The first paid WoW tournament since last winter’s Dreamhack in Sweden has just finished. FD’s team of Warlock/Rogue/Druid and many other variants came out on top over Nihilum’s Hunter/Priest/Druid. Many e-peen massaging Americans have blogged about how this shows how great they are compared to Europe. I believe that this is total trash, given the fact that there was one EU team in the whole thing. It should also be considered that one team alone beat 4 of the ‘best’ BG9 teams on the way through the tournament.

Watching Nihilum’s progress has given me great hope of some minor success on Mmgravy in arena, although I may have to wait until TBC. I always saw hunters as pure drain in their input, but with an aggressive priest they were able to drop a druid from 50% to 0 in a couple of seconds.

I do think that the class could be slightly buffed to make it totally competitive. It was clear that whenever any team was sitting on Cherez dpsing with melees the teams damage almost totally went and they found it hard to keep on top of healer mana. This probably says more about how overpowered the melee classes are at the moment, especially shadowstep rogues. With less PvE gear I guess it would be okay.

Leveling

I am making pretty good progress, having attained level 40 and my trusty Ram mount. Having slacked this weekend while watching the tournament live stream I should get back to making some progress soon or the guild may thing i’ve died or something!

Right now top arena teams from the US along with those that could summon the cash are in San Diego California. Why? To fight each other (ingame disappointingly) for several thousand dollars and 3 gaming pcs.

The live stream is up at Gotfrag who bring coverage with commentary by a guy i’d never seen before called Voice and the pasty fountain of pvp knowledge that is Vhell of Pandemic. So far there have been wins for SK Gaming with the infamous Serennia/Neilyo duo at the core of a double melee team; and for CAPSLOCKCREW against a couple of teams.

Go get some!

There is quite a lot of rather exiting stuff going on in that strange and scary place called the real world right now. Im bored so here my taking on EVERYTHING, but without the grim detail.

Euro 2008

The great nations of Europe once again battle it out for the title of best footballing nation. Portugal play the Czech Republic in what should be a thrilling game in half an hour. My tip for the tournament is Holland. They have a great bunch of players and arent lacking experience. This will be their year. Even if they have a horse for a striker

The Apprentice

Sir Alan Sugar is closing in on hiring another hopeless business failure to pay a mediocre (for the level of responsibility) salary to. Perhaps I am a little harsh, but this year’s hopefulls have been rather poor and seeming to make a mountain out of even the smallest molehill of a task he has set. Claire will win as she is calm under pressure and can talk like nobody I have ever seen. Massive injustice that Rafe left.

Credit Crunch

It cannot be denied that our economy is heavily influenced with what happens over the pond in the USA. When bank Bear Stearns had trouble we really suffered. Almost in the same way that Northern Rock’s collapse effected us. It annoys me how much the newspapers talk our way into a recession though. Surely it doesnt help when people are told several times a day that EVERYONE is spending less and that retail prices are all rising. If I was a business owner I might put prices up just on the basis of hearing this and that doesnt improve things.

What will past economic big player Gordon Brown do to fix this? Ride it out is my guess

Exams

I has them. To balance out the seriousness of this post, here is a Gronn getting friendly with a Clefthoof:

I Win

Quite possibly the slickest thing ive ever done in WoW

Photoshop is fun





(click for bigger version)

Long time no post eh. Things are still just peachy on the reroll front. Mmgravy has ascended to level 28, although I have been slacking somewhat. Several guildies have pulled away from the ‘main pack’ and are knocking on the door of 40. Niathe is one of these and just got her purple Elekk, ‘Nellie’.

I have transferred my druid over to the server as a money maker and I chose to level his Leatherworking to facilitate some gear upgrades. My GOD it is expensive even now. Since 2.3 we’ve been able to use the cheapo drum recipes to level but it still cost 4 figures and I didnt even buy all the mats. Soon he will have Windhawk Hauberk et al, so pretty good rewards. Yes, that will have a LOT of spelldamage when socketed.

Recently there have been a number of high-end guilds downing the end boss of TBC, Kil’Jaeden. Now this guy is not only the leader of the Burning Legion (or he was until getting pharmed) but he drops a little hunter toy. Legendary, baby. Thor’idal!

There is no measure to how much I want this bow. I doubt we’ll be able to clear all of endgame in time before the expansion, though. Maybe at level 80? /beg Alyssya

So far so good as far as Reckoning goes. I truely believe it will be an excellent guild right the way through to endgame. People are leveling a bit faster than I expected, with some of the more heavily work-encumbered folk falling behind. There is a group of people at every speed though so nobody should feel lonely.

Mmgravy has been easy to level. So far I have reached the grand total of 21 and been through Deadmines wipe-free (other than once to get to the entrance to summon someone). After some painful leveling to 10 I was rewarded with my first pet. This is what hunters are all about. It literally doubles the leveling rate.

What did I choose?

On previous and largely unsuccessful hunter alts I was lured into getting a Boar by the promise of instant threat, along with not having to wait for the damn thing to arrive at the enemy thanks to Charge. This was fine during my time in Dun’morogh with poor gear. Ol ‘Granules’ (marks I and II) served me well. However, when I got such wonderful guns as Deadly Blunderbuss I was constantly fighting over-aggro’d mobs at melee range… AFTER AUTOSHOT!

