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 11/2/08

Today's daily battleground was Arathi Basin. I fought in 7 battles on Wranngar before we finally got a win. I had some pretty bad groups but the last 2 were pretty good. We were very evenly matched in the next to the last group, they won 1990/2000. That got them an Achievement too, winning an AB by 10 points :(. In the last group we were doing good, we had a 3 cap almost all the time, a 4 cap most the time and a 5 cap for a minute or two. We won that one by over 1,000 points but no Achievement in that. I am still happy I got the Blitz done in AV yesterday. I thought that one would take foever. I also fought in one losing AV tonight. We weren't doing too bad in it but the Horde got Vann down before we could get Drek down. We got Galv in that one too so we got some pretty good honor anyway. I have over 55,000 kills now, less than 45,000 to go for my title.

Battlegrounds 10/14/08 - 10/19/08

I haven't been doing too many battlegrounds lately, I haven't really had a whole lot of time to play or update this blog. In the last 5 days I fought in 35 battlegrounds. I can remember a time when I would do that many in a weekend. I should have more time soon though. I did them all on Wranngar. The Alliance hasn't been doing too hot in the battlegrounds lately so there really isn't much to say. There is still a lot of AFK going on and a lot of stupidity in AV surrounding SHGY. I don't know what it is with that graveyard but it has cost us more battles. Since the new changes it is easier to take down Drek and Vann though, it can be done pretty easily with 2 towers up so they must have nerfed that too. The game is a lot easier to play now than when I first started, I guess Blizzard is worried people might find it too hard to level so they made it easier. Any I will try to start updating this blog on a daily basis again going forward. Something they added as part of the new expansion are Achievements. I am not too sure what the points you get will be used for but one of them is a title for the battlegrounds. For 100,000 lifetime kills you get "of the Alliance" added after your name. Needless to say I am going for that one. I currently have 54,000+ lifetime kills.

Battlegrounds 10/2/08

The Alliance was having a pretty bad night in the battlegrounds tonight. I fought in a total of 7 battles tonight on Wranngar, 5 in EoS which was the daily, 2 wins and 3 losses and 2 AV's, 1 win, 1 loss. I don't know why the Alliance is having such a hard time in EoS lately, we used to do really well in there. In our 3 losses we were lucky to hold 1 tower and actually rezz'd on the rock one time because we even lost that. It was sad. In the 2 we won we had a 3 cap the whole time and were running the flag. The Horde never got over 800 in those 2. There were just really bad groups of people who either didn't know how to play EoS or didn't want to play. There were quite a few AFK too, I wonder if it is EoS weekend, that would explain a lot. In AV we had one good group and one bad group. In the one we won we had plenty of time left to get Galv and TP for the extra honor, which I pointed out, but everyone was in a hurry and downed Drek with Galv still alive and TP still up so they lost honor and bonus honor. I don't care anymore, I am just in it for the kills. The loss was a bad group and turned into a turtle for the most part, everyone was hanging around in DB, most of them AFK. The Horde killed Vann in that one. I got the daily done today on the first battle, it was EoS. I got the 11g99s this daily pays and that was about it lol.

