Battlegrounds 8/9/08

Today's daily was Arathi Basin, I got it done on Wranngar on the second try. In the first battle I got grouped with a really bad group and it was all we could do to hold one node. In the second battle we did better and held 3 nodes the whole time and 4 nodes for part of the time. We ended up winning by around 600. I got the 11g99s, 419 honor and 3 Arathi Basin Mark of Honor for completing it. Then I went and did some AV's. That was kind of a mistake. I was in 7 battles, 2 wins and 5 losses. Stupidity was running rampant in AV today between capping and holding SHGY and going for Galv first. I have given up on people learning that when half the offense goes for Galv at the start, and the Horde are guarding the choke point by IBGY, the rest of the offense falls apart. I guess they will never learn. For some reason they are willing to give up 600+ honor for a win to kill Galv and get his 63 honor, it boggles the mind. To give you an idea of the caliber of players in there today, there was a lot of calling to take down Drek when we had 3 and 4 towers still up. That should give you an idea of how much of a clue these people had. It is weird, this is WSG weekend but from the quality of people in AV you would swear it was AV weekend. We won both of our battle by killing Drek while the Horde won most of theirs on reinforcements due to the turtle that resulted from either going for Galv first or holding SHGY. As usual we were plagued by AFK in all the AV battlegrounds. Blizzard really needs to get on the ball and do something about this problem. On the plus side I got a Gold Medallion in my mailbox today. It is a pet based on Competition I guess. I have attached a screen shot of it.

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 8/6/08

I fought in 5 battles today on Wranngar, 1 WSG which was the daily I never completed and 4 AV, 3 wins and one loss. In WSG the group I was in was so bad I just gave up and stopped trying to run the flag. I picked it up 4 times and made it all the way back to our flag room twice but there was no support and the thing that finally made me give up was when I was hiding on our roof with the flag, the Horde had our flag in their base and no one was going after it. In AV we did really good in 3 of them, won quick and easy but the forth one someone took SHGY and then the Alliance held onto it for the long slow turtle to loss. The Alliance will never learn about SHGY it seems, just like they will never learn about going for Galv at the start. Anyway I am about 8,000 honor away from a new belt I want to get. After the battlegrounds I helped a level 15 druid get to 16 and start their water form quests.

Battlegrounds 8/5/08

Another really bad day for the Alliance in the battlegrounds today. I fought in a bunch of them on Wranngar, mostly AV. Eye of the Storm was my daily again today and we won the first one I was in. I went back in later and we won another one. I also fought in one AB which was a loss but it was a pretty close loss, they only beat us by a few hundred but it was a major battle the whole way. I think if people had listened a little better and worked together better we would have had it. I am not sure what the problem is as we usually don't do too bad in AB but lately we have been losing a lot in there. I fought in 2 WSG, one win and one loss. I got to run the flag a few times and got the winning cap in the battle we won. I fought in 11 AV's, 4 wins and 7 losses. I was using the Macro I made trying to give people a plan to follow but all I can say is most of the Alliance are not capable of following a simple plan... In the ones that we stuck close to the battle plan we won, in the others people were just going off doing their own thing. In a couple of our losses they held SHGY for the turtle and loss, when will people learn? That is another thing about the Alliance, the do not seem capable of learning from their mistakes as they make the same ones over and over... I can see that it will not be too much longer before I am burned out on battlegrounds again and go back to doing my daily's.

Alterac Valley Marco

Here is a battle plan someone was posting in AV using a Macro. I copied the text and created a Macro from it for my own use because it was working so well. Of course it only works if everyone follows it. Unfortunately the Alliance has a real problem following even the simplest plans for some reason, at least in my battle group they do, but if most people do it will work. The way I have it, due to size, it is a 2 part Macro but the second part is optional.

This is the first (Main) Macro, I named this one AV-1:

/bg 1. GRP 1-3 GO TO RH, NO STOPPING FOR ANYTHING!
/bg 2. GRP 4 CAP FrostWolf GraveYard and Defend!
/bg 3. GRP 5-6 Cap Tower Point
/bg 4. GRP 7-8 Cap IceBlood Tower and kill Galv if possible for extra honor!

Here is the second (Optional) Macro, I named this one AV-2:

/bg DO NOT DEF Stonehearth GY ...so they CAN NOT rez at RH
/bg Report AFK

If you are going to use both they are meant to be hit one after the other. If you don't know how to put this into a Macro it is easy following the steps below.

