always had the smoothest progression path, and while improved today it still has a ways to go before it’s fully there. Beyond the differences in control and UI, I believe the initial pacing of the game is currently solid. Skill gain from 1-50 is IMO relatively fast for most skills, and a skill at 50 is generally ‘good enough’. In relatively short order (10 hours?) you can be well on your way to establishing your preferred method of combat (melee/archery/magic), and in that time the average player should be comfortable with the controls, immediate environment, and basic concepts of the game. You certainly won’t be a master at anything, but your character should begin to establish an identity and purpose (being a part of a clan at this point will of course help in both regards, but motivated solo players should be fine).

In-game this means exploring and finding local mob spawns that are a good source of skill and loot gain, building up your bank, and learning the basics of crafting, PvE, and PvP (likely from getting attacked) combat. If you are part of a clan at this point you are likely still focusing more on PvE than PvP, with the major difference being that you are hunting mobs around your clan’s current location rather than a starter city, perhaps even in small groups. You can still join in on any PvP runs (with the knowledge that you will likely be going up against superior enemies and 1v1 situations will result in death, so just play your part and help out rather then trying to play the spearhead of any attack), and you will be included in major events such as sieges or large raids.

At some point later down the road (30-40 hours?), player motivation and gameplay should shift from discovery and growth to role execution. At this point your core skills should be around 75 or above, your secondary skills should be coming along, and you should have a solid understanding of most in-game mechanics and happenings. Your in-game time should be shifting away from focused skill gain to doing and reacting to what is happening around you (which is why a clan is key for all but the most self-motivated individuals), and through those actions your skills will continue to increase more ‘naturally’.

In-game this means you are now hunting mobs with a more focused goal (enchanting mats, gold for a specific skill/goal, rank 40+ weapons), and really working on your PvP skills, both group and solo. You should be able to hold your own in most combat situations (although power-gamers will still dominate you), and most importantly that initial rush and panic will be controlled.

The final ‘phase’ in a sandbox is true role pursuit and acceptance. Whether this means being a powerful economic force, a name to be fears on the battlefield, a regarded tactician, or simply a local area menace, you should have SOME purpose other than more gold/skills. Your character should be ‘done’ in most areas, with perhaps some secondary goals that serve more as a side project than a true need.

In-game this is where a sandbox shines, because the number of options and possibilities should be great, and the ability to change direction should be possible without a complete re-roll. This is also the stage of the game where upcoming additions and changes affect you most, and you should be heavily involved (directly or otherwise) in the ‘end-game’ of politics, city warfare, and empire building. The amount of content here should be nearly endless, as things such as alliances and military power change almost daily. Your allies today might be your enemy tomorrow and vice versa.

It’s this final phase that is both the major strength and current weakness of DarkFall. On the one hand, it deserves credit for having such a solid and functional end-game this early in its MMO life. That you want to and can siege a city without the server blowing up is more of an accomplishment then you might think, considering MMO history like SB (SB.exe), AoC (instanced city fails), WAR (the whole endgame), WoW (world PvP and Wintergrasp fails), Aion (fortresses). At the same time, clearly some issues exist, such as OP AoE magic, 6 hour sieges, ships and warhulk functionality, etc. And compared to other sandbox titles such as UO (pre-tram) and EVE, DarkFall is lacking the true depth those titles features in areas such as economic balance and possibility, non-combat influence/power, and RP/fluff possibilities (think player-made orc clans in UO).

The good news is that because of it’s solid base, developer time can and is being focused on adding and expending those areas rather than continually trying to get the core working, so while DarkFall might not be the game for you right now Mr. Exclusive Crafter Economy guy, it should/will be at some point ‘soon’, and when you do join up, you’ll have a lot of other options to entertain you as well.

(DarkFall-related post disclaimer/reminder. If you click the image link near the top-right of this page and buy a DarkFall account, I get paid 20% of the client cost. If you believe this taints my views and reporting on DarkFall, your opinion is wrong.)

http://www.agony-unleashed.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewforum.php?2

First off – It doesn’t matter what you do in eve, if you undock in a ship then you need to do this course.

