What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been

victory is mine! it took me a year and half, but I finally got my [Reins of the Violet Proto-Drake] today. I'd have gotten it a couple holidays back, but I was stymied by the School of Hard Knocks achievement last year. of all the holiday achievements, this one was by far the worst for me. it was such a frustrating experience last year that I actually gave up on it. this year, though, since it was the only thing left standing between me and my purple drake, I decided to suck it up and do it. for those of you in the same boat that I was, here's how to get it done.

while School of Hard Knocks is technically a pvp achievement, the good news is that no actual pvp is required. you don't need resilience gear and you don't need any pvp skill (though they'll both certainly help). all the achievement requires is that you go into the named battlegrounds and complete specific objectives. note that you, personally, have to complete the listed objectives. there's no group credit for any of these. you must be the one to click on the flag (or to carry the flag, in the case of EotS). this is where the bad news comes in. unless you're rolling in a pre-made group, your success or failure is largely dependent on luck and the cooperation of fellow players on both your team and the opposing faction's team. don't expect to complete each objective on the first try; it takes patience and persistence.

Preparation

this is optional, of course, but if you want to have the best go of it here are some things to keep in mind:

• if you have pvp gear, wear it. otherwise, wear whatever gear has the most stamina on it. don't worry about dps stats; it's all about staying alive as long as possible.
• don't bother with food, scroll or potion buffs. you're probably going to die (a lot) and it's just a waste of consumables. on the other hand, if you've got a [Flask of Stoneblood] laying around, go for it. you can never have too much health.
• consider bringing along any sort of speed and/or stealth buffs that you have available... [Invisibility Potion], [Nitro Boost], etc. the faster you can get to your objective, the better your chances of completing it.
• take a minute to review your abilities in a pvp context. roots, snares, interrupts, damage resistances, 'oh shit' buttons... every class has 'em, but sometimes we forget about them in our day-to-day pve world.

Capture the flag in Eye of the Storm

call your orphan when you first zone in and every time you rez; no orphan, no achievement credit.

your objective is to run to the center of the map, click on the flag there (it has a 5 second cast time and any damage taken will interrupt the cast) and then hightail it to a base that your faction controls so you can turn it in by standing on the little landing pad between the two banners. note that once you have possession of the flag you cannot use your mount or any ability that makes you completely immune to harm (e.g., pally bubble), but you can use druid travel form, ghost wolf, sprint, intercept/intervene, etc. don't stop to fight; just get to the base and turn in your flag.

the flag spawn point is going to be a blood bath... aoe going off left and right, druids and shaman blasting people off the pathway to their deaths, fear bombs all around and bodies everywhere. you will have to compete with not only players from the other team, but also players on your own team for flag captures. rushing the flag at the start of the battleground is probably not the best strategy (though it works for some). I had better luck by helping to capture two or three bases first and then turning my attention to the flag. this gives you multiple options to run to once you do get the flag and also gives the other faction something to worry about (i.e., losing) other than camping the flag area. when you're waiting for the flag to respawn, put your mouse pointer over the spot where the flag will be and start clicking. the flag goes to whoever clicks the fastest and you can often click on it before you can see it.

Assault a flag in Arathi Basin

call your orphan when you first zone in and every time you rez; no orphan, no achievement credit.

your objective is to run to a flag that your faction does not own and click on it without being interrupted. if I remember right, assaulting a flag has a 5 second cast time. any damage taken will interrupt the cast and you'll have to start over.

this one's probably the easiest of the four. at the start of the battleground, run straight to one of the flags and click on it. speed is your friend here. if you can get to the farm/stables flag right out of the gates, you're done as no opposing players will be close enough to interrupt you. alternatively, you can try going for the mine or lumber mill flags, but there's a good chance that members of the other team will show up in time to ruin your attempt. if you don't have any luck nabbing a flag right at the start, you'll have to do it the old fashioned way and actually assault a base that the other team controls.

Assault a tower in Alterac Valley

call your orphan when you first zone in and every time you rez; no orphan, no achievement credit.

your objective here is to get to any one of the other team's four towers/bunkers, click on the flag there and complete the assault cast (5 seconds). like the others, any damage will interrupt the assault cast. this means you'll need to kill off a few of the defending npcs or they'll turn you into a pin cushion while you try to click on the flag. your best bet is to haul ass to the tower/bunker that's furthest away from your starting point. most players are going to go for the closer towers and will get caught up in the middle. you won't run into many opposing players all the way back at their home base and if you do see any, just run past 'em.

if you manage to click on the flag before anyone else, you're done. however, you still have a chance if someone else beats you to the flag. if an opposing player comes and defends the flag, it becomes captureable by your team again. for this reason, do not attack enemy players on sight; wait to see if they're going to defend the flag first so you can get a chance at capturing it. players on the other faction are doing the same achievement, so it's not unheard of to run into groups of players from both factions trading flag captures in a very civil and non-violent manner. of course, if they're hostile then go to town on 'em. remember that all you have to do is complete the assault cast on the flag. it's not necessary for your faction to actually capture the tower/bunker. once you get your flag cap, get out of there and give someone else a shot at it.

