We Shouldn’t Blog While Depressed

BRK on 27 Feb 2008

PvP | Comments (41)

41 Responses to “We Shouldn’t Blog While Depressed”

1. modulok on 27 Feb 2008 at 12:07 pm #

   Maybe the hunter who came back up was using the Darkmoon Card Twisting Nether. http://www.wowhead.com/?item=19290 I hear that this deck is quite sought after for Arena.

2. fishing on 27 Feb 2008 at 12:16 pm #

   It’s not sought after modulok - So many noobs, so little time. Stick to PVE, leave arena to the big boys, that know wtf they’re talking about.

3. Esoth on 27 Feb 2008 at 12:28 pm #

   Your pet is not going to be able to interrupt heals on a paladin. They have a talent that allows them to keep healing through damage 70% of the time, and concentration aura is going to make up the other 30%. Aside from intimidation, no spell push backs are going to occur and the paladin will simply laugh at you.

   With shamans it’s a different story - they also have a 70% talent, but their version of concentration aura is earth shield which you should be able to disspell with a simple arcane shot, unless they have a ton of other buffs in the way.

4. Alevas, Raynmaker on 27 Feb 2008 at 12:37 pm #

   That heal could have been a Battlemaster’s trinket (did you last long enough to see if he lost that 10% eventually?

   I have my own experience in that bracket and 1550-1650 seems to be ridiculously lopsided every match. I think below that is pretty competitive, and I’ve never been above it to see, but I imagine that’s competitive too - it just seems like that range is somehow flawed - maybe with new teams on their way up up up and with teams on their way down after getting a few lucky wins to start with? I’m not sure.

5. Lefaye on 27 Feb 2008 at 12:56 pm #

   @Esoth-

   You make a good point about concentration aura. But keep this in mind: that pally see’s me coming at him with dot’s flying, see’s bela throwing SW:P and mana burning, etc. He probably is running shadow resist aura, not concentration aura. Hobbes attacks really really fast. So even if only 30% of his attacks actually cause knockback, its a big help. And considering the first DoT that pally will get is curse of tongues, adding another 60% cast time to his already slow heals, any spell knockback will kill him.

   Maybe as we get into higher brackets, the pally’s will get smarter, and start using concentration aura (or perhaps even the talented concentration aura to reduce duration of silence effects). Until then, it’s probably best to keep Hobbes chewing on them.

   The funny thing is, until joining AC, my main was my holy pally. And I spent all of season 2 doing arena, and made it to a Challenger title (I know thats not such a great achievement, but I’m proud of it anyway). And let me tell you, if I had a hunter pet on me, I would instantly change to concentration aura. If Hobbes can make our opponents do that, he’ll at least force a global cooldown on the pally, and also reduce the teams resistance to my attacks and bela’s attacks. That’s good enough for me.

   -Lefaye

6. Sonvar on 27 Feb 2008 at 1:24 pm #

   I know your pain. My partner was a destro lock from a demo lock for a few weeks and we went from doing about 6-4 and 7-3 weekly to going 3-7 during those two weeks. It was terrible.

7. Vivified on 27 Feb 2008 at 1:26 pm #

   Get the http://www.wowhead.com/?item=33484 It may cost 60 badges, but it really WTFPWNZ!

8. Dbragepants on 27 Feb 2008 at 1:31 pm #

   It is absurd the kind of teams you can face in the 1400-1600 range. For instance, last night my 3v3 had to play a team that consisted of a pally with a 1900 personal rating and a priest with a 2200 personal rating. The armory showed these two players in the 7th and 44th best 3v3 teams respectively. Why is it possible for members of a 1480 rated team, none of whom have a personal rating above 1580, to get lumped in with players of this quality? And, we had to play them 3 times!

   As far as I can tell, these guys temporarily jumped from their excellent teams to boost up their third member’s rating. Well, when that can happen, the integrity of arena is crap. If it were up to me, team jumping would be punished severely. During a season, if you leave a team and join another, then point awards for the week are dropped to 50%. Leave again and join another, point awards are now 25%.

