Last Week My PvP perspective on new talent trees might shock you. For example, I advocated last week to remove every PvP talent!

Goals The No. 1 issue players have to deal with when they decide to go for gladiator isn’t about gear, teammates or even skill. If you are a dedicated raider in a competitive progression guild, you can relate to what we’ll be discussing today. The issue is the desire to attain goals and sacrifices that must be made.

Some players want gladiator far more than others, just like some players want to be the first on their realms (or first in the world) to slay dragons. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t care a whole lot about slaying dragons. I was once in a top 50 U.S. guild but left it because raiding required too many hours — hours that could be spent playing arena (which I enjoy considerably more) or doing necessary IRL stuff.

Let’s compare PvE and PvP goals.

Continue reading Blood Sport: How to accomplish your PvP goals

Filed under: PvP, Blood Sport (Arena PvP)

Blood Sport: How to accomplish your PvP goals originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com’s arena column.

Listening Music: Elephant Gun, by Beirut. I’ve been listening to a lot of Beirut recently. If you don’t like it, I don’t blame you. It’s not for everybody. I normally dislike a lot of brass, but Beirut manages to pull it off with my approval (whatever that’s worth, obviously not much).

Last Week: We talked a bit about why certain 3v3 archetypes are successful in arena. As I mentioned in the comments, I’ll consider going into detail about each archetype.

This Week: Maybe I’ve just hopped on the fanboi bandwagon, but Cataclysm looks awesome. I’m not in the beta, but friends have provided me with ample information about items, dungeons, and overall experience. Not to mention the amount of blue posts flooding the Cataclysm forums recently.

Interesting arena matches

Continue reading Blood Sport: Arenas might be awesome in Cataclysm

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, PvP, Blood Sport (Arena PvP)

Blood Sport: Arenas might be awesome in Cataclysm originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 05 Jul 2010 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com’s arena column. Also, apparently, arena history is discussed as well, as evidenced by these last two articles. Mhmmm arena history — the best kind.

Listening Music: ELO with “Don’t Bring me Down.” Alright, my bad for not dropping some Elo in the last article. I felt the wrath of my readers. I offer a humble sacrifice.

Last Week: We talked about the beginning of arena and how the old rating system differed so dramatically than the one we have today. The Elo system was implemented on a firm foundation, but quickly eroded due to…

This week: Personal ratings and why we have them!

Season 3 and season 4.

While the old system was grand in many respects, it had flaws. The biggest flaws with an Elo rating system which only had one rating (team rating) were point-selling and win-trading. Both of which are virtually non-existent in today’s arena world. Personal rating was created in season 3 to end both of these problems. Even though many arena-boosting groups tried to duplicate their success before season 3, it was much harder, and therefore, much more rare.

If you aren’t familiar with point-selling, it was a pretty big deal early in WoW‘s arena history. Essentially, a high-rolling exceptionally good PvP team would level up a 3v3 or 5v5 team to around 2100 or 2200 rating (at the time, these ratings were unbelievably good — think 2700 or 2800 in today’s arena world). Then, they would sell spots on the team for gold. Individuals would buy 1000+ arena points for 500-1000g. It would usually be advertised through trade and it would be assumed that the individuals would be entering three to four losing arena games. The team rating would suffer as a result, but they’d still get the points advertised.

Continue reading Blood Sport: Personal ratings fixes the Elo rating system

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, PvP, Blood Sport (Arena PvP)

Blood Sport: Personal ratings fixes the Elo rating system originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 14 Jun 2010 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Blood Pact is your weekly warlock digest, brought to you by Dominic Hobbs. “The slightest loss of concentration is all it takes.” — Medivh.

Selecting professions for your characters often comes down to a choice of utility; if you have several toons, you may want to make some gather and others be the crafters. If you only have the one character at 80, there is a greater desire to be self-sufficient. Professions are also one of those things that many people feel are a part of their character and help define them almost as much as their class.

If you’re uncertain which professions your warlock should take up then this is the place for you, as Blood Pact takes a look at all 14 and considers which are of the most use to the ‘lock on the go.

Continue reading Blood Pact: Warlock professions

Filed under: Warlock, Raiding, (Warlock) Blood Pact

Blood Pact: Warlock professions originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 17 May 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly journey into the world of the death knight. This week, we’re getting ready for Cataclysm in our own round about way.

While sometimes less considered by the WoW population at large, blood tanking has long been known to serious players and theorycrafters as an incredibly dominant raid tanking spec, thanks to incredibly high health pools. It will also be the sole tanking tree for death knights in Cataclysm. While it is certain that the tree will change extensively under this new system, it is likely to have a lot of the same elements in place that make it distinctively blood tanking, even in the new expansion, so it might not hurt to start practicing with it now.

Whatever your reason for trying blood tanking, this guide is here to help you take the first few steps along that path. Remember as this is a 101 guide, we won’t necessarily being doing hardcore theorycrafting, and we may simplify a few basic concepts that can be a bit more nuanced for an experienced, high-end blood tank.

Continue reading Lichborne: Blood tanking 101

Filed under: Raiding, Death Knight, (Death Knight) Lichborne

Lichborne: Blood tanking 101 originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 27 Apr 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com’s arena column.

Listening Music: Star Wars stuff, by the Symphony Orchestra of Radio Television of Serbia. I’m not too fond of the whistles and chanting/cheering, but whatever. This is easily the best live Star Wars video I could find on YouTube.

