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The OverAchiever: Mountain O' Mounts from PVP
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, you have to die before I get a new chocobo. Regrettable, but ... We're back with the Mountain O' Mounts series, and today we're going to examine the 10 mounts available to each faction as a result of slaughtering everything and everyone in your path. If you're the type of player who likes to put the "war" back in Warcraft, you'll enjoy the array of options available to a dedicated mercenary. Also read: Combining The Ambassador and Mountain O' Mounts Mountain O' Mounts in Outland Mountain O' Mounts in Northrend Mountain O' Mounts in 5-man dungeons Mountain O' Mounts in raids Mountain O' Mounts from achievements
WoW Rookie: The absolute beginner's guide to Battlegrounds
New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. For links to all our tips, tricks and how-to's, visit WoW.com's WoW Rookie Guide. Now that you can spice up your leveling experience by adding a little PvP to the mix, you owe it to yourself to do it up right. Battlegrounds can be bufuddling for new players, and WoW Rookie would be sad to hear you'd given up on them based on a couple of false starts. Head straight over to Zach Yonzon's A-to-Z coverage of Battleground basics in The Art of War(craft)'s Absolute beginner's guide to the Battlegrounds. Join us after the break for a complete list of the Battlegrounds you can enjoy, starting at level 10.
The Art of War(craft): Absolute beginner's guide to Strand of the Ancients
Zach enjoys the Battlegrounds a lot. He thinks it's one of the most re-playable content in the game, so he writes about it every week to spread the word. When all players are finally in the Battlegrounds bashing each others' brains out, he'll consider his mission complete, and he'll sneak out to farm Shoveltusk Meat in peace. We're now at the end of our Absolute Beginners series, which has been surprisingly helpful to a lot more players than I expected. As it turns out, the game still gets a lot of new players even after five amazing years, which is really cool. Players still leveling up might want to check out where we kicked this series off, an introduction to the Battlegrounds. Once you get an idea of what its all about, you can get your feet wet (or swords all bloodied...) in Warsong Gulch. Ten levels later, you can enter the proving grounds of Arathi Basin, or wait until you level up a bit more for the snowy landscape of Alterac Valley. Players who have upgraded to the Burning Crusade and leveled past 60 can get a taste of some space action in Eye of the Storm. When Wrath of the Lich King shipped, Blizzard introduced a brand new Battleground unlike anything that had come before it, an assault and defend scenario that was about as balanced as a Battleground could be because the factions took turns playing the exact same map. Strand of the Ancients also introduced the new vehicle combat system and destructible buildings, which made for a whole new gameplay experience. Click on read more to see what this Battleground is all about.
Blizzard to focus on battlegrounds more
Ghostcrawler has posted a little paragraph on the forums, reaffirming something we've already heard from Blizzard: that in the past, they've spent more time on Arenas to the detriment of battlegrounds, and that battlegrounds are going to be gaining a little more focus in the future. They've already started, actually, with the Isle of Conquest in 3.2, but GC says there's even more on the table, and that future plans will be revealed at BlizzCon.He also brings up another good point, however: in terms of class balance, Arenas are a much more striking example of imbalances than battlegrounds are. Battlegrounds have all sorts of things going on, and so you don't get as good a picture of just how the different classes work with and against each other as you do in Arenas. And so, if you're a dev trying to figure out class balances, of course you'll spend more time looking at the Arena gameplay than the BGs. GC also says that the majority of issues in BGs tend to be map-based rather than class imbalances, which is really a whole other science. Not that BGs aren't relevant to how the classes work, just that there are many more variables in there than the relative vacuum chamber of Arenas.All good points. I'm a fan of battlegrounds much more than Arenas, but I don't particularly feel that Blizzard has ignored them necessarily. The real problem, to my mind, with BGs is simply how faction imbalanced they are: it seems like on every realm in every given BG, one side always seems to have the upper hand, for whatever reason. Sometimes it's a population problem, sometimes it's a map issue. But GC is right: those problems are more pressing than class balance in the BGs.
Insider Trader: Patch 3.2 updates and Engineering analysis
Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.Over the past few weeks, Insider Trader has been discussing and analyzing the changes to professions set to go live with patch 3.2: Patch 3.2 Profession Change Analysis takes an in-depth look at the early announcements. Patch 3.2 Q&A answers questions being asked in the WoW community. Recently, a rather large list of Patch 3.2 Engineering Changes was released. This week's column will be devoted to updating you on some of the newer changes, clarifying as many details as possible, and analyzing some of those juicy Engineering changes.
