One down, one to go

Blizzard has decided NOT to reset honor upon release of the expansion. While this was obviously not my chief problem with the PVP changes, it was something that would have royally pissed me off had they not announced that arena points would be required for all honor rewards.

As far as I know, however, they will still be forcing arenas for blue main set PVP gear. So I'm not as pleased about this as I could be, but it's better than nothing. I can at least grab, like, bracers or whatever to supplement what I can get from that PVE thing.

Herbstravaganza

I have decided that, rather than pick up alchemy on Ahami, I will take inscription. This is partly because inscription looks pretty neat and fun, and partly because my guild has a ton of alchemists — while I'm sure some of the others will pick up inscription also, it'll still be more helpful to the guild, I think, if I picked that up and leveled it first.

Besides, if I do alchemy on my death knight, then I can use that as a bank toon and potion/transmutation factory if I end up hating death knights. I plan to hit at least 60 before I make a final decision, which should put me high enough to max out alchemy.

Anyway, Anna of Too Many Annas made a quick and handy list of needed herbs for leveling inscription, and I've taken a nice break from leveling/Hellfire Peninsula (still hate it, though I have not yet been smacked by the Fel Reaver this time around) to gather what I need.

I'm currently cruising between Desolace and Dustwallow Marsh to gather the third step's herbs; I already have all of the lower level herbs I need, and quite a few extra for alchemy/donating to the guild bank/profit. Considering how the prices have risen on VeCo just since the first time I went through these places, I highly recommend all herbalists gather and hoard herbs until the expansion is released, then sell them for mad moneys if you're not picking up inscription.

These choices are, of course, subject to change.

KITTY!

Updated taming plan for Wrath of the Lich King: Ideale will get two more stable slots. One will have a tanking pet, probably a rhino, or whatever else is good for that PVE thing (yes, I will call it that forever). I already have Gutripper, so when Blizz stops sucking and I can switch back to PVP, I will still have a pet with awesome PVP abilities. Which leaves me open to fill that third slot with ... a kitty, of course. Duh.

I've had an idea of which kitty I wanted for quite some time now, but I wasn't positive until I saw this.

ZOMG KITTY!!!

(Yes, I'm completely aware that three kitties on one hunter is stupid. Which is why I am happy to point out that Loque’nahak* is a spirit beast. And apparently spirit beasts have something called spirit strike, although I am not sure. Either way, not technically, really a cat, but still a kitty. Also, I don't care, because I loves the kittehs.)

* Laque'nahak being the tamable, presumably much smaller version of the awesome looking Har'koa in BRK's screenshot, by the way. I know Har'koa's not tamable. Alas.

The zhevra has landed

Had to download Firefox to do it (seriously, Blizzard, please make your site work in Safari), and it took some synchronizing with the roommate (which actually took some effort, since as how our schedules are literally exactly opposite) but Ahami finally got her zhevra mount. And then she had to run all the way to Sen'jin Village to train her riding skill 'cause I had never done it and the poopface in Orgrimmar was, like, too good to talk to her or something. Poopface.

But a zhevra! And it's fast! And it came with two spare hooves (could have used those back at level 11, Mr. Nesingwary, but thanks for the kindness). I swear.

Pics of the zhevra and the hilarious letter that came with it eventually. Also finally took pics of the talbuk. Those will come eventually, too.

This PVE thing

So I decided that, since I plan to focus on this PVE thing in the expansion until Blizz removes its collective head from its collective ass, I ought to start doing instances so that I could get in the experience. I tried on Ideale a few times yesterday and got nothing (thanks, huntards), so I decided to try on Ahami — people are always harassing me to heal. Got into three groups, one with alts from a top guild and me, and ran Ramps twice and Blood Furnace once.

Holy moly, healing five-man instances is SO EASY. Compared to PVP, it was actually boring. The boss fights were fun and challenging, but the rest? Blah.