1. Type /macro in chat to open the Macro program.
2. Click on "New"
3. Select a icon for and name your Macro
4. Save it
5. Paste the above AV-1 text into the Macro (Everything starting with /bg)
6, Repeat for AV-2
7. It is automatically saved so just drag the icon into your tool bar.

You're done.

Battlegrounds 8/4/08

Today was another bad day for the Alliance in all the battlegrounds except, surprisingly, AV. I fought in battles in all battlegrounds on Wranngar. Eye of the Storm was my daily and I won the first one I was in, then went back for 4 losses. I don't know what the Alliances problem was today in a battleground we usually do very well in but we just couldn't get it together it seems. I only fought in 2 WSG battles, both losses but I did get to capture the flag a couple times. I only fought in one AB and it was so bad I decided not to go back. It wasn't a 5 cap on the Horde's part but it was one of the worst I have been in without the Horde 5 capping us. There was no teamwork, everyone was running around doing their own thing, no one was working together towards one goal. AV on the other hand we didn't do too bad in especially considering it was still their holiday weekend. I was in 9 battles, 4 wins and 5 losses. The strat that still seems to be working well is rushing FWGY and then moving back and forward and getting the towers from there. Of course, like any plan, that only works if everyone follows it and the Alliance seems to have a problem following even the simplest plan. Of course we were plagued by AFK in every battle I was in. My TuringTest AFK Reporter is working well and it would be great if at least 5 people in every battle had it installed as it takes 5 people to report someone before they are marked AFK. I think if 5 people in every battle had it, AFK would be a thing of the past. I advertise it once in every battle and hopefully people will catch on.

Battlegrounds 8/3/08

I did only battlegrounds again today. I fought in 28 battles total on Wranngar. The daily today was Warsong Gulch and I fought in 7 of those, 2 wins and 5 losses but I did get my quest done and got my 11g99s, 419 extra honor and of course my Warsong Gulch Marks of Honor. I also fought in 8 Alterac Valley, 4 wins and 4 losses which I thought was pretty good for holiday weekend. I fought in 11 Eye of the Storm, 7 wins and 4 losses and 2 Arathi Basin, both losses. I don't know why the Alliance is doing so bad in Arathi Basin lately, we used to do good in there. In one of my battles in AV I saw someone boxing/bridging. That is when you are controlling 4 or 5 characters all at once. This can be done with 4 or 5 computers using "bridging" or with one computer using "boxing", at least that is how it was explained to me. These characters all looked the same, all moved the same, moved at the same time, all casted the same, jumped the same, there was no doubt what they were doing. They were Shamans. Blizzard allows this, even in the battlegrounds. I, and a lot of other people, don't think this should be allowed but Blizzard is looking at it from a money point of view of course, this person is paying for, in this case, 4 accounts. Anyway I ran into them in AV and when all 4 of them hit me at once with chain lightning my health dropped by about 90%. The next shot and I was dead. I guess the only drawback to this is you can only attack one target at one time. We ran into them later in IBT and tore them apart, there was 3 of us and we owned them. I hope it took him an hour to set it back up again. I have attached a shot of them at FWGY. It is not a very good shot but look how the totems are placed. They were named: Earth, Wind, Fire & Water.

Battlegrounds 8/2/08

Today was not a great day for the Alliance in the battlegrounds. I fought in all of them on Wranngar. I was in 3 Arathi Basin, 1 win 2 losses, it was my daily today, 5 Alterac Valley, all losses, 7 Eye of the Strom, 5 wins and 2 losses and 7 Warsong Gulch, 2 wins and 5 losses.

In Arathi Basin we just couldn't seem to get it together and work together. It took 3 battles to get my win and that was enough for me. In our 2 losses we couldn't seem to get more than 2 nodes capped at one time. Of course everyone was running around doing their own thing instead of grouping up and working as a team. One person would go after the Farm while another single person would go after the LM and another after the BS. Finally in the last battle we worked together and had a 4 cap to win in not much time at all. I got my 11g99s, 419 extra honor and 3 Arathi Basin Mark of Honor for a total of 5 for the day.

Alterac Valley was a total wash, it is their holiday weekend and I usually try to stay away from battlegrounds on their holiday weekend but decided to go ahead and fight in there anyway. The only good thing I can say about it is I got a lot of kills. The weekend warriors and AFKers were out in full force, it was pretty sad. That is about all I am going to say about AV, we never got into a position to even think about taking down Drek but people were still calling to "go kill Drek, that's what we need to do to win". You can tell those are the weekend warriors that have no clue what they are doing in there because it takes a good group to take down Drek with even 2 towers up and there was no way these groups were going to do it with 4 towers up.