Battlegrounds 9/1/08

I decided to head into the battlegrounds to see how the Alliance was doing in there. I picked up the daily, Arathi Basin, and headed in there. The Alliance is still doing pretty poor in there, it took me 3 battles to get my daily done. Between battles 2 and 3 in Arathi Basin I went into Eye of the Storm where it appears we are still doing well despite the fact people can't seem to follow simple directions. The plan was to get MT, DR and either FRR or BET before going for the flag. When the battle started 7 people went directly for the flag, so much for a plan. I headed to FRR, as I usually do unless we have assigned group positions, and we had a pretty good fight there as there were only 3 of us trying to get it from 5 Horde. We had a healer for a change and somehow managed to get it. At that point I noticed we also had BET, DR & MT so that gave us a 4 cap. We trapped the Horde on their rock and it was over pretty qiuck. After that I decided to see how we were doing in Alterac Valley. I went into the first one figuring someone would grab SHGY and it would be all over but that didn't happen, instead people moved forward in a group, with the exception of the AFK in the cave and the ones that run into DB at the start, as we took IBT, TP, Galv and moved up to FWGY. Everyone was working together and it showed what teamwork can do. From FWGY, which was not completely capped and empty when I got there..... we moved into Frostwolf Keep and took the relief hut and towers. When we downed Drek the Horde didn't have anything capped or capping in DB, they were just starting to get in. That was a Maximum honor game. Of course there are still the people that have no clue how AV works, someone, I assume they were in DB, was yelling hurry up because the Horde were going for Vann but with 2 towers up they could go for him all they want, they weren't going to get him. The second AV battle I was in didn't work out as well although we did win after close to an hour. We won that one on reinforcements and it was close, we won by about 140 reinforcements. That was due to too many people going for Galv at the start. I think a lot more battles would go a lot better if people just left Galv alone but in this case I guess it ended up helping in the end as we won on reinforcements. It seems the quality of players it getting a little better, not really good but good enough to win. On another note I have 100 Arathi Basin Mark of Honor, 100 Alterac Valley Mark of Honor, 100 Eye of the Storm Mark of Honor and 92 Warsong Gulch Mark of Honor. 100 marks are the most you can carry so I am almost maxed out on all the battlegrounds that give them. I also have 70,000 honor and the max on that is 75,000 so I will soon be maxed out on honor too.

Battlegrounds 8/18/08

I haven't written about the battlegrounds lately because the Alliance have been doing so bad there is really not much to say. From 8/15-8/17 I fought in 40 battles on Wranngar, 16 wins and 24 losses. It was a bad few days. I don't know what is wrong but the Alliance is performing worse than usual which is pretty bad.

Battlegrounds 8/18/08 - I fought in every battleground today, we did good in some and bad in others. I fought in 7 AV's, 2 wins and 5 losses. For some reason lately people are taking and holding SHGY, they are doing it on a regular basis and, as usual, it causes a turtle, long battle and loss. In our 2 wins we rushed FWGY or FWRH and capped the towers for the win. The last battle we won it was really close. The Horde started on Vann before we started on Drek but because they had so many on defense we were able to DPS Drek down before they were able to get Vann. In one of our losses we had FWRH, FWGY, and of course Galv as people seem to be doing him first thing lately, but we did not have IBT or TP and could not take down Drek with 2 towers up. You can tell a lot of the people have no clue what they are doing in there when they are saying to rush right to Drek and kill him. I keep telling them to learn the importance of the towers. Each tower represents a Warmaster in with Drek and also adds +25% to Dreks health. When there are 4 towers up Drek is at 200% health and he has 4 Warmasters with him along with 2 Elite Frostwolves. Hopefully people will learn or put their characters back on eBay where they got them. I also fought in 3 Eye of the Storm, 1 win 2 losses. This is a battleground we usually dominate in, if that gives you an idea how bad the Alliance is doing. I fought in 8 Arathi Basin, 4 wins and 4 losses which is about right for that battleground. The strange thing there was it was there holiday weekend which is when you usually get the worst players, the "weekend warriors" that only go into the battlegrounds for the extra honor. I fought in Warsong Gulch too, a battleground we usually do really bad in but we ended up winning 4 and losing 2 so everything is whacked :). Hopefully things will even off during the week and get back to normal.

Battlegrounds 8/13/08

Another disappointing day for the Alliance in the battlegrounds. I fought in 9 battles total, 2 Eye of the Storm, 1 win, 1 loss, 1 AB, a loss, 4 WSG which was the daily, 1 win and 4 losses, and 2 AV both losses. I don't know what is wrong with the Alliance lately but they can't seem to get it together and win anything. AV was the typical blend of stupidity, AFK and generally people not working together. We came close in one of the 2 battles but by close I mean we were in FW Keep capping towers when the Horde killed Vann. It is sad to see so many people in DB while the Horde are capping bunkers and they aren't doing anything, they are AFK. In Eye of the Storm, a battleground we usually dominate in, people were more interested in getting the flag than they were in getting or defending towers. At one point I was guarding FRR alone, and everyone left MT to go to the middle to get the flag. Needless to say the Horde came in and took MT then 4 of them overran me at FRR to take that too. At that point we didn't even have a tower to bring a flag too but people were still in the middle trying to get the flag. AB was a wash, people were everywhere in one's and two's, no one bothering to defend the nodes we had. In WSG, which was my daily, eveyone was fighting in the middle, there was no support for the flag carrier and when the Horde had our flag no one was bothering to go after it or support me when I had the flag, they were in the middle fighting..... Definitely no sign of teamwork at all. Anyway we won the 4th battle I was in so I finally got my daily done and collected my 11g99s, 419 honor and 3 Warsong Gulch Mark of Honor. Hopefully tomorrow will bring a better class of players.