I did lose the ele shaman twice in the Blood Furnace run, but considering that I got feared and I was a little low for it (dinged 61 in the instance), I think I did okay. Tank hit half health once.

Seriously, though, if you've never healed an instance before, go heal Arathi Basin or something a few times and it'll be cake.

I hope raid healing is more exciting. :-/

Last post on arenas

I think the worst part about this is the developers KNOW that people will simply AFK for arena points. They don't care, because this falsely boosts arena participation, and many of the arena players don't care because it will boost their ratings (although the serious arena players probably don't want to face dancing AFKers any more than the serious battleground players do).

Well, screw that. I love World of Warcraft and I love my characters and the time I put into them, and I love my friends and my guild and how awesome they are. I'm not going to let this ruin things for me yet.

And I'm sure as hell not going to participate, either. I'm not going to be forced into propping up some 12-year-old's ego. I will NOT be stepping foot into the arenas.

I'm going to be finding a new niche in the expansion. I will level Ideale up to 80 and see what it's like. Maybe I'll try some PVE — the few times I've done instances with guildies, it has actually been fun, I guess, and with so many 10-man raids in the expansion, maybe I'll have fun with that. I'll give it a shot. Or maybe I'll spend my time gathering and crafting. I really enjoy that aspect of the game.

I will leave Ahami at 70 at first — and if 80 sucks, I can still play the battlegrounds without getting one-shotted over and over. And I can level my other toons to 60 and 70 and stop them there, too. If 80 is okay, I can drag Ahami up to heal. Will I ever have more than two 80s? Probably not, if they don't fix the PVP — I simply refuse to do arenas, and since I can play the battlegrounds at 60 and 70 without them, my toons will stop there.

And if, after a few months of that, I get bored? If world PVP absolutely SUCKS with level 80 quest greens? If I get sick of being constantly ganked? I am on a PVP server, and since this is where my friends are, I'm not going to pay to transfer to PVE and I'm certainly not going to bother rerolling. I'll just cancel, if that happens, and give Warhammer a whirl. I hear they have real PVP over there, and I can still have kitties. Even if there's no Mac version by then, there'll be some sort of hack that'll let me play on a decent OS, I'm sure.

Sidenote: Grats, Blizzard, on making me actually consider this — I had absolutely no intention or interest in trying Warhammer until now. Not like losing one of 8 million subscribers actually matters, though. /bitter

And I'm done. No more on the topic. Back to the usual pointless rambling about cats virtual and real, and wishing I was still excited over the expansion like I was a week ago.

Okay, seriously, no more bitter.

More on the arena requirement

I wrote an e-mail to the Blizzard support staff and copied it to the General Discussion forum. Unfortunately, I have not received a response to either; as I can only read the beta forums and not participate on them, I was unable to put this somewhere that a blue might actually read it — the threads about this on other forums have been ignored, probably because GMs outside of the beta forums have no power to comment on game changes in future releases.

Here's what I wrote:

So battleground players are going to be forced to do arena in order to purchase the basic, blue PVP gear? Okay. But to make it fair, raiders should be forced to do arena for their off-set pieces, and there should be awesome arena epics available only with badges earned from raiding. I could go for that — spread the misery around!

Or, alternatively, Blizzard could implement a system that actually addresses battleground AFK problems instead of simply spreading them to the arenas.

1. Bring back the pre-BC battleground ranking system. Have a set of gear earned purely through this. Then players will not be able to AFK their way to epics in the battlegrounds. Make the gear rewards from this require battleground participation only.

2. Remove honor point requirements from arena gear. Then players will not HAVE to AFK in Alterac Valley just to get their off-set arena pieces.

The way the beta gear system is looking right now, a lot of us battleground-only PVPers will just be AFK dancing our way to PVP blues by losing 10 arena games a week, and there will still be hardcore arena addicts AFKing in AV for the honor they need to buy their pieces. This doesn't actually solve the AFK problem, it just ensures that it becomes a problem for arena as well as the battlegrounds.

