Olympic Gold!

[Merusk]

Well.. not gold, really, but Lewtz.

Compete in a battleground while the Olympics are going on and get prizes.  No idea what triggers each thing, but for Losing AV (as usual for Horde these days..) I got a Blue-quality tabard.  It's not on the spoiler sites yet, but it's called "Competetors Tabard" and it's white with a 5-ring sigil.   I hear tell there's also a special pet you can get. No idea if there's more.

[Kail]

Yeah, not much to this holiday, as far as I can tell from the official page.

Two items:  One is an ass ugly blue tabard which you get from completing any BG.
The other is a "Gold Medallion" which you have a chance of getting if you win a BG.  Summons a "spirit of competition" pet (Chinese dragon looking thing).

Not sure what the medal odds are per victory; won one on my first BG so they're probably not that steep.  But the BGs are innundated with noobs, now (which I like, but it makes winning kind of unpredictable).

As far as I know, that's it.

[caladein]

Most of my friends got the pet on their first win, I picked it up after my second.

The pet's rather neat looking too, it's replaced my Phoenix Hatchling for now.

[K9]

Got my tabard from a win in WSG yesterday, followed by my medallion from a win in AB. I do rather like this vanity pet I have to say, and the tabard's interesting as white or light tabards are somewhat unusual. Only guild tabards and the Scarlet Crusade tabard can be light coloured.

[Xanthippe]

Got the tabard my first win in AV.

Got the pet my 14th win in AV.  (yes, I played all day - wasn't planning to but ...).

Not necessarily easy to get.

[Hutch]

I played a 60+ min WSG today, won 3-2 in a nailbiter, and then got the pet from that one win. Which was what I was going for; the tabard is not pretty. Particularly on the male orc body.

I made over 800 honor from that match, which isn't quite the AV rate, but was pretty good for a single WSG. I'm glad it's the holiday!

[Azazel]

Logged on to actually play for the first time in a good month or so to get this.

Wow. I I really truly have lost interest in this game. Specifically the shitty grind2grind-ness of the level 70 content. I guess when I stopped bothering to log in for 10 arenas for my welfare epics that was a pretty accurate sign.

[Righ]

I leveled up another character to 70 recently. Wanted to the see the world through the eyes of the Alliance (don't bother, the other side is exactly the same). Anyway, I went back to an old character and wondered what gear I could get from the honor points he had. Er. Holy fuck. The BG honor epics are now absurdly powerful.

[Merusk]

I leveled up another character to 70 recently. Wanted to the see the world through the eyes of the Alliance (don't bother, the other side is exactly the same). Anyway, I went back to an old character and wondered what gear I could get from the honor points he had. Er. Holy fuck. The BG honor epics are now absurdly powerful.

Yeah it's the Arena season 2 gear, which was some good stuff.  Reports coming out of beta are that it'll last you to about midway to 80.  There's talk of Sunwell /Mt Hyjal stuff lasting into 80's blues so, uh.. guess they overdid it on the mudflation in BC just a bit.

[Ingmar]

I leveled up another character to 70 recently. Wanted to the see the world through the eyes of the Alliance (don't bother, the other side is exactly the same). Anyway, I went back to an old character and wondered what gear I could get from the honor points he had. Er. Holy fuck. The BG honor epics are now absurdly powerful.

Yeah it's the Arena season 2 gear, which was some good stuff.  Reports coming out of beta are that it'll last you to about midway to 80.  There's talk of Sunwell /Mt Hyjal stuff lasting into 80's blues so, uh.. guess they overdid it on the mudflation in BC just a bit.

Naxxramas epics lasted to 80s blues too - I think the big difference this time is just we ALL have really good stuff going into the expansion. They also seem to not have jumped up the quest reward item quality as much this time.

[Xanthippe]

It strikes me as silly that the more you play, the easier it gets. 

I really wish the cool stuff you get was more fluffy and less substantial in terms of affecting gameplay.

But then, I love fluff.

[Merusk]

They did?  I thought they'd wound-up getting replaced by 68-70 quest items.  It was nearly 2 years ago, memory's fuzzy.

