Opening Screen to the Isle of Conquest

Alright so i’ve obviously have been out of the loop for a while. Just today I stumbled upon the latest patch notes on the test server and my first impression is that it looks good overall. What stands out the most to me obviously are the PvP changes and the NEW BATTLEGROUND! The isle of conquest!

Besides the new battleground other important big changes are:

• Shaman totem queuing system with a spell to stomp 4 totems at once
• Death Knight talents/abilities getting gutted (AGAIN, surprise surprise!!!)
• Profession buffs
• More mount changes (Level 20 normal mount, level 40 epic)
• Experience from PvP
• Arena Season 7
• New 5, 10, and 25 man Instance
• and the Argent Tournament of course (something I don’t really care for)

I’ll get into what I think about all the new changes during this week in an attempt to revive the blog a bit and shake the dust off.

Here’s the official thread by Blizzard on the Isle of Conquest:

An island somewhere off the shores of Northrend. A rock, hardly worth a second look. But as insignificant as it may seem, this is no ordinary place. A sound of thunder as waves crash endlessly against rocky cliffs; a sound of fury as swords clash on the blood-stained fields of this island on the edge of forever.

Welcome to the Isle of Conquest.

The ongoing struggle between Horde and Alliance has turned many once peaceful (and some not-so peaceful) places into theaters of constant war. The Isle of Conquest is the latest such place, set to be the location of a battle of epic proportions over the island’s precious resources.

An Alliance and a Horde general are fighting for dominance, overseeing the action from the safety of their keeps. Whichever side manages to eliminate the enemy general first will triumph on the island; failure to protect your leader will bring shame, dishonor, and defeat. There is no peace accord here, and it’s an all-out war between the factions.

Once More into the breach…

Isle of Conquest, a new battleground scheduled to make its debut in the upcoming content patch, Call of the Crusade, will pitch teams of up to 40 players against each other in a massive battle over this small island off Northrend’s northern coast. To win, your team will need to make use of the island’s unique strategic locations including an oil derrick, a siege workshop, and a fully equipped airship hangar. You will deploy devastating siege weaponry on the field; Light have mercy on anyone caught between you and your ultimate target, the general holed up in the enemy keep.

There are five points of interest on the Isle of Conquest for the factions to battle over. Each one offers its own benefits and strategic value. Which one will you claim for your side, and will it be enough to ensure victory?

Capture Locations

Consider your options before storming out of your keep to confront the enemy head-on. Spread throughout the Isle of Conquest are several capturable locations (as seen on the map), each granting a unique strategic advantage to your team.

The Oil Derrick: Located on the northwestern end of the island, this smudge in the Frozen Sea produces enough black gold to run a thousand siege engines. Taking this resource garners precious reinforcements and a continuous flow of honor to the side that controls it.

The Cobalt Mine: This snow-covered assembly, located on the southeastern end of the island, hides untapped supplies that must be harvested. Taking this resource grants reinforcements and a continuous flow of honor to the side that controls it.

The Docks: The western shore’s docks will further expand your selection of siege weapons with the devastating new Glaive Thrower and the Catapult. Unleash the destruction of the Glaive Thrower upon the walls of the keep, or launch your invading party over the walls to assault the keep from within.

The Airship Hangar: This sturdy steel structure stands on the peak of Mt. Conquest overlooking the eastern side of the island, allowing players to board the airship docked there. This devastating weapon of war is capable of raining death upon the heads of your enemies and destroying enemy defenses. Once onboard the airship, players will find it comes equipped with parachutes enabling a strike team to drop into the enemy keep from above.

The Siege Workshop: Situated right between the Alliance base and the Horde base, this siege workshop occupies a strategic hot spot. Seizing it grants the controlling party the ability to utilize an arsenal of siege vehicles perfectly suited to reducing the enemy keep’s walls to dust and ashes.

Graveyards: There are five graveyards in the Isle of Conquest that are attached to different points of interest on the map: the Horde base, the Alliance base, an oil spill island in the center of the map (attached to the siege workshop), the northeast corner (attached to the airship hangar), and the southwest corner (attached to the docks).

Main Objectives

The Keeps: The Horde and Alliance keeps sit at opposite ends of the island. These citadels host four easily accessible defensive cannons set on the ramparts, capable of unleashing hot fury onto oncoming attackers. Additional explosives sit safely stowed in the base of the keep along the back wall. At least, they’re safe as long as they don’t fall into enemy hands. If they do, though, they can be employed to bring the stone walls down from within.

The General: Holed up behind the keeps’ massive walls, the generals command their forces from a position of relative safety. Should the keep fall and the general be slain, the Isle of Conquest will fall to the victor.

Reinforcements: Isle of Conquest uses a reinforcements system similar to that of Alterac Valley. The clock is ticking and every individual counts. If too many of your comrades fall to the enemy the battle will end in defeat. Killing enemy players will reduce their reinforcements by one for each kill, Once your faction’s reinforcements reach their limit, so too does your bid for control of the island and the wealth of resources you’ve fought so hard over.

