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?

No more nitro boosts in arena QQ (

My nitro boosts no longer work in Arena? Huh? We all might’ve heard this was being considered but it didn’t make it’s way into any of the patch notes, yet the change happened anyway… The loss of boots aren’t the only ninja changes that Blizzard pulls over our eyes, the ninja nerf to Mana Burn last month is also notable: “Mana Burn has been reduced to 10% mana burned (up to a maximum of 20% of the Priests mana), down from 13% (max 26%)”. For the most part however most of the ninja changes Blizz sneaks in aren’t nerfs or buffs but simple bug fixes with PvE encounters or abilities/spells that weren’t working properly.

So where are the ninja patch notes then? Right here. Of course! A totally visible and easy to find post on the US Forums -_-

What kills me about these changes isn’t getting nerfed for balance sake but that it doesn’t get documented into the proper patch notes. Sure, most of what’s in that forum post is just minor bug fixes but things like the nitro boosts nerf really should’ve been in a proper patch note. Why? Well unlike minor bug fixes a tiny little change to something like the nitro boosts causes this:

Top 2vs2 Combos (2009/05/31)

Compare this chart to the ones from my post earlier this month and it’s obvious something has changed. All the druids learned how to play? Of course not, what happened was that the overpowered combo that was rogue/priest has lost it’s advantage. All the higher rated rogue/priests where/are engineers. The general strategy for them was to burst someone down while CC another and thanks to engineering they where both able to do that and the nitro boosts gave priests what they lacked the most: mobility.

Now that using the nitro boosts is out of the picture the 2vs2 scene has gone back to it’s old-school days where druids kite and peel you to oblivion while they’re warrior friend wears one of you down. Despite the fact that plague strike has been nerfed pally/DK is still a strong combo and a force to reckon with and probably one of the few combos able to out-cheese the cheesy of all cheesy combos, warrior/druid.

It’s almost like Blizzard wants every season to have the same combinations dominate. I’ll admit that the nerf to the boots was necessary but it’s just ridiculous how druids come out on top when they’re given breathing room.

Arena Ranking at SK-gaming

After a couple of weeks of the new season SK-gaming’s famous arena ranking page shows us how the new season is molding and forming. The results are disturbing and comforting at the same time. Let me explain myself…

What’s disturbing is that I don’t even know what season it is anymore, according to the statistics it feels like we’re back in Season 3-4 where PMR (Priest, Mage, Rogue), Priest/Rogue, and Warrior/Druid all reigned supreme. Don’t get me wrong, I prefer the new or rather *old* diversity over the joke that was Season 5 (DK/Paladin or fail) but it’s regretable how with just a few key class changes everything has turned upside down. Yet again Blizzard’s dream of “everyone being PvP viable” is thrown back into their face, this time with a nostalgic aftertaste to it.

The comforting part is with the return of the old-school comps a feeling of “everything is back to normal again” flows over me. All is zen once more in WoW PvP, ever since the cataclysmic asteroid that was the inclusion of Death Knights. What’s more despite the fact that the return of these old overpowered comps makes it even more difficult for alternative comps to rise up, the strategies to counter them are still similar to what they where before. So now, after finally having gotten used to having Death Knights into the mix we have to rethink our strategies back to 6 months ago where Druids would spam Cyclone while his Warrior Mortal Strike’s you in the face.

Speaking of Druid/Warrior, which I foresaw would make a comeback this season, here’s another chart of how the class representation has also taken a deep dive into retro-insanity.

Most popular classes

It almost gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to see paladins and death knights fall back down and to my unexpected surprise Priests are the new arena champions. I only leveled a priest because I always wanted one, little did I know that my little twink project would become my main PvP monster today.

Currently I’m doing 2v2 as Disc with my Enhancement Shaman arena partner Luar. We finally hit 1500 and I bought some Deadly Shoulders. It’s an odd combo but we have high hopes to get into the 2k+ this season. That is unless we have no way to counter priest/rogues and druid/warriors in the upper brackets XD

]]> http://wow.60-fps.com/2009/05/11/season-6-out-of-the-fire-and-back-into-the-oven/feed/ 0 http://wow.60-fps.com/2009/04/18/preparing-for-arena-season-6/ http://wow.60-fps.com/2009/04/18/preparing-for-arena-season-6/#comments Sat, 18 Apr 2009 22:08:00 +0000 Yiedra http://wow.60-fps.com/?p=893

The new Arena Season is just around the corner, besides sharpening your swords and stocking up on hot pockets here are a few things I think any rookie or seasoned player should be aware of. With the new changes done to Paladins and Death Knights in particular we should be seeing a change in class compositions with the new season. A huge relief since I personally think Season 5 was an imbalanced disaster where you either where a Paladin or a Death Knight (Survival Hunters and Resto Shamans also had some success) or you might as well just sat the season out on the benches.

What’s changed that’ll change the different kind of compositions we’ll be seeing?

1. First of all Plague Strike no longer removes HoTs (Heal over Time) effects. This is one little change but this ability turned the tables around in Season 5 for Resto Druids who previously reigned supreme in previous seasons. Because of this I’m predicting a revival in Druid representation this Season.
2. The next under represented class were Warriors, who simply didn’t have the face smashing simplicity of Death Knights to keep up with their dark plate wearing brethen. A couple changes have been seen to Warriors, particulary buffs to their Arms tree and most importantly a new ability:  Shattering Throw! *Insert sweet Paladin tears here* Warrior/Druid may very well be the ultimate anti-Holy Pally/DK combo now.

Many other changes have been done to other classes as well but these two changes should cause the most ripples in the Arena  class composition pool.

Besides expecting a slight paradigm shift of class combinations what else should we do to prepare?

