The Battle for Eye of the Storm - Daily Battleground 11/29/09

The Alliance was having a really bad day in Eye of the Storm today. It was some of the worst play I have seen bar none. I will say on occasion that it is some of the worst play I have seen in awhile, but this was just sickening. It took me 5 battles to get the daily done on Wranngar, 4 losses and 1 win. We will lose in EoS but usually we are able to put up a fight. Not today. It was like all the people in there just picked up their toon off eBay that morning.

I have prepared a little list of 5 ways to lose at EoS, they were all put into play today. Repeatedly. If you want to lose in EoS just follow this list, it is tried and proven.

1. Be a Flagtard. Focus on the flag and block everything else out. Just keep your eyes on the flag and don't notice any calls of incoming, don't notice if we have any towers or not, just keep your eyes on that flag.

2. Fight in the roads. This accomplishes nothing. You are not clocking the tower over while you are fighting in the road. Don't listen when someone says "stop fighting on the road, get up to the tower". Make sure you let the Horde come right up to your tower before you engage them though.

3. Leave your nodes unguarded. One single Horde probably won't come and clock it over while it is unguarded anyway. It should be safe...

4. Don't call incoming until you are dead, in the graveyard, and the flag has already burned. Someone will probably notice you are getting ganked by 5 Horde, assuming they are not focused on the flag. You can't type when you're stunned anyway...

5. Ignore calls of incoming. The one squishy you left to guard the node can probably handle it, they are just overreacting. The Horde usually only attack in ones anyway...

In the 3rd battle I came into, which was already in progress and almost over, none of the first 4 lasted long, we had the flag! WhooHoo! The major problem was, we didn't have any towers, the Horde had a 4 cap. The Flagtard with the flag was way up by the Horde rock, the Horde starting point. They were rezzing on the rock AND RUNNING RIGHT BACK TO THE FLAG TO TRY AND GET IT AGAIN!!! WITH NO TOWERS!!! These were the kind of idiots I was dealing with in the first 4 battles. A Flagtard is a scary thing.

Finally, in the 5th battle, I got in with a good group and we had a 3 cap the whole time with some flag running. The Horde weren't all that good in the first 4 battles but the Alliance was worse. In this battle we were all over them. We kept them pinned down defending their one tower with very little trouble holding our 3 towers. I finally got my daily done and turned it in for 19g86s and 1241 bonus honor. EoS used to be one of my favorite battlegrounds but with play like this I don't know anymore.

Read more...

The Battle for Alterac Valley - Another sad day for the Alliance 11/29/09

The battle for Alterac Valley goes on, I can't really say it rages on the way the Alliance have been fighting in there the last couple days. I fought in 4 battles on Wranngar, 2 wins and 2 losses.

Once again there were a lot of problems. People were not working together as a team, there is nothing new there. There was a lot of placing the blame when the zerg we were trying to do failed. The thing was though, the people that were complaining about the fail were the ones who didn't go straight to Drek without stopping for anything including Galv where they got wiped out by the Horde who were waiting for them in there. It is best to have someone who can track humanoids check to see if the place is full of Horde before everyone runs in. By everyone I mean 10+ people. We have checked in the past and when we saw it was full we just went on by and left them standing there waiting lol.

The best plan still seems to be, don't take SHGY early in the battle. Especially don't take SHGY early in the battle if we are also controlling SFGY. That really keeps all the Horde in front of us and we can't advance. Put at least 5 people in a tower and keep them there until it burns. I don't know if that is ever going to happen, a lot of these players are ADHD kids and they can't sit still that long. I can just see them bouncing off the walls. Most people are good for about 1 minute then they jump down and go somewhere else. Another thing is, if you cap a tower, guard it. I have started just leaving when someone caps a tower then jumps down and moves on. I figure screw it, I am not going to stay there by myself guarding a tower someone else capped then left because they didn't want to be bothered waiting, so I move on to more action too.

Still having the problem of people starting a cap on the East and West Frostwolf Towers, and Relief Hut, then going to hang out on the hill in front of the keep. Time and time again the Horde just have one Rogue or Druid stealth in and cap them back. It happens again and again but no one learns. I usually go into either the east or west tower, which is empty, and stay until it burns because no one else will. I always say something to the effect of how many times are we going to have to recap them before they learn. I don't think they ever will. How long has AV been going on?

Read more...

The Battle for Wintergrasp 11/29/09

The battle for Wintergrasp Fortress rages on. I fought in one battle for Wintergrasp today on Wranngar, it was a win.

