Battle In Alterac Valley 11/20/09

The daily battleground today was Alterac Valley. I did it on Wranngar and we won the second one I was in. I ended up fighting in 20 AV's, 10 wins and 10 losses. The new big thing now seems to be The Alterac Blitz. The only problem with that is the people saying "STRAIGHT TO DREK, DON'T STOP FOR ANYTHING" aren't bothering to check and see if we have a tank that can tank Drek at 200% health plus 4 Warmasters and 2 Frostwolves, and healers that can keep him alive, so half the time we get there and can't do anything. That was the case a few times today. We didn't necessarily lose those battles, we just didn't Blitz.

We had the usual problems of fighting in a battleground on it's holiday weekend, the weekend warriors and twice the AFK. People are starting to take an interest in reporting the AFK again it seems, maybe it is because they are AFK'd right out of the battleground after a minute.

We did have a couple wins on reinforcements and those were nice. Those were long battles with a lot of fighting and a lot of kills :). We pushed the Horde back from SPGY to SHGY then took SHGY in one reinforcement battle. I don't usually recommend taking SHGY but in this battle it was Ok because we were winning on reinforcements anyway. I got a lot of kills in that battle and another one. In the reinforcement battles we had to pile 8-10 people into IBT and TP to keep them. The Horde never go to take a tower back with just a couple, they always group up so they figure they will have anyone there outnumbered by at least 2 to 1. We surprised them a few times :). They don't even go to take a mine back unless there are at least 3 of them because they figure it was taken by 1 Alliance. I only got about 700 kills tonight in the battles I was in but I had a lot of fun.

I fought in 2 Wintergrasp battles. I should say I was in 2 Wintergrasp battles, I was in the first one from the start, a win, and got into the second one seconds before we lost. A mark is a mark though.

Sons of Hodir 3/8/09

I did some quests for the Sons of Hodir on Wranngar today and got my reputation from unfriendly to neutral to 1/3 of the way through friendly. I started doing daily's for them. I did a bunch of other quests along with my usual daily's and altogether made a little over 600 gold. That is good because I need it to restock my gold supplies. I have been spending but not taking anything in so I was getting low. I did all my Knights of the Ebon Blade daily's, they are: From Their Corpses, Rise!, No Fly Zone, Intelligence Gathering, Leave Our Mark, Shoot 'Em Up and Vile Like Fire!. These don't take too long with the exception of Intelligence Gathering which had me there again long after I had finished the other two quests in Onslaught Harbor. I did Overstock in the Storm Peaks for around 13 gold. I will post the names of the daily's I am doing for the Sons of Hodir tomorrow, I forgot to write them down today. Update: I have an updated post that explains how to go from hated to friendly and unlock the Sons of Hodir daily's. You can find it here Unlocking The Sons of Hodir Daily's.

The daily cooking today was Sewer Stew so I headed down to Crystalsong Forest to pick some Crystalsong Carrots. I got the 4 I needed and as I had already gone to the guild bank and got 4 Chilled Meat I cooked up my Sewer Stew on the spot using a fire someone else made. I turned that in and got a Dalaran Cooking Award, 9g93s and a Small Spice Bag which only had 2 Northern Spices in it :(. I am a little bummed out that I am down to one Dalaran Cooking Award a day now. I spent that one on 10 Northern Spices and put them in the guild bank along with the 2 I got today giving me a total of 199.

I did a lot of fishing today. I was fishing in the Underbelly, Ironforge and then Nagrand when I did the daily fishing. I was fishing in the Underbelly trying to catch a Giant Sewer Rat for the achievement I Smell A Giant Rat but mostly I want the pet. I was fishing in Ironforge trying to complete the achievement Old Ironjaw. There was a level 80 undead priest fishing there too. He was flagged because you automatically get flagged when you are in one of the opposite factions cities. I left him alone because he was only trying to get the achievement Old Ironjaw just like I was and I am going to have to go into Orgrimarr soon to complete one of the fishing quests myself. The daily fishing quest from Old Man Barlo, (40,59) at Silmyr Lake in Terokkar Forest was The One That Got Away. That had me heading over to Lake Sunspring (34,43) in Nagrand to catch the World's Largest Mudfish. It took me 21 casts but I finally got it. I turned that back in to Old Man Barlo for a Bag of Fishing Treasures. Today my Bag of Fishing Treasures had 7g49s33c, 6 Sharpened Fish Hooks and a Beautiful Glass Eye, which I sold to a vendor for 18 gold. I also did some fishing in Northrend for supplies.