• If you haven’t done so already, turn in all your Arena Points for Commendations of Bravery. Each Commendation of Bravery costs 100 Arena Points and grants 200 Honor Points. Why bother? Well, ALL ARENA POINTS WILL BE RESET WHEN SEASON 6 STARTS ON THE 21st! Yeah, a little part died in me as well when I found out but you might as well stock up on what honor that you can and buy any new gear you can before next maintenance. You can still buy Arena/Honor gear that requieres rating, keep in mind it will consider the rating you last had before Season 5 ended as your limit.
• Keep doing Wintergrasp every chance you get. With Patch 3.1.0 came new items to the Wintergrasp vendors including epic belts, chests, and some very attractive trinkets. There are 5 Titan Forged Rune trinkets that are like your basic “PvP Trinket” to remove CC effects but instead of resilience come with hit rating or spell power. Oh and all the new items are iLevel 213, which means they are compareable to Deadly gear.
• Expect to do more than just 10 games next week. Blizzard has decided that this season we’ll all start at 0 rating but retain our previous team ranking. Essentially if you play well you’ll be back up to your old rating in no time but if you’re horrible you’ll probably suffer more than usual and end up with a rating even further from 1500. Either way, everyone will have to do roughly 50+ games to get their rating back to where it “should be”.

Of course as with any sort of competitive game all the gear in the world won’t do you any good if you don’t get some solid practice in with your Arena partners so skirmish a bit, discuss strategies, and good luck next Wednesday! D

Deadlyblond

Alright so I’ve decided to share once every week a WoW movie I’ve seen that is either interesting, entertaining, or both. One day I’ll make my own, need to buy another 1T hard drive to fill up with Fraps recordings first. Anyway, I digress, the video I’d like to point out this week is called “Deadlyblond – Brutal janitor”. Unfortunately there isn’t a youtube video available or any other embedded format so you’ll have to go to www.warcraftmovies.com and check it out. I suggest downloading it if you got the bandwidth because the author made an awesome effort at making a high quality video, otherwise there are a couple HQ (High Quality) versions available for viewing. I recommend using Tortun, it can be a bit buggy but streams videos very nicely.

The Good:

• It’s an entertaining video filled with plenty of humor and the end is a nice nostalgic version of Pat PvP but with a retribution paladin instead.
• The 2v2 clips also contain a few moments that can be learned from
• Good editing, doesn’t feel to cluttered with “filler” effects
• Good choice in music for the most part

The Bad:

• The introduction is great but can disuade the watcher at first, don’t quit, the rest is great
• Too many of the clips where of the same shaman/druid team, although they where interesting matches nonetheless
• Dream Theater >.<

Summary:

The video is about a Norwegian player who plays a Retribution Blood Elf Paladin on Agamaggan-EU and showing off his “overpowered” pally as he states in the video in battlegrounds, arena, and other miscellaneous scenes. Good video overall. 4 Out of 5 Stars

First off let me warn you, the reader, that this is a bit of a vent post, and no I don’t mean it’s about Ventrilo. I intend to blow off some steam here to vent my frustrations I’ve been having since the now infamous within the WoW community, patch 3.08. The screenshot above shows a conversation I had with a GM a couple days ago, long after the day after the patch where it was total hell. Well despite the hot fixes there are still issues going around, this screenshot was the result of me and many others on my server submitting a ticket due to Wintergrasp disconnecting the whole lot of us RIGHT BEFORE VICTORY and therefore forfeiting us our deserved marks and honor. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one to complain because I don’t get any rewards or loot, I actually play this game for fun. The problem is that this particular Wintergrasp battle was anything but fun due to the ridiculous amount of lag making it almost unplayable. All I could see on my screen where tons of characters and vehicles just standing around with a random AoE here and there, everyone was so lagged that it took forever for any of us to die since no one could do anything.

I know there are tons of factors that go into this game such as my own computer/client, my ISP, as well as routing stations between my house and my server but it isn’t just me who has been having issues with higher latency since the patch. Honestly after doing some ‘tracert’s myself I’ve come to the conclusion that it must simply be coincidence and not Blizzard’s fault. I live in Spain and we’ve had intense thunderstorms the past week which may easily have been the cause of a few routing stations getting swamped or shutdown.

Arena seems to have been having quite a few issues because of the patch and new matchup system. A couple days ago Kalgan gave us an update on a hotfix to Arenas:

We made some adjustments to the rating system last night that are now in effect.

1. Personal Ratings will now always trend toward Team Ratings (instead of the internal matchmaking rating). This should eliminate the odd behavior players noticed of seeing their PR change in ways that seemed bizzare. It also eliminates the possibility that you can play every game with your team, yet be ineligible to get items when the team qualifies for them (or ineligible to receive full points).
2. You will now gain or lose around 12 points when winning or losing to teams of roughly equivalent matchmaking rating to your own team (previously this number was 8).
3. The rating scale has been extended to a range of 240 to about 2800 to more accurately reflect what was possible under the old system. This means that most players over 1500 will experience some slightly easier than expected rating gain as their team adjusts upward to the new scale.
4. Players with less than 1500 rating will still get the same number of points as players at 1500.

In theory this will promote more casual play in Arena and therefore increase the pool of average skill players as apposed to all the hardcore teams trouncing on any new team that just created a new team for fun. One detail I find interesting is the 4th point. This in theory will allow teams to gain a small but steady trinkle of arena points regardless of how low they go below 1500. Nothing too threatening to higher ranked teams since all the epic gear requires rating of at least 1615 and up. This is awesome news for me as me and my arena partners currently don’t have the gear or practice together to try to get to the upper brackets just yet. ^^