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.

Daily Cooking - Infused Mushroom Meatloaf 11/15/09

Today the daily cooking was Infused Mushroom Meatloaf. I did it on Wranngar. It only took me a few minutes to collect the 4 Infused Mushrooms I needed down in the Underbelly. Once I had those I cooked them up with a couple pieces of Chilled Meat and had my meatloaf. I headed over to see Orton Bennet upstairs at Curiosities and Moore and exchanged it for 9g93s, a Dalaran Cooking Award and a Small Spice Bag with 4 Northern Spices in it. Not a bad haul today.

The daily fishing was The Ghostfish again and I skipped it again. I didn't want to waste the time to fly all the way out to Sholazar Basin to fish for it. I know, I know, I am not going to get the good stuff if I don't do the daily but I just didn't feel like wasting the time.

Arathi Basin - Daily Battleground 11/14/09

I did a bunch of battlegrounds on Wranngar tonight. I ended the night with over 1,000 kills and 27,000+ honor. Arathi Basin was my daily battleground. Alliance was not doing well in there. I can remember a time when AB was a battleground we used to win in a lot, not anymore apparently.

I fought in 5 AB's to get my daily done. It was the same problem in all the losses. the glory hounds. The objective is to capture and hold bases for points. The first side to accumulate 1600 points wins. There are 5 bases, you need to hold at least 3 for the majority of the battle to win. The problem with Alliance is they can't just take and hold 3 bases, they have to have all 5. Well usually they are not good enough to capture and hold 5 bases. What ends up happening is you will have 8 or 9 people at the Stables, one person guarding the Lumber Mill, no one guarding the Gold mine, 2 people trying to get the Blacksmith and one person trying to get the Farm. The Horde like to move around in a large group, the Alliance likes to move around in one's or two's. The Alliance is known for leaving bases with no one defending them. I was watching these 'champs' in action tonight, they will ride into a base, start the flag capping, then mount up and ride out. Anyway it took 5 battles until we had a win, a close win, and I was able to get my daily done. I handed that in for 19g86s and 2414 bonus honor. I was maxed out on honor until yesterday when I got a couple items with my honor.

I fought in 4 Eye of the Storm battles too. It was their holiday weekend and I don't know why I bothered. Holiday weekends give you twice the honor when you fight in that battleground. It also brings out the AFK and the weekend warriors, I don't know which one is worse. The weekend warriors are the people who only fight in battlegrounds on their holiday weekends for the extra honor and it shows. The AFK are, well, the AFK and they suck.

I fought in 15 Alterac Valley battles, 12 wins and 3 losses. The Alliance was on fire in AV tonight. It was some of the best fighting I have seen in awhile. In one of the battles someone took SHGY like an idiot but it didn't matter. The Horde were rezzing at FWGY and we just slammed into them and took FWGY. They were rezzing at FWRH then and we went in there and took that away from them too. The we killed Drek :). It was a long battle with some serious fighting. We were owning them. We owned them in a lot of the battles. We couldn't be stopped. It was AV like it used to be. Must have been an old timer reunion. I haven't seen fighting in AV like that in a couple years, since back when I first started fighting in there. 2 of the battles we lost were directly related to taking and holding SHGY, we lost on reinforcements. Usually you just don't have a good enough group to do that so taking and holding SHGY usually results in a loss. Needless to say I got most of my kills in there tonight. I will break 65,000 lifetime kills tomorrow.

One Daily Today - Mustard Dogs 11/14/09

I only did my daily cooking on Wranngar today which was Mustard Dogs!, I skipped the daily fishing, which was The Ghostfish, because I didn't feel like wasting the time to fly out to Sholazar Basin.

The daily cooking had me running around Dalaran picking Wild Mustard. Once I had 4 I headed over to the bank and grabbed some Rhino Meat to make my Rhino Dogs. I cooked those up, then 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 in it. A so-so haul today.

Winning Alterac Valley Strat

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 have 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 GRP 1-3 GO TO RH, NO STOPPING FOR ANYTHING!
/bg GRP 4 CAP FrostWolf GraveYard and Defend!
/bg GRP 5-6 Cap Tower Point
/bg 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(s) into your tool bar.

You're done.

Good Luck :)

-Wranngar

Daily Battleground - Eye of the Storm 11/13/09

My daily battleground was Eye of the Storm. I did it on Wranngar and it took 3 battles to get a win. I fought in a total of 8 battles tonight, 3 wins and 5 losses. I am not going to go into it except to say too many Flagtards spoil the battle. All the AFK that Blizzard can't seem to do anything about don't help either.

