GameOver played about two dozen games tonight with our new lineup. We initially were running into mostly 2xWar teams which really aren't too challenging for us and we quickly crept up to close to 2400 rating again. All of a sudden, we started hitting 4DPS teams consecutively and quickly found ourselves down 200 rating as teams repeatedly were able to drop or take our warrior out of the fight. We really don't have much experience yet at playing against 4DPS; so if you're looking for some free rating, Q up tomorrow (Saturday) at 4:30 server.
I'm strangely sleepy so I'll post up a few things tomorrow during the day. zzz ^^
**UPDATE **
Welcome to BDF Evertras. More duelers! ^^
To briefly get back on the 4DPS topic; it's no secret that, when playing against 4DPS, most teams recognize at this point if they have their warrior go too defensive, the 4DPS team will simply keep up the pressure to run your healing oom while you try to 4v5 them without your warrior. As far as 2345 goes, against many 4DPS teams, you are actually able to kill a target about as fast as the 4DPS can as warrior, shaman, and mage burst are generally better than that of the locks and shadowpriests that inhabit 4DPS teams. As long as you aren't CC'd too badly, you can come out the gate and put the hurt on the shadowpriest or lock, and if you can slow their momentum even a little bit, you can really turn the game in your favor.
Strangely, it is 4DPS teams with rogues who really are the nuisance; it isn't the damage that the rogue is putting out, its the fact that he can control your warrior to a huge degree to ensure that he is eating the damage that the lock/SP/mage are putting out. By controlling your warrior with the rogue and having their 3 casters DPS and CC, you're in a very non-optimal 4v4 as without MS or hamstring, it is quite difficult to land a kill in a reasonable amount of time. By nature of keeping Wound up on the warrior, they're even helping themselves in the long game -- the warrior is going to have great difficulty keeping MS up on anything but the rogue that's on him, and the rogue is not a particularly attractive target for the mage and shaman. As the game draws on, the fact that your priest was free to manaburn is nice, but ultimately they have a paladin with significantly more mana remaining and a warlock with an unlimited mana pool. If you trade your warrior for getting the kill on the shadowpriest, you're in a pretty hopeless 4v4. While the shadowpriest is the usual target of choice for 2345 against 4DPS, perhaps this should not be the case.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Thursday, August 30, 2007
PvP Glossary (Work in Progress)
Raddy's PvP and Arena Glossary:
2345 - Describes a 5v5 team that contains Holy Priest/Paladin/MS War/Mage/Elemental Shaman. The names comes from Noktyn (Pandemic War) and describes the ease at which this team puts out burst. "2345" represents simply hitting these keys and quickly putting out huge burst with mage and elemental shaman cooldowns. BG9 coined the term and it has been the prevalent matrix on BG9 since the end of season one. The term was initially derogatory, but is now simply a tongue-in-cheek way of talking about this team setup.
5-8 kite - Describes kiting a warrior within his "dead zone" which is outside of melee range (5 yards) but inside of intercept range. (8 yards) Originator of this technique is debatable but it was a common feature in pre-TBC rogue vs warrior duels that has since become somewhat less of a factor. There are some variants where this is done by mages or against druids, but typically the term is reserved for rogue vs. warrior kiting. Origin unknown.
AE - Area of Effect. Can refer to Arcane Explosion, but infrequently. Simple abbreviation.
AoE - Area of Effect. Originally used to disambiguate Area of Effect with Arcane Explosion, but the term is now deprecated in favor of the shorter "AE." Simple abbreviation.
AM - Arcane Missiles. Simple abbreviation.
AP - Arcane Power. Simple abbreviation.
BG - Originally exclusively was an abbreviation for battleground. Frequently now is an abbreviation for battlegroup. Simple abbreviation.
BG5 - Stormstrike battlegroup. Raddy's home. ^^
BG9 - Bloodlust battlegroup. The most competitive battlegroup in WoW.
BoP - Blessing of Protection. Simple abbreviation.
BoF - Blessing of Freedom Simple abbreviation.
BoS - Blessing of Sacrifice. Simple abbreviation.
CC - Crowd Control. Typically describes "hard" crowd control abilities that totally remove control of the character such as Polymorph, Blind, Cyclone, and Fear. Other forms of crowd control such as stuns, snares and roots occasionally are referred to by "CC" depending on the context. Simple Abbreviation.
classic - Describes a 5v5 team that contains Holy Priest/Paladin/MS War/Mage and one additional DPS class. Sometimes called "2 Healer" teams. Generally, this term is appended with a '+' and the class name of the additional DPS class, for example "classic+hunter." Term comes from Radikal Noise as a quick way of discuss different arena team compositions.
CDs - Cooldowns. Most frequently used to reference Rogue cooldowns or offensive cooldowns such as Elemental Mastery, Arcane Power, or Presence of Mind. Simple abbreviation.
CL - Chain Lightning. Simple abbreviation.
CS - Counterspell or Spell Lock. Typically, CS is used as an abbreviation even for the Felhunter's Spell Lock. Also can refer to Cheap Shot depending on context. Simple abbreviation
DB - Dragon's Breath. Simple abbreviation.
death - Shadow Word Death. Generally describes the process by which a priest can avoid polymorph by casting Shadow Word Death right as the Polymorph spell lands on him. Simple abbreviation.