Battlegrounds 8/11/08

Another day of failure for the Alliance in the battlegrounds. Well in AV anyway. Eye of the Storm was today's daily and I got it done on my second battle. I was fighting on Wranngar as usual. I got the 11g99s and 419 extra honor for that. Then I went into AV to do some of those. We ended up winning 2 and losing 6. There were a lot of AFK in there as there always is but at least people are getting sick of it and reporting them. I list all the AFK every 5 minutes or so to make sure people know who to mark. Some people I list say they are not AFK but when they have been in there for 10-15 minutes and have 0 damage and 0 heals or only around 1,000 of either they are AFK. Usually the heals are from healing themselves. Blizzard really needs to change how they are dealing with AFK, assuming they are dealing with it at all. These people just go AFK for the whole battle then right at the end they run out and hit something to clear the AFK. They don't get the honor but they do get the marks. There was the usual stupidity going on in there, half or better of the offense going for Galv at the start, holding SHGY, the usual. We got both our wins by killing Drek but the Horde only got about half theirs by killing Vann, the rest they got on reinforcements due to the Alliance turtling. I went back into EoS after that because I didn't want to waste any more time in AV. We didn't do too bad in there, not great but not too bad either, 12 wins and 7 losses. This is a battleground we usually dominate in though. We had quite a few 4 caps and I got to run the flag a lot. We had some good groups and then we had some really bad ones. Some people were really poorly geared too, you can tell when someone dies jumping off the rock they are pretty poorly geared lol. Anyway I broke the 45,000 lifetime kill mark and got 581 kills today alone.

Battlegrounds 8/8/08

I did a few battlegrounds today on Wranngar. It was not a good day for the Alliance in the battlegrounds. The daily today was Arathi Basin and we won the first one I was in so that worked out well, we had a 5 cap, it was over pretty quick. After that I decided to do a WSG and we won the first one of those I was in, 3/0. That's where the good stuff ends. I also fought in 10 AV's, 4 wins and 6 losses. I was in some pretty bad groups and one of the mistakes they kept making was going for Galv at the start which of course caused our offense to wipe and get sent back to Dun Baldar. We did win one where they went for Galv first but it was a lot harder than it should have been. I keep telling them if they think Galv's 63 honor is nice they should try skipping him and winning some time. We won 3 of our 4 by killing Drek and one on reinforcements. The Horde won about half of their's by killing Vann and the other half on reinforcements. We had a couple where the Alliance took and held SHGY, I can't believe people are still doing that and no matter what you say they won't let it go. Holding SHGY keeps the Horde in front of us and stops us from moving forward but you just can't get that through their heads... I guess they think they are doing something by taking a GY. I got something in the mail today too, a Competitor's Tabard. I guess it has something to do with the Olympics, it looks kind of like the Olympic logo. I have attached a picture of me wearing it. I still like my Stormpike Battle Tabard better but I will wear this while the Olympics are going on I guess. As usual there were a lot of AFK in all the battles I was in especially Alterac Valley. I guess they think they can get away with it better in there as it is 40x40, they must not think anyone will notice but I list them using the TuringTest AFK Reporter which gives everyone the chance to report them. School should be starting back up again soon and I think that is going to make a big difference.

Battlegrounds 8/7/08

I didn't have a lot of time to play today, I only got to do 7 AV's on Wranngar, 3 wins and 4 losses. I sent the battle plan I made a macro from into chat before each battle but of course a plan only works if everyone follows it. That is the problem, most of the Alliance don't seem to be able to follow a simple plan and I don't really know if half the people know which group they are in. 2 of our losses resulted from people taking SHGY, it seems people will never learn about taking SHGY, either that or they want to lose. In at least one more they went for Galv first which usually ends up in offense falling apart and everyone ending up back at Dun Baldar to start over. In the wins, while not exactly following the plan enough people did follow it to give us a win. We had one battle where we were on Drek at the same time the Horde were on Vann and they just took him down first, mostly because our people were scattered and we didn't quite have enough in Frostwolf Keep to take him down. We are also still having a lot of trouble with AFK.