An island somewhere off the shores of Northrend. A rock, hardly worth a second look. A test of strength. A chance to prove your might, to crush your enemies, to make a difference, a chance for endless glory and conquest.

Will you seize it?

The breakdown of the materials needed:

• 12 x Titansteel Bars
• 40 x Handful of Cobolt Bolts
• 2 x Arctic Fur
• 1 x Salvaged Iron Golem Parts
• 8 x Goblin-machined Piston
• 1 x Elementium-plated Exhaust Pipe

I’m not going to get into how much the bars, bolts, or fur costs because it varies from server to server but more or less it’ll cost somewhere between 1500 and 2500 gold. The Titansteel Bars are made by miners (on a 20 hour cooldown), the Cobolt Bolts are made by engineers and are the cheapest of the materials needed, and the Arctic Furs are skinned and usually go for 100g. Needless to say, the price and acquisition of these materials are the least of your worries…

Now the fun part. What the heck is a Goblin-machined Piston? or a Salvaged Iron Golem Part for that matter?! These materials are all obtained from a vendor in Northrend and can only be purchased if you’re an engineer who KNOWS how to make the bike. The schematic alone costs 400g and requires exalted reputation with Alliance Vanguard or Horde Expedition. So, if you’re not an engineer you’ll either have to find one to run around and buy the materials for you (and build it for you as well) or buy them off the auction house.

The Salvaged Iron Golem Parts are sold by Roxi Ramrocket in K3 at the base of the Storm Peaks for a whopping 3000 gold. That’s right, 3K gold, ironically sold at K3.

The Goblin-machined Pistons are also sold by Roxi Ramrocket and they cost 1000 gold each. After doing the simple math you’re probably grimacing and holding back your wallet to find out this comes out to be another 8000 gold to the bill.

The last part needed is the Elementium-plated Exhaust Pipe which is also sold by the same damn goblin costs 1500g. No wonder these things cost so much, she has a friggin’ monopoly!

Summing it all up:

So ~14000 gold is the estimated value of the hog/chopper and this is assuming you’re an engineer or the engineer who makes it for you doesn’t charge you! Don’t lose hope though, since the latest content patch all of the items sold by the craft goblin Roxi also drop off of bosses in Ulduar (10 and 25 man). It’s been confirmed to drop off of XT-002 Deconstructor and Flame Leviathan so far, however an engineer has to “engineer” the items off of the corpse. So if you’re an engineer lucky enough to get into Ulduar you’ll be sitting on a veritable gold mine of spare parts! Damn I wish my warrior was better geared…

Death Knight’s start at level 55 with no professions except for First Aid (270/300)!!

Seriously Blizzard, what gives? I suppose the reasoning is that it would be too easy for players to create profession factories on every server they already have a level 55 character on. Fair enough, but it still sucks and it leaves me to believe that most Death Knights will probably not bother leveling a profession until they reach level 80. That is if they even get to 80 which I doubt and “hope” most don’t or we’re going to have some serious class inflation issues.

Anyways, back to my rant. So I’m left with no professions but I’m a bit of a completist and feel naked without professions on my character so I decide to go all out sell out and try herbalism/inscription. Inscription is a new profession that allows players to “enchant” spells and abilities to have special effects like a shorter Charge cooldown or health return upon using Evocation. It’s pretty heavy stuff, after perusing around a bit at what the trainer had to offer it didn’t take me long to realize that Inscription is another layer of further customization and complexity our characters have on top of talents. Honestly it is a god send and there seems to be enough variety that PvE and PvP oriented players alike will have to make choices on what to glyph their character with. The end result along with the redesigned talents will promote more variety, no longer will one assume every warrior they see in an arena battle is specced in Arms. Good times await!

So my buffed up level 60 Death Knight in all blue armor has to run to Stormwind to talk to the trainer to become an aprentice in herbalism and inscription. 1/75… The grind begins before I even reached level 80. Fortunately I’ve leveled every profession at one point or another and have a fairly well mapped out harvest schedule and herbalism isn’t the hardest of professions to level so that goes on quickly. I manage to level my inscription skill side by side with what I harvest through skill ups alone in herbalism up till level 150 or so where my herb supply begins to run dry. The result was I’m forced to buy from the auction house or purposefully go back and harvest herbs that won’t even give me skill points. My choice: the auction house. Gold being as easy as it is to make now post 60 I should have more than enough to boost my character’s profession up.

See more pictures

My favourite leveling partner, Odisea (Luar’s Death Knight), decided to level mining to make easy money and enchanting. I wish I knew she was going to pick up mining before I dropped Blacksmithing on my warrior but oh well! Yiedra currently has 1/75 mining… *facepalm* yet another grind! Above are a few pictures of me helping Odisea boost her enchanting by running through Dead Mines.