DP - Desperate prayer. Simple abbreviation.
DoT - Damage over Time. Simple abbreviation.
DR - Diminishing returns. Diminishing returns describe the reduced duration of crowd control effects on a single target with repeated applications. The reduction in duration is as follows: 100%, 50%, 25%, and then total immunity. The window for diminishing returns is 15 seconds from the end of the crowd control effect.
EB - Earthbind. (Totem) Simple abbreviation.
EM - Elemental Mastery. Simple abbreviation.
fball - Fireball. Sometimes abbreviated with "FB" which can be confusing. Simple abbreviation.
fblast - Fireblast. Sometimes abbreviated with "FB" which can be confusing. Simple abbreviation.
fbolt - Frostbolt. Sometimes abbreviated with "FB" which can be confusing. Simple abbreviation.
FG - Felguard. The 41 point demonology warlock pet. In arena context, describes the spec or pet choice of the warlock. Simple abbreviation.
FD - Feign Death. Simple abbreviation.
FH - Felhunter. Describes the pet choice of a warlock. Simple abbreviation.
fn - Frost Nova. Simple abbreviation.
focus - Ambiguous and depends on context. Can refer to the verb that indicates target selection inside arena or can describe the UI feature by which can set up a focus window and bind abilities to automatically target that focus. Also, this can refer to the metagem that has a chance on spell hit to reduce the next spell's cast time by 50%.
FW - Fear Ward. Simple abbreviation.
Golden Child - Zecks. Zecks is a rogue that plays for MoB who has received massive attention from Ming on his blog, World of Ming. He is considered a "star" player by many though the term "Golden Child" is perhaps derogatory depending on the context. One of many players to receive a strange nickname from Ming, but certainly the most recognized.
HoT - Healing over Time. Simple abbreviation.
hpriest - Holy Priest. This abbreviation can be misleading and generally "hpriest" or "Holy Priest" includes priests who are Discipline as well. Some read "hpriest" as Healing Priest but while this perhaps is more logical, it is not common. Origin unknown.
hypo - Hypothermia. Simple abbreviation.
IB - Ice Block. Simple abbreviation.
ICS - Improved Counterspell. Generally describes being afflicted by just the silence part of the mage Counterspell ability. "It's just ICS, heals inc." Simple abbreviation.
LoS - Line of Sight. Often used as a verb to describe avoiding cast time spells by moving behind an obstruction. Simple abbreviation.
matrix - The classes composing a team. For example, a 3s team that includes a mage, rogue, and a priest would be called rogue/mage/priest matrix. Ming coined this term early into season one and its use in describing class composition of teams is ubiquitous.
MB- Generally Mana Burn. Can refer to Mind Blast depending on context.
MD - Mass Dispel. Simple abbreviation.
MS - Mortal Strike. Typically describes either the warrior ability or the spec of the warrior. Simple abbreviation.
NS - Nature's Swiftness. Simple abbreviation.
oom - Out of Mana. Simple abbreviation.
overextend - The arena strategy by which a target is drawn out of healing or dispelling range and is either killed or crowd controlled beyond the aid of the team. It refers to baiting an opponent into a dangerous/precarious situation. Origin Nurfed.
poly - Polymoprh. Simple abbreviation.
poly->detect - Casting Detect Magic on a sheep to make dispelling the polymorph more difficult. The technique was created by Gegon in WoW 1.0. It was not frequently used until mid season one, but it is now a universal part of arena mage gameplay.
PoM - Prayer of Mending or Presence of Mind. Context determines meaning. Simple abbreviation.
pyro - Pyroblast. Simple abbreviation.
rock/paper/scissors - A term that describes the fact that certain class combinations are hard counters to others. This element of the game leads to teams fielding 5 man teams to WSVG's 3 man tournament. Origin unknown.
rushdown - A dueling technique by which you play extremely aggressively to the point where your opponent has very limited options. The inherent risk is that you fail to lock in the win while you had momentum and have, failing killed your opponent, ran out of tools. Ming uses this term frequently, but origin unknown.
sac - Blessing of Sacrifice. Simple abbreviation.
SG - Shadow Gaming. A PvP blog that is now discontinued; writers included HappyMinti, Dahis, and briefly Reft. Articles covered all elements of WoW PvP and associated topics. Simple abbreviation.
shatter combo - Using the Water Elemental's Freeze ability as the controlling mage finishes casting a frostbolt and then quickly icelancing while the frostbolt is in the air. This causes both spells to crit the target and is the source of Frost Mage burst DPS. Origin unknown.
shock - Generally Earthshock, but can refer to other Shaman shocks. Typically, used as a verb. "Have the shaman shock mana burns while your mage controls their DPS with polymorph" Simple abbreviation.
skillherald - Derogatory slang for the Blacksmith crafted Tier 3 mace, Stormherald. The combination of the warrior mace stun talent along with the mace's inherent stun proc allow for occasional strings of "lucky" stun procs that can shift the outcome of a game dramatically. Origin unknown.
SL/SL - Soul Link/Syphon Life. Describes warlocks who have both Syphon Life and Soul Link -- a PvP talent spec with incredible survivability that makes heavy use of drain life and drain mana to outlast opponents. Origin unknown.
