Ding - 74 ! - I feel like I'm behind

So I hit level 74 on Sunday. Which is pretty good for playing about 10 hours per week. However I can't help feel like I'm behind the curve. Some of my friends are 77+ with one of them expected to hit 80 today. My arena partners from last season are sitting at 74, 75, 79.... But I simply don't have any extra time to play.

Fortunately at my current rate I should hit 80 in of time for S5... but it sure would be nice to find time to grind some honor before the new season, as it is I already feel rushed. In the mean time, here's some screenshots of my travels.

Post on the upcoming S5 gear sometime after Thanksgiving.

Level 71 and surrounded by assholes?

Morning folks!

So I dinged 71 on Friday night and I'm about 50% of the way to 72. Looking at the /played option it seems I'm about 5 hours away from 72.

But what I really wanted to talk about today was a disturbing trend on my server. The problem is that it seems every asshole on the server has logged in for the expansion and I'm coming across many of them. So far I've had:

• -Repeat ganking of Ore nodes I'm in the middle of mining OR standing on top of and trying to get rid of some mob so I can mine. In fact, I'd say as long as there is a player in the vicinity this happens - we're talking 70% of the time.

• Ganking of quest items. For example I needed to free 10 baby mammoths. I'm clearly in the area and someone rides in and takes it - happens all the time
  
  
• Ganking of NPC's that you need to kill AFTER I put out an announcement asking anyone that needs the guy to group up so we don't have to fight for him.
  
  
• Any time a person asks for a quest location or a where is xxx on the general chat, there's 2-3 people telling him to shut up and go get quest helper, etc.
  
  
• Not giving a "ty" when you buff a fellow player and/or not buffing you in return (way more often then in TBC)

I realize everyone is focused on leveling, and places are more crowded then usual but I implore you to be polite to your fellow WOW player, treat others the way you'd like to be treated. I'm sure everyone learned that back in kindergarten but they seem to have forgotten it when getting on WOW.

How about you guys? Are you seeing the same things on your servers, or is it just Antonidas?

Check out the S5 coundown clock

So I'll be getting my copy of wrath and installing tonight after work. Looks like I'm way behind with Firelight already dinging 71 as I write this (congrats man). BUT as exiting as the expansion is; what I am waiting for is the start of Season 5 !!

So to help motivate myself and every other hard core PvP'er out there I've put a countdown clock at the top of the Blog. If you want to get started on Arena right away you need to ding 80 in 32 days... and counting :)

I'll keep folks updated with my progress; and as we get closer I'll talk about the new BG's, what to do if your arena partner hasn't dinged 80, gear requirements, etc.

WOTLK tomorrow - time to respec (shudder) PvE

Hi Folks,

I'm just kidding the respec isn't so bad, in fact you could do without it if youSo WOTLK comes out tomorrow. For some people that means they'll be playing from Midnight to dawn. For folks with family and work (like myself). I'll be lucky to have it fully installed and get an hour or two of play time Thursday night.

That means I need to be prepared. I've already cleaned out a lot of bank items. I'll post some additional stuff tonight. I also need to respec myself from a straight PvP build to something a little better suited to grinding. After playing around with the tree I found i didn't have to move that much around... Turns out PvP is a solid grinding spec (we all knew that anyway :)... But For personal preference I've moved the points around a little:

Although I played around with 0/10/51 I stuck with 0/5/56

Here's what I dropped:

• Eye for and Eye - No NPC is going to be critting you so no need to keep this one

• Crusade - Down from 3/3 to 1/3... I wanted to keep it but no room. Level 71 and 72 will have it full again

• Sanctified Wrath - Now with the forbearance change I prefer to have a bubble available most of the time anyway, these points can move somewhere else. I'd like to preface that this is a bit subjective. You may allocate your points differently if you'll be doing a a lot of groups, dungeons, etc.... I expect the majority of my time to be soloing with limited groups.
  
  
• Divine Purpose - Let's face it, the reason this talent is picked up is for the extra stun resist. With the Human Racial ability changed to a stun resist ability I can let this and my Medallion of the Alliance go.
  

Here's what I added:

• Vindication - This procs a lot, vindication is just about always up within a few seconds of attacking, it should help with almost every mob.

• Improved Ret Aura - My "recount" add-in broke down the numbers and it turns out that regular Ret Aura seems to total between 5-6% of my overall damage in PvP getting the improved version should increase my overall damage an extra 2.5-3%, maybe more because I don't always have Ret aura on in PvP (going against a frost mage, shadow priest, etc). I expect to have Ret aura on all the time when grinding.

• Full points in RV - I could have left this 1/5 and put some of the extra points in Crusade.... but RV will tick against everyone, Crusade will not work against beasts/animals and it seems there's going to be a fair amount of them in WOTLK. So I'm going with a sure fire proc

Well there you go. I haven't Specced for PvE in months, so any comments/suggestions are welcome.

WOTLK 2 days to go - Arena over for now

Hi Folks,

OK so Monday night was the last night of level 70 arena. There will be a new Season starting December 16th. Full details on what's happening to Arena and your arena points below.

Since the season is behind us I'll be back to regular posts.

