WSVG: Some fierce games today. WATCH IT!
CGS 2v2 Tourney:
" We're pleased to announce that World of Warcraft will be one of the featured games in this year’s Championship Gaming Series (CGS) World Championship. World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade players on the European and North American realms have the opportunity to secure a spot in the upcoming CGS draft, to be held at BlizzCon. Players who are drafted onto CGS teams will earn $30,000 - $100,000 or more annually in salaries and bonuses as professional gamers.
Ladders
All teams participating in 2-vs.-2 Arena System matches in each battlegroup will automatically be entered in the competition. The initial phase of the tournament will last from June 19 to July 3, and players can check the rankings by visiting the battlegroup ladder pages. The top five 2-vs.-2 teams in each battlegroup will be invited to the next round.
Qualifiers
Following the end of the ladder phase of the tournament on July 3, the five top-ranked teams from each battlegroup will be selected to participate in the qualifiers, as discussed above. Each of these teams will be copied to a private realm in the corresponding region (Europe and North America), where they will compete with the other qualifying teams from that region's battlegroups. The qualifier round will run from July 9 to July 17 and will utilize the same ranking system as the ladders. At the end of the qualifier round, the top 8 teams from Europe and North America will be chosen to participate in the live CGS tournament at BlizzCon and subsequent draft.
BlizzCon Tournament and CGS Draft
The top 16 teams from the qualifiers will be flown to BlizzCon to participate in a two-day tournament to determine the best 2-vs.-2 Arena teams in the world. The top 8 teams from Blizzcon will then be flown to the CGS World Championship in Los Angeles, where they will compete for cash prizes and immediately begin their careers as salaried pro gamers at CGS. They will join 1 of 8 CGS teams following the 2008 Draft and then compete professionally for their teams alongside team members who play a variety of games, including World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade.
Championship Gaming Series (CGS): http://www.thecgs.com
BlizzCon: http://www.blizzcon.com
Battlegroup ladder pages: http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/battlegroups.xml"
Mage Season 2 Gear: (LINK)
We've been able to identify what went wrong and the stats for the Mage Season 2 items are being corrected in a future patch.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
More Season 2 Goodness
Pushed past 1900 last night with only a disconnect loss; I think we're definitely improving and learning that 4 DPS is not just "zerg down their war" that a lot of people say it is. (Though that alone is pretty effective LOL) We played Magdain's team, previously running 3.5 healer now running 2.5 healer, and found them much easier for us; it's not immediately obvious to me the weakness of a War/Ele Shammy/Feral Druid/Priest/Pally team and it is a matrix that I REALLY fear as it really captures the overpoweredness of warriors. ^^
I keep waiting for an armory update as I'm pretty clueless to where everyone is right now, but I' sure we have Stormsrike teams pushing 2k+. 1950 seems like the point that everyone should push for considering the arena point scaling curve. Remember this?
Okay, the chart is pretty hard to read, but this was a topic covered to death at the other PvP blogs; the 1800-2100 range gets about the same points it did pre-nerf while the higher rated teams get significantly less. Keep in mind 1000 points in 5s requires 1986 rating; though for all us mages who took MH/OH the magic number is 2106 -- this puts you at 1875 total points if you had your 750 remaining, but this is probably not a feasible first week rating. I definitely think that for those interested in running the Holo-Gogs/2pc/2pc setup, the S2 gloves are solid and will get you to the double resilience bonus as quickly as possible with little downside.
The Netherdrake issue has always been resolved on BDF resulting in pretty much the whole guild getting Drakes in their mail yesterday morning. ^^
Hopefully, I can bug my guildies to run some AB games today; I'm probably part of an extreme minority who still loves AB/WSG, but one of the real strengths of mages that doesn't really play a part in arenas is our mobility. The ability to escape pretty much any situation with Blink, Nova, PvP Trinket, Ice Block, and to some extent Invis is awesome and one of the most fun parts of the class. We also have great tools for stalling and moving fights (away from flags or towards teammates who can help us), we're excellent flag runners if specced for it, great flag carrier killers, don't require buffs to be effective at all, and perform pretty well even with few CD. Also, some atypical specs can shine in battlegrounds that would never fly in arenas; it's a shame that all PvP in WoW now has to be "Arena."