SP - Shadowpriest. Simple abbreviation.
spriest - Shadow Priest. Origin unknown.
SS - Silencing shot or Scatter shot. Ambiguous abbreviation that still find a lot of use. Simple abbreviation.
swd - Shadow Word Death. Simple abbreviation.
TT - Tremor Totem. Simple abbreviation.
ward - Can describe any of the mage wards or the warlock shadow ward ability, but typically is used as an abbreviation for the Priest racial, Fear Ward. Simple abbreviation.
WC - Winter's Chill. This talent was not part of mage PvP play until TBC beta. Corrz was the first mage to make extensive use of this talent's dispel mechanics. (afaik) Due to the stacking nature of the debuff, it can make dispelling the target take much longer than normal and many mages abuse this to make polymorph or their teammates damage over time effects more difficult to dispel. Simple abbreviation.
WE - Water Elemental. Describes either the pet itself or the talent spec of the mage. (implying he has 41+ in frost) Simple abbreviation.
WoM - World of Ming. World of Ming has since moved to GameRiot, but this PvP blog with a focus on the rogue class, has been the epicenter of WoW PvP since TBC beta. Articles range from news, strategy discussions, to all forms of eDrama. Simple Abbreviation.
YWL - Yea We Lift. A BG5 (Stormstrike) 5v5 team that has been a major contender in the battlegroup since season one. They became a well known name after controversy surrounding their 3v3 team at WSVG led to their elimination from the Toronto event. The team runs a still ongoing PvP blog, www.yeawelift.com.
2345 - Describes a 5v5 team that contains Holy Priest/Paladin/MS War/Mage/Elemental Shaman. The names comes from Noktyn (Pandemic War) and describes the ease at which this team puts out burst. "2345" represents simply hitting these keys and quickly putting out huge burst with mage and elemental shaman cooldowns. BG9 coined the term and it has been the prevalent matrix on BG9 since the end of season one. The term was initially derogatory, but is now simply a tongue-in-cheek way of talking about this team setup.
5-8 kite - Describes kiting a warrior within his "dead zone" which is outside of melee range (5 yards) but inside of intercept range. (8 yards) Originator of this technique is debatable but it was a common feature in pre-TBC rogue vs warrior duels that has since become somewhat less of a factor. There are some variants where this is done by mages or against druids, but typically the term is reserved for rogue vs. warrior kiting. Origin unknown.
AE - Area of Effect. Can refer to Arcane Explosion, but infrequently. Simple abbreviation.
AoE - Area of Effect. Originally used to disambiguate Area of Effect with Arcane Explosion, but the term is now deprecated in favor of the shorter "AE." Simple abbreviation.
AM - Arcane Missiles. Simple abbreviation.
AP - Arcane Power. Simple abbreviation.
BG - Originally exclusively was an abbreviation for battleground. Frequently now is an abbreviation for battlegroup. Simple abbreviation.
BG5 - Stormstrike battlegroup. Raddy's home. ^^
BG9 - Bloodlust battlegroup. The most competitive battlegroup in WoW.
BoP - Blessing of Protection. Simple abbreviation.
BoF - Blessing of Freedom Simple abbreviation.
BoS - Blessing of Sacrifice. Simple abbreviation.
CC - Crowd Control. Typically describes "hard" crowd control abilities that totally remove control of the character such as Polymorph, Blind, Cyclone, and Fear. Other forms of crowd control such as stuns, snares and roots occasionally are referred to by "CC" depending on the context. Simple Abbreviation.
classic - Describes a 5v5 team that contains Holy Priest/Paladin/MS War/Mage and one additional DPS class. Sometimes called "2 Healer" teams. Generally, this term is appended with a '+' and the class name of the additional DPS class, for example "classic+hunter." Term comes from Radikal Noise as a quick way of discuss different arena team compositions.
CDs - Cooldowns. Most frequently used to reference Rogue cooldowns or offensive cooldowns such as Elemental Mastery, Arcane Power, or Presence of Mind. Simple abbreviation.
CL - Chain Lightning. Simple abbreviation.
CS - Counterspell or Spell Lock. Typically, CS is used as an abbreviation even for the Felhunter's Spell Lock. Also can refer to Cheap Shot depending on context. Simple abbreviation
DB - Dragon's Breath. Simple abbreviation.
death - Shadow Word Death. Generally describes the process by which a priest can avoid polymorph by casting Shadow Word Death right as the Polymorph spell lands on him. Simple abbreviation.
DP - Desperate prayer. Simple abbreviation.
DoT - Damage over Time. Simple abbreviation.
DR - Diminishing returns. Diminishing returns describe the reduced duration of crowd control effects on a single target with repeated applications. The reduction in duration is as follows: 100%, 50%, 25%, and then total immunity. The window for diminishing returns is 15 seconds from the end of the crowd control effect.
EB - Earthbind. (Totem) Simple abbreviation.
EM - Elemental Mastery. Simple abbreviation.
fball - Fireball. Sometimes abbreviated with "FB" which can be confusing. Simple abbreviation.
fblast - Fireblast. Sometimes abbreviated with "FB" which can be confusing. Simple abbreviation.
fbolt - Frostbolt. Sometimes abbreviated with "FB" which can be confusing. Simple abbreviation.
