The Battle for Alterac Valley 11/21/09

The battle for Alterac Valley rages on. It is still the Holiday weekend in Alterac Valley and there are a lot of battles being fought there. I fought in 31 battles on Wranngar today, 17 wins and 14 losses. It was also my daily battleground again today.

For the most part the Alliance were doing Ok in there. Both the Alliance and Horde were doing a lot of Blitzing. We did at least 6 today and the Horde probably did that many too in the battles I was in. The biggest problem the Alliance is still having is not being able to work together as a team, that is what causes most of our losses. A high percentage of the rest are people taking and holding SHGY. The rest are just poor playing and AFK. There were a lot of AFK in all the battles I was in. People are reporting them more now though, I think it is because they are removed after a minute of being flagged inactive. Now when I report to the team someone is AFK I also add, "lets get them out of here so we can get someone in here who will fight", that seems to motivate people to report them.

We had some really good battles that we won on resources. The Alliance have been winning more battles on resources than I have ever seen them win before. Usually we only win when we kill Drek. The Alliance has been playing a little better than usual lately too and that has a lot to do with it. I am almost going to be sorry to see this holiday weekend end, and that is not something you will hear me say often. I got a lot of kills this weekend and have passed the 70,000 lifetime honorable kills mark. I got a lot of honor too and upgraded a lot of my gear.

I fought in 2 Wintergrasp battles too, both of them wins. The first one I fought in the Horde were defending Winterguard Keep and we took it away from them. In the second battle I fought in we were defending the Keep and held onto it throughout the battle for another victory. I need 5 more marks to get another piece of gear I have my eye on, maybe I will get it tomorrow.

Infused Mushroom Meatloaf 11/21/09

The daily cooking today was Infused Mushroom Meatloaf, the daily fishing was The Ghostfish and I skipped it. I didn't feel like wasting the time to fly all the way out to Sholazar Basin to catch one. I already know the mystery anyway.

The daily cooking had me heading down into the sewers below Dalaran to pick some Infused Mushrooms, I needed 4 to make my meatloaf. I got them pretty quick, it seemed like no one was doing it. I ran back up and went to the bank to get a couple pieces of Chilled Meat, for the rest of the ingredients, and cooked my meatloaf. I took that over to Orton Bennet upstairs at Curiosities and Moore and exchanged it for 9g93s, a Dalaran Cooking Award and a Small Spice Bag with 3 Northern Spices in it. Not the best haul today but I have had worse.

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.

Dangerously Delicious and Convention at the Legerdemain 11/20/09

When I got on and grabbed my daily's they were Convention at the Legerdemain, again, and Dangerously Delicious. Convention at the Legerdemain has really been eating up my supply of Chilled Meat, it has come up a lot lately.

I did the cooking first, it only takes a couple minutes to get this one out of the way. I ran over to the bank and grabbed 4 Chilled Meat so I could make the Northern Stew. Once I had that made I headed over to the wine and cheese shop to get a Jug of Wine. I found it right inside the door today. I headed over to see Arille Azuregaze, the bartender at The Legerdemain and exchange the wine and stew for 9g93s, a Dalaran Cooking Award and a Small Spice Bag with 4 Northern Spices, 3 Baby Spice and another Dalaran Cooking Award in it. Not a bad haul today but, like the Glow Worms, I have more Old Spices and Baby Spice than I know what to do with.

I headed out to do the daily fishing after that. I had to go to Wintergrasp to catch 10 Terrorfish. I got the first 8 Ok, then the Horde showed up. There were 2 of us fishing and 4 of them. Those are the odds the Horde like. They were able to kill us but then an Alliance Hunter showed up and we killed them. Now it was 4 Horde to 3 Alliance and they didn't like those odds so they took off and came back with 3 more making it 7 to 3, those are the kind of odds where the Horde can actually kill something. We fought them for awhile then I left to go turn in my Terrorfish and do some battlegrounds. I went and saw Marcia Chase (53,65), by the fountain in Dalaran and exchanged my 10 Terrorfish for a Bag of Fishing Treasures with 8g83s15c, 3 Elixirs of Water Walking, a Tower Key, which I sold to a vendor for 16g66s66c, 3 Deviate Fish and 2 Runic Mana Potions in it. Not a bad day of fishing at all but the Deviate Fish are useless to me.

The funny thing about fishing today was I saw the same Horde Hunter in Wintergrasp later and owned him one on one. Horde are nothing unless they are at least 2 on 1 and have a healer along too. I get a kick out of them in the battlegrounds when they are guarding something, if an equal number of Alliance ride up they mount up and run away.

