Morning Warsong Gulch, Better PVP Experience

This morning, I had woken up a little later than normal, which meant that I had a little less time to play before leaving for work. I had already gotten my warlock to Kalimdor to start questing in Darkshore and working on the Loremaster of Kalimdor achievement, but I didn't want to start that process if I wouldn't be able to make significant progress on those quests.

Instead, I hopped on my now level 85 Retribution Paladin for some random battlegrounds, and a lot of mining in Pandaria while waiting on the queue. After a fair amount of farming for Ghost Iron, I was worried that the queue wouldn't pop before I would run out of time. No sooner did that thought cross my mind, I was in and ready to deliver righteous justice in the name of the Alliance.



Getting into the group, I was so thankful to see not one, not two, but three healers supporting our group. This was a welcomed sight because in my previous queues there were no other healers, while the horde would be the ones with the support. This might have contributed to my bad experiences, but at the same time in previous battlegrounds we didn't have healers and still did fine. At any rate, I was ready to play with and around my team, and I wanted to focus on sticking with other people to accomplish our objective.

It helped that a few other players on the team were helping to call out directions which helped the team focus our efforts. We stuck together well, and whether it was due to a gear advantage or a numbers advantage, we were able to pick off stragglers, and isolate their flag carrier in most instances to win with an easy 2-0 capture differential. I felt good dealing damage, helping to keep my teammates alive in a pinch. There was one instance where I went in with a rogue to take out the enemy flag carrier, and while we were outnumbered, I was able to take their attention and keep the rogue alive while we took back our flag.

It was a fun time, and it reminded me why I enjoy battlegrounds so much. I am wondering how the changes that have been made will effect my enjoyment of battlegrounds when I play the WoW classic version. Since in the original version of Warsong Gulch there was not time limit, there were no damage and healing debuffs by carrying the flag, and the graveyards were in a different spot. I'll need to make sure I have the time to devote to potentially longer matches for sure.

Classic WoW Beta Stress Test Part 2

Last night I was able to log in during the second round of the Classic WoW Beta Stress Test. My main goal with my play time last night was to create some more of the characters I intend to play if I get the chance to play in the beta, and to see if I can even log in.

I got into a 3800+ queue, and it said that it would take about a half an hour to enter the realm, but it seemed like it only took about 10 - 15 minutes. I didn't pay too close attention, but I did feel like the wait was not too long. Once in the real test would be to see if I'd be able to log in to the dwarf that I had already made last week. The first attempt failed, so I created a human to see if logging into a different zone would help. I was able to log in without a problem, and I was surprised by how few people there were in the starting zone. There were still plenty of people, don't get me wrong, but since the level cap had been raised to level 10, the starting zone was less congested compared to the screenshots I had seen from last week.

I didn't really play much on the human, and swapped to the dwarf. I had logged off in the Gurubashi arena last week, and upon logging in, I didn't see anyone, so I hearthed back to the starting zone. Since my dwarf is only level 2, I want to try getting to a higher level before trekking back to Stranglethorn. I will definitely park an alt in the area, but I have low hopes of ever getting the chest from the middle of the arena anytime soon.

I didn't have very much time to play last night, but I was able to get online this morning. When I played this morning, my goal was to test out how macros and keybindings could work on my paladin. I tried out using a mousewheel keybind for casting my Devotion Aura. The idea is that by using the mousewheel, I can quickly swap between auras in a pinch. My thought was that a quick swap to Concentration Aura would help my be able to cast heals with less pushback when my health was low.

I also tested equipping a one handed weapon and a shield macro, and I also tried binding that to my mousewheel. If I need some extra defense that might be a useful option. The main testing I was doing was to see how Seal of Righteousness behaved with one handed weapons versus two handed weapons. It seems like it does about twice as much damage per hit with a two handed weapon. I had a hunch that the faster weapon would be more procs and would out pace the two hander, but it looks like in most cases the two hander will be more damage. I plan on doing more math on this in future testing. To see how fast the weapon would need to be to pull ahead.

