Triple XP

I'm finally moved, settled in, and back to some good WoWing.

I recently recruited a friend using the new Recruit-a-Friend system, curious to see how good the triple experience bonus might be. I could care less about a Zhevra mount - I want faster leveling!

In short, it is awesome.

We played for about two hours together, he on a Warlock and I on a Rogue rolled especially for the purpose. In that two hour session, he picked up the game really well and we leveled to 14. Not bad at all for two hours of play, and I can only see it getting better once we start doing instance runs with 70s leading the way.

Eun, I think, will end up being a level 29 BG twink. Wave to the people, Eun.



I'll have to find a new guild, unfortunately, since moving puts me in the wrong time zone to raid with Havok. Any suggestions?

Hunter Glyphs

The latest beta build showed us some Hunter glyphs, and they do look promising.

Read all about them here.

It looks like a fairly logical list, given Blizzard's usual habits. There are some Glyphs that will be good for PvP, some that will be good for PvE, and some that will never be used.

Take this Glyph, for example: Glyph of Aspect of the Beast - Increases the attack power bonus of Aspect of the Beast for you and your pet by an additional 2%.

In order to make GoAoTB (cough) something worth taking, Aspect of the Beast has to be worth using. Whether or not that's true is really an open question at this point - do Hunters really want to try to change aspects whenever they happen to run into melee range? The only time I use Aspect of the Monkey (admittedly less useful, though very funny against Ret Paladins) is when I'm certain long ahead of time that I won't be able to get many shots off - towers in AV, for example.

Blizzard likes to tune up spells and abilities that people don't use, and that's laudable, but the community is pretty clever - they can smell impracticality from a mile off. Some of the Hunter changes are definitely setting off alarms for me.

In any case, there are still a few glyphs I'd like to see.

Glyph of Rogue-Hunting: Increases your stealth detection and the radius of your Flare spell. I thought of this as a joke, but this actually sounds like a pretty reasonable glyph for PvP...

Glyph of Epeen: Whenever you are at the top of either damage meters or BG leaderboards, your RAP is increased by 13.37%. This one's for BRK, who also has a Hunter-Glyph wishlist.

Glyph of EZmode: Targets soloed by your pet are counted as your kills. I would have this Glyph on during questing and grinding, no exceptions.

Withdrawal

It's been about 5 days now since I've had a chance to log on to WoW, and the withdrawal is killing me.

All the Wrath of the Lich King news isn't helping - is anyone else pumped? I am.

More news, gentle readers, once my PC catches up to me and I can WoW again.

Gentle readers, I am moving.

Bear with me as I transition (again!)

The blog will be back to normal as soon as life is, honest.

Pure E-peen

Since our frustration on Al'ar, Havok downed Al'ar, VR, Solarian, Hydross, Lurker, and Leo. Not a bad week.

Here's this week's lurker fight. I picked up a Rift Stalker Mantle from VR, and the DPS difference is pretty obvious from last week's Lurker kill (posted a few posts down.)



Look BRK, I can pwn AB too!



Notice the zero healing done? My pet took ~0 damage that whole BG. It was bizarre.

Until later, gentle readers. Tonight, we drink!

I hate Al'ar, and I never want to see him again

Wipes!

Whoever designed this boss was a complete sadist.

"I know, let's force tanks to chase down adds that could spawn anywhere... in this HUGE-ASS ROOM!"

Bah.

A new premade strategy? A brilliant new premade strategy!

So what you do is this:

Dispatch 2 groups to Aid Station, ideally 7 Rogues and 3 Resto Druids, but really whatever best group you can muster.

Dispatch 2 groups to guard the Iceblood chokepoint. It must not fall! And no one can get by. Designate 2 or 3 good players to fall back to RH if ninjas slip through.

Dispatch 2 groups to guard Drek. Again, no falling! It's amusingly easy to keep Drek up with 10 people guarding him.

Everyone else kills Bal, then helps with offense.

Do not cap any graveyards other than Aid Station. Period. It ruins everything.

We ran this strategy 5 consecutive times today. The least bonus honor we got was over 600, plus much more HK-honor than usual. The most bonus honor the Alliance got was 63. The Allies were like deer about to be hit by a big, angry truck. They ran singly into our focused defensive groups, tried without success to ninja random objectives, and eventually settled for some HK-farming at Stonehearth Graveyard.

It is slower than the typical northern-tower recap strategy. Somewhat. But don't you Hordies out there want the satisfaction of completely shutting the Alliance out? After all, For The Horde is no empty phrase! It's a rallying cry to pwn those Alliance carebears! We've got ugly, angry, and dangerous down.

Let's implement some organized.