I've heard a lot of people say that the pre-BC rank system was really hard. Well, bring it on. I don't mind hard. I do mind being forced to duel in a box just to get the most basic gear I need (blue gear, no less, not even epics!) just so that I can survive for more than two seconds in the battlegrounds. As it stands right now, I am debating just not buying the expansion and staying permanently in the 70 bracket; achievements and new zones would be fun, but all there would be for me to do at level 80 would be to level another toon or dance around in a pretty dress in arenas until I get my blue set. Not interested, honestly.

Forcing battleground PVPers to duel is not going to solve the problems with the battlegrounds, nor is forcing arena players to earn honor for their off-set pieces. All it does is encourage AFK, because who is going to do more than the bare minimum if they are forced to do something they don't like in the first place, just to be able to play the part of the game they do like?

Unfortunately, from Kalgan's responses to complaints in the beta forums, it appears that the developers do not see the problem. They see PVP as PVP, whether it takes place in the battlegrounds or the arenas.

The problem that most of us battleground junkies are having (and I will point out here that there are people who love both battlegrounds and arenas) is that battleground PVP is very different than arenas. They have different feels — objective-based, epic battles versus no-holds-barred death matches — and attract different kinds of people. Some enjoy being part of a large team working toward a goal; others want to test their abilities versus a similar team, figure out the weaknesses of a comp and how to exploit them, or figure out their own weaknesses and how to neutralize them. Some like both.

I, personally, prefer battlegrounds. I play support classes (hunter and shaman) and I'm fine with that. I will never be the hero of a battle. I also like the strategy involved in a well-played battleground; I like how the same thing doesn't work every time; I like the ingenuity required to succeed against a team that outgears and outmans you. I'm not in the least bit interested in small-scale death matches; there's a reason Alterac Valley, Arathi Basin and world PVP are my preferred forms of entertainment.

I know that there are players who live and breathe the arenas, and who are entirely uninterested in the battlegrounds. They want to test their skills, reflexes and ideas in small-scale matches. They have no interest in the battlegrounds — flag capping and tower protecting holds no appeal to them. And I think it is equally unfair to require honor points and battleground marks for these players to get their off-set pieces, just as I think it's unfair to require battleground players to do arena for their sets.

I wish that the developers understood this. Requiring arena for battleground gear is not going to make people try harder for it. It's just going to encourage AFKs in the arenas, making arena ratings and epics meaningless — no matter how hard you work for your arena gear, people will never believe that you didn't just luck out and face AFK teams each week, just as those who work hard for their battleground gear now are written off as AFKers with welfare epics. Instead of fixing battlegrounds, it will ruin arena.

The best way to fix the battlegrounds is to FIX THE BATTLEGROUNDS. Whether this means revamping honor entirely, instituting bans for AFKs, or removing the honor system altogether and reinstating the old battleground ranking system or creating an entirely new system based on HKs, flag/tower caps, and other battleground objectives, FIX THE BATTLEGROUNDS.

Don't alienate a huge portion of the PVP player base just to shut up a few elitists who feel that battleground gear somehow devalues what they raided or arenaed for. Because that's exactly what this move is doing. I know plenty of people who didn't give Warhammer a ghost of a thought until this was announced — and many of them have now canceled their WoW accounts and pre-orders and switched (or so they say).

We're not even asking for epic gear. All we want is basic gear with enough stamina and resilience for us to survive in the battlegrounds and world PVP long enough to be of value.

But unfortunately, the GMs and developers are ignoring all of the threads about this topic in the general and suggestion forums, and those of us who chose not to request a beta invite cannot post to the beta forums where they are paying attention. Well, hopefully by the time I reach 80 the backlash will have reversed this. If not, I'm not sure what I will be doing after I hit the level cap. Or if I'll even be moving past 70 at all.

And with this, I lose all interest in the expansion

MMO Champion has a post detailing the Wrath of the Lich King PVP gear for level 80.

