Arena Update

I joined a 3v3 team awhile back with a Holy Paladin, MS Warrior, & me, a Frost Mage. We've been hovering in the 1700-1750 bracket for awhile now and haven't made it into the 1800's yet. The three of us are serious about gearing up and all are good pvpers, so we should go far - especially with this matrix.

I've been getting more interested in 5v5 since it seems to have more tactics & points involved. We run various groups, but they always include an MS Warrior / Holy Paladin. This team is also hovering in the 1700-1750 bracket and I forsee 1800's soon. We cycle DPS depending on who is online. This is good because it ensures games, but it means different strats depending on who is playing, and I don't like that. We cycle in a Hunter, Druid, Mage, Warlock depending on who is online. The Warlocks have different specs, which I'm not fond of, I would rather them both be affliction, but I'm not a Warlock, so what do I know.

I've given up on 2v2 almost since it's such a game of class match-up it almost doesn't matter your gear or skill. We run two Frost Mages, which is a pretty sick combo, but there's just too many combos that we can't take out. We're almost guaranteed a 60/40 win ratio, which is nice, but it's not point reliable. I'm still going to run 2v2 so I can PvP with my brother and some friends, but I'm not going to sit down and write strats and look up opponents like I do for 5v5.

Alright enough rambling, hopefully my next post will involve some content - I'm planning on writing a PvP enchant guide since I've been getting a lot of questions on the subject in-game.

Wrath of the Lich King - WoW Expansion

Mazzle UI

I downloaded the Mazzle UI Compilation a few nights ago and I'd like to give some thoughts on it. I like that it was easy to install, setup, & configure; however, I do not like the positioning of the health bars and the colors accompanying the new health bars. Let me explain...

Your health bar is placed at the bottom left of the screen in a horizontal manor with a pastel shade of blue for your health & mana. Not only is the positioning of the bar hard to get used to, the colors do NOT jump out at you like the standard green bar for health.

Also, your party members and your targets all have their bars displayed in an equaling unappealing color. These bars are displayed in a vertical manor, so while your bar is from left to right, every other health bar is from top to bottom(why!?!?!)


The UI / Mod Compilation is not that bad, it's actually quite nice. The package comes with a plethora of Ace2 addons that I found very user friendly. If you'd like to check it out then head over to www.wowinterface.com and search for Mazzle. I myself have uninstalled the interface, but I kept some of the Ace2 mods that came with the package, for example, "Spellbinder" is a wonderful mod.

L 2 Kite

It doesn't matter what class you are, at some point or another you will have to kite - this goes for you PvE'ers out there too.

I've brought a number of new gamers to the WoW scene (who hasn't?), and it seems the #1 thing they have a problem learning is the concept of kiting. For those of you who don't know the terminology, let me explain. To "kite" is to maintain constant movement at a specified distance from your opponent. This is what you're seeing when that hunter you are chasing won't let you close the gap between you and him - when you move foreword, he moves back, if you stop, so does he. That my friends, is kiting!

This works best for ranged classes when fighting any melee class. The more the melee opponent has to work to close the gap between you and them the better! If you are a cloth wearer, you never want to sit there with a melee person beating on you. There's many means of increasing the gap between you and the melee player, and once that gap is achieved, do everything you can to maintain it.

I play a Mage, so it's best if I speak from that perspective. The easiest way to kite a melee character with a Mage (or any class) is to have some instant cast spells set to your mouse. If you have a standard mouse with no buttons you can still use the mouse middle button as a keybinding (my mouse middle button is set to Ice Lance).

The reason you want your instant attacks set to your mouse is so your left hand can concentrate on movement with the WASD keys while your right hand only has to hit the attack button. After you have the keybinding set to a mouse button and you're ready to learn how to kite, head out and find a melee NPC to practice on.

The goal of the practice exercise is not necessarily to kill the opponent, but to sustain damage without letting them catch you. Start the fight at max range with a rank 1 Frostbolt, then immediately turn 180 degrees and run the opposite direction of the mob. While running away from the mob hold the right click button down and hit the space bar to jump and face to your right 90 degrees. In the middle of your jump (still in the air) you will be able to hit your opponent with an instant attack (mouse button). This has to be done very quickly as you want to be able to turn back facing away from your opponent before you hit the ground - this is why you only turn 90 degrees in mid-air instead of the full 180.

If you do this right the MOB will not be able to catch you and you can continually jump + shoot without ever letting the MOB diminish the distance between you two.

Now this just gets you introduced into kiting, there is a ton more to it when it's applied to PvP. You have to factor in other class's abilities to close that gap, such as blind, charge, frost shock, scatter shot, etc etc...
A good thing to note is that the PvP trinket removes all immobilizing & slowing effects now, so make sure to use it when the opposition try's a maneuver to slow you down and close that distance.