Last Week: We talked about the great Mortal Strike nerf of 2010 and why it’s great for arena. Actually, scratch that. It’s great for any kind of PvP.

This Week: Underdogs. Everyone loves the underdog. You know you were rooting for the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series last year, even if you weren’t a baseball fan. Why? Because the team that was supposed to win it all (and subsequently did) was the New York Yankees (also known as baseball’s Evil Empire). While Joe Girardi might not be Darth Vader, and George Steinbrenner only slightly resembles the Sith Lord, people just know — almost instinctively — who the “bad guys” are, and we root for the underdogs.

Continue reading Blood Sport: Underdogs

Filed under: PvP, Blood Sport (Arena PvP)

Blood Sport: Underdogs originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Second, evoking the name Garrosh Hellscream sets people off. I’m not quite sure what to make of this, but I’d have to say it’s a telling statement to the storytelling department that Garrosh, regardless of how much or how little he’s been developed, is provoking this kind of reaction from players. Given that most writers like to evoke some sort of emotion in their readers, I can only imagine they are secretly pleased with the outrage. Right, moving on!

The blood elves, or sin’dorei as they’ve taken to calling themselves, have been a largely quiet presence in Wrath of the Lich King. Given this, they may seem like an odd choice to cover. Why bother talking about a race that hasn’t done much to speak of since the days of Burning Crusade? Well… that’s sort of the point. The blood elves were an odd choice for an ally to many Horde players, and through the course of Burning Crusade, there was very little light shed on what made these creatures a valuable ally to the Horde because a large amount of blood elf history stemmed from events that happened prior to World of Warcraft.

Continue reading Know Your Lore: Current Horde politics — the Blood Elves

Filed under: Lore, Know your Lore

Know Your Lore: Current Horde politics — the Blood Elves originally appeared on WoW.com on Sat, 03 Apr 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Blood Pact is your weekly warlock digest brought to you by Dominic Hobbs. “Did you think we had forgotten? Did you think we had forgiven? Behold, now, the terrible vengeance of the Forsaken! Death to the Scourge! And death to the living!” ~ Grand Apothecary Putress

Whether you’re racing towards the endgame or pootling along enjoying the ride, everyone likes to make that leveling experience a little smoother. Blood Pact caps off this series of guides with a look at the final (for now) twenty levels. We’ll look at the talents you can play with, the spells you can learn and some of the quests you don’t want to miss. We’ll be covering the Outland and Northrend experience from the warlock’s point of view.

Maybe you have been leveling for a while and are looking for some insight into this final push or have had a lock ‘parked’ at 60 or 70 for some time; hopefully this guide will help you push that demon-loving toon to the final malefic leveling milestone.

Continue reading Blood Pact: Leveling a warlock, 60 to 80

Filed under: Warlock, (Warlock) Blood Pact

Blood Pact: Leveling a warlock, 60 to 80 originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 22 Mar 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Each week Dominic Hobbs brings you Blood Pact. “Alert! You are marked for extermination! Calculating force parameters… Alternative measure commencing…” ~ Void Reaver

Having been a raid leader for a long time now, I’m very keen for everyone in my raids to be aware of the strategy we plan to execute. I get pretty frustrated when people deviate from it. I’m also interested in the theory and maths involved in maximizing gear choices and spell selections. When changes to warlock spell mechanics come along I always try and calculate the impact this would have on my gameplay — and then do some research to find out what I missed or miscalculated. I believe that entering a boss fight with these things prepared is the foundation of good raiding.

You can’t live on foundations though, you need a house. Being able to execute a perfect, DPS-maximizing spell rotation on a target dummy doesn’t fully prepare you for dealing with a more chaotic situation. Knowing the strategy for a fight can still leave you floundering when something forces a change to your expectations. Today I want to have a look at how to prepare for the unscripted, how to be a raider and not just a robot.

Continue reading Blood Pact: Be a raider not a robot

Filed under: Warlock, Analysis / Opinion, Raiding, (Warlock) Blood Pact

Blood Pact: Be a raider not a robot originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all-things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com’s arena column.

Listening Music: 15 Step, by Radiohead. If you liked it, check out the full set — it’s nine tracks, and they don’t stick to just In Rainbows! Myxomatosis and Where I End and You Begin (a personal favorite) are included.

Last Week: Beginner’s guide to arena, part VI. A glossary of arena terms is important for any starting arena player. We went over some of the more interesting and often confusing terms PvPers like to use in casual conversation. Get acquainted with some gladiator jargon.

This Week: We’ll be discussing some helpful tips for finding arena partners. Everything from trade chat to recruitment forums and more. We’re gonna do this quasi-chronologically. You might shift around the order a bit, that’s cool.

1) Get as much PvP gear as possible.

Do Vault of Archavon 25-man and 10-man each week. Grind heroics for badges to buy PvP main pieces. Grind battlegrounds for off-set pieces. We talked about ways to gear up in Part I of our beginner’s guide series. Having a lot of PvP gear will help you to win games, which helps to get skilled PvPers to notice you.

Continue reading Blood Sport: Beginner’s guide to arena, Part VII

Filed under: PvP, Blood Sport (Arena PvP)

Blood Sport: Beginner’s guide to arena, Part VII originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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