FG - Felguard. The 41 point demonology warlock pet. In arena context, describes the spec or pet choice of the warlock. Simple abbreviation.
FD - Feign Death. Simple abbreviation.
FH - Felhunter. Describes the pet choice of a warlock. Simple abbreviation.
fn - Frost Nova. Simple abbreviation.
focus - Ambiguous and depends on context. Can refer to the verb that indicates target selection inside arena or can describe the UI feature by which can set up a focus window and bind abilities to automatically target that focus. Also, this can refer to the metagem that has a chance on spell hit to reduce the next spell's cast time by 50%.
FW - Fear Ward. Simple abbreviation.
Golden Child - Zecks. Zecks is a rogue that plays for MoB who has received massive attention from Ming on his blog, World of Ming. He is considered a "star" player by many though the term "Golden Child" is perhaps derogatory depending on the context. One of many players to receive a strange nickname from Ming, but certainly the most recognized.
HoT - Healing over Time. Simple abbreviation.
hpriest - Holy Priest. This abbreviation can be misleading and generally "hpriest" or "Holy Priest" includes priests who are Discipline as well. Some read "hpriest" as Healing Priest but while this perhaps is more logical, it is not common. Origin unknown.
hypo - Hypothermia. Simple abbreviation.
IB - Ice Block. Simple abbreviation.
ICS - Improved Counterspell. Generally describes being afflicted by just the silence part of the mage Counterspell ability. "It's just ICS, heals inc." Simple abbreviation.
LoS - Line of Sight. Often used as a verb to describe avoiding cast time spells by moving behind an obstruction. Simple abbreviation.
matrix - The classes composing a team. For example, a 3s team that includes a mage, rogue, and a priest would be called rogue/mage/priest matrix. Ming coined this term early into season one and its use in describing class composition of teams is ubiquitous.
MB- Generally Mana Burn. Can refer to Mind Blast depending on context.
MD - Mass Dispel. Simple abbreviation.
MS - Mortal Strike. Typically describes either the warrior ability or the spec of the warrior. Simple abbreviation.
NS - Nature's Swiftness. Simple abbreviation.
oom - Out of Mana. Simple abbreviation.
overextend - The arena strategy by which a target is drawn out of healing or dispelling range and is either killed or crowd controlled beyond the aid of the team. It refers to baiting an opponent into a dangerous/precarious situation. Origin Nurfed.
poly - Polymoprh. Simple abbreviation.
poly->detect - Casting Detect Magic on a sheep to make dispelling the polymorph more difficult. The technique was created by Gegon in WoW 1.0. It was not frequently used until mid season one, but it is now a universal part of arena mage gameplay.
PoM - Prayer of Mending or Presence of Mind. Context determines meaning. Simple abbreviation.
pyro - Pyroblast. Simple abbreviation.
rock/paper/scissors - A term that describes the fact that certain class combinations are hard counters to others. This element of the game leads to teams fielding 5 man teams to WSVG's 3 man tournament. Origin unknown.
rushdown - A dueling technique by which you play extremely aggressively to the point where your opponent has very limited options. The inherent risk is that you fail to lock in the win while you had momentum and have, failing killed your opponent, ran out of tools. Ming uses this term frequently, but origin unknown.
sac - Blessing of Sacrifice. Simple abbreviation.
SG - Shadow Gaming. A PvP blog that is now discontinued; writers included HappyMinti, Dahis, and briefly Reft. Articles covered all elements of WoW PvP and associated topics. Simple abbreviation.
shatter combo - Using the Water Elemental's Freeze ability as the controlling mage finishes casting a frostbolt and then quickly icelancing while the frostbolt is in the air. This causes both spells to crit the target and is the source of Frost Mage burst DPS. Origin unknown.
shock - Generally Earthshock, but can refer to other Shaman shocks. Typically, used as a verb. "Have the shaman shock mana burns while your mage controls their DPS with polymorph" Simple abbreviation.
skillherald - Derogatory slang for the Blacksmith crafted Tier 3 mace, Stormherald. The combination of the warrior mace stun talent along with the mace's inherent stun proc allow for occasional strings of "lucky" stun procs that can shift the outcome of a game dramatically. Origin unknown.
SL/SL - Soul Link/Syphon Life. Describes warlocks who have both Syphon Life and Soul Link -- a PvP talent spec with incredible survivability that makes heavy use of drain life and drain mana to outlast opponents. Origin unknown.
SP - Shadowpriest. Simple abbreviation.
spriest - Shadow Priest. Origin unknown.
SS - Silencing shot or Scatter shot. Ambiguous abbreviation that still find a lot of use. Simple abbreviation.
swd - Shadow Word Death. Simple abbreviation.
TT - Tremor Totem. Simple abbreviation.
ward - Can describe any of the mage wards or the warlock shadow ward ability, but typically is used as an abbreviation for the Priest racial, Fear Ward. Simple abbreviation.
WC - Winter's Chill. This talent was not part of mage PvP play until TBC beta. Corrz was the first mage to make extensive use of this talent's dispel mechanics. (afaik) Due to the stacking nature of the debuff, it can make dispelling the target take much longer than normal and many mages abuse this to make polymorph or their teammates damage over time effects more difficult to dispel. Simple abbreviation.
