To start this off, let us talk about Arathi Basin. A 5-point map, this gamemode has been frustrating people since 1.7

This BG is the yardstick to which I measure all other Domination style battlegrounds. A fairly simple map, a good number of flags relative to the number of players, and generous flag-turning mechanics, lead to this BG being one where a good offense almost always pays off.

While I have (jokingly) refereed to Arathi as “the worst BG of all time” there’s a reason it’s so popular, and that is that you always feel in the race. The scaling of resources gained to bases owned means that a lucky 5-cap can turn the game around (although these are incredibly fragile, which is probably a good thing). Battle for Gilneas on the other hand, feels somewhat less… I’m not quite sure what it is. The most obvious changes are the number of Flags (3 opposed to 5) and Players (10 opposed to 15), and the map does a better job of restricting infomation about incoming players with lots of line of sight blocking doodas and terrain (which you can’t really see from the map here), opposed to the relatively wide open terrain of Arathi.

My personal problem with 3 point domination is as follows. Once you hold 2 points, you can usually turtle your way to a win fairly easily. If the other team pushes very hard, you send players from your other flag to smash their flag. Generally speaking the tide of battle is much harder to turn in a 3 flag scenario. This is also my main problem with Civil War in SWTOR. The other thing that is the case in TOR is that flag turnaround is very short once taken, and the damage dealt to the enemy ship appears to scale linearly. This means once you get 100 points behind, you’ve probably lost the match with 10-20 minutes to go.

In addition to my general distaste for TOR’s PvP mechanics (I’m not sure, it never feels ‘fun’ to attack in TOR, it’s hard to say), this makes for a painful experience. Generally speaking, Civil War games are the ones that make me want to Queue dodge the most, as they’re long (at least they feel long) and always painful.

Before we finish up fully, I’ll also make a brief word on Rift’s domination Warfront, The Codex. I don’t play it very often, so I don’t have that much to say on it, but it feels a bit better than either of the 3 point offerings (I believe it has 4), in addition to Rift having some nice PvP in general (unfortunately the best WFs don’t have equivalents in other games, but I might do a post on just them at some stage soon)

I was playing a game of Eye of the Storm, widely lauded as my least favorite BG OF ALL TIME. We were losing. We were losing so badly, it was as if a hundred angels had descended from the heavens right ontop of all of the towers, but you know what? I was having fun.

LOOK MA, A RANDOM PICTURE

FUN

I know, how strange, right? We were losing, the team was horrible, but who cares? I was holding off a million assholes, all trying to tear me a new one, I was fighting DKs left and right, fire-mages who cast frostbolt endlessly (I have no clue why, I wasn’t going anywhere (I would of won that fight except LOL CAUTERIZE, which was kinda confusing at the time)), and I was cackling like a madman.

Part of this has to do with how WoW’s PvP system never feels like a horrible grind. While Arenas and Rated Battlegrounds probably do a little bit, that is because people actually take them seriously, and then suddenly I stop having fun. >>;;

Speaking of fun, I ventured into the Raid Finder this week… that was an interesting experience. The fights are pretty easy, and it’s really… fun! It’s raiding for people with less than 9 friends! (I like it for the same reasons I like the LFG tool as a DPS. It makes grouping easy (no finding groups), and it makes the content easier, it’s a win win win situation)

Your face when you realize this image is irrelevant too.

Huttball is entertaining, but 90% of people have no idea what to do in it, which often makes it an exercise in frustration. That being said, if you get a decent team you can have a lot of fun (before winning the game really fast). Civil War is 3-point AB, and TOR’s general bias towards defenders in PvP means it’s a race to cap 2 points before the other team does, most of the time – it also feels like it goes FOREVER. Voidstar is okay, it has the Attack/Defend stylings of Strand, but again, the bias is towards long defensive games there.

Actually, let’s get into some more details. Firstly let’s go over Strand.

EPIC ART SKILLZ

Obviously, the circles are the boat dock spawns, and the attackers then use demolishers (powerful, big, obvious things) and seaforium bombs (items that can be grabbed and dropped next to doors, kinda hard to disarm), to blow through the HP of the various gates, eventually reaching the relic (or running out of time).

This means that the attackers can chip away at each gate, or amass a great force and blow through, or whatever they like. More options are usually better for the attackers, assuming they can co-ordinate a little bit.

MY ARTS, THEY ARE THE BEST ARTS

Voidstar, on the other hand, tends to be a bit more punishing for the attackers. This partially has to do with the mechanics of breaking doors (more like capping a flag than breaking a gate), and TOR’s pretty strong defending bias.