Today's daily battleground was Alterac Valley. I decided not to do it because of the problem in AV lately. I did some EoS instead. I fought in 7 battles, 4 wins and 3 losses. We were doing much better in the morning. The first battle I was in I thought was going to be a loss. We were over 600 points behind when we finally started working together. We went on to win that one by less than 100 points. We won the next 3 in pretty much the same fashion, a long hard battle. Then the groups changed and we ended up with groups full of flagtards, people who go for the flag and don't worry about getting or defending towers. They will be going for the flag when we don't even have a tower to bring it to. We lost the alast 3 I was in then I decided to give up.

Tuesday 2/17/09

I got on Wranngar tonight and did the daily battleground which was Eye of the Storm. We won the first one I was in with a 4 cap so I completed my daily. I fought in 2 more, one win and one loss. In the second win we had a 3 cap throughout and were keeping enough pressure on the Horde's only base that we were able to run the flag without any interference. In the loss we had the battle started off with 13 Horde versus 5 Alliance. That was enough of an edge so we could not recover. They 4 capped right from the start but we did manage to get 2 of them back and run a couple flags. If that battle had started 15 to 15 we would have owned them again. I guess the Horde have to win once in awhile and they need an advantage like that to do it. I find the Horde hysterical to watch. If they have 2 people guarding a node and they see 3 Alliance coming they mount up and ride away, basically giving us the node, they are the biggest cowards I have ever seen. They will almost always run away unless they have the Alliance outnumbered 3 to 1. Basically that is the numbers they need to be able to take down 1 Alliance.

I did my daily quests for The Kalu'ak today too. There are 3 of them and they go pretty fast. I am getting closer to my new fishing pole, the Mastercraft Kalu'ak Fishing Pole. I get 500 rep each for a total of 1500 a day.

The daily cooking in Dalaran was Infused Mushroom Meatloaf. I headed down into the Underbelly to get some Infused Mushrooms. There were so many people doing it I considered giving up and doing my other daily's first then coming back to it but all of a sudden everyone disappeared and I was able to get my 4 Infused Mushrooms pretty quick. I cooked that up with 2 Chilled Meat and delivered it in exchange for 9g93s, a Dalaran Cooking Award and a Small Spice Bag. Today my Small Spice Bag had 3 Northern Spices and another Dalaran Cooking Award in it, not a bad haul. I got another recipe, Recipe: Mighty Rhino Dogs, today and cooked that up. I only have 6 more to go now until I get my chef's title.

Wintergrasp 2/15/09

I got back on Wranngar to see if I could get one more Wintergrasp in tonight. I got lucky, the battle was starting in 13 minutes. I joined a raid group and we all got buffed up, ate, and got ready for battle. I put out a Fish Feast which is always a big hit in the battlegrounds. When we started I believe we had 2 full raid groups, that would be 80 people total, plus another raid group started. I don't know what, if any, the limit is in Wintergrasp. We got in there and basically dominated the Horde. We were on offense meaning we were attacking the Keep and we got in pretty quick. We wiped out all the Horde that were inside trying to defend and then assaulted the Keep itself. We got in in no time and won the battle. It went really quick. The last one I was in earlier I got in while it was in progress and it lasted twice as long as this one did and we lost. I had no deaths in this battle thanks mostly to some really good healers but I got a bunch of kills and killing blows in :). I got another Stone Keeper's Shard bringing my grand total to 8.

Wranngar 1/13/09

I did the daily cooking in Dalaran on Wranngar and got another Dalaran Cooking Award which allowed me to get Recipe: Dragonfin Filet. I cooked up 4 of them because I needed it for the North Rend Gourmet Cooking Achievement and that got my cooking to 428. I also got 3 Northern Spices in my Small Spice Bag from that daily. I went and did the daily fishing and cooking in Outlands too. It only took a few minutes but I didn't get anything good. After that I went into the battlegrounds. The daily was Alterac Valley and I fought in two of them but stopped because they were taking forever to get into and were so imbalanced once I did get in. We had one battle that was 11 Allaince versus 40 Horde, a little uneven. Anyway I fought in 2 battles there and they were both losses. Then I went into the Strand of the Ancients. I fought in 3 battles in there, 1 win and 2 losses. I am still undecided how I feel about this battleground. Sometimes I really like it and other times not so much. The was one incident in the first loss we had where I died right before the Horde captured the Titan Relic and all of a sudden there was a load screen and I found myself in Westfall at the graveyard with a 15 minute deserter debuff on me. Strange thing is I queued for the battleground out of Darnassus so I am not sure how I eneded up there. I might get on a little later and do a few more battlegrounds.