Patch 3.2 bringing Strand of the Ancients coin toss
We mentioned this issue a while back -- since it was introduced to the game, Strand of the Ancients has started Alliance on attack first, and that's caused problems. Due to the way the map is set up (a back-and-forth attack and defend map), the team that starts attacking has an advantage in terms of farming honor -- they only have to play until the other team loses rather than having to keep up a defense the whole time. That means shorter battlegrounds for the Alliance, which means more honor overall for them.The problem was that Blizzard couldn't just flip a switch to randomize the battleground's spawn points: they were hard-coded into the moving ships that players appear on, so it took much more coding to use a coin-flip start. However Zarhym now confirms that the coin flip is coming to SotA. And though he didn't say when in the original post, the Patch 3.2 notes tell us that it's coming in that patch.Hopefully Blizzard will have learned their lesson for the Isle of Conquest -- although since it's closer to Alterac Valley from what we've heard, we probably won't have that asymmetrical issue, and both sides will be able to start with just as many advantages and disadvantages as the other.Patch 3.2 will bring about a new 5, 10, and 25 man instance to WoW, and usher in a new 40-man battleground called the Isle of Conquest. WoW.com will have you covered every step of the way, from extensive PTR coverage through the official live release. Check out WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2 for all the latest!
Randomizing the Strand of the Ancients spawn points
Strand of the Ancients is a battleground that's gotten relatively short shrift lately -- it came along into the game with the crown jewel of Wrath PvP so far, Wintergrasp, and while it's still frequented on honor weekends (it's one of the best ways to farm honor, actually) and for achievements, lots of players, specifically those on the Horde, aren't happy with it. Why? Because right now, Alliance always starts the battle on offense first. The battle is a regular attack-and-defend map, and Alliance reportedly has a "significant advantage" by beginning on the attack side: they only have to play offense for a few minutes, and then defend for the same amount of time, while Horde have to defend the whole first round and then attack if they want to win. Plus, the battleground doesn't always start full, which means whoever attacks first usually is fighting fewer defenders.So how hard would it be to throw a coin flip in there and randomize who starts first? The good news is that Blizzard is working on it, but the bad news is that it's taking longer than they thought. It's not as simple, unfortunately, as choosing a faction randomly -- there are apparently mechanics in the spawn points that make it difficult for them to randomize who shows up on the moving ships. Go figure? We've never understood how Blizzard's code works, and we're not starting now.But again: Zarhym says a fix is incoming in a future patch. So if you're Alliance and you want to do some honor farming, better start now.
The Southern Graveyard is a trap
As if the Southern Graveyard wasn't enticing enough for all the scrubs out there who have no clue how to play Strand of the Ancients, Blizzard has made a tiny change in Patch 3.1 that will make the Battleground hell for players who actually know what they're doing. According to the patch notes:"Capturing the Southern Graveyard will now automatically capture both the East and West Graveyards."Great. Give all those scrubs an excuse to capture it while on offense. Thanks, Blizzard.Let me explain why capturing Southern Graveyard is one of the worst things you can do for your team while on offense. You see, when you capture Southern Graveyard and your team is progressing Southwards through the Gate of the Yellow Moon and the Keep, members of your team who die during the effort will rezz near the yellow gate. Where are the tanks and charges that you need? That's right. They're downhill to the Northeast and Northwest. This means that your team will need to run down just to get a tank. In a timed Battleground, time spent running down just to get a tank is time wasted.
The OverAchiever: Master of Strand of the Ancients
Every week The OverAchiever gives advice, walkthroughs and guides on completing your latest Achievement obsession.The Battleground weekend is just about over, but here's a little guide to help players get Master of Strand of the Ancients, one of the requirements for the Battlemaster meta-Achievement. Because it's a new Battleground with no faction associated with it, obtaining this Achievement is relatively easier than the others. Games are guaranteed to end within twenty minutes or less, and players won't need to concern themselves with any reputation gains. Here's what players need to do:Strand of the Ancients VeteranWin 100 games. As with all the Battleground veteran Achievements, this is just a matter of time and takes little effort, but a lot of perseverance.Difficulty: ModerateSteady HandsDisarm 5 Massive Seaforium Charges in a single battle. This necessitates that enemy players plant the explosives, which they don't always do. Some offense rely purely on the power of siege vehicles to break down gates. It is a two second channel to dismantle one, and is easily broken by any attack except periodic damage. Players must have a keen eye for the charges, which can be easily obfuscated by smoke and siege vehicle debris. Players must also disarm the charge themselves, so having to compete with teammates makes the Achievement much more difficult. Done on defense.Difficulty: Hard
The Art of War(craft): Strand of the Ancients
This is long overdue, but with the Strand of the Ancients weekend upon us, it's a fine time to take a look at the Battleground introduced to us in Wrath of the Lich King. Strand of the Ancients is presumably located off the Southern coast of Dragonblight, and works differently than any other Battleground before it. It is the first timed Battleground and guarantees that the game will end in about twenty minutes or less. The 15-player Battleground has an attack and defend scenario, where the objective is to capture the Titan Relic housed inside a keep at the southern end of the map. It is very similar to Wintergrasp, and is a fast-paced Battleground where players literally race against time. Attackers, split into two groups, arrive on two boats on the Northeast and Northwest portions of the map. When they land on the beach, four siege vehicles are initially available to attackers, who must break down gates to get to their goal. These siege vehicles are identical to the demolishers found in Wintergrasp, with about 80,000 hp and the same offensive capabilites. Players on foot can pick up Massive Seaforium Charges in Seaforium Barrels throughout the map. These explosives can be placed near gates to deal damage to them. Players on defense, meanwhile, can man cannons that flank each gate. These cannons have 60,000 hp and have very long range.