I keep waiting for an armory update as I'm pretty clueless to where everyone is right now, but I' sure we have Stormsrike teams pushing 2k+. 1950 seems like the point that everyone should push for considering the arena point scaling curve. Remember this?
Okay, the chart is pretty hard to read, but this was a topic covered to death at the other PvP blogs; the 1800-2100 range gets about the same points it did pre-nerf while the higher rated teams get significantly less. Keep in mind 1000 points in 5s requires 1986 rating; though for all us mages who took MH/OH the magic number is 2106 -- this puts you at 1875 total points if you had your 750 remaining, but this is probably not a feasible first week rating. I definitely think that for those interested in running the Holo-Gogs/2pc/2pc setup, the S2 gloves are solid and will get you to the double resilience bonus as quickly as possible with little downside.
The Netherdrake issue has always been resolved on BDF resulting in pretty much the whole guild getting Drakes in their mail yesterday morning. ^^
Hopefully, I can bug my guildies to run some AB games today; I'm probably part of an extreme minority who still loves AB/WSG, but one of the real strengths of mages that doesn't really play a part in arenas is our mobility. The ability to escape pretty much any situation with Blink, Nova, PvP Trinket, Ice Block, and to some extent Invis is awesome and one of the most fun parts of the class. We also have great tools for stalling and moving fights (away from flags or towards teammates who can help us), we're excellent flag runners if specced for it, great flag carrier killers, don't require buffs to be effective at all, and perform pretty well even with few CD. Also, some atypical specs can shine in battlegrounds that would never fly in arenas; it's a shame that all PvP in WoW now has to be "Arena."
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Quick Season 2 Update
About to hop in AB to get a bit of honor to put me over what I need for next piece, but tonight we saw some new teams and had our first losses of the season. I don't really think I played too well tonight. ^^ We're at 1837 at this point, still on pace to make our goal of 2k for the first week.
What's interesting is all the new matrices. I'm used to seeing the exact same compositions over and over; it's fun to go into games without running a preset strategy you've executed a hundred times. Four DPS teams are still far and away in the lead, but 2.5 healer to full tri healer is also VERY popular. Saw a filthy filthy 3.5 healer team which is definitely going to be a trouble matrix for us.
The other FH teams haven't really been too active with the exception of Dahis' and our teams, but give it time. ^^
Everyone in the world should be getting their netherdrakes tomorrow, which was really one of those "I don't care if I get one as long as I don't get one" things. Good games to our rivals on Stormstrike; we'll see each other as we move up.
What's interesting is all the new matrices. I'm used to seeing the exact same compositions over and over; it's fun to go into games without running a preset strategy you've executed a hundred times. Four DPS teams are still far and away in the lead, but 2.5 healer to full tri healer is also VERY popular. Saw a filthy filthy 3.5 healer team which is definitely going to be a trouble matrix for us.
The other FH teams haven't really been too active with the exception of Dahis' and our teams, but give it time. ^^
Everyone in the world should be getting their netherdrakes tomorrow, which was really one of those "I don't care if I get one as long as I don't get one" things. Good games to our rivals on Stormstrike; we'll see each other as we move up.
Season 2 Beginning
I'll do a real quick recap.
We run a 4DPS caster matrix called GameOver (same name as last season) this season. We have a warlock, Azael, an Elemental Shaman, Coercive, a Shadow Priest, Deztruckt, a pally, Odd, and myself. We run this team partially because we wanted to try it out and partially because our old teammates moved on to other things. We're not exactly new to playing with each other, it's been 2 years+ for some of us.
