Uh-oh. Rogues. Those sneaky little bastards could be anywhere. Out of all the classes in the game, there is perhaps no class no more feared for their PvP prowess than rogues. Rogues gain a fearsome reputation by virtue of the nature of the class alone — they can Stealth. Because of rogues, everyone has to literally watch their backs. No place is safe because a rogue can be lying in lurking in some dark corner waiting to strike at the proper time. Through years of leveling in a PvP server, there is no sound in the game more unsettling than the low humming whoosh of a nearby stealthed rogue. In fact, rogue (and by extension, feral druid) stealth is the single biggest reason why I don’t PvP with music on.

And for rogues, it’s all about timing. In the Battlegrounds, it isn’t uncommon to find rogues preying on the weak, those low on life, the defenseless players eating or drinking. They can’t help it. It’s in their nature. The class encourages foul play through Stealth and a wonderful repertoire of attacks from behind. Rogues are at their best when catching their opponents off guard and are extremely capable of doing so. After the jump, we’ll take a closer look at the basic things to expect when fighting a rogue regardless of their spec.

Continue reading The Art of War(craft): Introductory guide to fighting rogues

The Art of War(craft): Introductory guide to fighting rogues originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all-things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com’s arena column.

Listening Music: New Slang, by The Shins. My wife turned me on to The Shins maybe ~5 years ago and I’ve loved them and the genre ever since. This live version is raw and beautiful, even if a little slow.

Last Week: We talked about Alliance racials and why Humans are overpowered. Check it out if you have the time.

This Week: We’ll be discussing Horde racials in arena. I’ve included power-rankings as well. Let me know if you think I’m spot-on or way-off.

Tauren

War Stomp: Activate to stun opponents - Stuns up to 5 enemies within 8 yards for 2 seconds. 2 minute cooldown.

This might just be personal bias, but I absolutely love War Stomp. It’s a racial that is often under-utilized — I see PvPers trying to use it defensively a lot of times. This thing is nothing short of an extra stun in a kill-target lockdown repertoire. It can also double as a silence to interrupt healers.

While War Stomp isn’t strictly better than Arcane Torrent, it comes pretty close. War stomp has a .5 second cast time, but works on everyone (silencing melee doesn’t do that much). The .5 second cast time can actually be a benefit, as you have more time off the global cooldown once the ability affects your target.

For an active racial (as opposed to a passive racial), it doesn’t get any better than War Stomp.

Continue reading Blood Sport: Horde racials

Blood Sport: Horde racials originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Colosseum takes us inside the world of the Gladiator (Relentless, Furious, Deadly, Brutal, Vengeful, Merciless, and otherwise), to interview some of the top Arena fighters on the battlegroups. Our goal is to bring a better understanding of the strategy, makeup, and work that goes into dueling it out for fame, fortune, and Frostwyrms. We’re especially focused on the people who play these games, to further shed light on the world of the PvP player. If you’d like to be interviewed for The Colosseum, please feel free to contact us — be sure to include your armory as a link!

Warriors in arena seem to be all the rage these days. We were pleased to interview Tredd, a front-page warrior who plays multiple team compositions in 3v3. Read on to see what Tredd has to say about the state of arena!

WoW.com: Why do you play warrior? What is it about the class’s toolbox that appeals to you for competitive arena?

Tredd: To me, warriors are one of the most prime classes when it comes to dealing damage and keeping up the pressure. This is mostly due to the rage mechanic, which allows me to keep using abilities and not having the weakness of having to drink. Also, our incredibly good defensive measures with Shield Block + Shield Wall and Spell Reflect make the class very versatile when going head to head with any other class.

WoW.com: Why do you play arms instead of protection?

Tredd: I currently run arms mostly for the comps I play — Mortal Strike is more effective than prot’s fifty billion stuns. I do, however, enjoy protection PvP as much as Arms. I can’t really say more than that, since prot has Warbringer Intervene vs. Bladestorm etc.

Continue reading The Colosseum: Tredd, warrior of Auchindoun

The Colosseum: Tredd, warrior of Auchindoun originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here at WoW.com we’re on a Daily Quest (which we try to do every day, honest) to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we ought to follow? Just leave us a comment and you may see it here tomorrow!