Now get out there and make those melee classes cry when they can't catch you!

Creating an Individual, not a Character

I was thinking back to previous game titles and noticed an interesting niche found in a few games - gender specific classes. These classes were restricted to a particular gender. In the prehistoric age of gaming there was usually only a male character available for play, regardless of class, but with the technology advancements and political correctness came the option to pick your gender. We're also seeing more and more girl gamers. ^^

Then came the games that restricted you to a gender - the Valkyrie from Gauntlet comes to mind. With the addition of MMO's and the social presence of other players came the diverse options in character creation. In today's games the more options that go into your character the better, but why must all options be merely aesthetic? I would like to make the decision of my race just as important as the selection of my class. In WoW there are racial abilities, but they aren't powerful enough to affect a players selection in most cases.
What if there were more than just race / class choices in the creation of your character?

Could you imagine having to select from multiple choices from a wide range of criteria? These selections could therefore make your character even more unique. Not all of these would have to affect stats - some could be aesthetic.

I guess what I'm getting at is I'd like to be more than just a Human Mage; I'd like to be the Decrepit Human Mage from Felwood. Just those two extra tidbits (the adjective & noun) could have been selected by me and gave my character a more unique feel.

This brings me to the second part in my title, Character Spaces. In the game Ultima Online there was a blank sheet you could write anything you wanted. This sheet was viewable by other players and had a wide range of uses. While some people used the space to sell items, advertise guilds, or even make a kill list, the best use was when people would write a back-story to their character.

Now I'm not one for constant roleplay, but I would love to read a back-story to a character rather than just view their gear. This feature alone would be easy to implement and would add tons to a characters' individualism.

To end this post I'll ask you this question I've had on my mind; if you could select any 2 active racial abilities in the game, which would they be?

Ding! #100

Well, I've had this blog since December 2006 and I've reached 100 post (yay me). I started the blog because I like to write, and MMOs are a hobby of mine. My original goal was to provide PvP tips to other players since PvP is really all I do. I literally rushed my way to 60, and then 70 after BC and never did much questing / raiding - probably why I'm so poor!

My goal now with the blog is to just write what comes to mind in reference to WoW and other MMOs, and to chronicle my experiences inside these persistent worlds. I'd still like to give out some PvP tips, but WoW is such a cut & paste game that there's not much new to learn. The PvP in WoW is centered a lot around gear + class matchups. So, my PvP tip to you is gear up and avoid Warlocks - lol!

On a serious note... I would like to see my WoW characters in a Counter-Strike map such as DE_Dust2, or any new map for that matter. How hard would it be to change the skin in Alterac Valley from snow to green grass?

Dual Classes

If you've ever played Guildwars then you know how this works. The basic idea is that you pick two classes - one primary, and one secondary. Which one you pick as primary or secondary makes an impact on the character, for example a Warrior / Priest is different than a Priest / Warrior.

In the Guildwars dual class setup you can only pick 6 abilities, but they can be from either abilities pool from the classes you picked. So while you might be a Warrior / Priest, you could technically go into battle with all 6 slots filled with Priest abilities.

While I don't like the instanced game world of Guildwars, I do like it's dual class setup. I know nothing like this would work in WoW because it would be a balancing nightmare, but it's fun to speculate.

So, if you could be a dual class, and only pick 6 abilities from the classes you picked, which would they be?

I'll start this off...

I'd pick Mage / Warlock, and my 6 abilities would be...

1. Fear
2. Blink
3. Frost Nova
4. Ice Barrier
5. Ice Lance
6. Frost Bolt

Ok, so maybe 6 is a low number... I'd like to get more from the Warlock than Fear, heh.

Anyways, what's would be your class combo, and six abilities?

/Cast [target=focus] Polymorph

As a Mage in arena PvP, especially 3v3 & 5v5, your main goal is CC followed by burst DPS. This requires two targets - the sheep, and the DPS.

The easiest way to go about this is to set two simple macros (if you don't know how to set a macro, then type /macro and click "new", then just type a name of your macro, select a picture and paste the following in the text portion of the macro. After that you can drag the icon out to your toolbar like a normal spell).

Set two macros for the following...

/focus

and...

/Cast [target=focus] Polymorph

Then you want to put these somewhere easy to get to, I have mine set to keybindings. What these allow you to do is set your polymorph target in the beginning of the match. When the match starts, you or whoever the caller is, will call the sheep target - immediately target that person and hit the first macro "/focus"

After this is done you want to switch your target to the main DPS and prepare to unleash the fury (always save burst for 50% or lower thou).

Now you are able to sheep the /focus target without untargeting the DPS target. This allows you to easily watch the DPS targets health and apply burst when needed without missing a beat on the sheep.