The Queue: Last rites
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Another day, another Queue! Let's jump right in, hm?meme asked... What's the situation about the aesthetic minor glyphs? Could we see them in a future? What's the last thing Blizzard told us about them? Are people in the official forums still demanding them?
The Queue: A curse upon you, interlopers
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.Another Tuesday, another maintenance. As much as I'd like to write something amusing here to entertain you on your slow, boring day, I've got nothin'. Bone dry. I'm like the freaking Shimmering Flats here. Well, you know, like the north parts. Not the south parts with that little lake. Just the dry stuff, people. ...Oh, screw it.Jamesisgreat asked...Now I've hit level 80 and am looking at all the loot available to me as a feral druid, I've spotted a few of the PvP pieces that you can purchase with just honor. So my question is - where's the best place to grind honor nowadays? AV? Wintergrasp? Elsewhere?
Tips for Strand of the Ancients and how to win it
Eye for an Eye has a great set of tips up for the Strand of the Ancients battleground. Their tips are aimed towards Ret Pallies, but they're useful for almost anyone, and especially any melee-based classes. And the general idea -- focus on the relic and getting to it, not the players attacking you or other teammates -- is great for anyone to know.I don't know what it is about Strand and Wintergrasp that has pulled new players into PvP, but there's something new there -- DanO also has found himself PvPing in those places when he never guessed he would. It seems like the objective is a big part of it; the goals in Strand and Wintergrasp just seem more epic than the skirmishes in Warsong and Arathi Basin (and they come with none of the major issues in Alterac Valley).Still, while most of the tips are common sense, some of them are worth listening to if you haven't though of them yet (I liked the tip about sniffing out Rogues around the tanks -- whenever I've played Strand, I've always headed for the walls, but protecting the tanks is a great tactic, too). If you haven't tried either of the new PvP areas yet, give them a look, and bring these tips along with you.
Ask a Lore Nerd: Demons rule, naga drool
Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, where each week blogger and columnist Alex Ziebart answers your questions about the lore and history of the World of Warcraft. Ask your questions in the comments section below, and we'll try to answer it in a future edition.Just as a warning, today's Ask a Lore Nerd has a couple of spoilers for Wrath content. At this point, I assume that light Northrend spoilers isn't going to scare people off, but I figure I should mention it anyway. It's nothing major, so you won't ruin your experience by reading it anyway. Let's dig in!Tarean asked...Blizzard's said that there's enough material for plenty of more expansions after Wrath of the Lich King, and there's plenty of possibilities, but what expansion should come next lore-wise?
The Art of War(craft): The pointlessness of PvP in early Wrath
Wrath of the Lich King has been great so far. Blues and purples have been easy to come by, with raids and heroic instances -- criticized by some as being too easy -- working as intended. With barely a few weeks after the game's release, many players are decked out in epics. Our Guild Master just got the Superior Achievement a couple of days ago, with many of our members soon to follow suit.Of course, this comes after repeated Heroic runs, the clearing of Naxxramas, and the extremely easy reputation grind thanks to the new tabard system. Overall, it's a phenomenal gearing system... for PvE. On the other hand, the delayed release of Honor-bought PvP items and mid-December start of Arena Season 5 leaves PvP enthusiasts like myself out in the cold.
The Art of War(craft): PvP in BlizzCon 2008
I said it before and I'll say it again. I'm not a huge fan of the new gimmicky mechanics of the new Dalaran and Orgrimmar Arenas. Blizzard highlighted these features in the PvP panel earlier today. There really isn't anything new, as most of these features were touted at the Worldwide Invitational, except that this time there are now textures for the maps. I'll concur that the new dynamic elements add a bit of fun and another layer of strategy to Arena matches. That said, it also brings in an unnecessary factor of RNG. If Arenas are to be truly a barometer of professional and competitive play, it should have as little gimmick elements as possible. In Arena terms, it should be something uncomplicated like a boxing ring or martial arts mat. The new maps are more like American Gladiators or Takeshi's Castle. On the other hand, that kind of format has higher entertainment value. The good news is that the best players will know the timing of the moving pillars, flames, and water spouts and use it to their advantage. The bad news is that those elements will save a lot of lesser skilled players' lives and sometimes break heals or worse, land accidental killing blows. Being at 1% health and dying to a flame spout while trying to get away from an opponent would suck big time, especially in pro competition.