If you’re interested in PvP battlegrounds, you’re probably aware that patch 3.3.3 is turning the system on its head — completely removing Marks of Honor as well as increasing honor gains across the board. Have a bank full of the things? Well, we’ve got good news for you — at present on the PTR you can convert them to honor at the rate of 2000 honor per mark. Combine that with the recent explanation of Wintergrasp mechanics and what have you got? A lot of excitement about PvP battlegrounds. Here’s what’s making the rounds of the blogosphere.

• Cynwise thinks now’s the time to be running battlegrounds and collecting Marks of Honor.
• Holypaladin.net talks about Wintergrasp imbalance.
• Birdfall discusses seeing the opposite faction as people.
• Getting back to the basics, Spiceytuna explains resilience and gives talks frost mage PvP 101.
• Already a PvP expert? Over on the official forums Nethaera is looking for Warsong Gultch advice to be included in the next World of Warcraft magazine.

The Daily Quest: PvP edition originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Zach broke up this guide to fighting priests in personal-sized helpings similar to how he’d slice up a banoffee pie for your devouring convenience. But also mostly because his head felt like it had just been hit by a Mind Blast.

Yesterday we took a look at priests and their most commonly used abilities in PvP regardless of spec. Today we’ll get a little more specific and break down the three basic specs and their abilities in tactics. This should answer some folks’ question about why I didn’t mention Penance, which is arguably the most used priest heal on the battlefield. The answer, of course, is that Penance is the last tier discipline talent and not every priest will have access to it. You see someone in Shadowform, they’re not going to be using Penance. You see someone toss a Guardian Spirit — another awesome angel wing graphic spell — they’re not going to be using Penance. Now that we’ve got that little detail out of the way, let’s jump right into the different kinds of priests you’ll be encountering in the Battlegrounds.

The cool thing about the Battlegrounds as opposed to Arenas is that there’s a lot more spec flexibility. The relaxed environment allows for more freedom to play the spec you want to play as opposed to the spec you need to play in order to be optimal for competition. For priests, in particular, this means the freedom to play any of the three specs as opposed to necessarily speccing discipline in order to enjoy success in PvP. For you, the would-be priest-slayer, this means that you should expect to see priests of all kinds in play.

Continue reading Introductory guide to fighting priests, Part 2

Introductory guide to fighting priests, Part 2 originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Taking place tomorrow from 4:00 p.m. PST / 7:00 p.m. EST until 6:30 p.m. PST / 9:30 p.m. EST is another chance for you to engage in PvP combat with Blizzard employees on the U.S. PTR. The Community Team and Quality Assurance team will queue up via the Random Battleground Finder and fight the pleabes in this battle royale. Want to show Zarhym how much you love him? Now’s your chance!

Also taking place tomorrow is the twitter developer chat with Cory Stockton and Greg Street, so you won’t have an opportunity to exact revenge on Ghostcrawler for nerfing your class to the ground (baby). But there’s certainly a lot of potential for some community engaged WoW fun tomorrow.

In general the blues on the PTR can be quite entertaining… especially when they decide to start turning people into toads and chickens. Good times!

Ujumqin — PvP a Blizzard Employee

P.S. Zarhym: We totally won’t replace the Wyvern with an Orc or Onyxia or something. For real. We’ll behave. Promise. Just ask Ghostcrawler.

PvP with Blizzard today originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• PvP Mounts
• Level 60 Legacy PvP Armor - page 1, page 2, page 3
• Level 60 Legacy PvP Weapons - page 1, page 2, page 3
• Level 70 Outland PvP Armor - page 1, page 2
• Level 70 Outland PvP Trinkets - page 1, page 2

Patch 3.3.3 PTR: New battleground mark conversion originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Zach enjoys PvP almost as much as he enjoys eating his wife’s phenomenal banoffee pies. That’s saying a lot because, damn, those banoffee pies are freaking awesome melanges of succulent toffee, rich chocolate syrup, perfectly ripe bananas, and luscious whipped cream on a deliciously molded graham crust. He’s probably snuck down to the fridge and grabbed a slice now. Kind of like how those pesky rogues steal the flag when you’re not looking.

