Weekend Wrapup

I had a blast this weekend. For the Overmind had a great run of games and my guild went on a rampage on Saturday. Good times.

Arena: For the Overmind has really come together. One of our two losses was a dumb mistake on my part (I dotted a sheep...I know, I know, I suck...do you ever have those moments when you just totally lose it and hit a button you know you shouldn't? ) and the other was just...brutal. The latter came on our last night of the game. It was a rogue/mage/heal combo, and they made us come to them in the graveyard map. Our mage got out ahead, our healer fell behind, and I was stunned then blasted by the mage and rogue. I popped everything I had (healthstone, trinket, the works) to no avail. Dead in about 6 seconds.

Takeaway: do not spread out if you are going to them, call for a polymorph if you need it, cc as much as possible when it comes to a super-dmg combo.

Rampage: After our Gruul's raid fell apart due to lack of healers logged on (again) I called for some of our lowbies to come with me to SM for some powerlevelling. When we arrived in Southshore, we were met with about five members of Tarren Mill Deathguard. One of the lowbies logged in on his main, and we called for guild backup. The help was slow in coming, but this small skirmish eventually escalated into a bona fide old-school Hillsbrad throwdown. Most of our respective guilds showed up after I posted on the forum. Hilarity ensued. Highlights for me included catching about 8 of the Hordies in an Inferno stun and then summoning my very first Doomguard in the middle of Tarren Mill (Guess who was the sacrificial victim?! Soulstones FTW!).

The best moments came when our PvP team coincidentally showed up alone in the Southshore inn and held off huge numbers of Horde trying to take it. AoE's So much fun.

Well, eventually the Horde went away (aw!) and we found a huge number of us standing together in a field with nothing to do...

...so we raided Undercity...

...and Silvermoon...

...and after I logged, they raided MC...

Best weekend of WoW ever. :) And to top it off, I farmed all the mats for my needed enchants and am just watching the clock until tomorrow morning for my arena chest piece.

Screenshots to come.

Arenas 101

Or should I say, Arenas +101?

For the Overmind rocked the house today in the Arenas. We went 9/2 and added 101 points to our score, and we're sitting at 1723.

Arena chest for me, shoulders for our mage, here we come.

Incoming: Enchants!

At the moment I'm working my tailoring and the auction house to get cash for gems for the upcoming arena chest piece. After that's accomplished I plan to save up for the following enchants (see the gear guide on the right...very helpful):

• Enchant Weapon - Major Spellpower
• Enchant Chest - Major Resilience
• Enchant Cloak - Spell Penetration
• Enchant Boots - Boar's Speed

The total cost of this run of enchants:

• 16 Large Prismatic Shards
• 14 Greater Planar Essences
• 16 Arcane Dusts
• 2 Primal Manas
• 8 Primal Earths

Can you say "farming?"

FIVES!

I was recruited for a 5v5 team that seems to fit well with my weekend play schedule. Apparently their lock "doesn't know how to chain fear" and is being blamed by the rest of the team for their losses. I'm somewhat leery of a team that blames their losses on one player; 5v5s should be able to cover at least to some extent the mistakes of others.

However, I have a feeling they'll be happier with my play style. I'm perfectly fine with being CC the whole match. Basically I will CoT and Fear a pally, CoT and felhunter a shammy in that setup, and generally keep them locked down during the two-healer phase of the fight.

I am getting very excited about getting my chest piece on Tuesday. :)

Rating +80

That's what a good night in the arenas will get you.

One week away from my chest piece. If we so much as sneeze in the arena this week, it's mine on Tuesday morning. I am so freaking excited. :)

This 3v3 is pretty good, actually. We're sitting at around, oh, 1630 something (stupid Armory update lag) after two real nights of playing around 10 games each time, and our gear is not amazing. When the points roll over next week, my stats will skyrocket, and our mage will get his shoulders, and we'll be suddenly much tougher to kill.

RAWR

Rocking the 3s

Taking up Megan's advice, I started a 3v3: For the Overmind. ("FOO" is a fun abbreviation lol) Two guildmates, a so-so class mix (demo lock, shadowpriest, frost mage), but deadly in the opening phase of the game...and very able to blast down the healer immediately, two Fears, and lots of CC.

This morning we had a winning record, and two of the losses were just silly, including one DC on my part that was a real heartbreaker and cost us 19 points. OUCH. Another of the losses was my fault, having gone the wrong way to catch a healer and finding myself on the wrong side of the field.

Our mage is a beast. He has several pieces of Arena gear and knows how to play his spec. Several games he would be the last one up and would find himself against two opponents, one with low HP, and would wipe the floor with them. Do not mess with him if you see us...you will die.

We plan on hitting the Arena over and over and over to get the rating up. LOVE. IT.

QQ of the Day

Flavor of the month: "lifedrain."

Times They Are a-Changin'

I'm abandoning my 5v5. We're suffering from several difficulties, but more than anything this has to do with my schedule. I am working out again (yay!) very early in the morning, and it leaves me with more than an hour before I have to get ready to work wherein I can play arena matches. It makes more sense for me to get a team together for those hours.

We've also had some teamwork problems. With our conventional team makeup (lock, MS warrior, resto shammy or holy pally, rogue, shadowpriest) it is essential that we work together to take someone out in the initial moments of the matches. We all have /assist macros. We are all supposed to use them and focus fire an enemy immediately. I use Proximo to keep track of our opponents, and unfortunately in the initial moments of *every match,* I can see damage being scattered across anywhere between 2-3 opponents. I've tried to address it repeatedly and nothing seems to change, so as soon as I can find a new team or start a new team, I am out.

No big loss, no hard feelings. This team has been an excellent introduction into the do's and don'ts of the arena, and I've obtained some fair points from the experience. It's just time to move on.

Regrets

"Battle With 'Gamer Regret' Never Ceases"

Mixed Nuts

This weekend was a mixed bag, as usual:

• Failure again to take down High King Maulgar. Although we failed, I feel like it was a personal success. Those felhunters stayed Enslaved and Taunting on every attempt. Once or twice some whiney punks tried to blame them (as usual) for our failure, which led to me turning on my mic and very firmly suggesting they check their combat logs and shut up. Queue crickets.
• Adornment of Stolen Souls from Prince (which will form the start of my PvE set once I get my Arena pieces). If I am not mistaken, the takedown of Prince officially puts the official stamp on our guild's second Kara team.
• Spectacular failure to take down Illhoof, even with a temporary respec to Destruction to deal with the interrupts on casting Seed of Corruption. The respec didn't help much because I don't have the crit gear for a Destruction build, and we just weren't taking down the chains fast enough.
• 14000+ honor points from AV, well below what I'd planned but within striking distance of the ever-elusive trinket.
• A poor string of Arena matches that left us at 1422 for the week, brought on by no-show regulars, some awkwardness in the teamwork, a moderate lack of gear on our team, and skill of our opponents.
• Tailoring up to 348, which allows me to craft Netherweave Bags and Imbued Netherweave Bags. These things are incredible money makers, and I am happy with the cash flow I've established by selling them on the Auction House. Now I can seriously start saving for the epic mount.

I've decided to save up for the Arena chest piece, which I can obtain in three weeks even if our team does not improve beyond the ugly 1400 bracket between now and then. We are months away from SSC and The Eye, so there's no possible way for me to get a Tier 5 chest piece in the near future. I'll grab up the other pieces as fast as possible after that.

Darkspear Stalker

Spotted in Alterac Valley just now...for those of you that have no clue who this is, watch the video!