Battlegrounds 7/31/08

I fought in Eye of the Storm and Alterac Valley today on Wranngar. EoS was the daily battleground and we won the first two I was in and lost the last one. We won the first one by over 1,000 and the second one by over 1600 :). Then in the last one we got trashed, we only had one base and it was all we could do to hang onto it. In the first two we capped MT, FRR and DR then ran the flag while the Horde were trying to defend BET, we kept the pressure on them there to make sure they all stayed right there. In the second battle we capped MT, FRR and DR and ran the flag, eventually capping BET towards the end. In the third battle everything seemed to fall apart and we were only able to cap BET and it took all of us just to hang onto that, we got beat by quite a bit on that one. I got my 11g99s, 419 extra honor and 3 Eye of the Storm Mark of Honor from the daily.

In Alterac Valley we didn't do too good at all. I didn't realize it was AV holiday weekend or I would have thought twice before going in there. We did win the first one I was in but we lost the next 2. In the first one we had a Frostwolf pre-made in our group so they were a little more organized than a pug but not by much. I think it was a trade channel pre-made and sometimes those aren't any better than a pug but we did win although it was a close fight. We rushed FWGY while the pre-made took care of the towers and eventually moved into FW Keep and got the relief hut. When all the towers were burned we went in and took Drek down. The Horde were on Vann so it was close. In the last 2 you could really tell it was a holiday weekend, there were a lot of AFK and most of the people didn't have a clue what they were doing, the weekend warriors that only do battlegrounds on the holiday weekends and don't really do anything anyway, might as well be AFK. Anyway those 3 battles were all I could take.

Battlegrounds 7/27/08

I was in 11 battles today on Wranngar, 1 Arathi Basin which was my daily and 10 Alterac Valley. We won the first Arathi Basin I was in for my daily. We started out with a 3 cap, ST, LM and BS, then we got the farm and eventually, around 1,000 resources, the gold mine. When you have a 5 cap the resources tick off really quick and it was over fast. We held the Horde at their GY after we had the 5 cap.

In Alterac Valley the first one I was in was a win, we rushed FWGY, them moved on to FWRH and went back and got IBGY, TP and Galv. Once we had everything capped we went in and took down Drek. It was a good easy win and I hoped that was the way AV was going but I guess that was too much to hope for. The next battle we had we tried the same plan as the first and almost pulled it off but the Horde ended up killing Vann before we could get Drek down. We proceeded to lose the next 5 battles too. A couple of them we didn't get any farther than IBGY and were lucky to kill Galv for some honor. Then we won one using the same strat as the first battle, we rushed FWGY then moved forward and backwards getting the towers and GY's. Once we had 3 towers capped we took down Drek for the win. The last 2 we lost, there was a lot of fighting among the Alliance and a lot of AFK in all the battles I was in. The AFK problem is getting worse if anything despite the fact Blizzard says they are taking action against people that are going AFK in the battlegrounds. I saw a couple people in there today that I saw in there weeks ago, still AFK. In my opinion Blizzard is doing nothing about this problem.

Battlegrounds 7/22/08

Today's daily battleground was Alterac Valley. Out of the 4 battlegrounds Alterac Valley is my favorite even though we don't win too often in there. I fought in 3 battles on Wranngar, 2 losses and one win. The first 2 battles we didn't do too good in. The first one we managed to get FWGY, the 2 Frostwolf Towers and had just gotten the relief hut when the Horde killed Vann. We didn't have a chance of winning that one as we didn't have IBT or TP and it didn't appear anyone was working on them so even if we got the relief hut we couldn't have taken Drek down. You can take Drek down with 2 towers up if you have a good group, this wasn't a good group. The second battle was even worse. In the second battle people were holding SHGY while we had SFGY so the Horde were in front of us the whole time. On top of that everyone was screaming to get Galv who is a small player in AV. So while everyone was concentrating on holding SHGY and getting Galv, who had at least half the Horde team defending him, the rest of the Horde walked into Dun Baldar, killed the AFK, and basically took it eventually killing Vann. That is usually what happens when Alliance holds SHGY, they leave Dun Baldar wide open. We weren't doing great in the third battle either but we won it. In that battle we rushed IBGY and wiped, then we regrouped again and got it. We got IBT and TP then someone took SHGY again which almost cost us the battle but we were able to hold onto IBGY and move forward to take FWGY. At this point 3/4 of the Horde team were turtling in Frostwolf Keep, the only place they had to rez was FWRH. In a long drawn out fight we were able to take the 2 towers and finally FWRH. By this time the Horde had SPGY and were moving into Dun Baldar. This wasn't a really big problem as they still had 3/4 of their team in Frostwolf Keep and didn't have enough in Dun Baldar to take down Vann if they got to him. As soon as we had FWRH capping so the Horde couldn't rez there we went after Drek. We had all 4 towers down so he didn't have any Warmasters with him. We took him down pretty quick for the win.

