Argent Tournament

[Sjofn]

Thorgrim is not good at saying, "OK, this isn't working, any volunteers to drop so we can bring in a second DK?"

Although honestly, it was more tankfail and healerexploding than anything else.

[Rasix]

Sounds like our recent Ignis and Kologarn attempts.   

"Ohh crap, I fell again."

[Sjofn]

I think if we only had one of the three or so problems we were having last night instead of a perfect storm of Less Than Ideal, it would've been fine. One DK, one undergeared, new to the fight tank, and healers randomly kerploding did not make for the fun times.

Some of our DPS was semi-iffy too (myself included, I sux at being on spark duty AND doing any decent damn DPS), but that was really the least of our problems I think.

[Soulflame]

After running this for a couple days, I exploded last night into a profanity laced tirade about these stupid dailies, and how much I loathe them.  Particularly the jousting.

[Merusk]

Sounds like our recent Ignis and Kologarn attempts.   

"Ohh crap, I fell again."

Sounds like our off-tank last night has a twin. "Oh shit, lag spike... yep, I'm off the edge." 

[Soulflame]

"Oh hey, he does have legs and feet."  "... how do you know that?"  "I'm looking at them!"

I think a healer fell off.  Not sure how!

The hilarity really started when we finally downed him (10 man.)  Then I watched as half the raid fell through his body.

Also - OMG SARA.  /shivers

Also known as - please to be keeping your headphones on when you hit the antechamber.   

[Evil Elvis]

In an upcoming minor patch, faction mounts offered by vendors on the Argent Tournament grounds will have their visual appearances improved. You will find that the mounts being offered will better match the colors of the faction you chose to represent. Mounts already purchased at the Argent Tournament will automatically be replaced with the updated mounts when this patch goes live.

The ten mounts using the original tournament look will then be available for purchase from Argent Tournament vendors for 5 Champion’s Seals and 500 gold (faction discounts apply). To purchase these original mounts at the Argent Tournament, players must be either members of, or exalted with, the corresponding faction.

[Vash]

In an upcoming minor patch, faction mounts offered by vendors on the Argent Tournament grounds will have their visual appearances improved. You will find that the mounts being offered will better match the colors of the faction you chose to represent. Mounts already purchased at the Argent Tournament will automatically be replaced with the updated mounts when this patch goes live.

The ten mounts using the original tournament look will then be available for purchase from Argent Tournament vendors for 5 Champion’s Seals and 500 gold (faction discounts apply). To purchase these original mounts at the Argent Tournament, players must be either members of, or exalted with, the corresponding faction.

Score!      Since all I want is the white dreadsteed I can now go back to my usual routine of ignoring crappy daily quests and rep grinds.  Five champion's seals and some gold is 1000x better than doing these daily quests for another month.   

[Koyasha]

I was surprised and rather pleased that if you don't need the faction-increasing items, the Champion quests give you an extra 10 gold, bringing the total for each daily up to 23 gold and some change.

[Soulflame]

Is that 10 mounts now available per side?  5 for 25 seals, then 5 more for 500 seals?  That could eventually bring me to over 90 mounts.  So close...

Edit:  The jousting doesn't seem so bad after doing it for a few days, but it is boring.  Charge, throw, shield, melee til enemy moves away, recasting shield til back to 3, repeat.

I thought the 250k champions were going to be a problem, but as it turns out, they're rather easy to deal with if you do the above pattern.   

[Simond]

Score!      Since all I want is the white dreadsteed I can now go back to my usual routine of ignoring crappy daily quests and rep grinds.  Five champion's seals and some gold is 1000x better than doing these daily quests for another month.   

Ah, but what if the new model for the 'Champion of the Undercity' mount is even better? What then? 

[K9]

I thought the 250k champions were going to be a problem, but as it turns out, they're rather easy to deal with if you do the above pattern.   

The champions go from loleasy to lolyoudienow very fast if you pick up adds, particularly the flying ones, as they strip your shields crazily fast and you go splat. It's all rather annoying.

[Xeyi]

I was surprised and rather pleased that if you don't need the faction-increasing items, the Champion quests give you an extra 10 gold, bringing the total for each daily up to 23 gold and some change.

You can also double up on some of the quests if you start the chain for another faction once becoming a champion.  So when killing 15 scourge you can also do the kill 10 scourge quest for an extra 13g (36g total for killing just 15 mobs).  The "At the Gates" quests also have some overlap, although the jousting quests don't as you have to defeat entirely different mobs.

[Soulflame]

I'm not entirely sure why one has to defeat entirely different NPCs for the jousting.  I'd prefer to simply defeat 4 champions, which one would think should count towards defeating mere valiants.  Alas, Blizzard doesn't see it that way.  Fortunately valiants are rather easy to beat down at this point.

I thought the group quest would be an unfortunate sticking point, but just one callout at 11 PM PST immediately got two responses.  I'm thinking of seeing if I can get groups to do the at the gates + omg dragon quests as a group one after another, which should simplify the at the gates quest immeasurably.  While it is not terribly difficult to solo the entire thing, one bad aggro can easily lead to your losing your mount.

The good news here is if you do manage to lose your mount, you can run back to the camp, and grab another mount fairly easily.  Doing so seems to reset the champions, whereas -not- doing so does not seem to reset the champions.  The lieutenants and scouts seem to be tethered as is normal.

[Merusk]

I figured out how to solo Chillmaw as a DK. I'm ashamed that I didn't figure it out earlier.

I've also found I can get these and a few other dailies down in about an hour now for a nice chunk of change. Current circuit is pick-up the AT quests, get fly to the skybreaker and pick up the Slaves to Saronite, Kill 20 Vyrkul, Drag & Drop, Retesting the Tonic, No Rest for the Wicked and Not A Bug quests.  Then down to start the alliance escort quest to the Vyrkul village.