I think we're still too green with this matrix to understand fully its weaknesses and strengths. I think tri-healer teams are very hard for us, as are 4DPS teams who use a rogue to counter our warlock.
We've had a solid start to the season, 22-0 with 1766 rating as I write this, and I'm sure that we'll find a way to make this team work to be a top contender on Stormstrike. I plan on doing the smaller matrices, but thus far have only played a few 2s games with the priest on GameOver, Deztruckt. Our team is Slytherins.
Enough recap!
We've seen the 4DPS trend hardcore so far this season; we played 2 "classic" matrix teams in 22 games. We even ran into some 5DPS teams. (THE NEW 4 DPS LOL)
Saw a terrifying triple elemental shammy team who really really scare me in what they can do.
As for gear, you can always check my armory for updates, but my general plan is to upgrade my damage before upgrading my survivability. So if you see me picking up pieces with higher emphasis on damage over resil/stam pieces, it's because relative to my teammates, I'm a horrible focus fire target and can really afford to pick up more damage.
I think mages who run on teams like this will be initially surprised at how much damage we can do. I still haven't gotten used to going from primary CC to primary DPS, and I think it'll take more than a few dozen games to get a better feel for how to play this style effectively.
I don't really have any other news than that; I'm going to be working on getting honor for the PvP gear in coming weeks, and as soon as arena stabilizes a bit so we are playing reasonably solid teams, I'll look for an opportunity to start frapsing. ^^
I'll try to keep it speedy with updates especially as things getting settled down. Besides, you should all be playing and not reading shitty blogs right now. GO!
We run a 4DPS caster matrix called GameOver (same name as last season) this season. We have a warlock, Azael, an Elemental Shaman, Coercive, a Shadow Priest, Deztruckt, a pally, Odd, and myself. We run this team partially because we wanted to try it out and partially because our old teammates moved on to other things. We're not exactly new to playing with each other, it's been 2 years+ for some of us.
I think we're still too green with this matrix to understand fully its weaknesses and strengths. I think tri-healer teams are very hard for us, as are 4DPS teams who use a rogue to counter our warlock.
We've had a solid start to the season, 22-0 with 1766 rating as I write this, and I'm sure that we'll find a way to make this team work to be a top contender on Stormstrike. I plan on doing the smaller matrices, but thus far have only played a few 2s games with the priest on GameOver, Deztruckt. Our team is Slytherins.
Enough recap!
We've seen the 4DPS trend hardcore so far this season; we played 2 "classic" matrix teams in 22 games. We even ran into some 5DPS teams. (THE NEW 4 DPS LOL)
Saw a terrifying triple elemental shammy team who really really scare me in what they can do.
As for gear, you can always check my armory for updates, but my general plan is to upgrade my damage before upgrading my survivability. So if you see me picking up pieces with higher emphasis on damage over resil/stam pieces, it's because relative to my teammates, I'm a horrible focus fire target and can really afford to pick up more damage.
I think mages who run on teams like this will be initially surprised at how much damage we can do. I still haven't gotten used to going from primary CC to primary DPS, and I think it'll take more than a few dozen games to get a better feel for how to play this style effectively.
I don't really have any other news than that; I'm going to be working on getting honor for the PvP gear in coming weeks, and as soon as arena stabilizes a bit so we are playing reasonably solid teams, I'll look for an opportunity to start frapsing. ^^
I'll try to keep it speedy with updates especially as things getting settled down. Besides, you should all be playing and not reading shitty blogs right now. GO!
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Real Quick Update
Played our first few 5s games last night, haven't faced strong competition yet, but had a great time goofing around and being able to actually win points off those 0-point teams of last season is a GREAT feeling.
I've been slacking on content as of late, but I should have some updates with how the beginning of the season is going, how I think mage gameplay in arena is changing, and how I think one should look to gear oneself depending on your matrix.