Battlegrounds 7/6/08

I fought in a couple different battlegrounds on Wranngar today. The daily battleground was Arathi Basin and we won the first one I was in. We had a good group that could follow a simple plan which was get ST, GM, BS and LM then move on to the Farm in a group pushing the Horde back the whole time. We got ST, GM, BS and the LM without and problem but the Farm took a little bit of time but we did get it for the 5 cap. When you have 5 nodes capped the resources rack up pretty quick. It took us less than 5 minutes total to win this one 2000/140. For this daily I got 11g99s, 419 honor and 3 Arathi Basin Mark of Honor.

The other battleground I fought in was Alterac Valley. I was in 2 battles, one win and one loss. In the first battle which was our win we had a good group that worked together. The plan was to go to FWGY and take that then move forward and back to get FWRH, the East and West Towers, IBT and TP. We did that and also ended up getting SHGY, SFGY, IBGY and Galv. When we got to IBGY the Horde were waiting for us but we just ran right over them. The Horde had nothing, not one graveyard, not one node capped. Usually holding SHGY is a really bad move but we had a really good group and there was nothing the Horde could do. We could have beat them on resources but we also killed Drek for the extra honor. This was a high honor battle. The second battle we didn't do as well, we had a lot of AFK and you could tell right from that start that it was a different group and the quality of players was just not there. The AFK problem is really bad and they just ruin it for everyone else. People were not working together, nobody followed the plan and everyone stopped at IBGY to fight the Horde instead of moving on to FWGY or FWRH and it just fell apart from there. We had SFGY and a lot of people wasted a lot of time trying to get SHGY which is pretty much useless to us and keeps the Horde from rezzing in front of us when they have it. By the end of the battle we had IBGY capping, IBT capped, Galv dead and were in the process of capping TP when the Horde killed Vann.

Battlegrounds 7/5/08

I am not sure what the daily battleground was today but I still had the daily for Alterac Valley in my quest log from the other day so I did that one. Even though the Alliance does poorly in AV a lot of the time it is still my favorite battleground. We were doing good today though, I fought in 5 battles on Wranngar, 4 wins and one loss. We won the first one I was in so I was able to get my daily out of the way straight off. After that I was fighting for fun, honor and kills. I broke the 40,000 lifetime kill mark a few days ago. The first battle we were in was pretty organized, we headed to FWGY and got that then moved forward and backward getting FWRH, IBT and TP. We then got the East and West Frostwolf Towers and took down Drek. Galv got taken out somewhere in there too so we got maximum honor for that win. Our other 3 wins followed pretty much the same plan and we won with good honor. I still need some more honor to upgrade some of my gear to the new stuff that became available for honor. In the battle we lost we just didn't have any teamwork going on. We had a lot of AFK in all the battles I was in, it is a real problem that Blizzard says it is working on but I can't see it when I see the same people in there AFK day after day, week after week. Anyway in the loss people went for Galv first then everyone stopped at IBGY to fight the Horde there. When the Horde are really defending IBGY you do not stop to fight them, you go past them to FWGY and take that then more into Frostwolf and get the Relief Hut and Towers. It really didn't look like these people had any idea what they were doing and I thought I had gotten out of the good time frame (I got into the battleground at 5AM ST) but then we won the next one easily. We had a lot of people in DB but when the Horde moved in it turned out they were all AFK and just got relocated to SFGY when they were killed. The Horde killed Vann on that one. We killed Drek in all of our wins which is how it should be because you get a lot of honor from killing him.