   Blizzard needs to leave the lower brackets to the people who are learning the craft - great players should have to play other great players, not get to use the rest of us as punching bags. Letting awesome players downgrade into the bracket is just a glorified form of corpse camping.

9. For the Pie on 27 Feb 2008 at 1:48 pm #

   Listen to trade, you can hear folks offering to sell their skills for gold.

10. Freejack on 27 Feb 2008 at 2:13 pm #

    This is being fixed in 2.4. Brackets will be based on highest personal rating.

11. Rochelle on 27 Feb 2008 at 2:38 pm #

    Hunter/hunter… lol. One of the most frustrating things that bracket is that you will run into totally ridiculous lineups that will never make it past 1650 but they just happen to be the perfect counter for your team. The faster you can get into the higher rating the sooner you will get away those goofy teams and into the orgy of warrior/druid.

12. Rochelle on 27 Feb 2008 at 2:40 pm #

    @freejack
    The change in 2.4 will not make a difference because your personal rating gets reset every time you join a new team.

13. myke on 27 Feb 2008 at 3:00 pm #

    BRK, it’s a bit late now, but Dory’s Embrace is a better choice for a cloak for PvP. It costs 60 Badges of Justice, but it’s also a great all-round cloak - perfect for grinding etc if you are worried that world-pvp might happen. There’s also a trinket with resilience on it that drops in UB (regular and heroic). And if you have 18 spirit shards kicking around in your bag, there’s a pretty decent pvp helm you can buy from the alliance town in Terrokar Forest. And with 2 spirit shards, you can also buy a meta gem that has a minor run speed increase on it for your helm. Just some thoughts to help you along. I found that I started noticing a difference around 120 resil. Saving up that honour and arena points to buy two pieces of arena gear for +35 resil bonus should be your goal.

14. Dune on 27 Feb 2008 at 3:08 pm #

    Sounds like it was just one of those nights. I’m sure you guys will bounce back from this

15. Pyrius on 27 Feb 2008 at 3:16 pm #

    Myke, BRK has the glad helm, so he doesn’t need to use spirit shards on that helm (which I personally think isn’t good). The meta gem is 8 shards if I remember correctly. Also, he has Glad. gloves and helm, so he has that bonus already.

16. dorgol on 27 Feb 2008 at 4:14 pm #

    1600-1800 bracket consists of three groups:

    #1: Groups like you. Climbing the ranking ladder.
    #2: Groups manipulating the system. People with full S3 playing alongside their green geared “I just hit 70 yesterday lawlz” buddies / buyers.
    #3: Groups who aren’t good enough to get into the 1900-2000 bracket, but keep getting gear.

    Sadly, the first group is going to take a beating from both of the other groups.

17. Bellwether on 27 Feb 2008 at 4:36 pm #

    Man, sorry to hear about it. It sucks to go up against rediculously overgeared people, to think you have a chance and then just have them grind you into the ground. There’s good nights and bad nights, and a lot of Arena is based on luck. A misclick here, a resist there, a proc in between, and you can go from losing to winning and vice versa, depending on who gets which luck and percentage based chance.

    I’m sure you’ll keep doing well, and eventually claw your way out of that frustrating bracket. I’m just hoping to get there

18. Mair on 27 Feb 2008 at 5:33 pm #

    Heh, just popping out of lurkage to express my surprise that no one has called fishing out on being such an asshat. Surely if he has time to feebly attempt to be witty and to spout insults, he could spare a few seconds to explain to modulok why the Twisting Nether deck isn’t viable for arenas.

    As a self-professed newb, one of the things I like most about this blog is the way BRK never suggests that you need some kind of innate leetness to be a good player, and this ‘you can do it too’ attitude has inspired me to make a little BM hunter who is tons of fun to play and currently kicking ass in the 20-29 bg bracket. So to see a comment that’s so against the tone of the articles here makes me sad and a wee bit disappointed that not everyone can take BRK’s example and strive to be kind and informative.