Alterac Valley - Daily Battleground 11/19/09

The daily battleground today was Alterac Valley. It also happened to be Alterac Valley's Holiday weekend and you know what that means, all the weekend warriors and twice the AFK. Unbelievably we won the first one I was in. I ended up fighting in 31 battles on Wranngar, 16 wins and 15 losses so we were running about 50%, although we had a long losing streak followed by a winning streak.

We won most of the battles by killing Drek but also won a few on reinforcements. We had the usual problems, a lot of AFK, people taking SHGY and causing us to get wiped out at Frostwolf Keep and the Alliance not working together. Usually at the start of the battle people will come up with a plan. It seems like most people agree with it. Then the gate goes up and people are spitting out other plans. That is where it falls apart because people no longer know what we are doing..... If the Alliance could just pick a plan and stick to it, like I am sure the Horde do most times, we could win a lot more. I am beginning to believe the rumor that the Alliance is made up of mostly children.

We did a few The Alterac Blitz but that fell apart when the group changed too much. You get to pretty much stay with the same group of people for awhile if you re-queue right away but eventually it filters out. We did them right in a row but then the group got too thin, including people who said you can't do the Blitz in a pug group....

I fought in 2 Wintergrasp battles too, both of them wins. We were defending in both battles and did a fine job :). I needed 5 more Wintergrasp Mark of Honor to get my Titan-Forged Rune of Determination. That replaced my Medallion of the Alliance.

All in all I ended up getting 1,471 honorable kills and 51,200 honor so it was a pretty good day.

Convention at the Legerdemain and MonsterBelly Appetite 11/19/09

I grabbed the daily cooking and fishing when I got on today. They were Convention at the Legerdemain and Monsterbelly Appetite, a couple easy ones.

I did the cooking first as usual. I grabbed 4 pieces of Chilled Meat, from my restocked supply in the bank, and cooked up 4 Northern Stew. Then I was off to One More Glass, the wine and cheese shop, in search of a Jug of Wine. I found it upstairs again. I took that stuff over to Arille Azuregaze, the bartender at The Legerdemain and exchanged it for 9g93s, a Dalaran Cooking Award and a Small Spice Bag with 4 Northern Spices in it. Not my best day but not bad.

I took the flight path to Un'upe to do the daily fishing after that. The only thing I don't like about this one is the travel time although I hearthed back so it wasn't too bad. I flew out to the icebergs and found a school of Monsterbelly's. I got my Bloated Monsterbelly on the 3rd cast and opened it up to get the severed arm out. Like I said, I hearthed back to Dalaran then went to see Olisarra the Kind, (36,37) the Grand Master First Aid Trainer in the Magus Commerce Exchange in Dalaran. She is going to attempt to reunite the arm with the fisherman. That's not my problem, but she gave me a Bag of Fishing Treasures for my trouble. Today it had 8g90s16c, a Glow Worm, getting quite a collection of those, a Worthless Piece of Orange Glass and 3 Deviate Fish. Not a good day of fishing in my opinion.

I went fishing for Musselback Sculpin for awhile tonight too so I could stock up on some more Poached Northern Sculpin. I got a couple stacks and I now have over 80 in stock. I used a bunch today in the battlegrounds, but that's another post.

Eye of the Storm - Daily Battleground Again 11/18/09

Eye of the Storm was the daily battleground again today, what's that, 3 days in a row now? I did it on Wranngar and we were sucking as bad as usual in there. A lot of AFK and a lot of Flagtards. It took 5 battles for us to get a win, we could have won a couple of the other ones but people went Flagtard and that cost us. It almost seemed like it was still the Holiday weekend. Of course when you only have 15 people a couple AFK really hurts. Blizzard needs to get off their ass and do something about the AFK problem which is worse than it ever was even though they are allegedly "doing something about it". Anyway I finally got it done and got my 19g86s and 1241 bonus honor. I only got around 500 kills today, about half of what I have been getting but I didn't spend as much time in the battlegrounds today as I have been lately.

I did fight in 13 Alterac Valley battles, 9 wins and 4 losses. It sounds like we were doing Ok in there doesn't it? We weren't really, it was some pretty piss poor playing. We won 3 battles on reinforcements which is a lot for the Alliance, we usually don't win on reinforcements. The reason for that is some moron taking SHGY half way through the battle and causing it to drag on forever. A lot of people were pretty mad in a couple of the battles when someone took it, I can't repeat what was said here but you get the picture. In 2 of those we were in the process of capping FW East and West Towers and the RH when someone took it and caused all the Horde to rez in their cave. Naturally they grouped up and overran us at FW Keep and took everything back. We were trying to summon Ivus the Forest Lord again in the last battle but one of the people standing right there was AFK...... We only needed one more. I hate AFKers. They are completely useless. Anyway the Horde overran us and killed the Druids before we got a 10th person. It didn't matter anyway because the Horde were down to 12 reinforcements by that point.