Otherwise, I'd like to welcome the Shadow Gaming Crew along with Chadwick and Byniss to FH; it's going to be an awesome season. ^^
Oh, and for those who know me for some strange reason from fighters, I won't be at Super Battle Opera, but Aesthyr will for T5DR, Arcane Heart, and something else. I recommend bugging him on IRC if you're into that stuff or want updates on the event since I hate feeding his ego by talking about his prowess here. Actually, I won't gay him. Best of luck, rep FF scrub.
I've been slacking on content as of late, but I should have some updates with how the beginning of the season is going, how I think mage gameplay in arena is changing, and how I think one should look to gear oneself depending on your matrix.
Otherwise, I'd like to welcome the Shadow Gaming Crew along with Chadwick and Byniss to FH; it's going to be an awesome season. ^^
Oh, and for those who know me for some strange reason from fighters, I won't be at Super Battle Opera, but Aesthyr will for T5DR, Arcane Heart, and something else. I recommend bugging him on IRC if you're into that stuff or want updates on the event since I hate feeding his ego by talking about his prowess here. Actually, I won't gay him. Best of luck, rep FF scrub.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Tomorrow ^^
Not much to say. Get your shit straight. I know mine isn't. I probably won't have PvP gear for a few weeks into the season due to RL busyness, but the upgrades are all minor enough that I don't think I'll be at too great a disadvantage. It'll be kind of fun to be undergeared for a change. ^^
Hopefully, every thing goes smoothly season's start. I'll probably start frapsing/working on an arena vid once I gear up, maybe 3-4 weeks into the season. I'll have more content once the season begins, until then, I'll be enjoying the ever increasing drama spam here.
Hopefully, every thing goes smoothly season's start. I'll probably start frapsing/working on an arena vid once I gear up, maybe 3-4 weeks into the season. I'll have more content once the season begins, until then, I'll be enjoying the ever increasing drama spam here.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Best Recent PvP Vids
Neilyo 4 - If you haven't seen this yet, you are WAY out of the loop. Best rogue TBC vid for sure -- extremely fun to watch and well played. Definitely not full of omg strong opponents, but lots of flashy play. I don't think I've liked a vid this much since Viral 2.
Kzn3 - AP/frost mage on a 2350+ 5s team. Shows how strong poly juggling style can be on a classic matrix team. Really shows how to play AP/Frost well on a high level team, CC and keep away, burst when the opening arises. I really liked this vid; best arena mage in TBC. (I won't speak about a "certain" mage arena vid where he opens character screen to pvp trinket and has his pet break his sheeps twice)
I Suck at Dueling 3 - Another dueling vid from Evertras. Anyone who likes to duel should definitely watch parts 2 and 3 of this series. Do all these strats work on top players? Not really, but these vids are still fun to watch especially for those who like to duel as non-WE.
AKcope 2 - You aren't going to see any amazing play in this, no strong opponents etc.; this is just a big crits for the most part, but for some ret pally big crits are more fun to watch.
Further installments will probably be lengthier, but that's all the time I have for now. ^^
Kzn3 - AP/frost mage on a 2350+ 5s team. Shows how strong poly juggling style can be on a classic matrix team. Really shows how to play AP/Frost well on a high level team, CC and keep away, burst when the opening arises. I really liked this vid; best arena mage in TBC. (I won't speak about a "certain" mage arena vid where he opens character screen to pvp trinket and has his pet break his sheeps twice)
I Suck at Dueling 3 - Another dueling vid from Evertras. Anyone who likes to duel should definitely watch parts 2 and 3 of this series. Do all these strats work on top players? Not really, but these vids are still fun to watch especially for those who like to duel as non-WE.
AKcope 2 - You aren't going to see any amazing play in this, no strong opponents etc.; this is just a big crits for the most part, but for some ret pally big crits are more fun to watch.
Further installments will probably be lengthier, but that's all the time I have for now. ^^
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