This simple wouldnt do. On recommendation by legendary guild priest Niathe I chose to get a bird. I thought that Carrion bird would be best since they were closer to my level. A number of thing prevented this:

• They’re fugly
• Lower dps than owls
• Hardly ANY dwarves have owls

Sort of stating the obvious then, that I got an owl pet, ‘nMash’ (thanks Sikil for the name). This baby is a threat machine. An owl has a much higher damage output than a Boar at the expense of tanking stats as can be seen below. Credit to Petopia for the table.

Can’t wait to actually get Screech on here

The much anticipated reroll of <Reckoning> guild on Nagrand EU PvE takes place tonight at 20:00 Server time (UK time +1). Some members have had their alts waiting for 3 weeks at Inns all over Azeroth.

The guild rules stated that nobody over level 6 would be allowed to start and I believe this has been a success so far. In my capacity as forum troll I havent witnessed any “Oh crud I dinged 7″ posts. It is a fantastic idea to all start at the same stage rather than having early members create high level cliques.

As a further step, applicants being actively encouraged to get a life was refreshing. There is nothing more demoralising than seeing a few people dozens of levels ahead, and it does nothing for making friends and creating synergy.

Guild photo later which will be posted

Well ok I dont want to decieve. I didnt actually go onto the Plateau itself and take on that badass Kil’Jaeden. I did, however, take a peak at the new 5 man instance “Magisters’ Terrace” that came with patch 2.4. I know that waiting this long was a crime against humanity but I only recently put game time on my mage, “Pies”.

The first thing that I would like to say is that this is a very well crafted instance. The whole place looks amazing with that over-the-top Blood Elf architecture and a large variety of new mob models and skins. If I had to build an base from which to reign as evil lord of the world, it would look something like MgT!

Our group was fairly well balanced as it happened. There was of course me as an Arcane Mage, a MM hunter, Fury Warrior, Feral Druid and Holy Paladin. This gives us 2 lots of crowd control - perhaps 3 at a push. If I only make one criticism of the instance it would be that a lot of CC is required on some pulls or you will be likely to wipe. Were talking harder than some of the rather epic Shadow Lab pre-2nd boss packs. Luckily there are only a few of these and could probably be made easier by skillful use of Line of Sight.

First Boss

Selin Fireheart - An elf that is slowly turning into a demon due to magical cravings (sounds like me without chocolate!). The gist of this fight is similar to the last boss of Steamvault. Instead of enraging he does some painful AoE, which the paladin was not enjoying healing through. Went down first time though and dropped these gauntlets for DE =(

Second Boss

Vexallus - A voidwraith which I guess is a sort of Voidwalker on magical crack (pattern emerging here). There are mana wyrm type things in front of this guy which are ace to AoE down as a mage but dangerous too. Our paladin healed really well. The boss fight is pretty simple, kill him and his curator-style adds when they come, remembering to keep the tank and add killers alive. He also dies first time to the tune of a Cloak which actually got used by our druid if I remember.

Third Boss

Priestess Delrissa - I really liked this fight and im not sure why! The boss is a crazy b*tch with 4 arms like those that can be found in Shadow Lab and Arcatraz. You fight not just her but 4 adds too, as we will be doing against Moroes in karazhan when we reroll on Nagrand. The best thing here is that these seem to have random aggro so it turned into a total kite-fest with only 2 being cc’d. Priestess had little health, as did the adds. We went 3-0! More shardtastic loot.

Last Boss

Lord Kael’Thas Sunstrider! - Holy crap I never thought I’d get to fight this guy. Before patch 2.4 he was relegated to being farmed by leet guilds as Tempest Keep’s end boss. On handing in some quest item in Shattrath he would appear and go into some power mad speach about how he wasnt done yet. Now we get to see what those farm-defeats did to him.

No spoilers on this fight, go see yourself! All im saying is that:

• Epics in a normal instance = good
• Quest for epic gems = good
• Letting scrubs like me fight Kael = goooood

Thanks Blizzard!

Recently I applied to join the guild Reckoning. It is/will be a mature and fairly casual reroll guild on Nagrand EU PvE. To best illustrate what this means I will quote our recruitment post:

We envisage our members to be adults over 18 who for some reason or another are unable to fit into the usual raiding time of 7pm server (6pm UK!) whether that be due to work/university, wife/husband aggro, wanting to kiss the kids goodnight or simply someone who has been there, done that with 7 nights a week raiding and now wants to take it a little easier.

The main focus of this guild will be to prepare for the WotLK expansion, clearing as much of the current content as we can in the time left before the expansion hits. As such we will expect a certain amount of activity and dedication from our members and we will raid four nights a week- we expect our members to be able to attend at least three of these.

As a guild that caters for people with real life commitments, our raids will never start before 2100 server time (2000 GMT) and will run until approximately 0030 server time (2330 GMT)- we realise that you have to get up for work the next day, get the kids to school, have a 9am chemistry lecture etc. We will never expect you to put this game before your real life!

It is approaching that elusive end of May start time and we still need some people to join! 2 mages, 2 paladins, 2 priests, 1 shaman and 2 warlocks. I believe this will be an excellent project and something that I will be sticking with for a good long time. Everyone starting their characters together is a massive plus and we should form a very tight-knit community.

Thanks to Alyssya for setting this up. Bring on next weekend!