The best strategy here is to co-ordinate with a couple of Sage/Inquisitors (or whoever else has sprint) and quickly cap the bridge (2nd point) and 2nd door before the defenders can regroup and bring the pain.

Voidstar also feels really long. I’m still not sure why that is. Although it’s not uncommon to see both teams failing to reach the goal, and the winner being decided on how many doors were broken.

Not sure what brought on that, but whatever. It’s also interesting to note that a lot of people really hate Strand. I’m not sure why, I really like it as an objectives focused PvPer.

Still, getting back to my point, I like PvPing for fun. Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t take my games seriously. I’ll hound that objective like nobody’s business, because, to be honest, I really like winning.

However, I like losing, too. I love the whole ritual of raging at my enemies, or my teammates, or whatever. Venting is important. But once I’m off that field? It’s gone. I’m not going to abuse you outside of the BG for something. I’m probably not going to abuse you anyway, most of my anger comes from passion, and it’s not a bad thing. When I get passionate I start 3-capping flags and killing DKs.

Which reminds me, one of these days I should sit down with a microphone and PvP for an hour or two, and see what comes out the other side. Haha. Although if I know people will hear it I’ll hold back or something. This is why I am usually much quieter when playing with people over Skype/Vent/Whatever, they don’t need to hear an endless stream of “WHY YOU NO FIGHT ON FLAGS ASLKDJHASLKDJALSJKDASDlkAJSDLas” and I can’t deadpan “oh no what are you doing why are you chasing that champion to their tower oh god now you’re dead and there’s two of them and now I’m dead yay” for more than 5 minutes.

 Anyway, I’ve been rambling for a while, go figure. Turns out writing about PvP is pretty enjoyable. Although I must stress that I am not some strategical genius, and you should take any PvP advice dispensed here with a heaping fistful of salt. That being said, I will gladly ramble like I know what I’m doing for extended periods.

Unrelated, but I need to break this up a little bit, haha ^^;;

The simplest example of a binary reward is a feat from the 3rd  (or later) edition of Dungeons and Dragons. You either have them or not (so they have binary (2) states), and they are all bought at a constant rate of 1 magic feat point.

A simple example of continuous rewards is leveling up. Everything you do (kill) gives experience points, which as you accumulate, increase your strength. You can’t skip levels, the progression is a straight line, like a traintrack or something.

A more relevant example would be, for instance, gear. In most MMOs, the primary source of gear is through killing bosses and taking the gear from their corpse. With gear, you either have it or you do not. While you can have intermediate items, they are essentially separate from your obtaining of the final item.

Gear, of course, also has other ways to be given out. For instance, the highly common badge systems that has been in place in WoW since the Burning Crusade, and both TOR and Rift have had it at launch. Even here, the gear itself has binary states, even if it is earned in a more gradual manner. It presents an interesting set of decisions. Do you buy every gradual upgrade, or just save your tokens for the good stuff?

Crystalsong is pretty. This is a super old screenshot.

Some games gate the good gear behind lots of different currencies. Blizzard have the most elegant system at the moment, with their fluid point system. Although it took them plenty of iterations to get to that stage.

I for one, prefer the single currency with obscene inflation (see Burning Crusade), as it gives everyone a chance to get the good stuff with a bit of time and effort. It also makes it possible to twink people up by running them the higher tier content to let them swim in tokens.

The ‘every tier of gear gets a new token’ system I find annoying, as it leads to lots of gating that makes gearing up nigh impossible. It’s inelegant, and frustrating.

Blizzard’s “upper tier” and “lower tier” currency system, where the current content rewards points just for it’s gear, and everything else grants lower tier points is quite elegant, and is a good compromise between letting the raiders have their fancy exclusive gear, and letting the rest of us stay in touch.

Almost always, rewards themselves have specific states. Even leveling you have ‘tiers’ of XP at which you get to level up, which is when your power actually increases. In some cases, however, the reward scales as you gain whatever it is you gain. Usually these have an ebb and flow to them, much more like power ups than the rewards that have been discussed thus far.

Rage probably bears a mention here as a good example of a fluid system. It starts empty, you fill it up by getting hit in the face // hitting things in the face, and you spend it to hit things in the face hard. Of course, you don’t get stronger by having lots of rage. Although that would be nice, I’m sure. It would also make rage an even more interesting mechanic.