WE - Water Elemental. Describes either the pet itself or the talent spec of the mage. (implying he has 41+ in frost) Simple abbreviation.
WoM - World of Ming. World of Ming has since moved to GameRiot, but this PvP blog with a focus on the rogue class, has been the epicenter of WoW PvP since TBC beta. Articles range from news, strategy discussions, to all forms of eDrama. Simple Abbreviation.
YWL - Yea We Lift. A BG5 (Stormstrike) 5v5 team that has been a major contender in the battlegroup since season one. They became a well known name after controversy surrounding their 3v3 team at WSVG led to their elimination from the Toronto event. The team runs a still ongoing PvP blog, www.yeawelift.com.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Favorite PvP Vids
While I briefly mentioned Neilyo6 at the end of my last post, let me reiterate that it is a must-watch. It is definitely one of my favorite vids since TBC has launched, and honestly it doesn't even have the feel of a big production. The quality of clips in Neilyo's past few videos has been so ridiculous that you'd think that these are the types of videos where you fraps for months and just take the best few minutes of action, but at the rate they are released, this clearly isn't the case. Huge style points once again. ^^
On the whole video topic, the YWL vs MoB rematch from WSVG is on WCM now. The camera is reminiscent of fighter vids from the over-the-shoulder perspective and does make it hard to really see precisely what's going on. It's still worth checking out if you've never seen any of these guys in action though there certainly exist at least a few vids where you can more clearly see the YWL players. (for those curious)
Top 10 TBC Vids: (and less than 10 words about each)
I don't have links, but I'll go back and add them when I get a chance. Almost all of them are on WCM if you search for the author.
On the whole video topic, the YWL vs MoB rematch from WSVG is on WCM now. The camera is reminiscent of fighter vids from the over-the-shoulder perspective and does make it hard to really see precisely what's going on. It's still worth checking out if you've never seen any of these guys in action though there certainly exist at least a few vids where you can more clearly see the YWL players. (for those curious)
Top 10 TBC Vids: (and less than 10 words about each)
- The Cow and the Pro - Cool team, funny, awesome mix of content.
- Neilyo5/6 - Flashiest, fanciest, most small-handed vids being released currently.
- Pig's 1v2 vid - Ridiculous movement, really grew on me.
- Sponsor Me's 3v3 Vid - Demonstrated the potency of the matrix and its amazing players.
- Hukhukhuks's 5v5 Vid - Fun to watch 5v5? OMGEESE. Tiz owns.
- Ragdolled's 5v5 Vid - The OTHER exciting 5s vid.
- Misson4 - My favorite BG PvP vid since TBC. Nades included. ^^
- ZizekLoganz2v2 - Awesome vid. Better than I could make spriest/mage by far.
- Rilo's 5s vid - You get to see all the BG5 people (makoplux!) ^^
- Zetla's PvP Exploits - AMAZING wall jumping. Trust me on this one lol.
- Viral 2 - Flag running, gouge-> OOC in 4 seconds, nuff said.
- Gameking II - The best mage vid by a wide margin imo.
- Ming Test Duels on 1.11 - Set the standard for duels in vids.
- Cachecix VI - Awesome, very underrated vid. Close between this and FMT vids.
- Ret's 5v5 Night 3 - I liked this better than the nurfed roaming vids, sorry. ^^
- Gegon Strikes Back - Cheesy perhaps but still love it. <3
- Spoh 3/4 - CRAZY back in the day.
- Foredoomed5 - Pre-TBC Warlock OPness.
- Korrupt's Vid - Sick sick sick.
- Dahis Transformation - Cuz he said he'd gquit if I didn't include it.
I don't have links, but I'll go back and add them when I get a chance. Almost all of them are on WCM if you search for the author.
RESPOND TO TELLS OMGEESE!!
Why I Don't Always Respond to Tells:
I've been asked recently about what it takes to get a chance to be a part of FH raiding and to be blunt, I don't know. =p I'm not really trying to dodge the question, but I don't want to give the impression that by coming to BDF to PvP with us, you're a step closer to networking your way into raiding. Honestly, if you're a player looking to pursue raiding and competitive PvP, Mal'Ganis is almost certainly a better option and there are probably few servers that can match its PvP AND PvE "progression." (whatever the fuck that means LOL) I can put you in contact with people who can address this stuff, but I'm somewhat remiss to deal with these issues as part of the beauty of being solely a PvPer, is that I don't have to deal with the back office side of the guild. ^^
I was really hoping that after the recent waves of PvP transfers we'd be able to setup a WSG team and beg a few of the horde guilds on the BG to get some weekly competitive WSG. I haven't had a good WSG match since Overrated left, and strangely WSG is still one of my favorites parts of WoW. If anyone reading this is interested, know what we got probably 20ish FH players interested; I know there are no epics involved, but think of the epeen!
- I'm a douchebag
- It isn't me on the character. If I'm not in Blade's Edge Mountains or Arena, 90% chance it isn't me.
- I'm arena-ing. I'll still respond MOST the time.
- I'm AFK. I generally log in and idle from the instant I come in the door, but that doesn't mean I'm paying attention. ^^
- I'm a douchebag.