The new thing in AV now seems to be rush Drek then see if you have a tank when you get there. Yeah..... Lost a couple that way. When you go after Drek with all the towers up you have to deal with Drek at 200% health (each tower that is up gives him +25% health), 4 Warmasters (each tower that is up represents a Warmaster) and 2 elite Frostwolves. Needless to say you need a pretty good tank. A plate wearing tank. And you have to kill him quick. People don't seem to realize that or maybe they just don't think.

Daily Cooking - Mustard Dogs 11/18/09

The daily cooking was Mustard Dogs! today and the daily fishing was The Ghostfish again for the 5th day in a row. Way to give some variety Blizzard..... I did the cooking and skipped the fishing. People were complaining about the daily heroic dungeon repeating again too.

The cooking had me running around Dalaran picking Wild Mustard. It didn't take me long to get the 4 I needed and I was off to the bank to grab some Rhino Meat to make the Rhino Dogs. When I had those cooked I combined them with the Wild Mustard to make a Mustard Dog Basket!. I took that to Archmage Pentarus (68,41) at Krasus' Landing and exchanged it for 9g93s, 2 Dalaran Cooking Awards and a Small Spice Bag with 3 Northern Spices, 5 Old Spices and another Dalaran Cooking Award. A pretty good haul today.

I went fishing after that, but not for the daily, I went for Musselback Sculpin because I was running low on Poached Northern Sculpin. That is some good stuff, +80 Attack Power and +40 Stamina. I caught a little over 3 stacks, about 65, in 15 minutes or so. I go in Borean Tundra where the schools are. You get 3 or 4 from each school. I got some crates too, but nothing good came out of them. I have enough buff food to last me awhile now anyway.

I have been having a lot of people whisper me trying to sell me gold lately. Usually while I am in the battlegrounds, but then again I have been spending a lot of time in the battlegrounds lately. I have been getting 4 or 5 a day and you can't just right click on their name and report spam because they are whispering you and that is not an option. More Blizzard fail.....

Eye of the Storm - Daily Battleground 11/17/09

Eye of the Storm was my daily battleground again today, I did it on Wranngar. We won the first one I was in and that was pretty nice. We had a 3 cap going for the most part, a revolving 3 cap. We would lose one tower at the same time we were taking another. That kept the Horde busy and allowed us to win. The Horde didn't seem interested in the flag either, we had no competition there, they were just a bad group I guess.

I fought in 16 Alterac Valley battles after that. We weren't doing as well in there. We had 6 wins and 10 losses in the battles I was in. We won one battle on reinforcements, we called Ivus the Forest Lord and he was on a rampage. He was killing left and right, you could watch the resources count down like a second counter. The secret to Ivus is to keep him healed and buffed, otherwise they kill him pretty quick. Quite a few of our losses were due to people taking and holding SHGY. Some of it was just poor playing. We had a lot of AFK in all the battles we were in as usual but in a few of them people, other than myself, must have had the TuringTest AFK Reporter installed because it would report someone was AFK, then they would be marked, then they would be gone from the battleground. I got over 1,000 honorable kills again tonight. If I keep going at this rate I will have my 100,000 lifetime kills, and my "of the Alliance" title, before Christmas.

Convention at the Legerdemain and The Ghostfish 11/17/09

The daily cooking today was Convention at the Legerdemain again and the daily fishing was The Ghostfish for the 4th day in a row. I finally grabbed the fishing because I figured I would do some hunting while I was in Sholazar Basin, which I did.

This cooking daily has been eating up all my Chilled Meat, 4 pieces each time it comes up and it has come up a lot lately. Anyway I ran over to the bank and grabbed some Chilled Meat and cooked up my Northern Stew, then headed over to the wine and cheese shop to get a jug of wine. I found it in the same spot upstairs again so that was quick and easy. Once I had everything I ran over to see Arille Azuregaze, the bartender at The Legerdemain and exchanged it all for 9g93s, a Dalaran Cooking Award and a Small Spice Bag with 2 Northern Spices in it. Hardly worth using the Chilled Meat for this one today.

I took the flightpath to Sholazar Basin after that and got my Phantom Ghostfish on the second cast. I ate it and discovered the mystery then did some hunting. I was hunting the Croc's there for Chilled Meat. I had a pretty good drop rate, over 70% I would say. I got 32 pieces which gave me 2 full stacks in the bank including what I already had in there. I got a lot of Boran Leather there too. I headed back to see Marcia Chase (53,65), by the fountain in Dalaran and let her know the mystery was solved. Evidently she wasn't impressed because she gave me a Bag of Fishing Treasures with 8g13s77c, 4 Pygmy Oil and 4 Solid Gold Coins in it. Hardly worth the time to fly all the way over to Sholazar Basin for that.....