Daily's 6/30/08

I did the daily cooking which was Manalicious on both Wranngar and Gomorra and the daily fishing which was Felblood Fillet on both along with Sunfury Attack Plans on both. I did Gaining the Advantage and the daily battleground which was Alterac Valley on Wranngar. For the fishing I flew over to the Pools of Aggonar (39,37) in Hellfire Peninsula and got my Monstrous Felblood Snapper in about 20 casts on each, took awhile today. From there I flew over to Sunfury Hold and did Sunfury Attack Plans then off to Eco-Dome Midrealm to pick Mana Berries. I went back and turned the cooking in to The Rokk (61,15) in Shattrath and picked Crate of Meat for my reward. I got 7 Raptor Ribs, 6 pieces of Buzzard Meat and a Skinning Knife on Wranngar and 14 pieces of Clefthoof Meat and a Torn Furry Ear on Gomorra. I'm not throwing that into the pot. I also got the 7g59s this quest pays. Then I flew over to Old Man Barlo (40,59) at Silmyr Lake in Terokkar Forest and turned in the fishing for my Bag of Fishing Treasures. I got 7g34s84c, Spun Truesilver Fishing Line again which is not stackable and is BoP so it does me no good though I will hang onto it in case I get a better fishing pole, 5 Sharpened Fish Hooks and 3 Motes of Water on Wranngar. Gomorra got 7g4s87c, 5 Sharpened Fish Hooks and a Rusted Lock. Nothing too exciting for either of them. After that I turned in Sunfury Attack Plans and got 10g10s and a Shattered Sun Supplies on each. I almost forgot that I did The Multiphase Survey and Ata'mal Armaments on Wranngar too. I got 10g10s for The Multiphase Survey and 18g28s for Ata'mal Armaments plus Righteous Weapon Coating.

I only did one AV today for my daily, we won the first one I was in but it was close. We were on Drek just a little before the Horde got on Vann but we managed to take him down before they could kill Vann. We rushed FWGY then moved on to FWRH and the Towers while some went back and got IBT and TP. We also had IBGY which helped and even got Galv for extra honor. I got the 11g99s this quest pays plus 419 honor and 3 Alterac Valley Mark of Honor which I am maxed out on again anyway.

Battlegrounds 6/29/08

The daily battleground today was WSG so I skipped it, I hate WSG, I think it is a waste of time for the amount of honor you get from it so I only do it when I need the marks. Instead I fought in 1 AV and 3 Eye of the Storm on Wranngar, all losses :(. The Alliance just didn't have it together today. In the AV I was in they held SHGY right from the start, we also had SFGY so the Horde didn't have a forward GY to rez at which kept them right in front of us, we couldn't advance. I don't know what it is about SHGY and Galv but they have cost us more battles. Basically they held SHGY but left Dun Baldar wide open which seems to be standard procedure when you get a group that doesn't know any better about holding SHGY. Long story short, and it was a long honorless battle, We ended up losing when the Horde killed Vann. We had just got to Drek and people were saying to rush him while we still had 3 towers up... Great plan, rush him while he has 3 Warmasters with him and he's at 175% health. Then I went into EoS where we didn't fare any better. People seemed more interested in the flag than they did in getting nodes to the point where someone grabbed the flag when we didn't even have a node to bring it to... At least that can be written off to it being EoS holiday weekend and all the weekend warriors and AFKers were out in force. Hopefully it will get better next week but school is getting out so I am not sure it will. To check which holiday weekend it is and see whatever else is going on check out the Events Calendar.

