The New out door PVP zones in WOTLK?

[Oz]

Anyone had a chance to try the new oPVP area(s) out yet?

I feel dirty b/c after over a year of not playing i restarted my account...Mostly hoping the new zones will provide fun once i get there.

[Nonentity]

I have not! I know that I want to, though, as the boss that unlocks when you own the area can drop PVP gear and PVE set pieces (not tokens, mind you, but actual pieces of set gear).

The 10-man version of him drops pieces of the mid-range stuff (hateful gladiator and normal tier 7), and the 25-man version drops top-tier stuff (deadly gladiator and heroic tier 7).

[Oz]

I know this is silly to say when playing WoW, but i don't really care that much about the gear.  I am more interested in whether the PvP, itself, is fun.

(not say i wouldn't mind some kick ass gear from it) 

[Gobbeldygook]

I know this is silly to say when playing WoW, but i don't really care that much about the gear.  I am more interested in whether the PvP, itself, is fun.

(not say i wouldn't mind some kick ass gear from it) 

The gear from Wintergrasp isn't for gearing up.  You can spend the marks (Standard 1 for losing, 3 for winning) on JC designs, gems, a mount, and BOA gear.  By completing Wintergrasp dailies and doing level 80 instances, you can earn Stonekeeper's Shards which can be spent on BOA gear, gem cuts, and enchants.  The shoulder enchants are equivalent to the exalted Sons of Hodir shoulders or Revered faction head enchants.

I finally dragged a friend of mine to it after he had successfully avoided it for several days.  He described it as the most fun he'd ever had PVPing in WoW, even though we lost.

[Fordel]

I've actually had a chance to fool around in the zone a few times now. It's pretty much awesome. 


It has fixed most, if not all the previous issues I had with WoW PvP.


First, you're either attacking, or defending. This is a simple, yet huge change to the amount of workload it takes to organize. Everyone gets focused into one over all 'job' for the duration. Coordinating becomes so much easier.

Second, the terrain itself is just better designed. All the PvP get's funneled into key spots, while not causing a true bottle neck for the action at any one place. The Buildings too, are just flat out superior for PvP compared to all the previous PvP architecture. They are also shared among both sides, so no more "Your tower is so much better then ours!!" like in AV.

Third, the map is much more informative. It will actually mark PvP hot spots as they happen. It will also give you all the info you'd need at a quick glance. "West wall is breached, better move to the inner yard!".

Fourth, things blow up! Having the buildings and defenses actually take damage and crumble into varying stages of decay really adds to the awesome factor. A full HP tower is a pretty safe place to regroup and recharge, a half HP tower is missing it's roof and a 3rd of it's walls, so people can lob bombs into the upper decks. A Destroyed tower is just a pile of rubble that you drive over 

Fifth, the Siege gear! It's just full of win and stuff. Each side get's 4 vehicles per machine shop owned. On Average, it's anywhere from 8 to 16 vehicles per side. You can only spawn a vehicle at a machine shop, and only after you've obtained 'rank' in the zone. The Wintergrasp 'rank' basically comes from pvp kills in the zone, be it guards or players. It's a simple, but seemingly effective way to prevent assholes from just rushing to the machine shops to make their single seat catapults and spinning in circles. The tanks and catapults are intuitive and simple to use, and stupidly fun to play with. They are also pretty much required to win if you are attacking. Other things of note are the defender turrets and the RP-GG's  . The RP-GG's are like the name suggest, little bazookas anyone can pickup from a machine shop (literally just laying around out front) and use against enemy vehicles. The Defense turrets are probably my favorite thing so far, they fire a cannon you ground target. It can be used for indirect or direct fire  .



My only real concerns with the zone:

1) Once everyone figures out the 'best' way to attack/defend, all the stuff in the zone will be exploded within the first 5-10 minutes of the battle. Maybe each sides 'best' will cancel the other side out and etc, but I can easily see a truly coordinated team just finishing the round before it even really starts.

2) One side simply stops showing up. There are 'underdog' bonuses for the zone, and they can ramp up pretty damn dramatically apparently (like 400% bonus damage or something at the most extreme  ), but I can still see the zone being 'abandoned' by one side due to frustration of losing or what not.


Other things of note:

Off the beaten paths of the zone, there are just dozens of elemental mobs to farm. It really is the new 'elemental plateau' except the entire zone is PvP enabled. This alone will guarantee SOME kind of population in the zone. Elemental of each type. Fire, Wind, Water, Earth, Shadow and Life. Also if your side won the last round, you get a special buff that lets you see Greater Elemental's, which I assume drop more motes or something, (all the PvE mobs at 80, I'm only 74 atm)

The Zone is also full of Herbs and Ore to gather, a wide range of both. I can easily see myself just riding around collecting herbs in the 'downtime' window before the next battle.