I've been asked recently about what it takes to get a chance to be a part of FH raiding and to be blunt, I don't know. =p I'm not really trying to dodge the question, but I don't want to give the impression that by coming to BDF to PvP with us, you're a step closer to networking your way into raiding. Honestly, if you're a player looking to pursue raiding and competitive PvP, Mal'Ganis is almost certainly a better option and there are probably few servers that can match its PvP AND PvE "progression." (whatever the fuck that means LOL) I can put you in contact with people who can address this stuff, but I'm somewhat remiss to deal with these issues as part of the beauty of being solely a PvPer, is that I don't have to deal with the back office side of the guild. ^^
I was really hoping that after the recent waves of PvP transfers we'd be able to setup a WSG team and beg a few of the horde guilds on the BG to get some weekly competitive WSG. I haven't had a good WSG match since Overrated left, and strangely WSG is still one of my favorites parts of WoW. If anyone reading this is interested, know what we got probably 20ish FH players interested; I know there are no epics involved, but think of the epeen!
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Getting Ripped as 2345
GameOver began its Monday night games with 8 consecutive losses (1 being a DC) against two of the FH (sorta) teams, Pewp Machine and Armchair Athletes. Both teams run classic + FG lock, but they were winning against us in very different ways.
Armchair likes to put Azael's FG and Dahis (warrior, omg duh) on me the whole game; between Skillherald and the FG I end up taking a lot of damage and doing very little. I basically end up kiting out of LoS of the mage so I don't eat the shatter burst (between Intercept, Skillherald, FG intercept and novas, it's pretty annoying to not be a gnome) and poking out to decurse teammates and drop a poly or two. By taking me out of the fight, the game becomes a longer game and while our priest is more free to burn and harass, they have the mana efficiency advantage with a FG lock spamming mana drain the majority of the game. If I start to get more aggressive, they look to burst me down with a MD on Ice Block.
Pewp Machine plays against us very differently; they are much more damage oriented and really go for the early kill on our priest. Doing this also ensures that despite the lack of heroism, their priest can win the mana burn war as ours is unable to cast. Unlike Azael's constant fear and tongues spam, you see a lot more of PM's lock, Streygo, shadowbolting faces off. I seem to fall for the same, FG intercept->poly->psychic scream combo EVERY game.
It's a little weird to basically start a new team at ~2400 rating that plays completely differently than your old lineup. Stormstrike is also not a battlegroup with any top 2345 teams so there's not a whole lot of "how does X beat this setup" -- on the other hand, we played as our opposing matrices all season last season so we do remember what we used to do against 2345 teams and what was and wasn't effective. There were a few teams that began as 2345 at the beginning of the season, but these teams have since all abandoned the lineup in favor of 2xWar, classic+lock, or 4DPS. Not since NiP's strange 2345 with Mako as AP/Fire has 2345 dominated the battlegroup. (NiP did truly dominate)
As I've said before, I don't think we really play 2345 with enough of the "2345"-ness. We play to outlast every team; we kill pets, we kite and CC and shock. We have been doing this against Fireman's hunter+classic who punish us severely every time we play so passively.
We ended up splitting the remainder of our games for the rest of the night after the night's early losses. I basically started playing way more defensively and either we were able to punish overextension or we created an opening to get out some burst. I tried to fraps a few of the games, but once again FPS drops from like 70->30 and gets really choppy which makes playing too difficult.
GameOver doesn't play again till Thursday so I'll probably use the time to level my gnome and catch up on blogging. ^^ I don't really have a 2s/3s team right now though it would be nice to have an excuse to respec to 0/6/55 or some variant considering how much I'm focused in 5s.
** UPDATE ** YOU MUST WATCH NEILYO6 -- IT IS AMAZING ^^
Armchair likes to put Azael's FG and Dahis (warrior, omg duh) on me the whole game; between Skillherald and the FG I end up taking a lot of damage and doing very little. I basically end up kiting out of LoS of the mage so I don't eat the shatter burst (between Intercept, Skillherald, FG intercept and novas, it's pretty annoying to not be a gnome) and poking out to decurse teammates and drop a poly or two. By taking me out of the fight, the game becomes a longer game and while our priest is more free to burn and harass, they have the mana efficiency advantage with a FG lock spamming mana drain the majority of the game. If I start to get more aggressive, they look to burst me down with a MD on Ice Block.
Pewp Machine plays against us very differently; they are much more damage oriented and really go for the early kill on our priest. Doing this also ensures that despite the lack of heroism, their priest can win the mana burn war as ours is unable to cast. Unlike Azael's constant fear and tongues spam, you see a lot more of PM's lock, Streygo, shadowbolting faces off. I seem to fall for the same, FG intercept->poly->psychic scream combo EVERY game.
It's a little weird to basically start a new team at ~2400 rating that plays completely differently than your old lineup. Stormstrike is also not a battlegroup with any top 2345 teams so there's not a whole lot of "how does X beat this setup" -- on the other hand, we played as our opposing matrices all season last season so we do remember what we used to do against 2345 teams and what was and wasn't effective. There were a few teams that began as 2345 at the beginning of the season, but these teams have since all abandoned the lineup in favor of 2xWar, classic+lock, or 4DPS. Not since NiP's strange 2345 with Mako as AP/Fire has 2345 dominated the battlegroup. (NiP did truly dominate)
As I've said before, I don't think we really play 2345 with enough of the "2345"-ness. We play to outlast every team; we kill pets, we kite and CC and shock. We have been doing this against Fireman's hunter+classic who punish us severely every time we play so passively.