Priests are an interesting study for this series, primarily because out of all the game’s ten classes, they are the only ones with two talent trees devoted to healing. This means that two out of three times, you’ll be encountering a healing priest. That’s not exact math, but you know what I mean. Shadow, the class’ DPS tree, has had an interesting history with viability and acceptance, having been known as a PvP tree in the game’s early years, later gaining raid viability and losing PvP luster. In the current environment, shadow remains a popular PvP tree but it is far easier to find success in Arenas and Battlegrounds with a healing spec. In this regard, discipline, the mitigation tree formerly considered to be complementary and gimmicky has shone.

Naturally, most fights against priests, particularly discipline-specced ones, will be long and difficult for most classes. That said, let’s take a moment to examine the various abilities used by priests on the battlefield. A priest’s repertoire of common spells is rather limited, and most of their key abilities will depend on their spec. A rundown of stuff to expect from them after the break.

Continue reading The Art of War(craft): Introductory guide to fighting priests

The Art of War(craft): Introductory guide to fighting priests originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s hard to judge exactly how many players know about GM Island. Some of the older players will remember the flood of trade chat and guild chats whenever a GM was online and visible in GM Island, and those folks who like to mess around with private servers and unexplored places will have at least heard of its existence. However today, with the island being so cordoned off, many players probably are not familiar with the mythical island of the game masters.

GM Island is a piece of land that used to exist in the very upper left hand coordinates of Azeroth, far beyond the reach of players. It exists as an in-game entrance point for Blizzard GMs, and is a relatively mundane place. It has a small keep and a dock, a few trees and bushes, and that’s it.

There was a time when players were able to swim out to the island, and that swim took around an hour of hard work. It involved using a level one character constantly casting renew and other healing spells; and the player had to know exactly where to point themselves or risk being hopelessly lost in the vast oceans of Azeroth. The trick used to get there was similar to the one that allowed players to get to the Isle of Quel’Danas on the patch 2.4 PTR back in 2008. It was also possible to water-walk out there, but not much is known anymore about that method, at least publicly.

After the break we’ll take a look at a few of the features and lore surrounding GM Island, as well as look at some videos. However, please be forewarned that some of the images and videos in this post are from private servers. Enough legitimate in-game footage simply doesn’t exist.

Continue reading A look at GM Island and the Player Jail

A look at GM Island and the Player Jail originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all-things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com’s arena column.

Listening Music: Sting with some of my favorite folk, “The Snow, It Melts the Soonest.” Although this version isn’t my favorite, it’s one of the only videos with decent quality I could find — and it’s by Sting, gotta love Sting.

Last Week: We talked about season eight compositions and trends, particularly in 3v3. Not much has changed since then. Check it out if you have the time, it’s still very relevant.

This Week: We’ll be discussing the wonderful imbalances we call “racials” for arena. The alliance have historically had worse PvP racials than their horde counterparts, but this might have changed in WotLK.

Remember back to a time when race changes didn’t exist. In vanilla WoW and The Burning Crusade, players had to reroll or deal with the racials that they originally chose, even if those racials got nerfed or buffed. These racials were also far more imbalanced than they are today, which added insult to injury for certain race / class combinations.

Dwarf

Stoneform: Activate to remove poison, disease, and bleed effects; +10% Armor; Lasts 8 seconds. 2 minute cooldown.

This racial is a shadow of what it once was. Pre-WotLK, this racial would give a 8 second immunity to poison, disease, and bleed effects. The difference is enormous — removing a 50% healing debuff in Wound Poison for an 8 second window allowed the dwarf to receive some massive heals. The racial was also on a three minute cooldown, but most PvPers will tell you that the shortened cooldown does not make up for the 8 second immunity. Dwarf priests and hunters had a much easier time surviving against rogues in The Burning Crusade, which is probably the reason the racial was nerfed for WotLK.

Continue reading Blood Sport: Alliance Racism

Blood Sport: Alliance Racism originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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