I fought in 10 Alterac Valleys tonight too, 3 wins and 7 losses. 4 of the losses were from people taking and holding SHGY...... In the battles where no one got stupid and held SHGY we had some really good battles. The Horde won a few on reinforcements and we won all of ours by killing Drek. We rarely ever win on reinforcements because the reinforcements are set up so they are to the Horde's advantage in AV. We did have one loss where they Blitz'd us, they went straight to Vann, didn't bother with the towers at all, and killed him. If you have a good tank and some good DPS, not to mention the ability to work as a team, you can do that. We had one of those the other day where we went straight to Drek and killed him. You have to do it in under 6 minutes to get the Blitz. We tried to do that today but, as usual, the Alliance can't work together, everyone going in their own direction, and we couldn't. If you can get a group that can work together you can do it easily though.

How to lose in Alterac Valley

There is one surefire way to lose in Alterac Valley. All you need to do is grab Stonehearth Graveyard at the start of the battle and defend it with everything you have. Don't let it go for anything. Hang on to it so hard that it blinds you to everything else, the Horde capping the bunkers around you, the Horde capping the bunkers in Dun Baldar. Just concentrate on holding onto SHGY and you are guaranteed a loss.

Holding SHGY keeps the Horde rezzing in front of you as you are trying to advance. You will not be able to hang on to Iceblood Tower. You will not be able to hang onto Tower Point. You won't be able to cap Iceblood Graveyard because the Horde are going to be rezzing there or Frostwolf Graveyard and will just keep running over you. You most definitely will not be able to hold Frostwolf Graveyard and forget about hanging onto anything in Frostwolf Keep, the Horde are right there in your face.

Now that you haven't been able to get a forward graveyard because the Horde are rezzing in front of you, you get to go back to SHGY when you die, good thing you have that.....

This is not rocket science, it is just simple common sense. The thing that really baffles me is it is the same people grabbing SHGY battle after battle. The same people causing us to lose AV battle after battle. You can't get through to them, you can explain it until your fingertips are bleeding but they just don't get it. You can't reason with them. It is the first cappable item you come to out of the cave and they just have to have it. It is not a bad idea to get it and put up a LITTLE bit of a fight for it, to buy offense a little time, and keep the Horde fighting there instead of running into Dun Baldar, but you don't hold it.

I have seen people hang onto SHGY and leave Dun Baldar wide open, the Horde are just riding by SHGY because they can just cap Stormpike Graveyard, there is no one there except the AFK.

That is how you lose in AV, 99 times out of 100. The other 1 time out of 100, where you can win while holding it, is when half the Horde are AFK and it is the first time the other half have ever been in AV. Other than that you are screwed.

Take heed people and smarten the hell up!

Dangerously Delicious and Infused Mushroom Meatloaf 11/13/09

Today my daily cooking and fishing were Infused Mushroom Meatloaf, a nice simple local one, and Dangerously Delicious which requires a little bit of travel.

I did the cooking first as usual. I headed down into the sewers to pick some Infused Mushrooms. There seemed to be a lot of people picking them at the same time but I still got the 4 I needed pretty quick. With those in hand I headed to the bank to get a couple pieces of Chilled Meat to cook them with to make my meatloaf. I made a fire and cooked it up, then delivered it to Orton Bennet upstairs at Curiosities and Moore in exchange for 9g93s, a Dalaran Cooking Award and a Small Spice Bag with 2 Northern Spices in it. Not a good haul today.

After that I was off to Fordragon Hold, taking the flight path out of Dalaran. From Fordragon I flew over to the very southern end of Wintergrasp to catch my 10 Terrorfish. I got the 10 I needed in 22 casts which is more like it, lately it has been taking me over 30, sometimes almost 40 casts to get my 10. I flew back over to Fordragon Hold and took the flight path back to see Marcia Chase (53,65), by the fountain in Dalaran. I gave her the 10 Terrorfish and she gave me a Bag of Fishing Treasures with 8g77s30c, 5 Pygmy Oil and a Diamond-tipped Cane in it, as if I didn't have enough Diamond-Tipped Canes. Not a great haul for this one either.

Another Sad Day For The Alliance In The Battlegrounds 11/12/09

When I got on Wranngar my daily battelground today was Warsong Gulch so I skipped it. I hate Warsong Gulch, way too much trouble for what you get out of it. I did do 3 Alterac Valley, all losses, and 3 Eye of the Storm, 1 win and 2 losses.