Wranngar 12/30/08

I played Wranngar for a little while tonight, I did my daily cooking in Dalaran and also did the daily cooking and fishing in Shattrath & Terokkar Forest. I got my third Dalaran Cooking Award so I was able to get Recipe: Mega Mammoth Meal. It gives me +80 Attack Power and +40 Stamina for 60 minutes. After that I did 3 Alterac Valley battles, all losses. The Alliance is doing really, really bad in AV lately. It is some of the worst playing I have ever seen. In the 3 battles today we captured IBT once. That was it. One tower in 3 battles. We never even got Galv. The only thing anyone seems to be interested in is the kill 50 Horde defending Vann Accomplishment. So 7 battles later I still don't have my daily from yesterday done :(. One of the problems is the battles are starting way off balance. We are starting with 20 players and the horde are starting with 40. 10 minutes into the last battle we were only up to 27 people against 39. I think I will see how we are doing in EoS tomorrow. Hopefully we are doing better in there than we are in AV. I think part of the problem is people are busy leveling and not doing the battlegrounds. Usually when you join AV there is at least a page of battles to choose from, lately there have been one or two and yesterday none. That one took me a full 3 minutes to get into one. I always choose "First Available" when I join. AFK is completely out of control in AV too, with at least 1/4 of the people in there doing nothing at all.

Battlegrounds 11/3/08

I fought in 3 Arathi Basin battles tonight on Wranngar. It was my daily again and it took 3 to finally get a win. Not as bad as last night but not great. The first battle I got into was already in progress. I thought we were going to win that one for a little while until I realized the fact we had 3 nodes when I came in was pure luck. After watching the other players perform I knew we were going to lose. It wasn't that they were playing poorly, they just weren't thinking, an all too common problem for the Alliance. They were leaving nodes with one person to guard it if they left any at all. I saw a few occasions where there was no one at a node. They were constantly on the move trying to get another base, leaving the ones they had poorly guarded, and the Horde were coming along and taking them. The next one really wasn't any better. I got in that one at the start and we were doing ok for a little while then it was back to one or none at a node and half way through the battle the majority of our team was at the Stables trying to get that back. Rational thinking would dictate if the majority of the Horde are there then there are some Horde bases left pretty much empty. No one could be torn away from the Stables though and we lost that one too. In the last battle I was in we actually had a 5 cap going on for a minute then we held 3 and had a 4th on and off. We won that one by about 600 points. Anyway I got my daily battleground done.

Battlegrounds 10/26/08

I fought in 5 battlegrounds on Wranngar tonight, 3 wins and 2 losses. The first one I did was Warsong Gulch which was my daily. We won the first one I was in. We had 2 pretty well matched groups in there, it was a 45 minute WSG which is pretty long for WSG. Neither side seemed to be able to make any headway. The Horde captured the first flag, then we took over. We ended up winning that one 3/1. After that I did an AV. I don't know why I waste my time in there. We were doing great, had IBT, IBGY, TP and FWGY capping then some idiot decided to cap SHGY. After that is was just a long hard loss. All the Horde started rezzing at FWRH, their only GY, and came through and took FWGY, then TP, IBGY and IBT. I don't know why people keep capping SHGY but it costs us the battle almost every time they do it..... I was so disgusted after that I decided to do some Eye of the Storm. The first battle I was in we had a really good group and held 3 towers throughout while running the flag. We won that one by over 1,000 points. The second group I was in was ok, not great though, and we held 2 towers throughout and ran the flag a lot, we won that one. The last group I was in was pretty poor. They were all over the place, way too many going for the flag which the couldn't seem to get anyway, and not trying for a third node. We ended up losing one of the nodes we had so we finished up with one node about 1,400 points behind the Horde. I can't wait until the expansion comes out to fight in the new PvP areas they have. I also want to get Wranngar out of this battlegroup and into another one.