19. modulok on 27 Feb 2008 at 6:20 pm #

    fishing… thanks for the constructive comments… seriously. Its not like BRK is in “the big boys” bracket anyway. He described a dead hunter that self ressed, I offered a possible explanation. which happens to be exactly what Twisting Nether does. I have personally seen it proc three times in a row. So unless BRK was actually fooled by FD (not likely since other hunters have tried) then I suggest you give an alternative explanation instead of your epeen stroking. Its not like I said that the card was the end all be all of arena.

20. Euripedes on 27 Feb 2008 at 6:32 pm #

    The thing with the Twisting Nether trinket is that, on the surface, it SEEMS good. 10% chance on death to be resurrected? Hellz yes!

    …except, of course, that for any and all DPS classes, there are far better trinkets to get. Like, most of them.
    Considering that you must, must, MUST have the 2 minute PvP trinket, that leaves you with one open slot.
    The self-rez trinket is nice for healers, but again, there are better options.
    Where it comes into ridiculous awesome is with Priest healer types, who’ve bothered to spec deep enough into Holy to get the Spirit of Redemption talent.

    Imagine dying, being able to heal uninterrupted for a while, resurrecting, healing some more, dying, then being able to heal uninterrupted for a while… again. Best streak I’ve seen was a Holy Priest who self-rezzed via the trinket 3 times in one match.

    For the TL;DR crowd: meh for DPS, dees for Healz, awesome for healy priesties.

21. Pike on 27 Feb 2008 at 7:13 pm #

    /comfort
    /offers cookie, which is one of the things she does best

22. Woggy on 27 Feb 2008 at 7:45 pm #

    My 2v2 arena team (Disc priest, BM Hunter) is having similar issues. We go one week 8-2 or some such ridiculous nonsense, jump seventy points, and then the next week land smack in the middle of the 1550-1650 bracket and get owned because of our lack of PvP gear, dropping us straight back down to ~1450 before the ten games are up. I’ll freely admit that we need to get better gear in order to effectively compete, but damn is it discouraging to go from 8-2 one week to 2-8 the next. D’:

23. Kohelani on 27 Feb 2008 at 10:31 pm #

    BRK, don’t be so down on yourself. You are awesome at being a hunter. You have so much experience in this game that you can PvP and PvE equally well. So you’re not as well-geared as some of your opponents, you’ll get there eventually because you have the skills and know-how to do so. And on that note perhaps this will cheer you up a little:

    2.4 Changes and Arena Season 4 Announcements!

    Global Arena Tournament Announced - Blizzard has unveiled their plans for a Worldwide Arena Tournament, the tournament will be played on special servers for those who enroll. Characters will be premade and given top tier PvP gear so that all players are on an equal playing field. Players will be divided into regions at first, and the top four teams from each region will then advance to the Global Invitational World Championship which is at a time and place yet to be announced. Entry fee is $20 per team, but regional champions will win $15,000 and the world champion prize is $75,000!

24. cluelessnoob on 27 Feb 2008 at 10:55 pm #

    Odds are the “rezzed” hunter had the Twisting Nether card; failing that, then the fooled you with Feign Death and then activated his Talisman of the (pick a faction) for ~920 healing. Almost no one takes that trinket so people are surprised when it gets used. “OMG how’d he catch a heal??”

    In the 1450-1650 range, BRK, you will see a lot of wins versus teams without pvp gear, and a lot of losses against similar teams with pvp gear. The pvp gear stacks a lot of resilience and crit and that really adds up. Also the designated pvp tree for any given class will have talents that are defining in pvp, and new players (in that rating range) often won’t have learned to take those talents - which were beyond worthless in pve, most often. That also makes for huge swings in that bracket. “Wow, we mopped the floor with the first group, then got splattered by the same makeup, what gives?”

    Despite the quote by Lefaye, I can’t believe any paladin would run anything but Concentration with either a hunter or rogue in the arena, regardless of shadow priest and/or lock being present. The tiny shadow resistance does nothing, the tinier pushback resist is godly. YMMV.

    Finally, against the teams with no priest or paladin, use freezing trap every cooldown. Without fail. No dispel and trinket on cd = meester rouge, u can haz cc, kthxbaibai. On the BEM bridge, your priest can also MC the rogue and walk him off the bridge to buy some time to heal you up again. If you were getting ganked below the bridge … well, you have learned where you need to be, right?