It strikes me as silly that the more you play, the easier it gets. 

I really wish the cool stuff you get was more fluffy and less substantial in terms of affecting gameplay.

But then, I love fluff.

Ditto.  I want more fluff in all my MMOs.  Outfits, pets, housing.  Still don't want a world, but I want fluff.

[caladein]

The big change with BC gear that made a lot of us get rid of it quickly (especially in PvP gear) was the Stamina change.  Any piece of gear you had with Stamina on it from Classic was drastically under-budget in comparison to the BC items.

We really don't have that this time around as everything get's converted to the new Spell Power and the unified Haste/Crit/Hit Rating stats.

[Merusk]

Well, there is the spirit change someone was mentioning, but that only affects casters.   I suppose the stamina change was also the reason for the huge bump in weapon DPS in BC.

[K9]

Looking at what's coming out of Beta most raid epics will start being replaced at the earliest level 76, with some good pieces lasting longer. Hell some people are still using Rejuvenating Gem in T5 and T6 content, and that was a BWL drop. It looks like the quest rewards won't replace epics, any replacements are likely to be instance drops. The reason for this from what I'm seeing is that all the quest rewards have pretty wonky itemisation, with generally only 2 or 3 out of maybe 6 or so useful stats represented on them, and they lack sockets. I think a lot of raid items with sockets will last quite a while, especially if people re-gem using Northrend green and blue gems.

e.g.

Staff of Diligence - level 76 green quest reward, ilvl 158 and only has int, spirit and spell power
Staff of the Great Reptile - level 75 blue instance drop, ilvl 171 and only has spirit, haste and spellpower

compare these to:

Crystalforge Pulse Staff - Magtheridon drop
Grand Magister's Staff of Torrents - Felmyst drop
Golden Staff og the Sin'dorei - Kil'jaeden drop

The magtheridon staff is slightly better than the quest reward, and worse than the instance drop for pure DPS. The Sunwell items blow the Northrend staves away so hard it's not funny, and that's before you even gem them.

Until you start seeing Nothrend items with both even spreads of stats and sockets, a lot of people aren't going to see mass upgrades. This is probably a good thing, people would be upset if all their hard-ground raid loot was gone within a few hours of release, on the other hand, playing through 10 levels and getting nothing new will make a lot of people wonder what they are doing it all for. Pitching the change around level 77 seems about right to me.

[Kitsune]

It took me four victories to get my medal.  That little dragon gave me incentive to head into AV for the first time, and I had an absolute blast of a time with it.  Hanging back to bolster the defense made sure I got lots of kills, along with lots of deaths.  Good times.

[kaid]

The two pieces of the best pvp gear I could buy from vanilla wow the grandmarhals sword and shield lasted me till 65 or so. Its just that this time their final big dungeon came out with a long lead up into the expansion whereas naxx had maybe 2 or 3 months of play so hardly anybody got geared up there. Also the season 2 stuff from the battle grounds puts casuals at a MUCH MUCH MUCH more even footing than we dreamed possible in vanilla wow with the raiders.

For new characters leveling up through TBC into northrend you will see a BIG jump in power but if you are a mature character with either good raiding or pvp gear that stuff is going to mostly last you till 75 to 77 and if you have the top end stuff a lot of it will last you until 80.

Also one thing to note is that they are not doing any huge itemization stat changes this time around so you are not going to be seeing a stat double or tripple like we did with stamina last time around. Good god when my warrior hit TBC in her tier .5 crap armor my HP tripled in my first 2 levels. You are just not going to see that this time around which alone will make the itemization curve smoother.

[Azazel]

My disinterest in WoW wasn't enough to make me get the stupid medals, but my liking for simple, shiny objects led me to get one of my friends to get me a dragon trinket instead. Spirit of Competition, indeed!

 

[Merusk]

BGs have been more shittasic than usual over the last week as folks take in their 2nd, 3rd and 4th alts hoping to leech wins and get the pet.  I had 4 folks in green quest armor in an AB just now.  I wouldn't care so much if we'd get 5-capped and it was a quick loss for my token (I still need 32...)   But, since the Horde is suffering the same problem they're just 3-capping and sitting there.. drawing it out to about 30mins each. 