Battlegrounds 10/25/08

I only had time to do a few battlegrounds tonight. The daily was Warsong Gulch which we won on the second battle I was in. I also did 2 AV's, one win and one loss. I did them on Wranngar. I got in the first WSG after the start. The score was 0/2. It was a pretty poorly coordinated group and we never did capture a flag before the Horde won it 0/3. In the second battle we did a lot better although I saw some people from the first group in there. They must have been the better ones from that group. We won the second one 3/0 and I captured the last flag for the win. In AV the first battle I was in we barely won by taking down Drek, it was close. The reason it was close after we had such a good start was someone took SHGY and held it. Same stupid mistake that is made all too often. In the second battle the same stupid mistake (SHGY) was made and this time it cost us the battle, we got Galv and 2 towers, that was it. We were moving along pretty well until someone took SHGY then ALL the Horde rezzed at FWGY and came back and took everything we were capping. After that is was just a long hard loss. I am really looking to get Wranngar out of this battlegroup and into a better one.

Battlegrounds 10/22/08

Today's daily battleground was Eye of the Storm. I did it on Wranngar. We won the first one I was in by over 1000 points, we had and held 3 nodes throughout. The Horde seemed more concerned with running the flag than getting more nodes but that only works if you have 2 nodes. Usually it is the Alliance that makes that mistake. I got that done and collected my 11g99s and 419 extra honor for the daily. I spent 55,000 honor the other day so I need to restock that again. After that I went into AV and ended up with a really poor group. We were way ahead but people decided to take and hold SHGY and that cost us the battle. It is really quite sad that the same people make the same stupid mistakes over and over again. The fact they are unable to learn from their mistakes doesn't say much for them. Those were the only 2 battlegrounds I was in tonight, I was really tired and not in the mood to lose any more AV's which is what would have happened with the quality of players that were on.

Battlegrounds 10/12/08

Not too bad a night for the Alliance in EoS tonight. I fought in 15 battles on Wranngar, 11 wins and 4 losses. It was back the way it should be with us winning all the time in there :). The 4 losses were just 4 really bad groups I got into. We were lucky to hold one tower in those 4 battles and a few times we ended up on the rock. In the 11 wins we were dominating. I think there were only one or 2 where it was even close and by close I mean 400 points or so. We had four or five 4 caps in those battles. We had the Horde trapped on their rock and held them there. It was also the daily battleground today but it actually took me 3 battles to get it done, we lost the first 2 I was in. I also did 2 AV's, 1 win, 1 loss. We got the win on reinforcements and it wasn't really a good Alliance group, it was just a bad Horde group. Someone took SHGY in both battles if that tells you anything.

Battlegrounds 10/5/08

Not a great day for the Alliance in the battlegrounds again today. I did get yesterdays daily done along with today's daily though. I fought in 20 total battles on Wranngar. Yesterday's daily was WSG, I tried one and it was so bad I dropped the quest. I picked it up again this morning before daily's rolled over and got it done on my first, and only, WSG battle. When the daily's rolled over I got today's which was AB. It took me 3 battles to get that one done but I got it done. After that I did a bunch of Eye of the Storm battles with a few AV's mixed in. We had 7 wins and 6 losses out of the 13 battles I fought in EoS. Once again it was going well then you could see when the quality of the players change. We went from 3 and 4 caps with running the flag to barely able to hang onto one tower while half the team, or more, was in the middle trying for flag. The flag means nothing when you only have one tower. Instead of hanging around in the middle trying to get the flag the time would be much better spent getting another tower. I think out of the last 8 battles I was in 6 of them were losses. The Alliance is still doing bad in AV with people taking SHGY and causing the battle plus all the AFK. There was also a lot of inexperience in there. People were calling out to kill Drek while we still had 3 towers up. The groups I was in didn't stand a chance of taking Drek down with 2 towers up let alone 3. We had one battle where we rushed Frostwolf and no one bothered with TP or IBT. By the time we got them it was too late. We had 1 win and 2 losses in AV.

Battlegrounds 10/3/08

Another bad day for the Alliance in the battlegrounds. I fought in 14 battles on Wranngar, 7 wins and 7 losses. We were doing bad in all the battlegrounds except AB. I was in 2 battles in AB and we won both of them, one was a 5 cap. AB was the daily so I was able to get that done. I was in 8 battles in EoS, 4 wins and 4 losses. I am not sure what the Alliances' problem is lately but we usually dominate EoS. There has also been a lot of AFK in EoS which you don't usually see. I fought in 4 AV's, 1 win and 3 losses. That was just a lot of the stupidity I have come to expect from the Alliance in AV. We would have won 2 more of the AV battles but someone had to go and take SHGY causing all the Horde to rez right where we were trying to cap towers/objectives and they just overran us. That also happened in the battle we won but we were able to hang on and win by reinforcements. Even then it was close. Of course AV was plagued with AFK, up to 10 per battle, I guess Blizzard is just not up to the challenge of correcting the AFK problem as they have failed so far.