Here is the cost for the basic blue Savage Gladiator gear:

Chest - 0 AR - 6000 HP and 350 AP
Hands - 0 AR - 3600 HP and 200 AP
Head - 0 AR - 6000 HP and 350 AP
Legs - 0 AR - 6000 HP and 350 AP
Shoulder - 0 AR - 4800 and 275 AP
MH Weapons - 0 AR - 8400 HP and 475 AP
OH Weapons & Items - 0 AR - 3600 HP and 200 AP
Shields - 0 AR - 6000 HP and 350 AP
2H Weapons - 0 AR - 12000 HP and 700 AP
Caster 1H Weapons - 0 AR - 10000 HP and 575 AP
Ranged Weapon - 0 AR - 12000 HP and 700 AP
Throwing Weapon - 0 AR - 3200 HP and 175 AP
Wands & Relics - - 0 AR - 3200 HP and 175 AP

See the AP cost? That's arena points.

To get the basic blue PVP set — the equivalent of the blue set that was purchasable for PVE rep in the Burning Crusade — players will have to actually PVP and earn honor. This is fantastic. Players will also have to do arena.

That freaking sucks.

Basically, in order to be BARELY competitive in the battlegrounds — the only part of WoW that I like other than rep grinding — I have to do arenas, something that I am not even remotely interested in doing. And considering the gap between the Savage Gladiator gear and the Deadly Gladiator gear, I will still get roflstomped.

Um, if I wanted to duel, I'd go hang out outside of Orgrimmar. Or buy "Tekken." That way I can trash-talk my roommate (and vice versa) while we play and I don't have to spend $15 a month on it.

You know what? I have said since the first day I entered a battleground to whiners saying, "Just lose so I can get my marks" that if you don't want to do battlegrounds, don't do them. No one's making you. If you're not going to PVP, why bother getting PVP gear?

Well, as far as I am concerned, Blizzard is requiring me to arena in order to do the one part of the game I like. And you know what? I'm not going to shuffle for the man like a good little casual player just so the arena elitists can strut around in their epics. I fully plan to find a partner each week and dance my way to a loss in 10 games as fast as possible. Naked. And if the arena players who whined about how battleground PVPers getting access to outdated arena gear was devaluing their accomplishments don't like it, tough. They're the ones who caused this epic bullshit in the first place, and if that means that they get their fun taken away? Well, they took away mine, so they can suck it.

You want to whine about welfare epics? See who really has the welfare epics when you earn your 2200 rating versus 2 good teams and 8 teams of naked dancers every week — because if the forums are any indication, there is a huge chunk of PVPers who don't want to arena and will probably lose their way to blues rather than participate.

And if it sucks too bad? Well, I'll cancel my WoW account. Because this is actually game-breaking for me. I just wish I'd known this was coming before I bothered investing time and $15 a month on my toons, dragged my real life friends over, and made friends in game. I'd have saved myself a lot of frustration.

Why I WANT AV twinks

My battlegroup has AV issues. Big ones. When I was running Ide through the 51-60 bracket, I was like, "I don't get why everyone complains about Alterac Valley. I don't see any problems!" And then I hit the 61-70 bracket and was like, "Oh."

Running Ahami through AV while waiting for her mount to come in has netted the same reaction. The 51-60 bracket of AV is just so. Much. Better. for Horde on Nightfall.

1. People defend. Every single battle I've been in, at least 5-10 people head for Tower Point and Drek to meet the Alliance who slip through the cracks.

2. Our offense shuts down their offense. None of this ride-right-by bullshit. No, someone tries that crap with us, and they're dead before they can dismount.

3. Towers that are lost are quickly recapped. I swear to God, I do not understand how people forget this between 60 and 61, but they do. (Although, considering I've seen the same people in AV the week and a half I've been chilling there with Ahami, maybe they're the only ones who know how and everyone else moves on.)