Battlegrounds 6/28/08

I fought in a bunch of battlegrounds today on Wranngar. I did 5 Eye of the Storm, which was the daily battleground today. We won the first one I was in then I went back in and fought in 4 more, we had 2 wins and 3 losses. Not a good day for the Alliance in EoS. It is EoS holiday weekend this weekend and that explains a lot about why we were doing so bad in a battleground we usually do so well in. There were a lot of weekend warriors in there along with a lot of AFK. In a battleground where the teams are made up of 15 players each a couple AFK make a big difference. After that I went on to fight in 12 AV's, 3 wins and 9 losses, the Alliance was doing really bad in there too. There were anywhere from 5 to 10+ AFK per battle and you could tell a lot of the people that were participating, even if it was half heartedly, really didn't know what they were doing and were only there to get some of the gear that just came out. In a few battles, too many, there were people asking why we didn't just go and take down Drek. That should tell you how long it has been since they were in AV. Since patch 2.3 you can no longer just run right to Drek and take him out. Now he is tied into the towers just like Vann is. Each tower, IBT, TP, East Frostwolf Tower and West Frostwolf Tower, represents a Warmaster in with Drek and also gives him +25% to his health. With 4 towers up Drek has 4 Warmasters with him and is at 200% health so it is pretty much impossible to just run down and take him out without taking out at least 2 of the towers. Usually we wait until we have 3 towers down before we even try. We had a few battles that ended up in turtles and lost a lot on reinforcements. There was the usual stupid stuff going on too, going for Galv first and taking and holding SHGY. Holding SHGY gives the Horde no forward place to rez so they are in front of the offense the whole time and we can not advance. I am not sure what it is about that people do not understand but it happens way too often. Hopefully it will straighten out in the coming weeks as the people who are only doing battlegrounds now for honor get the honor they need and go back to PvE.

Battlegrounds 6/27/08

The daily battleground today was Alterac Valley. I did it on Wranngar and we won the first one I was in. We rushed FWGY, then backtracked and got TP and IBT while some went forward to get FWRH and the East and West Towers. After we had TP and IBT we went and killed Galv for extra honor. We waited until all the towers had capped along with FWRH then we moved in and killed Drek, a pretty smooth run and having capped everything we got maximum honor. We seemed to be doing ok in AV today so I stayed for 15 more battles, we won 7 more and lost 8 for a total of 8 wins and 8 losses for the day. 50% is not bad for the Alliance in AV in our battlegroup, as a matter of fact it is pretty good. We had a lot of AFK as is to be expected after they released Season 2 for honor. For the most part the strategies that seemed to be working best were rushing FWGY, rushing FWRH and even rushing IBGY and moving on from there. As long as we all worked together we had no problem winning and in one battle the Horde had nothing capped, not even a graveyard, they were rezzing in their cave. We won a few of our battles on reinforcements but for the most part won by killing Drek. The Horde won about half of theirs by killing Vann and the rest on reinforcements. We did have a few turtles, mostly when people went for Galv first which usually causes the offense to get wiped out. Everybody, usually the ones going for Galv at the start, says you only need 5 to take down Galv and that is true but when you look while they are doing it there are no less than 10 in there and usually around 15. There was the usual stupidity of people hanging onto SHGY causing the Horde to rez right in offenses face and keeping them from moving forward. If you can get SHGY AFTER you cap IBGY and FWGY then by all means do so as it will really hold the Horde back from moving forward but you don't hold it from the start, aside from a little resistance to slow the Horde down, because it keeps us from moving forward. All in all I had a good time in there and got a bunch of honor and kills. Axeelina even came in and fought in a couple of them with me. I also ended up with 32 Alterac Valley Mark of Honor most of which I had to delete out of my mail as I am back up to 100 after buying my Merciless Gladiator's Maul the other day.

Battlegrounds 6/26/08

I fought in a couple different battlegrounds tonight. I did Arathi Basin for my daily and also 3 Alterac Valley on Wranngar. We won the first AB I was in, 2000/1370. It was a pretty good fight, we held 3 nodes the whole time but they were constantly changing as we lost one and picked up a new one. The daily battle ground pays 11g99s, 419 honor and 3 marks of honor which in this case were Arathi Basin Mark of Honor. We didn't do as well in AV, there were a lot of AFK and no real teamwork. People were going off and doing their own thing, not working together which cost us all 3 battles. A couple of the plans we were trying to follow were rush FWGY and rush FWRH but they only work if everyone follows the plan and that just wasn't happening. Some people wanted to kill Galv right at the start and when they couldn't get enough people together to kill him they argued about it instead of helping the offense reach an objective. I am not sure which battleground weekend it is but it sure felt like AV weekend, I will have to check and see. (I checked and it is Eye of the Storm weekend) We never even got close to taking down Drek while the Horde took down Vann in 2 of the 3 battles I was in. I think there was only one battle were we actually capped a tower in Frostwolf Keep. All 3 battles turned into a turtle due to lack of teamwork and not having enough offense working towards the same goal to secure a forward graveyard. 3 battles was all I could take, maybe I will try again tomorrow. You can check the Events Calendar to see what is happening and where.