 That quest plus a few more Vyr gets me all 20 that I need, plus some Scourge kills.  Up to the saronite mines to do that quest and net a few more scourge kills.  Turn-in the escort, fly to do drag & drop, after drinking the cultist tonic.  Accumulate scourge kills, souls and drop the guys for that quest.  Fly over to kill the elite dude for no rest and finish up my required scourge.   After that siphon off voidwalkers for the bug quest then turn that in, hit the cauldron with the writhing mass on the way to kill chillmaw.  After Chillmaw's down it's to the gates to do the jousting quest, then turn-in on the skybreaker and the tournament grounds.   

In all it's a little more flying than QD, but since you ARE flying it winds-up taking about the same amount of time for the same number of quests.  It's just about finding the right synergy to complete them. 

[WindupAtheist]

Grinding up to a champion fight and losing because the fucking NPC is allowed to run off of the field and you aren't is god damned inexcusable clownshoes. Fuck.

Edit:  Helped a warrior and a death knight with a group quest, got them to gank my opponent in return. If at first you don't succeed, cheat. No wonder the Black Knight did it, this shit sucks. My paladin has a squire now, that's all I cared about.

[DraconianOne]

The lore pretense is laughable too.  This is some kind of tournament to see who will be best at fighting the Lich King?  .....send EVERYONE.

Oh and I don't think the Lich King is going to come out and JOUST WITH US.

"We have finally broken through to the very gates of Mordo... the Lich King's Citadel! The cleansing of the evil that has plagued our world for so long is at hand! Build... an arena! Right next to the citadel of evil, that should work. I'm sure he'll wait."

The Tournament is all a clever pretense for building the ultimate weapon to use against the Lich King:

[Kail]

That one "Kill lieutenants/commanders/scouts in front of Icecrown Citadel" quest is getting increasingly annoying, to me.

First of all, the area is retardedly dense with monster spawns.  That quest is in something like a kilometer field in which all the important guys (commanders and lieutenants) spawn in like a two hundred square foot box.  You can't have a fucking jousting match when moving ten steps in one direction will pull ten more guys.  That's assuming there aren't any other players there, because if there are, then you'll all be sitting in the exact same spot waiting for the same guys to spawn, and you have the opposite problem.

Second of all, fuck those gargoyles.  Holy shit.  If they only took one hit to kill, they'd be bad enough, but having to sit there and chuck a spear, wait for the cooldown, and then chuck another spear, repeated ten times, is not fun.  Having to deal with them while fighting other riders is a huge pain, having to deal with them by themselves is boring as hell.

Third, there's something completely screwed with the distance detection in the jousting mechanics.  The game is often telling me I'm in range for a charge or shield breaker, I click on the icon, and it says "You're not close enough."  All the time, this happens.  Also, I keep getting some annoying glitch where I'm fighting a gargoyle, click on the spear attack, and my guy just stands there doing nothing, but it still triggers the cooldown.

Fourth, maybe it's just me, but the game is getting really weird about when it considers me to be "in combat."  A lot of the time, I have no idea who I'm alleged to be in combat with, since there's like five fights going on around me, so I've got to ride off to some distant corner of the map to use that healing spell.

[Fordel]

The best way to do those IceCrown jousting bits, is to just group up. Invite every random retard you see in range and watch as everyone completes in 10 seconds.

[Sheepherder]

Third, there's something completely screwed with the distance detection in the jousting mechanics.  The game is often telling me I'm in range for a charge or shield breaker, I click on the icon, and it says "You're not close enough."  All the time, this happens.  Also, I keep getting some annoying glitch where I'm fighting a gargoyle, click on the spear attack, and my guy just stands there doing nothing, but it still triggers the cooldown.

From my observations with an extremely high ping connection (800+ ms) when you use a player ability it begins to execute immediately based upon conditions at the client (range check, mana check, etc.) and will retroactively cancel at the server if the client data is sufficiently desynchronized.  From observations with vehicles it appears even the preliminary condition checks are done at the server, since it's the only time I've ever seen the GCD delayed by my ping.

[K9]

Second of all, fuck those gargoyles.  Holy shit.  If they only took one hit to kill, they'd be bad enough, but having to sit there and chuck a spear, wait for the cooldown, and then chuck another spear, repeated ten times, is not fun.  Having to deal with them while fighting other riders is a huge pain, having to deal with them by themselves is boring as hell.

I find about 75% of the time gargoyles are in range for Thrust (1) which does 15K damage, so an instant shield-breaker+thrust combo kills them before they get a cast off. If you keep your eye open you'll also see odd ones skimming the ground which can be 1-shot with charge. The gargoyles are only super-annoying when you pull them while killing a lieutenant or commander.

[Merusk]

If you're there with a bunch of other people, run through when there's just the foot soldiers and pull the commander up on the stairs.  Nobody runs around back there and it's free of mob spawns.

[Soulflame]

I very much dislike the Threat from Above quest.  For some wacky reason, Horde on my server are pretty damn uncooperative, it seems like I have to solo the quest every other day.  Possible, but annoying.  Of course, yesterday I had a full group of alliance land on my head while I was painfully going about killing Chillmaw, and they blew him up for me in about 10s.  Out of pity, I think.

The Commander + Lieutenants quest is more annoying than anything.  It's easy, right up til you aggro a gargoyle, at which point it rapidly goes to hell.

I need about 775 champion's tokens altogether for all 11 mounts, which I can tell you is not a very exciting proposition.  I'm hoping at some point they add more champion quests, preferably with not a single quest that suggests grouping to accomplish.  Stupid MMO players that try to solo everything.