    Anyhow, good blog, I hate hunters (since I pvp with a warrior) but still enjoy your site.

25. Jezrael on 28 Feb 2008 at 12:21 am #

    I agree on the comment about the cloak. IMO Dory’s embrace is the better option and leaves you free to spend those honour points on other goodies

    I feel your pain re arena - sometimes we’re slaying with ease other times we’re getting repeatedly stomped into the floor. There really are so many variables at play - team composition, gear, skill level of the players and etc.

26. Luketheduke on 28 Feb 2008 at 1:54 am #

    Arena just sucks period. I played a FG lock and a BM (ouch) hunter in arena S1, back then it was at least a pretty fair match up. My lock played with a warrior, and my BM hunter with a fire mage. Both teams got to about 1800 rating, not great, but you could count on meeting fairly evenly equipped and rated teams in each and every bracket. Nowadays, you meet only S3 guys with 1500 rating teams who are boosting and selling them. Arena has just become a bad joke. It has nothing to do with skill regardless of what the epeen strokers with high ratings will tell you. Besides, they probably bought their high ratings anyway…

27. Annub on 28 Feb 2008 at 2:58 am #

    BRK, look on the bright side. I started a 5v5 team with my buddys this week. won the first 2 games straight! on a massive high. then lost the next 8 :s.

    now THAT is a losing streak. You have to dislike the elite russians that play in my battlegroup :(.

    love the blog keep it up!

    Annub of shadowsong.

28. Pastaman on 28 Feb 2008 at 3:47 am #

    Hmm - probably gonna recieve a little lite flaming but am I the only one who thinks the whole concept of the Arena is actually a different game to original idea of WoW? Thats not to say that it isnt fun - clearly it is for many many people. But its not the game i signed up to and I am miffed that the gear for Arena is becoming so much better than PVE to the point where being a raider is now tantamount to being a second class citizen - (cant even get titles for downing bosses!) and if you go to a bg in PVE gear and meet opponents with +resi from the arenas you seem to come off second best.

    Maybe BRK can give a view on this - I give you the possibility I’m wrong but for those of us that suck at small group pvp or dont want to stand around all night waiting for arenas the game seems to be now a little unbalance toward Arenas. Of course if this is what the majority of players want ( eg this upcoming tournament) then it may be time for me to hang up wolfslayer and go find something else to do in the evening

29. Oelph on 28 Feb 2008 at 7:28 am #

    Would love to know if you ever develop tactics against the type of rogue you encountered in your last couple fights. I’m coming across these guys in BGs and they’re making my life hell.

30. Luketheduke on 28 Feb 2008 at 8:24 am #

    @Pastaman- If you played pre TBC when the Naxx geared raiders always wiped the floor with pvp geared people, you would see the reason they made the the change, and it makes sense on paper. What doesn’t make sense is the degree to which Blizz implemented the change, i.e. revolving the whole game around Arenas. Balance, gear, titles, etc… Bad idea.

    @Oelph– Mutilate rogues don’t normally dominate in 2v2’s, but in 5v5′ they are really ok. My bet is that the resto druid is what made the difference, not the rogue.

31. HORDE RULES on 28 Feb 2008 at 9:15 am #

    For me a casual gamer with not a ton of time.. a typical few days..

    I will arena 10 matches to collect arena points. I dont care if my rating is 1343. But I do want it higher. But I want the hunter Axe. And will save up the points so that when S4 is out, i will buy all the S3 and… thus.. be happy.

    I then do AV and other Battlegrounds to collect honor and tokens.

    Then do a daily or two and play with the friends.

    A nice mix..

    BUT– i do think the PvP gear is superior, and I will now spend most of the time in the battlegrounds to get a full PVP set which in turn will help me survive longer in the arena.

    Oh– thats the other thing.. 90% of the time, I do last the longest on my team. So, i guess i need new teammates. Who the heck wants me though with a 1350 personal rating.