We ended up splitting the remainder of our games for the rest of the night after the night's early losses. I basically started playing way more defensively and either we were able to punish overextension or we created an opening to get out some burst. I tried to fraps a few of the games, but once again FPS drops from like 70->30 and gets really choppy which makes playing too difficult.
GameOver doesn't play again till Thursday so I'll probably use the time to level my gnome and catch up on blogging. ^^ I don't really have a 2s/3s team right now though it would be nice to have an excuse to respec to 0/6/55 or some variant considering how much I'm focused in 5s.
** UPDATE ** YOU MUST WATCH NEILYO6 -- IT IS AMAZING ^^
Last Thoughts on the WSVG Drama
There has been been a lot of recent discussion here, on GameRiot posts, and on IRC centered on the "ethics" of what went down at WSVG. It is rarely my objective to spark up drama and you should be aware that 90% of what I say is in fun or tongue in cheek. While my take on the events is somewhat biased in the favor of YWL, consider that I have been a MoB fan ever since the first WSVG event and we were certainly some of the louder idiots at Bilzzcon professing our love for Godfather during the finals.
I'm not angry at MoB for what happened and I don't think that the MoB players deserve to be the "bad guys" for what went down. I encourage everyone to get the "facts" over on GR from Kow's post. As with most things, the majority of the drama comes from lack of understanding.
Had Blizzard understood the pressing need for updated premades better, had WSVG admins understood the need to be both more flexible and more clear in their rules, had the WSVG admins had better game knowledge to understand that changing a hunter pet is no big deal ethically, had Godfather understood that the Scorpid was not an "unfair advantage", and you could go on and on, but the point is that this situation could have been averted.
I've heard some arguments saying that because this event is "for money" anything goes with respect to sacrificing honor in order to secure the win. I really don't get this line of thinking at all. People are playing competitively because they love the game and because they love the recognition. Certainly there is a "if I'm going to play all weekend anyways, I might as well have a chance to win some money" thing going on, but realistically how many of the WSVG players want to play WoW "professionally?"
Perhaps part of the issue is that it is hard to know if the hardcore PvP audience is really relevant to WoW as a game. How many players are tuning in to these WSVG events, 50k at most? The other 8.95 million players don't give a fuck? And how many of us were watching the CGS 2v2s, at most 100? It doesn't help that the majority of the strong players are on a single battlegroup and that the PvP cliques are generally pretty pretentious. ^^
I think lots of us want people to care a lot more about these events, but truthfully, even though Forgotten Heroes has a lot of PvPers, in a guild with over a 100 members, less than 15 watched the WSVG matches. And to be honest, if I couldn't duel on test between games or talk trash on IRC, I don't know if I would have the patience to sit around to watch the matches. It takes like 10 hrs of wasted time to watch 25 minutes of arena over the span of 3 days. I guarantee the viewership would grow exponentially if the WSVG product was just 25 minutes of solid arena. WSVG either needs overlapping "main stage" matches that they can switch between to reduce dead time or simply needs to not be live. The scheduling needs to be more precise and the whole thing needs to be thought of from the perspective of what the potential viewer wants -- I know this sounds like stupid MBA drivel but how many people have the time/patience for the current format?
You can really look at the idea of competitive WoW in very different ways. One is that you treat the audience as a niche market and tailor your competitive arena PvP product to live up to this small target audience's expectations -- this is the "eSports" approach. I'm not going to go into how else you might market competitive WoW, but is WoW as eSport realistic?
There is a lot of "WoW is a terrible eSport because ..." arguments out there. Too much randomness, too hard to watch as a spectator, too poorly balanced, too much rock/paper/scissors, and too little skill requirement are the most common. Beyond the difficulty in spectating, I'm not sure if this stuff matters too much. Poker has tons of randomness and, because of this randomness, very frequently do players of low relative skill win major events, yet poker has been extremely successful commercially. While the number of poker players is probably an order of magnitude larger than WoW players, I would imagine that the competitive poker market is still several orders of magnitude larger than its WoW equivalent.
I don't want to turn this wall of nonsensical wall of text-ness into a REALLY REALLY long nonsensical wall of text so I'll derail further and say that I think that WoW is a great game in which to be a competitive gamer, but not for the money. (I don't really think that the expected payout of any game or any sport is very good with the exception of poker) I think the whole "there is money on the line" nonsense floating around is well, nonsense. Everyone is playing to have a good time and for the eFame. =p The failures so far in making WoW, which has a huge playerbase, into a successful, competitive game come from not making the spectating experience enjoyable.
I'm not angry at MoB for what happened and I don't think that the MoB players deserve to be the "bad guys" for what went down. I encourage everyone to get the "facts" over on GR from Kow's post.
Had Blizzard understood the pressing need for updated premades better, had WSVG admins understood the need to be both more flexible and more clear in their rules, had the WSVG admins had better game knowledge to understand that changing a hunter pet is no big deal ethically, had Godfather understood that the Scorpid was not an "unfair advantage", and you could go on and on, but the point is that this situation could have been averted.