Come to think of it, there aren’t many mechanics that work like that that come to mind… well, I’m sure I’ll think of one 20 minutes after I post this, haha. >>;;

(Note: I plan to grab some screenshots for this a bit later, but I figured I should post in now anyway)

We have “Things You Miss (post Cata)” and “Your Favorite Spot (in or outside of game)”.

Obviously, the first choice for things I miss and my favorite spot is my favorite spot I miss. Duh. I really miss being able to go hide at the lighthouse in Quel’thalas. It was a nice, relaxing place, that was a bitch to get to. Nowdays, there is a big invisible wall stopping you from getting up there.

That being said, I miss a lot of things in the post-Cataclysm Azeroth. Every zone that’s changed, I miss at least a little bit. Of particular note is Azshara, which has been thrown to the wolves goblins, and is considerably less cool than it used to be.

I miss the old leveling flow, just because I knew it so well. I miss being able to skip quests in zones… there are a lot of things I “miss”.

Anywho, lets get onto the more fun topic of favorite places.

I -really- like Crystalsong. Such a pretty, pretty zone, and so very, very unused. Actually, I like a lot of the Northrend zones. They are, for the most part, very pretty. It’s sad that the least pretty zones are the ones where players spent the most time (Icecrown, Dragonblight, and to a lesser degree Storm Peaks and Wintergrasp).

Another obvious choice in WoW is Nagrand. Everyone loves Nagrand. So pretty, good quests, and home to the best mounts in the game (Talbuks, everyone loves Talbuks), of all time. Ever. Even Rift’s cool mechanical horses aren’t as cool as Talbuks.

Other good zones from Burning Crusade are Netherstorm (It’s purple, and in space, what more could you want?) and Eversong Woods (so pretty, so very very autumnal and pretty).

Cataclysm has pretty boring new zones, really. Hyjal is okay but not super pretty, Vash’jir is pretty but just a horrible zone, Deepholm is somehow even more lame than Vash, Uldum has great quests but is basically just a big desert, and Twilight Highlands is infested by nightmare fuel (the rest of it’s pretty nice though).

I guess Cata did have Kezan, but you’d struggle to spend an hour there, really.

Let’s move on to other games. Rift is an easy choice, because I’ve been playing more of it than I’d care to admit. Rift has zones that run the gambit between boring and less-boring, but it does have some very pretty vistas. Mainly because you can walk almost everywhere. The world feels much more… complete, than the Zones of WoW at most times. Mainly because mountain climbing is not only completely valid, but it is encouraged, with all of the Cairns at stupid high places, for instance.

While I’ve not been to every zone in Telara yet (Not been to the 46-50 zones yet), I can say that the zones that are probably the nicest are firstly, the Lake Of Solace (which is a bit of a silly answer, as it is just a big lake, with nothing much in it), and then Moonshade Highlands (which I always want to refer to as “Moonshae” for some reason), which is geographically pretty simple, but is a pretty nice zone. Iron Pine Peak is nice too, but ‘SNOW EVERYWHERE’ in a huge ass zone is a bit tiring after a while.

There are a lot of very pretty games, and I’m much too lazy to think of and/or name them all. The only other really good game I’ve been playing much of recently is Minecraft (1.8 worlds are super pretty), and it’s not like I can specifically be like “that area is cool” in a game that is all procedurally generated.

Next Time: FFFFF-Fashion?

I also filled in the blanks with some amusing lies (writers call that ‘enhancing the truth’, but I’m not that good a liar)!

So, the interesting tale of Selite’s first day (because my first day was really boring – and Selite was started like a week later, tops) begins… in the next paragraph.

I come home from a long day of doing something. In my hands, a box, it is green, and says “WORLD OF WARCRAFT: THE BURNING CRUSADE” or something. I install it, impatiently, while thinking of the character I would create very soon.

A mage, that much was obvious. They got to shoot fireballs and teleport places, and that was pretty freaking awesome. Race? Blood Elf, as my friend wanted me to play Horde with him, and I was like “AUGH FINE WHATEVER” and subsequently went and bought the expansion so I could do so while having a character model that I could stand looking at for 90 billion hours (also totally wanted to make one of those “cool looking see-through ladies with the waggle’ (I saw a Draenei Shadow Priest on my first day, and was like “dude, that looks awesome” – I still haven’t gotten a Draenei Priest to 40 to actually get that (or 30, whatever level it was) – some day).