In Eye of the Storm we were just outclassed in one of our losses, although the 3 AFK could have made a difference. There have been more and more AFK in the battlegrounds lately, the problem is far from getting better, it is getting worse. People don't even bother reporting them anymore, they say why bother, nothing gets done. That appears to be the truth as it is the same people you see in there AFK every day. The other battle we lost was Flagtards and AFK. We had one tower and were fighting hard to keep that because most of our team was in the middle fighting for the flag. It is sad. The one we won had a bunch of Flagtards in it too, I don't know how we pulled it off but we did. The Horde seemed to have a lot of Flagtards too in that one so they were not really worried about the 2 towers we had or trying to get them back, that helped a lot.

One of the main problems these days in AV is the fact that it usually starts with a gross unbalance of players in the Hordes favor. We all know Blizzard favors the Horde in AV, they always have, but as if their advantage on reinforcements weren't enough, they are starting the battles out with the Horde outnumbering us 4 to 1. The last battle I was in started 10x40 in the Hordes favor. Needless to say we ended up turtling after being killed without even being able to cap a GY we were so outnumbered. It took 10 minutes into the battle before we had 40 players. Anyone who has fought in AV knows the battle is already decided 10 minutes into it. It is not a matter of people not queueing either, I have waited 4 minutes in queue to get into a battle that was already 5 minutes in progress and the Alliance only had 19 players. I believe this is yet one more thing Blizzard is doing to give the Horde an advantage.

Sewer Stew and Jewel of the Sewers 11/12/09

When I got on Wranngar tonight my daily cooking was Sewer Stew and my daily fishing was Jewel Of The Sewers. A couple of easy ones.

As usual I did the cooking first which had me taking the portal down to Crystalsong Forest. I went to the place where the Crystalsong Carrots grow, directly below Dalaran, and got the 4 I needed pretty quick, there was no one there and I just ran around and picked them. I took the portal back up to Dalaran and grabbed 4 pieces of Chilled Meat out of the bank. I cooked that up with the carrots to get my Vegetable Stew then headed down into the sewers to see Ajay Green at the Cantrips and Crows Tavern in the Underbelly. I gave him his stew and he gave me 9g93s, a Dalaran Cooking Award and a Small Spice Bag with 3 Northern Spices and 3 Baby Spice in it. Not the best haul but I have had worse.

While I was already in the sewers I headed over to The Black Market to fish for a piece of Corroded Jewelry for the daily fishing. I got it on the 16th cast which was more casts than this daily usually takes. I headed back up to see Marcia Chase (53,65), by the fountain to turn it in. She gave me a Bag of Fishing Treasures for my trouble. Today it had 9g64s75c, 5 Pygmy Oil, 2 Solid Gold Coin2 and 3 Deviate Fish in it. Nothing to write home about there.

Isle of Conquest - Daily Battleground 11/11/09

When I grabbed my daily battleground on Wranngar today it was Isle of Conquest. I have done this one a half dozen times now and have a pretty good grasp of the routine. We lost the first one I was in, we had a lot of AFK in that one. The second one I was in went a lot better, I think we only had 3 AFK and the rest of the team seemed to know what they were doing. We ended up killing their General for the win. It was a close battle though, the Horde were in our keep attacking our General when we killed theirs. Anyway that got my daily done and I handed it in for 19g86s and 1241 bonus honor.

I fought in 4 Alterac Valleys after that, 2 wins and 2 losses. The first 3 battles were pretty good, we were pretty even right up to the end. The 4th battle was a turtle on our part which we, of course, lost. We killed Drek in the 2 battles we won and the Horde killed Vann in one of the battles we lost and won the other one on reinforcements. The Horde win a lot of their battles on reinforcements because AV is set up to their advantage when it comes to reinforcements. As usual we had a lot of AFK in all 4 of the battles I was in. At least now it looks like Blizzard removes the AFK from the battleground after they are AFK for a certain amount of time making way for someone who could be fighting. But sometimes the person that comes in just stays in the cave and goes AFK, it is a losing battle and one Blizzard has failed horribly to correct. A lot of people have been asking about the TuringTest AFK Reporter when I announce the AFK and want to know where to get it. Only 5 people having it in each battle would take care of the AFK problem.

I fought in 3 Eye of the Storm tonight too. 2 wins and 1 loss. For a change the loss didn't seem to be Flagtard related, we were just outclassed. In one of the two wins I got into a mostly pre-made, 13 of the 15 were a pre-made. Needless to say we won that one easily with a 4 cap. I did notice in the one we lost that only me and one other person went to FRR. There were only 4 people there and one more person with us would have been able to take it. We did have 5 people at MT and another 4 or 5 at DR which is a waste at the beginning of the battle as the Horde are usually trying to cap BET and FRR. Usually if they are going to try and cap something on our side at the start it will be DR so that is where a couple extra people would be helpful. Rarely do they come for MT. All in all, even with the one loss, it was a pretty good night for the Alliance in the EoS battles I was in.