Wranngar - 50,000 Lifetime Kills 9/28/08

I passed 50,000 lifetime kills on Wranngar. I was in Alterac Valley, of course, when I hit this milestone. I fought in 16 AV's tonight, 8 wins and 8 losses. Some of the battles were pretty good and some were not so good. We had a few turtles, a couple directly related to holding SHGY which is never a good idea. We won a couple battles on reinforcements which is unusual for the Alliance, usually the Horde win on reinforcements. I didn't care either way, I have 100 marks from each battleground which is the maximum you can carry (I got the last 4 I needed from WSG this morning) and I have 75,000 honor which is the most honor you can carry, so I am in it for the kills now. I finished the daily battleground I had this morning on my second battle. When the daily's rolled over and I got today's daily it was AV again :). All in all I did 16 AV's and 3 WSG, 1 win and 2 losses. Now I am setting my sights on 75,000 lifetime kills.

Battlegrounds 7/2/08

I only fought in one AV tonight, it was a loss. I was on Wranngar. There were a lot of AFK which hurt in every battleground but the people that were fighting clearly had no clue what they were doing. The first mistake they made was going for Galv first. That in itself is an almost guaranteed loss unless you have a really good group, this wasn't a really good group. They Horde put up a major wall of defense at IBGY and nobody rode past it, everyone that wasn't killing Galv stopped there to fight, that was the second mistake. When the Horde are really defending IBGY you need to ride past them and go for FWGY. I was trying to hold IBT with 4 other people but 3 of them left before it capped and we were overrun by about half a dozen Horde. Pretty much everybody ended up back at DB. After that nobody seemed to have any direction, there was no teamwork, some people were just hanging around in DB while others were trying to take SHGY which doesn't make any sense as SHGY is useless to us, it is just another place to turtle. With more than half the Horde at IBGY they were still able to easily take over DB with 3/4 of the Alliance, including all the AFK, there. We never really got any farther than IBGY. I have a really sad feeling it is going to be like this all summer. There are certain time slots that are better than others, I assume it's when the kids are sleeping, and you just have to find them. I will try fighting in there at different times and see if I can find out when that time is.

Daily Battleground 6/7/08

Today my daily battleground was Eye of the Storm. I did it on Wranngar and it took me two battles to complete it. In the first battle we got beat pretty bad, We were just hitting the 1,000 mark when the Horde hit 2,000. It was a classic example of everyone trying for the flag instead of getting bases to bring it to. The Alliance had two bases for part of the battle but were down to one for most of it. In the second battle we were doing a lot better at the start, we got DR, MT and BET and were ahead by over 500 at the 1,000 mark. Then people started concentrating on the flag too much, which the Horde had 4 healers at, and we lost BET. Then we lost DR and got it back, same with MT. The Horde were running the flag the whole time. By the end we ended up winning 2000/1957 which was way too close for the lead we had in the beginning. Anyway all I needed was the win to complete my daily. I got 11g99s, 419 honor and 3 Eye of the Storm Mark of Honor which got mailed to me, I can't carry any more, as you can only have 100 at a time, and can't take them out of the mail so they will disappear in 24 hours. This weekend is AV's holiday weekend so I am staying away from there.

Daily Battleground 6/3/08

The daily battleground today was Warsong Gulch. Have I ever mentioned I hate Warsong Gulch? If not rest assured it is my least favorite battleground. I did it on Wranngar and the Alliance won the first one I was in 3/0 so that made it a little less painful. I captured the flag once and was running it a second time when I got set on by 5 or 6 Horde. I always run the right hand side, coming back to our base, when I run the flag. I stick as close to the edge as I can get and usually have pretty good luck as everyone else usually runs right up the middle of the field. It took about 15 minutes overall for the win which is not bad, I have been in some battles in WSG that have run over and hour. The daily battleground pays 11g99s, 419 honor and marks from that battleground which were Warsong Gulch Mark of Honorx3.