I subsequently went and managed to log into the game. I typed my password in, slowly, as I was slightly nervous, as my hands were literally shaking with excitement (remember that truth enhancement I was talking about? Yeah, I think this may be it), as the character selection screen popped up, I hit the big “New Character” button, clicked away from the human male that I was presented with, and hit Blood Elf. Female.

I mucked around with her features. Somewhat pale skin, Red hair cut in that haircut that kinda reminded me of the villain lady from Captain Planet (not really, but I thought it was a great hairdo, as evidenced by the fact that I still have it on her) name… name… I am the worst at names.

This was the spot, where all her adventures began. She's come a long way.

Hit random. Seltie. Or was it Seliet. It was probably Seliet, knowing my secret method for making new names, which is…

Hit Random, change the order of two characters in the name.

I know, I’m a fucking genius. Anyway, this story has a longish way to go yet. I log into the game, which gives me some boring story about the Blood Elves which was most likely covered in the Warcraft 3 expansion. I find myself in the North Eastern corner of the world. Eversong Woods. I fly through the 1-5 area, and as I move out into the main parts of the zone, and am just taken away by the beauty of the zone.

Even at night, this zone is so very pretty.

Anyway, that more or less accounts what I can remember of Selite’s first day. Or evening, as it was. Tune in next time, when I will talk about my favorite memories from a really long amount of time spent playing videogames in a generally spoiler-free manner.

Okay, lissin gud, cuz im only gunna say dis wonce.

CAST ARCANE BLAST – AND DO ARCANE MISSILES WHEN IT PROCS.

As far as talents go, focus on buffs for these spells, and be sure to get the extra crit from… frost, I think it is. The mana refund from spell crits is probably not worth it, as it’ll only return a pittance of mana from the base cost from Arcane Blast (which is fairly cheap).

SO YEAH. GUIDE’D. Damn.

Arcane Envoy has always been an interesting name, personally. It kinda breaks the “First Rule of Blogging” which was, (I think) “DON’T NAME YOUR BLOG AFTER YOUR CLASS/SPEC DUMPASS”. However I chose it, feeling that regardless of what I played in the future, ‘Arcane’ would always be somewhat pertinent, especially when coupled with ‘Envoy’ which was originally chosen to represent the fact that I do play a fairly large number of alts and other games, dragging me away from Selite.

If you haven’t already guessed, come Cataclysm (December 7th/8th-ish), I will be raiding ‘full-time’ as a Holy Paladin, in a SRSBZNS 25 man raiding guild, to partake in the killing of INTERNET DARGONS.

However, in my mind, Selite will still be my main, and I will continue to refer to her as such. She might only raid in alt runs, and spend most of her time in Rated Battlegrounds killing Alliance like the mercenary she is. I guess you could say she’s still my ‘true love’. It just wouldn’t be that accurate, I guess.

In addition, I plan to write more reviews, including one of FFXIV, when I finally figure out exactly what my opinion of it is.

So, in hindsight, I guess nothing much is changing at all. Guess I’m just a big liar.

No, wait, that’s not entirely true. There will be a new layout come Cataclysm (the plan is to release it in the first week of December, but we will see if I get it done sooner, I guess?)

Firstly, I totally did a good deed today. /brag Gnomeaggedon, earlier this morning, posted a wonderful post about how he killed a whole bunch of Hordies, and finished it off by asking the ganker for an [Enchanted Broom], the Blood Elf Argent Tournament pet.

Now, I, being the probably the most sympathetic PvPer ever to grace the blog-o-sphere (Pfft, yeah right), was totally like “He wants a Broom? I can totally get him one (or like 4) of those!”. So I told him I’d get him one. And I did.

Now, I know I totally said one good deed deserves another, and while I did get a mechanopeep out of this, that’s not the only thing. You see, this is the 50th post of Arcane Envoy. It might of taken ages, but it totally happened.

So yeah. This post should of been about my 5 favorite 5-mans, but I’ve been slow in getting pictures for all of them. Soon, I promise.

Basically to do this, you need to run into the opposing faction’s main cities and capture all of their flames (I’m not sure if you need to get Silvermoon or Exodar’s flames, but I will assume that you do (because I am a completionist)).

Therefore, I have developed this mini-guide to…

Being a Sneaky Fucker. Stealing the Flames of the Alliance & Horde.

Now, this is not actually all that difficult. Honest. To begin with I’m going to do the Cities of the Alliance (I have actually done these, and can be 100% sure that they more or less work). I suggest going Exodar -> Darnassus -> Stormwind -> Ironforge.