I got to level four just grinding mobs. I didn't want to do any quests, so I can save that for when the game launches, and I mainly wanted to see what I could handle as far as level disparity. Grinding was a slow go for me, but I wasn't really rushing. I did find that the mobs dropped some useful loot for vendoring and getting enough silver for training, If the starting zones are congested early on, I might just grind to until I can train professions as a way of leveling.

All in all the stress test was smooth and fun. I'm looking forward to more bite sized testing as the beta continues. 

I am not good at PVP

This morning, I tried my hand at some battlegrounds on my level 84 ret paladin. I had played some over the weekend, and I had some fun playing as ret, since I could do damage and heal my team. Today was not as much fun.


In general, it was difficult for my teams to get very much momentum as the horde were much better at being grouped, focusing down a target, and they wiped the floor with us. Our team was all over the place. People (me included) running in haphazardly without the group, and we got picked off so easily.

I queued as a healer to see how that played out, and let's just say that entering a battleground is not the right time to situate one's action bars for pvp healing. I've played a holy paladin for years, but having rarely pvped since cata, I was very unprepared.

I will keep trying to pvp, as that is something I am looking forward to when classic comes out. I'm going to try to focus on helping my team coordinate better, so that we aren't just lambs to the slaughter. Fingers crossed.

At the very least, it gives me time to farm some Ghost Iron.

Questing in the Wetlands

Today I quested through the Wetlands from start to finish to complete the Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms achievement. It took about two and a half hours, and I had fun working my way through the zone.



It started with some investigation in the seismic activity near where the former Stonewrought Dam broke and let the loch pour into the marsh lands. There were some threshers who were relocated and some water elementals causing a ruckus for the geologists. This section of the zone ended with a dispatching of a nearby Dark Iron camp.


From there it was off to Menethil Harbor to aid the townsfolk as they are dealing with the aftermath of the flood caused by Deathwing. There were some more Dark Irons, saving kids from sharks, retrieving stolen treasures from nearby murlocs, and helping to release the spirits of fallen Kul Tiran sailors. This ended with the turn in of a cursed item to a priest who reveals that the original quest giver had been dead for sometime, but he didn't offer much of an explanation. Twas a spooky ending, and a little unsatisfying. Kind of like a movie where at the end you realize it was all a dream.

From there I helped out some engineer collect some raptor eggs, and a skinner who I helped gather some more croclisk skins including a rare skin. The skinner had lost his home in the flood, and was trying g to get as many crockilisk skins as he could to earn enough for his family to start anew. The rare skin from the biggest crockilosk was going to help him accomplish that goal. Once again there were more dark iron dwarves, but this time they are using gnolls to steal Ironforge gold and they were trapping them as hostages. Rescuing the gnolls was tough at first because of you killed a dark iron a gnoll was fighting it would come after you.

From helping the engineer the next stage of the zone led to a group of Explorers League members who were finding the dinosaur fossils had come to life, and there were angry earth elementals to boot. After helping to gather some bones and tools, the focused shifted to a near by Dragonmaw orc camp. The Dragonmaws show up again in the following Night Elf section of the zone as you help to rescue some black dragon whelps. This seemed like an interesting tie into the bigger story of the Cataclysm expansion with these orca and their relationship with different types of dragons. I thought this could have been a nice tie into visiting Grim Batol which is near the border of the zone between The Wetlands and the Twilight Highlands.

There were no follow up quests, however, and it was on to Thandol Span to help Thargas Anvilmar thwart the ascending Dark Iron incursion of Twilight Cultist. It ends with a lead up that suggests an epic showdown with the leader of the cultists, but it ends pretty abruptly without much of an epic payoff. I would have liked a more epic battle maybe or more of a lead up about who the big bad cultist leader was. Or even more time with Anvilmar. They elude to his prior history working with King Varian, but not much else. I mean he’s the descendant of a High King of the dwarves for crying out loud.

The zone overall was fun, and it flowed nicely from one place to the other. I would have liked to have some quests around Ironbeards Tomb. I was surprised they didn’t revisit that, and I would have liked more of a connection to the black dragons and the neighboring twilight highlands. Maybe something involving Cho’gall similar to the Zul’Gurub allusions in Stranglethorn.