Dalaran has portals direct to Winter Grasp and some NPC's will announce when it's about to start up again. So it's easy to just dive into the fight.

No flying mounts in the zone.

No flight points INTO the zone, you have flight masters to leave, but not to get in.

The zone can be fun with small numbers, the last few times I've been in, it's been at best, a dozen per side. But the place really screams for large numbers. The larger fights will be epic, there is little doubt.

[Koyasha]

No flying mounts in the zone irks me slightly.  I suppose they just couldn't figure out how to balance out aerial pvp combat or something, so they just made it impossible.

The rest, I'm looking forward to going and checking out soon.

[Lakov_Sanite]

No flying mounts in the zone irks me slightly.  I suppose they just couldn't figure out how to balance out aerial pvp combat or something, so they just made it impossible.

The rest, I'm looking forward to going and checking out soon.

There are flying seige machines though

[Fordel]

No flying mounts so people have a chance to defend themselves while farming elementals and crap. "World PvP" at 70 on pvp servers devolved into people hovering over you at 60 feet untill you were fighting a mob, swooping in to gank you and swooping away to avoid retribution.

Classes just don't have the abilities to deal with flyers, especially when they zoom in at 300% speed and have you at 50% health before you can even see them loading. 

[Fordel]

Have I mentioned how much I love the gun turrets? 


I pissed off the attacking horde so much this last round, they started to send assassins to kill me. Of course the gun turret is a 'vehicle' so they had to try and kill the turret before getting to me, and there is no friendly fire AND I can shoot at point blank range... 

[apocrypha]

Oh god that all sounds amazing! Hope it's still popular by the time I get high enough level for it 

Someone unban HRose, sounds like there's a lot of similarity between this and some of the best bits of the ideas on his site about how WoW pvp should be.

[Triforcer]

HRose was banned?  Why do the good always die young?

[apocrypha]

I think so, it was during the War of Jacobs 'Ere 

[Fordel]

Oh god that all sounds amazing! Hope it's still popular by the time I get high enough level for it 

Someone unban HRose, sounds like there's a lot of similarity between this and some of the best bits of the ideas on his site about how WoW pvp should be.

I was only level 74 when I first went in (a whooping 75 now  ), turrets don't care what level you are 

[apocrypha]

Oh even cooler     I'm level 70.5 now, at my current daily playing limit I should be in there by christmas :)

[Le0]

I'm nearly to the point of buying the expansion and re-subscribing wow :( This is hard drug.. I already have a few level 70, guess I'd play my shaman.
But I also see there are a lot of good game being released that I need to play : Left4Dead, Fallout 3 etc..

Do you guys think it is really worth it? Or is it just the honey moon period and everything is good and beautyful?

Last question, did shaman get nerfed or something? I'd plan to spec Enhancement for leveling than either stay this way or go heal

[Fordel]

I do not understand the question?

Do you want to know if WinterGrasp is worth the price of admission alone? No, probably not. It's a fun diversion and alternative to the usual WoW fare.

[apocrypha]

Is WOTLK worth it? If you liked pretty much anything in WoW then I'd say yes, unreservedly. From the (admittedly small due to limited play time) amount I've seen of it it's fantastic. Fun, polished, loads of content (unless you're a poopsocker), lots of variety.

As for shamans I'm having no problems with mine. Started Northrend at level 70 in crappy quest greens and a few rep blues, specced mostly Enhance with a bit of Elemental for shits'n'giggles and he is tearing through mobs and quests like a fucking monster. I two-box so he has a Holy paladin healbot on him all the time but I very rarely have to heal except for 3+ pulls and elites and to give me zero downtime.

[Le0]

I think I'll try an elemental build, I loved enhancement back then but changes is good.

Also wtf is up with 3 places mounts with vendor? Can i get a bank on it also ?

[apocrypha]

Also wtf is up with 3 places mounts with vendor? Can i get a bank on it also ?

Huh? I don't understand your sentence, sorry :/

[Zetor]

I think he means the mammoth, the new goldsink of WOTLK - 3-person mount with an auctioneer, a vendor / repair person, and maybe something else.. but no bank. Yet. :p

Edit: somewhat on topic, I've been leveling my shaman resto. Sure it's slower [about 40%], but I can solo elites easy, get tons of people begging me to heal instances for them all the time, and I'm very hard to gank when compared to, say, elemental.