4. People actually want to be there. At 70, AV becomes an honor/mark grind, apparently. People don't care about winning or losing as long as the can get in and out as fast as possible. The few times I've had fun in the 70 AV was when both sides were dominated by VeCo PVP guilds and it ends up being a brawl instead of a race. At the 51-60 bracket, with its incredibly long queue times, people actually WANT to be there. We talk strategy, we encourage each other, and so on.

At 70, AV is a chore, and I can't imagine that changing at 80. But at 60, AV is unbelievably fun, even when we lose bad, and I want to have a couple of my favorite classes available for when I just can't take the craptacularness of 70 battlegrounds anymore.

Twink-o-rama

I've been doing a bit of poking around on making an AV twink. There's not a lot out there as, unsurprisingly, most twinks stay in the 19 or 29 brackets. Personally, I don't think that sounds like fun — what's the point of having so much health that there's absolutely no risk of failure on your part? What's the point of being able to one-shot other players? No fun, I tell you. At least at level 60, the gap is closer. (Plus I HATE going up against twinks on my non-twink toons in the lowbie brackets. It takes all the fun out of the battlegrounds. Why would I do that to other people?)

Besides, with my desire to get the Conqueror title for Ideale, at least, and probably Ahami as well, I don't want to be wasting too much time running Warsong Gulch or Arathi Basin on anyone else or running AV past exalted on the two of them — I'll just be running the bgs for marks on my other characters, anyway. A 60 twink rather than a 59 makes more sense, especially since it opens up a whole new level of gear options.

So I will be making two level 60 twinks, one hunter and one shaman (which fills five of my VeCo slots with hunters and shamans...). I haven't done much work on them and probably won't until after I get Ide and Ahami to 80, but I wanted to at least do some research, and figured I'd share what I found.

Gear: The best gear outside the PVP stuff is, of course, from Hellfire Ramparts, and there are several drops for both hunters and shamans because Outland loves us. I made myself a wishlist. I plan to bribe my friends or perhaps total strangers into running me through Ramparts as soon as I can enter, which is I believe at level 55. There is also some excellent gear for other classes — if you, too, want to make an AV twink, check out the WoWWiki loot table. I looked at some of the drops from the older instances, but it seems like at this level, Ramps, crafting and PVP would supply better gear than anything that drops in old Azeroth.

There are some quest rewards from Outland that I want, but I have not done enough research there yet. I do intend to pick up Bladefist's Breadth for Kresha and Vengeance of the Illidari for Mayari. I want to avoid the quests as much as possible, though, to avoid leveling more than intended.

More important to me is the PVP-Epic gear, because that will be providing the bulk of my main gear, and filling in any holes left by unacquired loot and crafted gear. Some of the faction-based PVP rewards look like nice additions — I'm going to want to do AB and WSG on the way so I have the marks I need for that.

And of course, a twink has no need of gathering professions (though I have and will keep double-gathering on both until the 50s because hey, money and crafting mats).

Engineering seems like a must for Kresha for the bullets alone — Fel Iron Shells only require level 57, meaning that if I can get Kresha a decent gun, I can supply much better ammo than I could possibly buy (or use) at 60. And the High Warlord's Street Sweeper looks like a really good candidate. The available crafted goggles aren't quite as good as the Epic PVP helm, but the Gnomish Battle Goggles are taught by a trainer (i.e., cheap and easy to get the know-how) and would be a pretty decent substitute while filling out the rest of the PVP set.

Engineering is an option for Mayari as well, but I'm not sure. And I'm not sure about the second profession for either — leatherworking crafted items seem fairly unimpressive at first glance and with Onashne already training (and powerleveling) leatherworking, it's not like I need the kits or anything. Jewelcrafting offers some handy BOP trinkets, but the PVP trinket will fill one slot for each and Bladefist's Breadth and Vengeance of the Illidari seem like better options for the second slot. I really don't want to pay to level enchanting again, honestly. Inscription might be an option — in fact, just the ability to supply Daj with scrolls for enchantments would make it worth it — it would be a heck of a money maker.

I guess with professions, I just need to do more research.