Next I’m off to Kalimdor. I’m going to level my Void Elf Warlock through there. Looking forward to seeing how the story plays out over there. The full video of me questing through the zone is linked below.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2206697002718938&id=1242017209308617

Trying to Solo Gnomeregan, and some PVP on my Ret Paladin BFA

Now that I’ve completed the quests in Stranglethorn, my hunter had a couple of quests from the dungeon Gnomeregan that have been nagging my quest log since level 30, so I made the trek there and tried me hand at soloing the trash mobs so I could get to the dormitory and turn in the grim encrusted object. After not using my hunter pet for a lot of my leveling, I pulled out my trusty Talboc and gave it a try. Since mobs scale in dungeons now, I had to be sure to kite and use my pet to take the brunt. I died a couple of times, but eventually made it to the point where I could complete the quest. There was a follow up quest in Ironforge, so I took that as an opportunity to get the heck out of there.

After the quest turn in, it was off to the Wetlands. I run from Thelsemar, and when I came to a fork in the road I chose the road less traveled. It was between safely going through the Algaz tunnel, or make a jump for it and hopefully time disengage before hitting the ground. I jumped, and because I didn’t get far enough from the side of the cliff I disengaged too soon and my screen went gray. I didn’t feel like running all the way to my corpse so Rez sickness it was, and I logged out at the first quest hub in the zone. 

Then the question was what to do now. I haven’t pvped on my human paladin in a whil, I thought, so let’s give that a go. I mined for ghost iron while waiting on the queue, and had some fun playing ret, helping to heal, returning some flags, and capping one to boot. It reminded me of when I used to play that paladin more in Wrath of the Lich King as a twink. I twinkled at 39, 60, and 70, and had such a fun time. While I wasn’t as dominant as I was then, this time still gave me the feeling of supporting my team while delivering justice to the filthy horde.

This was especially fun because I have such fond memories of playing this paladin in battlegrounds. He was my very first character, and I loved pvping on him and dominating. Recently, though, I've been reviewing classic wow ret paladin game play, and I've realized that the paladin is meant to be more supportive. I remember when I used to play, I'd pretend to be a warrior, and I'd often forget to heal myself, and rarely would I think to heal or buff someone else.

In playing in a more supportive role, I'm enjoying that more versatile role, and I think I'm going to try playing as holy and prot in battlegrounds more, just to mix it up. Plus it'll help with group balance since it seemed like the horde always had a bunch of healers while the alliance had one if that many. Also, if I don't select healer when I queue it won't let me swap to holy before the battleground has begun, so selecting those specs will help me be more flexible.

I also enjoyed the new Warsong Gulch. The updated graphics and models looked really good, and that is probably the battleground I've played the most, so to see it all new and shiny is awesome.

Questing in Stranglethorn, Saving Booty Bay

This morning I completed the Stranglethorn Vale quests, which culminated in the defense of Booty Bay against a combined assault from the Bloodsail and Brashtide Pirates. While doing the normal killing of Bloodsails just off the southern coast of the Cape, you find that they are planning an attack. The Bloodsails on their own aren't a very formidable foe, so what is up their sleeves?

You're tasked with infiltrating their ranks by faking the death of Fleetmaster Seahorn, by killing a local cow and tossing her head around. That was a pretty funny part of the quest chain, since human pirates think all cows look alike.

Once you're in their ranks you work your way up to captain one of the three main ships in their fleet. As the captain you're able to thin out the ranks by claiming mutiny, and you sabotage their cannons, gun powder, and grog. Getting back to Booty Bay, you find the full force of the Worgen and Bloodsail pirates attacking, and after some killing and bombing you help save the day.

It's a fun quest chain, and most of the gameplay is below. The stream disconnected about half way through, but you can see the finale, which was fun times swinging from boat to boat and dropping bombs from above.