We were defending the Fortress from the Horde and managed to hang onto it. I finally grabbed a catapult today and helped take down the southeastern tower. That was a lot of fun and pretty easy. There is really nothing you can screw up but it makes you a prime target for the Horde which are way overpowered with their Tenacity. I tried to get over to the southwestern tower but got my catapult destroyed and myself killed twice. After the second time I rezzed behind the Fortress and they were calling people to come back and defend the Fortress so I stuck around there and killed Horde. That turned out to be the wrong call though because people had to go back out towards the end of the battle and finish destroying the southwestern tower which was the last one up. The southern tower had already been destroyed. When that last tower went down we won.

I stuck around afterwards to kill some Horde with everyone else. It is nice to be able to get at them when they don't have 50,000 to 100,000 hp, they lose the Tenacity when the battle ends.

Read more...

The Battle for Strand of the Ancients - Daily Battleground 11/28/09

The daily battleground today was Strand of the Ancients. I fought in 3 battles on Wranngar, 1 win and 2 losses. We won the second one I was in so I completed my daily. Then I decided to do another one which we lost. I received 19g86s and 1241 bonus honor for fighting in a winning battle in the daily battleground.

The Strand of the Ancients is a pretty nice battleground. There are 2 rounds in each battle, one with the Horde defending and the Alliance on offense and then we do it again with the Alliance defending and the Horde on offense. We are fighting for control of a relic. You have siege equipment in there like Wintergrasp that you have to use to break through gates. There are gun emplacements on the gates to use to try and repel the attackers. There are 2 paths to the last gate which is your goal so the attacking team can choose to attack one or both of the starting gates. The defending team has to either guess which gate the attacking team will attack or split their forces between the gates.

SoA can be a lot of fun, win or lose, and I like fighting in there. Not as much as Alterac Valley though.

Read more...

Alterac Valley - A sad day for the Alliance 11/28/09

I fought in 25 Alterac Valley battles tonight on Wranngar tonight, 11 wins and 14 losses. There was some pretty bad playing even by Alliance standards. There was no teamwork and I am surprised we won any battles at all. I don't know what was going on, some days you can't lose and get great groups and other days it's like the Special Olympics in there except most of the people don't have any talent.

We tried to Blitz a few times, there was one person that was insisting on it, but it never worked out. Most of the people in there seem incapable of following the simplest of instructions, "Everyone straight to Drek, don't stop at Galv, don't stop for anything". Half the group would stop at Galv and wipe, because half the Horde team was in there waiting for them, so they would end up back at Dun Baldar where they would get trapped by the Horde at the choke point trying to come out. You have to consider them gone. In one battle 1/4 of our team was AFK in the Valley of Harpies..... We had a lot of AFK in all the battles I was in but that is usual. They don't get many marks or much honor when I'm there, I remind people to report them and point them out.

The problem with doing the Blitz, once again, is that no one bothers to check to see if we have a tank and heals before everyone runs to Drek. In one battle I asked at the start if we had a tank and heals when everyone wanted to do the Blitz and no one answered. Half way there someone else asked again and I said "We don't worry about that until we get there, then we will have a Mage or someone tank him, all die, and end up back in Dun Baldar". I swear that is the way it goes in half these Blitz's.

We did have a couple good battles though, the ones where we are head to head with the Horde just fighting it out. I love those. A lot of kills and a lot of honor, not that I need the honor, I am in it for the kills at this point. We had a couple turtles and the Horde had quite a few turtles. The Horde love to turtle in there because the reinforcement system is set up to their advantage so they usually win. I don't think we won any on reinforcements tonight while the Horde won quite a few on reinforcements.

Read more...

The Battle for Wintergrasp 11/28/09

I only got to fight in one Wintergrasp battle on Wranngar tonight but it was enough. We won and I got my new trinket, Anvil of Titans. The Tenacity the Horde gets is incredible. Tonight they had Boss level health. I came across a Paladin with 104,000 hp... How are you supposed to kill someone like that? I mean as if the plate and the bubble isn't enough, 104,000 hp? I have attached a screen shot. We slaughtered them anyway. We ended up running the timer out.

I got all the quests today so I got another 40 Stone Keeper's Shard's. I was on tower detail in this battle. When I got in I headed right down to the southeast tower and started killing the guards there. I took out a couple of the gun emplacements and by then the siege equipment was there and they destroyed the tower. I saw someone there shooting hand held rockets at it and doing damage, I wasn't aware you could do that so next time I will pick up a rocket launcher before I head over there. We destroyed all 3 of the Hordes southern towers and had all the workshops by the end. I have 2 marks left and am not sure what, if anything, I will use my marks for in the future. I can get some of the heirloom gear, the gear that levels with you, but those pieces cost shards not marks.

Read more...