Eye of the Storm - Daily Battleground 11/16/09

The daily battleground today on Aman'Thul was Eye of the Storm. I wasn't too excited about that as the Holiday weekend was still going on but we won the second one I was in. You could still tell there were a lot of weekend warriors in there, and of course, AFK and Flagtards. The first battle was a wash but the second one went better, I am not sure why though. Someone said, in the second battle, "Ok, lets defend these 3 for the win". I thought that sounded good until I found myself all alone at Blood Elf Tower. I was tracking humanoids and saw 2 incoming so I said "inc BET" over battleground chat and...... No one came. That is how the Alliance defends. Textbook case of Alliance defending towers, bases, graveyards, whatever. They do not know the meaning of defense. Fortunately the first one to arrive was a Rouge which I killed immediately. That caused the second one to ride away. The strange part was the Rogue came in alone. That is very rare for the Horde. Usually they won't attack 1 Alliance player unless there are 2 of them and they have a good healer along. I guess the Rogue figured he would sap, stun, sap, stun until I was dead. I was stealthed though and stunned him first, then I put Faerie Fire on him. He can not stealth when that is on him. A Rogue that can't stealth is nothing. He has to stealth to stun you so the best he can hope for at that point is to run away. I stunned him long enough to kill him though. Anyway we won the second one I was in and I was out of there. I collected my 19g86s and 1241 bonus honor.

I fought in 15 Alterac Valley battles after that, 7 wins and 8 losses. We were winning every other one until the end then we lost a couple in a row and I figured the quality of the players changed so I left. In the last 2 battles someone took SHGY causing our loss. It was the same person both times, at least it was the same person shooting their mouth off both times. They didn't learn from the first time and did it again. Some people are just too stupid to learn from their mistakes I guess. More and more people are getting mad when someone takes SHGY though so maybe some people are learning. It only takes one moron though.

We had some pretty good battles though, even in the battles we lost. It was bringing back memories of how it used to be. I wish they would get rid of the reinforcements though so you had to win by killing the other sides General but the reinforcements are there for the Horde and we all know Blizzard favors the Horde. The Horde win 8 out of 10 of their battles on reinforcements and the Alliance win about 1 out of 10 battles on reinforcements. I love it when the Horde go in to Galv's room to try and keep us from killing Galv. We just go into Galv's room and kill everything. Those are some quick kills to get the blood flowing :). I got over 1,000 kills again tonight though and that's what I'm there for so I can't complain. As long as we win one once in awhile I'm happy.

Daily Cooking - Convention at the Legerdemain 11/16/09

The daily cooking today was a nice easy one, Convention at the Legerdemain. I got 4 Chilled Meat out of the bank, getting low on those, will have to go hunting soon, and cooked up some Northern Stew. Once I had that in hand I headed over to One More Glass, the wine and cheese shop in Dalaran, and got a Jug of Wine. I found it upstairs today. I took that over to Arille Azuregaze, the bartender at The Legerdemain and exchanged it for 9g93s, a Dalaran Cooking Award and a Small Spice Bag with 6 Northern Spices in it. Not a bad haul today.

The daily fishing was The Ghostfish again, for the third day in a row, and I skipped it again, for the third day in a row. I didn't feel like wasting the time to fly all the way out ot Sholazar Basin to catch one. If it is still The Ghostfish tomorrow I will do it and hunt up some Chilled Meat while I am there.

Daily Battleground - Arathi Basin, Again - 11/15/09

My daily battleground turned out to be Arathi Basin again today. I almost skipped it as Alliance has been sucking worse than usual in there lately but I am glad I didn't. We lost the first battle I was in, no surprise there, but we won the second battle with a 5 cap, big surprise. I did it on Wranngar as usual. I don't PvP too much on Gomorra anymore. There was a time when all I did was PvP on Gom but I like Wrann better in the battlegrounds these days. I still need to get back on Gom and get him 133 more kills so he can at least get the 25,000 lifetime kills achievement. Anyway I got my daily battleground done and collected my 19g86s and 1241 honor.

I did some Alterac Valley battles after that. We were definitely not doing as good tonight in there as we were last night, that's for sure. I fought in 14 battles, 4 wins and 10 losses. We lost most of them on reinforcements and the major cause of most of the losses was Stonehearth Graveyard. Nothing new there. We lost one battle by 15 reinforcements. We were a couple hundred ahead in that one but due to some poor playing, even by Alliance standards, we lost that advantage and the battle. We lost another one by 56 reinforcements. We did have some pretty fierce battles though, I was able to get over 1,000 honorable kills again tonight. That is almost like the old days, when I used to fight on Gom and you could get a couple thousand kills in a night. I passed the 65,000 lifetime kills mark tonight.

I tried one Eye of the Storm but it was still the holiday weekend in that battleground, enough said.