Also, since the season was ending asked our resident Gladiator Mage to dump his team and help me get that S3 weapon with an 1800 rating (I have been hovering in the low/mid 1700's). He said it would be more fun to take the rating to 2050 and get the S4 !! Sure enough within a couple of hours we hit 2050. Since I was maxed out on arena points I was able to pick up both my S4 weapon and S3 shoulders!.... They looks so great I updated my photo!

Of course it won't help me with arena :).... But the increased DPS and armor should be great for leveling. I don't expect to waste money on gear until at least the high 70's and perhaps level 80.

Quote from: Zarhym (Source)

We have created this new thread to reflect some updates we have made to the way in which arena points and seasons will be handled as we transition into Wrath of the Lich King.

We wanted to remind everyone that Arena season 4 is coming to a close. During next Tuesday's maintenance on November 11th, all arena teams, as well as ratings, will be wiped and arena charter NPCs disabled. However, arena points will persist until the beginning of the next arena season, or until a player reaches level 71. Thus, Arena points will be rewarded for rated games played this week and players will be able to purchase Arena items that do not require a team or personal rating. Upon the close of Arena season 4, players at level 70 will continue to be able to play skirmish Arena matches against other level 70 opponents even after Wrath of the Lich King launches.

Arena season 5 is currently scheduled to begin on December 16th, and once that happens players who have reached level 80 will be able to compete in rated arena matches where they can gain arena points which can be used to purchase level 80 arena gear, as well as compete for end-of-season rewards. Players who remain at level 70 after Season 5 begins will only have access to play skirmish arena matches against other level 70 players. However, two new skirmish brackets will be made available (71-75, 76-80) for players who wish to hone their arena skills while leveling in Northrend.

Such huge nerfs coming - Won't post for a bit

Hey folks,

Sadly, such HUGE NERFS are coming to ret pally's that I'm just going to post the link and frankly.. untill this mess gets sorted out I'm not going to bother working on updated builds, talent trees etc. Every week a new round of nerfs comes along that it's just pointless to try and adjust to it... FU_K
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=11829377161&sid=1

Patch coming .....get your PvP spec here!

Hey folks, so patch 3.02 is due out this Tuesday. I've been PvPing like no one's business and I can tell you the best spec for a Ret Pally is 0/8/53. It's enabled me to win over 3 to 1 in 1v1 duels and plenty of skirmishes in arena.

Thanks to the new achievements tab in 3.02 I can tell you that I'm currently at 160 wins and 50 losses for dueling. And now I'll share the spec that let me get there :)

So let's look at the protection tree first.

Divine Strength - 5 points : This increases you STR by 15% and is a must. Stoicism - 3 points : this one reduces stun effects by 30% which is huge considering how many stuns people will put on you. Also decreases the chance your spells get dispelled by 30% which ties in very well to an item in the ret tree.

Now the meat; the Ret tree: I'm not going to go over everything just the must have new stuff that you might be wondering if you should get or not. Something I wouldn't go over is BOM. If you don't know enough to put two points into it (since we're not doing kings) then you need more help then i can cover here :)

Eye for an Eye - This now causes 20% of their damage to go back to your opponent every time they crit. Spell, ranged, melee doesn't matter. Every crit 20% back. And let me tell you crit% is buffed for everyone. Waaay more crits going around. You NEED this.

Sanctified Seals - ONLY PUT 2/3 points here. Combined with stoicism this means you give a person trying to dispel your spells a 96% failure rate. And they will try because 4% means your spells will show up as dispellable. This means the guy will spend his time trying to dispel your stuff instead of hitting you.

Divine Purpose - The big thing here is that you get a 100% chance to remove a stun effect. It's like a free trinket...almost. Doesn't remove some stuff like Freeze trap, etc because that's a spell, not a stun effect according to bliz.. bah. STILL EXCELLENT EXTRA TRINKET AGAINST ROGUES, DRUIDS, ETC

Judgment of the Wise - Absolutely critical if you don't want to run out of mana. And with this talent you almost never run out.

The art of War - Not only do you get a 10% crit increase for two spells that will always be in your rotation, but you get an instant Flash of Light when your divine storm or crusader strike crit. This has saved my bacon on numerous occasions. No more getting out of the fight and stand around for 1.5 seconds hoping you don't get interrupted.... did i mention your FOL will now heal for between 1,200 - 2,400hp?

Sanctified Wrath - J u s t - t a k e - i t

Sheath of Light - this is what is going to enable those huge 2k Flash of Light and 6k holy light heals. You need it, you need it NOW

Righteous Vengeance - I took this over fanaticism because it ups your divine storm crits by 25% as well as judgments. And those two account for the majority of your damage.

Davine Storm - The Creme-de-la-creme.. the new OP spell that will destroy your enemies and heal you at the same time. You're going to love it, you're going to use it, you're going to be the SHIT with this one. Not only will it damage up to 4 targets at once, but 20%% of that damage will be given back to you (or up to 3 raid members) as health.... While it really shines in 5v5 even in 2v2 it's great. It even help dropping down pets, if they're close enough to their master, as pets count as a target if in range.

Good luck, don't forget tonight is the last day of S4 arena.... Get in those games if you're looking for a title.