To begin, haul your ass to just outside Auberdine (in Darkshore). Then make your way to the far end of the dock (the western end). This boat goes to the Draenei starter zones, and you should be able to get over to Azuremist Isle without any incidents.

To get into the Exodar, take the side entrance, which is just to your left as you get off the dock. Run down the ramp, and then north into the Crystal Hall. The bonfire is near the middle of the area, and takes 1 second to steal (you will find an item in your bags, not an immediate quest popup).

Once you have the flame, take the boat back to Auberdine and take the northern dock to Rut’theran Village, convienently, the Darnassus flame is here, so grab it and scram, if you’re really quick you might make it back on the boat before it leaves.

Back at Auberdine once more, take the southern boat to Stormwind Harbor. From here you need to run up the ramps, along The Park side of the canal, across to the Mage District, and make your way over to the flame, which is outside the Stockades.

From here, quickly jump into the canals and swim for your life to the Cathedral Square dock thing (near the Dwarven District), mount up (you can do this in the water) and ride to the Deeprun tram, which will take you to Ironforge.

Finally, run out of the tram (mounting as soon as you exit it) north to the Hall of Explorers. This is the hardest flame to get, as there are usually about 1,000,000 Alliance douches there waiting to kill you. As long as you get the flame, just spirit rez and hearth out. Congratulations on getting your achievement!

Now to do the Horde Cities

Before I begin, remember that the quests start from an item that is deposited in your bags when you use the flames. As long as you’ve got the item, don’t worry about the actual quest while you’re in the enemy cities.

First off, I’d start in Silvermoon, not for any real reason, apart from the lack of flow to other cities that it has. In Silvermoon you need to get to the Court of the Sun. To do this, you should run north, and through Murder Row. The bonfire is just beyond this.

Then make your way to Undercity. This is probably the easiest one of all the cities, as it is not even inside the city proper. Just run in the front door, and leave. No biggie.

Take the Zeppelin to Orgrimmar, and then run to the western edge of Durotar, and across the river into the Barrens. Follow the river north and go in the side entrance of Orgrimmar. Follow the path along into the Valley of Wisdom, and get the flame. This is by far the hardest of all of the flames, but if you’re quick, it should be rather simple.

Finally, go to the western Zeppelin tower out the front of Org. There are two Zeps that depart from here. One to NR, and one to Thunder Bluff. The best part of this is, that it deposits you right on top of the flame. Too easy. Hearth out and collect your prize.

However, through my many runs this year (like 10, but w/e) I have noticed that most players are either really bad in general, or are just dumb. (Not that I needed a event boss to figure that out, it’s just more exceptional here.)

With this in mind, I bring you…

TwilliK’s Rad Guide to Lord Ahune.

Now, the fight itself is not too hard. Phase 1, gather adds, kill adds (burning the initial big bad add that spawns at the beginning of the phase). Phase 2, burn CDs on the Frozen Core. Repeat if your DPS is too low.

However, there are some really dumb mistakes that I’ve seen people making, and have felt the need to correct, in fancy bullet point form.

• The Tank needs to be at the front, and needs to stand still for fuck’s sake.

Now, I know you’re all thinking that this is elementary, but I’ve only seen two tanks do this, the others are all running around the place like idiots trying to get all the mobs that have peeled off of them. I know that you think it’s important, but it’s really hard to AoE things when the whole pack is moving. Most DPS will stop to kill mobs that have peeled off to eat their (or the healer’s) face, just sayin.

• Every mob in the fight is immune to frost damage.

You know what that means, Fail Mages (as I have seen about 6 other mages do this)? Blizzard doesn’t work. AT ALL. This is a big issue, because it means we have to use Arcane Explosion (mana eater) or Flamestrike (which is a terrible AoE, but is alright here, if point one is conformed to). This also affects Frost DKs, as Frost Fever doesn’t affect them, which has led to many lols and wtfs among our zombie bros. (Just to make this perfectly clear DO NOT CAST BLIZZARD. Thank you)

• When you can attack the Frozen Core, stop whatever you are doing, pop CDs and kill it quickly.

This is the thing that will change the fight from a 5 minute kinda annoying thing into a 3 minute dream. The Frozen Core has about 500k Health, and is attackable for about 30 seconds (maybe? I don’t know, it’s not very long). Try and deal 5k-ish DPS over that 30 second period and he’ll go down without having to wait another 60 seconds or so for another go.

Anyway. That was all rather obvious tips, but the number of dumbasses I’ve been grouped with made me need to vent about it. Stay classy peoples. Twill, out.