Eve is not an easy place, and whether you intend to pvp or not, you need to have a basic understanding of the how’s and what not’s.

I did this course for the intent of learning some pvp basics and to enable myself to go on more advanced roams with Agony.

A good course, vent instructors where easy to hear and understand – BTW the info on vent settings are excellent for all vent users check them out.

Had some vent issues myself as i had just suffered from a dead pc and was on a borrowed pc, vista and vent…

Also some people need to understand what battlecoms and ——————– mean! STFU

Anyways the roam started off with us being titan bridged into a system where an agony BS gang had started a fight, wow nice way to start it lol.

Unfortunately the fight we entered had dissipated and when we finally got there the only kill we gleaned from it was this one – http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=8478005

We returned to Stakmon, mostly we arrived there via pod express.

After this we discussed what happened, at this stage some people left and we split from the Alumni gang.

This particular course day had been a treat, 50 students and near 100 alumni in fleet!

We regrouped and eager for blood when went looking for more.

http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=8479827

http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=8479850

http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=8479851

http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=8479831

http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=8479838

Over the course i lost 3 punishers and 2 pods

Well worth it and i shall return when i come out from my wormhole next

I’m curious what most of my resto druid brethren out there do with their dual specs.  I currently run with my primary PvE spec and a more PvP oriented spec that I don’t really use very often.

Do most of you run with 2 resto specs?  Do you use a Boomkin or tank spec?  I would love to hear suggestions.  Any suggestions to my main spec is also welcome.

So as the title suggests i got killed in a wormhole.

Had been chatting on C+P ingame channel and Admiral John advised he had some fun in a WH and asked did anyone want to join, seeing as how i hadn’t gotten an entrance into my own WH yet i agreed as it was only 4 jumps away.

http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=8385616

I got slapped but not podded by the hawk and myrmidon, but somehow after a conversation opened by the wormhole occupants i received the cost of my punisher back – nice.

Ah yes, the first kill.

Not mind you my first kill ever on TQ and certainly not the first on Sisi.

http://anr.griefwatch.net/?p=details&kill=29

Nothing spectacular, only a coercer, same as before, he aggressed and he failed, he assumed a destroyer was better than a frigate! Maybe if properly fitted.

Turns out he was an alt and his main convo’d me and expressed his respect at my punishers ‘resilience’

———————————

So i continued on my shooting endeavours till this happened.

http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=8264141

I entered a belt and found a harby on top of me, i wasn’t worried about his guns or his drones tbh and it was probably gonna be a stalemate, until the Cane landed 20km out and targetted me.

Figuring it was time to bail i attempted to make the distance to break the scrambler lock and flee – but unfortunately this gave the harby enough range and left me with less angular velocity – pop :/

So it took me about 24 hours to decide to tell Oberon Fleet i was leaving, so i did, still talk to them often though.

Once roles revoke timer had passed i applied for ANR – absolutely No retreat – as a newly free’d from retribution player i sought out lowsec in my punisher, trouble soon folled in the form of a ferox.

I was engaged by the ferox so i started tight orbit, scrammed and webbed, he wasn’t going anywhere, he released some t1 drones (lmao) which i quickly popped and continued to hole the ferox when tragedy struck – he called a friend in a harbinger to his aid, the harbinger landed 20km out and started nailing me, i had to leave with the ferox at 25% structure….

Warped to a safe and waited my timer, this guy in the ferox actually started to smacktalk after i said GF in local!

I laughed in hid face and his mate in the harbinger did too!

If i had t2 drones you’d be dead, if i had webs you’d be dead- I pointed out the 2 important parts, he started the fight and he didn’t have what he needed to take me.

So when my timer finished i said my goodbyes to his mate in the harbinger and continued on…

A few moments after that i got my acceptance to ANR as Fivetide had arrived in late.