After AV I decided to go into Eye of the Storm to get the foul taste of defeat out of my mouth. We usually do good in EoS and today was no exception. We pretty much worked together as a group and had some good groups. The two we lost were because of bad grouping, possibly weekend warriors that strayed into the wrong battleground lol. We won the 5 battles with a wide margin on most but the last one I was in we won by less than 100. The Flag in EoS is there for the same reason Galv is in AV, to slow down the clueless and it works well. It is a much faster win to have a 4 or even 3 cap then it is to cap 2 and run the flag but people either can't or refuse to understand that.

I actually had a pretty good time in Warsong Gulch even though we did not win a lot of them, I like to run the flag and one battle I capped all 3 for the win. I run back to our flag room with the flag going up the very right hand side of the battleground, I stick right to the edge and get very little interference. I don't really need the marks for anything but I can use the honor to upgrade my gems.

Battlegrounds 8/1/08

The daily battleground today was Eye of the Storm again which wasn't bad, we do good in there and it wasn't their holiday weekend. We won the first one I was in, 2000/300, we trashed them. We had MT, DR and BET capped and were keeping them busy at FRR while we ran the flag. It didn't take me long to collect my 11g99s, 419 extra honor and of course get my 3 Eye of the Storm Mark of Honor mailed to me.

I did some AV's after I was done in EoS, I fought in 7 battles, 4 wins and 3 losses. Our first battle was a win, then we had a loss, then 3 more wins and finally 2 losses before I called it quits. I usually don't fight in a battleground on it's holiday weekend but I decided to give it a try to see how the new add-on I installed today, TuringTest AFK Reporter, was working. I hit it at the right time because overall we were doing good for awhile. Yeah there were a lot of AFK, and the add-on was working great, but it didn't really get bad until the place filled up with weekend warriors. In our wins we rushed FWGY and the relief hut in one, even took down Galv at the start in one of them and still won, that should give you an idea of how good the group was at one point. But towards the end it got really bad and the last 2 battles everyone was in Dun Baldar so I decided to call it quits. Those are the weekend warriors, they are not there to fight, they are there to get honor and marks, they are just a little above the AFK as far as I'm concerned. The only difference being if the Horde come into DB while the are "guarding" it they will put up a fight even if it is half hearted. I am really pleased with this new AFK reporter, it reports automatically so I don't have to waste time doing that anymore and I think if everyone was using it, or Blizzard got off their ass and incorporated it into the game, AFK in battlegrounds would be a thing of the past.

Daily 8/1/08

I only did one daily on Wranngar today so I can't really call it daily's. I did the fishing daily which was Felblood Fillet and spent the rest of my day in the battlegrounds. To catch my Monstrous Felblood Snapper I headed over to my spot at the Pools of Aggonar (39,37) in Hellfire Peninsula. I got one in 7 casts and headed back to Old Man Barlo, (40,59) at Silmyr Lake in Terokkar Forest, to hand it in for my Bag of Fishing Treasures. For that I got 7g4s39c, 3 Elixirs of Water Walking and a Broken Spyglass which I sold to a vendor for 2 gold. Certainly no exciting rewards from this quest today but I will keep plugging away for the good stuff :).

AFK Reporting Add-on

I downloaded a great mod today for reporting AFK in the battlegrounds. It is called TuringTest AFK Reporter. It automatically reports the people that are AFK and also lets you know it reported them. It has other uses too, reports most damage, most healing, best defender and so on. I have tried it in a couple AV's and there were no problems I could see, it seemed pretty accurate. It doesn't report people just getting into the battleground either, I guess it gives them a little time to get out of the cave and do something. I highly recommend this to anyone who fights in a lot of battlegrounds and are as sick of the AFK problem as I am. For those of you who use WoWMatrix you can download TuringTest AFK Reporter right through there and there is also a download/install program available from the download website. I use WoWMatrix to keep track of all my add-ons and it is really handy to update, I update every Friday and it is a one button process with WoWMatrix. Both of these are free to download and use.

Update: I have used this in 7 AV's and I love it, no more taking time to report people AFK, it does it automatically and reports them again in a couple minutes if they are not marked inactive. I think if everyone had this add-on, AFK in battlegrounds would be a thing of the past :). Too bad Blizzard didn't take the initiative and just incorporate it into the game...

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.