[Shrike]

The BGs have been insane this last weekend. Although, I did manage to go 10 wins in a row in AB, AV and the Eye were different stories. Lots of 60s in AV and lots of very undergeared Alliance in general. Same on the undergeared/inexperienced Alliance in the Eye. It made for some really frustrating losses, which shouldn't have happened under more normal circumstances. At least honor is always good in AV, regardless of outcome. I won't set foot in WSG until the expansion.

On the other hand, the Horde was--evidently--fielding a lot of undergeared players as well. I was quite surprised to practically one-shot 3 hordies in a row defending RH in one game on my shaman (all of whom no doubt posted "nerf shamanz!" threads later that night). I'm still seeing AVs at near 7k instances. It's been...interesting.

[kaid]

I think a lot of folks are in burnout mode on wow and probably will be until right before expansion time. Right now there is nothing really new to do and for the most part no real point gearing up. Yes purples you would get would probably last you a while but if you don't get  them you will get good enough crap from WOTLK quests that it won't matter to much. Oh well here is hoping the expansion comes out sooner rather than later.

[Numtini]

I had 4 folks in green quest armor in an AB just now

*waves* I resemble that remark.

I did my best. Stuck on defense and healed as much as I could. I think the pet brought a lot of non-PVP people into the BGs.

[Ingmar]

BGs have been more shittasic than usual over the last week as folks take in their 2nd, 3rd and 4th alts hoping to leech wins and get the pet.  I had 4 folks in green quest armor in an AB just now.  I wouldn't care so much if we'd get 5-capped and it was a quick loss for my token (I still need 32...)   But, since the Horde is suffering the same problem they're just 3-capping and sitting there.. drawing it out to about 30mins each. 

That's kind of strange that people would pick AB for ther medal farming BG. AV seems to be the best option for Alliance by far on my battlegroup at least.

[K9]

On misery AV is the only BG where I have a sub-50% win rate, as alliance.

[Merusk]

Was horde-side and the daily to boot, so the queue was faster as there were more running while folks tried to pick-up the extra honor.

I had 4 folks in green quest armor in an AB just now

*waves* I resemble that remark.

I did my best. Stuck on defense and healed as much as I could. I think the pet brought a lot of non-PVP people into the BGs.

See, that's cool you knew your equip sucked and you took a "speedbump" role.  The ones I have the problem with are the folks whose gear sucks and try to Rambo nodes by themselves or just plain AFK at the GYs after getting 3-shot a few times in a row.

[Azazel]

I think a lot of folks are in burnout mode on wow and probably will be until right before expansion time. Right now there is nothing really new to do and for the most part no real point gearing up.

I resemble that remark. Arenas have been my only upgrade path for months, and fuck they are shittily-boring.

[raydeen]

Was horde-side and the daily to boot, so the queue was faster as there were more running while folks tried to pick-up the extra honor.

I had 4 folks in green quest armor in an AB just now

*waves* I resemble that remark.

I did my best. Stuck on defense and healed as much as I could. I think the pet brought a lot of non-PVP people into the BGs.

See, that's cool you knew your equip sucked and you took a "speedbump" role.  The ones I have the problem with are the folks whose gear sucks and try to Rambo nodes by themselves or just plain AFK at the GYs after getting 3-shot a few times in a row.

I don't so much 'speedbump' as make sure I'm an absolute pain in the Horde's collective ass. Level 63 lock with piss poor gear but 2 instant cast dots (I hope to have the third down to near instant by 70) and a penchant for dropping a Howl of Terror right in the midst of an enemy pack. It got to the point in a couple of the BGs that I would get zerged as soon as I poked my head out. Got my dragon though. :)

[deadplayer]

I never know the pet...

[SurfD]

i managed to collect 6 of them, i was going to try to get one on my craft alt warrior, but he is flat level 60, in old world gear.  Most mages in a 60-70 bracket would probably 1 shot him :P