Return a fallen flag in Warsong Gulch

call your orphan when you first zone in and every time you rez; no orphan, no achievement credit.

your objective here is to wait for an enemy player to capture your team's flag, make them drop it somehow (ask nicely or kill them) and then click on the dropped flag to return it to your base. there's no cast time to return a flag, just be the first player to click on it once it's been dropped and you're done.

this one can be either really easy or really hard. if you attempt this during the first couple days of Children's Week, it's likely that you'll run into players on both teams that are working on this achievement. you can help each other out by sending one person into the other team's flag room, picking up their flag and then dropping it (right-click the flag buff icon in the top-right corner of your screen) so the other team can return it. ideally, the other team will send someone over to your flag room to return the favor.

if the other team (or your own team) isn't cooperating, then you'll have to do it the hard way: kill an opposing player while they're running your flag and be the first person to click on the flag when it drops in the field. this can be challenging as there are going to be a lot of other players around the flag carrier and they're all trying to do the same thing as you (some for achievement reasons, others for pvp reasons).

In Conclusion

I had credit for AB from last year, so this time around I just had to do the other three. it took me 2 AV, 1 WSG and about 4 EotS games to get them all done. EotS was by far the worst as there was no hint of cooperation with the opposing faction in any of the games. WSG was the easiest, as both teams traded flag drops until everyone had their achievements done (and then we beat the snot out of each other). AV wasn't too bad once I went with the 'run to the furthest bunker' strategy. only 2 other players came with me and I managed to be the first to the flag after clearing out a few of the npcs. including battleground queue times (during which I did the orphan quests; did you know you can have both the org/stormwind orphan and the shattrath orphan at the same time?), School of Hard Knocks took me a bit over 4 hours to finish up.

so, how did I celebrate? after taking my orphans back to the orphanage and doing a quick victory lap around dalaran on my new ride, I turned off WoW and went outside for a walk in the sunshine :)

Continue reading "What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been"...

meet Grysh

Grysh is our newest entry into our alt collection. so new, in fact, that she doesn't even show up in the armory, yet (else we'd link her). Grysh is a BE death knight, which we rolled on Elune (pve server where we had our first 60 way back in classic WoW). spoiler alert, we're going to wax poetic about what it's like to start up a death knight. if you don't want to know, stop reading now.

first off, it is an AWESOME experience! blizzard did a really nice job with the death knight starting area.

you start off at level 55 with no talents and 6 abilities. it's a bit of a mystery how the whole rune/runic power system works and we think that's one of the areas where the starting zone failed a bit. a couple quests that helped demonstrate your abilities would have been helpful. anyway, it's a very manageable skill set to open up with.

you start out in green-quality gear (which looks awesome, btw. very similar to Sylvannus' old look before the 3.0.2 patch) and you're standing next to Arthas in a floating necropolis in EPL. yes, *the* Arthas. after chatting with him, you start a series of quests that have you leading the assault to destroy the scarlet crusade. over the course of a very epic quest line, which includes events like using siege weapons and piloting an undead frost dragon to massacre scarlet crusaders from above you gain blue-quality gear and talent points as quest rewards. it took us a few quests before we realized we were gaining talent points as quest rewards; it's a brilliant system.

by the time you finish the starting zone (after an epic battle between the lich king himself and tirion fordring at light's hope chapel) you've hit level 58, are decked out in full blue gear and have all your talent points. after a quick stop at a capital city for your final starting quest, you could walk right into outlands without ever setting foot in the rest of azeroth.

where it really shines, though, is in all the little details that blizzard took care of for you:

• you automatically learn all flight points on both continents


• you automatically have artisan first aid up to heavy runecloth bandages


• you start out with several weapon skills at 270


• you leave the starting zone with about 20g in cash from quest rewards and selling off old gear


• you start with 4 12 slot bags in addition to your backpack


• you leave the starting zone with your mount, which is an epic land mount (even though you're only level 58), which was free


• one of the trinkets you get as a quest reward is comparable to the standard pvp trinket that frees you from all roots and snares

every time we thought to ourselves "oh, we're going to have to go train that" it turned out we already knew what we needed to know. the only thing you have to train yourself are professions.

we can't even do justice to the quests in the starting zone. they're just very well done. what really makes it feel special is that the zone actually changes appearance *just for you* based on the quests you've completed. this is what blizzard is calling phasing. it's kind of like an instance, except that anyone that's met a certain set of requirements will see the same thing you do without having to pass through an instance entrance or anything. in the case of the DK starting zone, it changes over time (buildings are destroyed, NPCs change locations, etc.) and those changes are permanent (i.e., they don't revert after 5 minutes for the next guy in line). it's pretty cool and hard to visualize until you experience it yourself. we'll be very interested to see where this gets applied in northrend.

so, for now we're going to focus on Grysh for a bit and let all the hubbub in northrend die down a bit before we go back. we're running around the noob lands leveling up skinning and herbalism (no cash cows on this server, so Grysh will have to fund herself), but we'll be back in outlands soon enough. we can't wait!

Continue reading "meet Grysh"...