32. Messyah on 28 Feb 2008 at 9:48 am #

    We fought a team last night in 3v3 that all of the members had the Vengeful Shoulders and weapons and when we lost, they took 20 f***ing points from us.

    Blizzard needs to re-work the arena system so that it is based on your gear as well as the ranking you obtain, or something more restrictive. Teams that have all they can get purposely lose matches to drop in rating, only to gear up and annihilate teams at much lower rankings. It’s Horse Sh*t!

33. Anonymous on 28 Feb 2008 at 9:51 am #

    what are the chances of a How to Get Your Welfare Axe? I *hate* PvP with a burning passion, but can’t seem to get the Crone to drop Legacy for me… true fact you can pretty much afk through 10 arena matches a week for 3-4 weeks and get the Axe?

    other than that, love the site… (less PvP posts imo)
    /FD to avoid PvPer aggro

34. Orshade on 28 Feb 2008 at 10:31 am #

    I’m using 4/5 venge, venge swords and full pvp gear, I picked up a (decently) geared druid last night to do 2s. So we start a new team and are playing some games to get into the proper bracket, but we’re in the 1600s earlier and fighting these weird makeups for 2s (pally/rogue) that just totally trump our comp. Sometimes you just gotta keep playing and youll get past these teams, see if your partner(s) want to do more than just the minimum 10 games and test your luck.

    Good Luck, I’m sure we’ll see you hitting 1700s before you know it.

    Duelist Orshade
    Daggerspine

35. Nick on 28 Feb 2008 at 10:51 am #

    my 3v3 team is at 1380, and we regularly face teams in heavy S3. we faced one team with a warrior in full S3, a priest in full S3, and a warlock in mixed S1/S2. why…are…they…in…our…bracket!?!?!?

    frustration beyond description.

36. HORDE RULES on 28 Feb 2008 at 11:06 am #

    The best scenario is for Bliz to rework it..

    Arena is not based on teams but your own rating.

    You join the Q and get matched up randomly with people +/- 50pts of your rating… Thus no team stacking or 1800+ guys joining 1300 teams.

    And your opponent is built the same way. Teams get matched -/+ 50 of your team combined rating.

    That’s all….

37. Jealous on 28 Feb 2008 at 11:34 am #

    WTB your battlegroup. Our 2v2 rating is almost 200 points higher than yours and yet your rank is half of ours (3300 vs 1800).

    sadface.

38. Super_Duck on 28 Feb 2008 at 11:39 am #

    do kara/heroics and buy the badge pvp cloak instead, its much better than the honor one

39. Messyah on 28 Feb 2008 at 12:03 pm #

    Yeah, Dory’s Embrace (The badge cloak) kicks mucho ass!

40. Rochelle on 28 Feb 2008 at 12:42 pm #

    The players that vastly outgear you are in your bracket for 1 of 4 reasons.
    1) They are helping and alt/friend who just turned 70 get some gear. In this case its not terribly unfair because you can just identify and blow up the undergeared player.
    2) They are starting a new team with a new partner/class composition. In this case they will be winning games and quickly moving out of your bracket but since everyone starts at 1500, there is no way around this.
    3) They are starting a new team so they can get the rating high and then sell it. Same as #2, they will be out of your bracket quickly.
    4) They are starting a new team for the same reason people play twinks - they don’t want a fair fight, they want to annihilate the other team.

    The guys doing it for #4 are suck for the same reasons twinks suck. #1 is a beatable team, #2 and 3 are just passing through as quickly as they can.

    Since every new team starts at 1500 and because it is a lot easier to get a low rating than a high rating, there will always be oddities like this in the lower ratings. The solution? Get better at pvp so you aren’t in that bracket anymore.

41. Optimise on 29 Apr 2008 at 9:39 am #

    that MM hunter ambush smells like Twisting Nether to me.

    I know some of the folks who’ve posted here might not have liked the idea of equipping it in pvp themselves, but the fact that you don’t like it doesn’t mean that everyone feels the same.

    after all, whatever that MM hunter had equipped was 100% worth its while in that game. ^_^

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