Now that I've finished with Stranglethorn, I'm moving on to the Wetlands. I'm already level 58, which means the combined quests in both Northern and Southern Stranglethorn gained me over 10 levels. I'll probably reach beyond 60 before finishing the Wetlands, and once I do that, I'll work on Kalimdor on either my Void Elf Warlock, my Kul Tiran Druid, or my Pandaren Monk. I'm leaning warlock at the moment. I haven't really played a lock for any considerable amount of time ever, so it should be fun to give the class a try.

Getting to the Gurubashi Arena

I am very excited to have access to the classic beta stress test realm today. After a stressful stress test, I was glad that I spent the evening playing Overwatch last night. The realm was offline for most of the night, and it sounded like a significant number of people had trouble logging in.

Thankfully the realms are still open until tomorrow, which means I can test out my trek to the Gurubashi Arena in the Cape of Stranglethorn Vale. I decided to try it out on a dwarf priest. Since the test realm only has a max level of 5, I wasn't interested in leveling. No, my real goal is to get a bank alt to the Gurubashi Arena to get a chance at the chest that spawns there every three hours. Vendoring the items from the chest can yield a nice chunk of gold, and since that character would primarily be in a major city working the auction house anyway, I might as well put him to good use (at least at the beginning of the server). Even if the character is only level two, if I can get lucky a couple of time when most people are asleep, I think it'll be worth it.

I found that it took just over an hour to make it all the way to the arena. The trek from the dwarf starting zone to Ironforge was no problem. I could have saved some time if I would have caught the Deeprun Tram in time. Running through Elwynn and Westfall was no problem, and my first death didn't come until I was about to leave Westfall. As I was crossing the bridge that leads into Duskwood, a high level shredder ended me life. Then a Venture Co. Drone got me as I was following the river south into Stranglethorn. I managed to die about 16 times, which meant that many corpse runs to make the incremental progress towards the arena.

I didn't see anyone else in the zone, but as the chest event is nearing there are some more level fives in the area. So I anticipate more people having this idea when the game launches in August.

What I am going to try next is the time to get to level 5, to see if it would be worth it to get to level 5 before making the run, so that I'll have a little more armor and health, as well as the ability to level trade skills, since this character will be meant to be my disenchanter.

Also, I tried to stream my numerous deaths, but the streaming capability seems only for retail.

PS. As I typing this I saw a level 5 Tauren also in the arena, so my hopes of getting the chest this morning have decreased mightily. Might get to level 5 to improve my odds this afternoon if I get the chance.

Day 2 of Streaming in Stranglethorn

Today the goal was to test out my microphone. I found an old head set in the garage, and gave it a try. The first attempt, I didn't have the headset set as the microphone and must've been using my computer mic, which was real quiet. That stream was interrupted by a renegade kitten who was climbing up my leg, so I took a break and then came back to try out the mic on the headset.

The headset showed it's age, and the result was a crackly audio. It wasn't too bad, and I could be heard more better. It was better at certain parts of the stream, so I might continue using them, but I also could stand to get a new headset anyway.

Highlights from today include falling into a really cool whirlpool formed by the Cataclysm. That part was cool because I had never seen that part of the zone before. I also found two rare spawns which is always fun. I was also lucky enough to have gotten the Grubashi Arena chest. It spawns every three hours, and I happened to be in the area right around 9. It helps that the zone is pretty empty.

Starting to Stream in Preparation for Classic WoW

I am beyond excited for the release of classic wow, and I want to try my hand at streaming as I play. Facebook seems like the easiest platform as it's already integrated into the Battle.net client.

So I'm going to stream as I try to complete the Loremaster achievement for Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. I never did all of the quests during Vanilla wow, and I've only accidentally done the quests since the Cataclysm. So my goal is to complete the achievement before I venture back in time and begin questing and leveling in Classic WoW. I'm got the Cape of Stranglethorn and Wetlands left on Eastern Kingdoms, and Kalimdor is completely undone.

I'll post all of the streams to Sevo's WoW Time on Facebook , and I'll try to keep up with this blog as it goes.

This first video is just a test of me trying to see how the tool works trying to take down some orcs. It ends with an epic fail on disengage in an orc cave, and in hindsight Feign Death would have been helpful.





I'm looking forward to playing with ya'll