I've heard some arguments saying that because this event is "for money" anything goes with respect to sacrificing honor in order to secure the win. I really don't get this line of thinking at all. People are playing competitively because they love the game and because they love the recognition. Certainly there is a "if I'm going to play all weekend anyways, I might as well have a chance to win some money" thing going on, but realistically how many of the WSVG players want to play WoW "professionally?"
Perhaps part of the issue is that it is hard to know if the hardcore PvP audience is really relevant to WoW as a game. How many players are tuning in to these WSVG events, 50k at most? The other 8.95 million players don't give a fuck? And how many of us were watching the CGS 2v2s, at most 100? It doesn't help that the majority of the strong players are on a single battlegroup and that the PvP cliques are generally pretty pretentious. ^^
I think lots of us want people to care a lot more about these events, but truthfully, even though Forgotten Heroes has a lot of PvPers, in a guild with over a 100 members, less than 15 watched the WSVG matches. And to be honest, if I couldn't duel on test between games or talk trash on IRC, I don't know if I would have the patience to sit around to watch the matches. It takes like 10 hrs of wasted time to watch 25 minutes of arena over the span of 3 days. I guarantee the viewership would grow exponentially if the WSVG product was just 25 minutes of solid arena. WSVG either needs overlapping "main stage" matches that they can switch between to reduce dead time or simply needs to not be live. The scheduling needs to be more precise and the whole thing needs to be thought of from the perspective of what the potential viewer wants -- I know this sounds like stupid MBA drivel but how many people have the time/patience for the current format?
You can really look at the idea of competitive WoW in very different ways. One is that you treat the audience as a niche market and tailor your competitive arena PvP product to live up to this small target audience's expectations -- this is the "eSports" approach. I'm not going to go into how else you might market competitive WoW, but is WoW as eSport realistic?
There is a lot of "WoW is a terrible eSport because ..." arguments out there. Too much randomness, too hard to watch as a spectator, too poorly balanced, too much rock/paper/scissors, and too little skill requirement are the most common. Beyond the difficulty in spectating, I'm not sure if this stuff matters too much. Poker has tons of randomness and, because of this randomness, very frequently do players of low relative skill win major events, yet poker has been extremely successful commercially. While the number of poker players is probably an order of magnitude larger than WoW players, I would imagine that the competitive poker market is still several orders of magnitude larger than its WoW equivalent.
I don't want to turn this wall of nonsensical wall of text-ness into a REALLY REALLY long nonsensical wall of text so I'll derail further and say that I think that WoW is a great game in which to be a competitive gamer, but not for the money. (I don't really think that the expected payout of any game or any sport is very good with the exception of poker) I think the whole "there is money on the line" nonsense floating around is well, nonsense. Everyone is playing to have a good time and for the eFame. =p The failures so far in making WoW, which has a huge playerbase, into a successful, competitive game come from not making the spectating experience enjoyable.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Huge WSVG Drama Inc
So YWL is being forced to replay TurtleBeach without using the scorpion pet. There's apparently tons of drama as more and more rematches are demanded. Seriously, this is turning into a joke. I know I'm pretty biased, but come on!
MoB won the rematch 3-1. Had I been in MoB's position, I would have turned down the rematch; I understand wanting to win, but they had their chance. Now this whole thing reeks of Blizzard's 5v5 tournament with shady rulings and DQs. * MoB even changed composition =\
And now for the drama:
Z3X wrote:
The WSVG staff have saved IRC convos of the hunter asking if he could use the scorp pet for the past month. He was clearly told NO, he could only use whatever was given on the Blizzard pre-made character. He even admitted to coming in early to raise the loyalty level of his pet during periods where he was not allowed to even be on the account.
Every class/character has something they're missing. I.e. Ally warriors are human and not gnome, but no matter what you have to use the pre-made character. Warriors are given Deep Thunder, yet they are NOT allowed to changed their given 375 Axesmith to Maces. Any player is NOT allowed to level enchanting and enchant their gear, even players who added 5HEALTH were DQ'd.
The whole point of a LAN is to have a fair play environment. They were clearly told that they could not use the pet yet did everything possible to jump through loopholes. We did not realize what had happened until a spectator brought it to our attention after the match. We immediately filed a dispute with the WSVG to have the situation investigated.
They straight defiance of the rules not only affected our team, but every team below them. They're "taking" cash prizes as well as seeding points. Ask those that are on the verge of being top10 that are screwed over because a team tried to get an unfair advantage and were not DQ. Any top team would not allow these these things to occur.
Without a doubt "Ya we lift" is a great team. There are several great teams there; however, the othre great teams did not attempt to get any unfair advantage. Hopefully blizzard fixes the pre-made characters. Changes the hunter pets, human warriors to gnome...etc (we would've won the matches before if our warrior had escape artist, but you won't find us leveling a new character to have that advantage.)
On the flipside:
Hamchook:
The question I asked on IRC was if blizzard could do something to provide hunter premades with a pet. I never asked (on IRC) to go out and tame one during the actual tournament. I asked when we got here and the admins said we could.
There needs to be a lot less "redo" rounds in general at WSVG. It's a joke. Unless there's technical issues, I fail to see how so many rounds are justifiably replayed. It's becoming "I wasn't really trying that time" or "I had something in my eye, REDO."
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