-- Z.

[DraconianOne]

I think he's talking about the Mammoth that costs 20k or something ridiculous.  Can carry 2 passengers and comes with 2 vendors (general goods and trade goods I believe) so can repair and inventory dump without needing to go back to civilization.  Can't recall if it has a mailbox or not.  Don't think it has a portable bank though.

EDIT: Zetor beat me to it.  It has an auctioneer? Wow. That's impressive.

[Zetor]

Actually, now that I've read up on it, it doesn't have an auctioneer... maybe it was just wishful thinking in the article I've read. I mean, if you have 18k to burn, chances are that you played the AH at one point, so having it at your fingertips while questing or exploring would be a plus. :P


-- Z.

[apocrypha]

That does sounds pretty awesome... but 18k gold? Yeah, not gonna happen, I've got too many alts who are going to want coldweather flying skill ;)

[Phred]

That does sounds pretty awesome... but 18k gold? Yeah, not gonna happen, I've got too many alts who are going to want coldweather flying skill ;)

Your alt will have an extra 2-5k gold by the time he gets to that point.

[Fraeg]

quit last January, sick of the Raiding, sick of the arena style pvp.  Was in WAR beta for a long time.  WAR failed to deliver.  Is the *new pvp* in WoW that much better than pre-wotlk?

Or is all they did is add a new pvp zone/instance or two, that is cool for a bit, then it it just reverts to the same ol same ol. AKA: grind for rep, grind for gold, raid X instance for the umpteenth time, and lots of assrape by people in gear you will never see unless you stepup to the catass/poopsock plate?

[Ragnoros]

Or is all they did is add a new pvp zone/instance or two, that is cool for a bit, then it it just reverts to the same ol same ol. AKA: grind for rep, grind for gold, raid X instance for the umpteenth time, and lots of assrape by people in gear you will never see unless you stepup to the catass/poopsock plate?

[Kail]

quit last January, sick of the Raiding, sick of the arena style pvp.  Was in WAR beta for a long time.  WAR failed to deliver.  Is the *new pvp* in WoW that much better than pre-wotlk?

Or is all they did is add a new pvp zone/instance or two, that is cool for a bit, then it it just reverts to the same ol same ol. AKA: grind for rep, grind for gold, raid X instance for the umpteenth time, and lots of assrape by people in gear you will never see unless you stepup to the catass/poopsock plate?

Right now, as far as gear goes, a lot of it is unimplemented, as far as I know.  For example, you get Wintergrasp medals and honor for participating in Wintergrasp, but there's nothing to spend them on. 

I do find the PvP in Wintergrasp to be a fun change of pace.  If you didn't like anything about Burning Crusade, I don't know that it would be worth it by itself, but it's interesting to see. You don't really need to worry about catasses too much in there, because Siege weapons are good equalizers.  Catapults do the same damage (as far as I know) regardless of how high level the driver is or what his agility (or whatever) is.  And the zone is on something like a three-hour cycle, so you can't really grind it over and over again until your eyes bleed, no matter how hardcore you are. 

There's a new BG, too, which I haven't seen yet (I think it uses siege weapons there, too), but in terms of new PvP, that's it.  One zone + one BG + a few arenas.

[Driakos]

Yeah.  Strand of the Ancients.  It's split into Attack and Defense.  With each side having a set time to win, then it flips. 

Offense starts out sailing to the battle on a pair of boats.  Defense has time to set up, jump in turrets and try to keep Offense from grabbing siege vehicles (usually unsuccessful, as Defense can't use the vehicles)

The attackers advance, and try to smash down gates to get to the inner keep and win.

It's a lot of fun, and completely different from any other WoW battleground.

[Fraeg]

 

que Pink Floyd's - High Hopes

[Polysorbate80]

Yeah.  Strand of the Ancients.  It's split into Attack and Defense.  With each side having a set time to win, then it flips. 

It's also possible to have the battle end in a draw, so everyone gets equally hosed on medals

[Soulflame]

except the entire zone is PvP enabled

... what is this "pvp enabled" of which you speak?  Isn't your entire server that way?   

Wintergrasp is pretty awesome.  It is comparable to DAoC keep combat.  The only problem with it is the 2.5 hours between matches.

[Fordel]

except the entire zone is PvP enabled

... what is this "pvp enabled" of which you speak?  Isn't your entire server that way?   

Wintergrasp is pretty awesome.  It is comparable to DAoC keep combat.  The only problem with it is the 2.5 hours between matches.

The wait is annoying, but it also serves as a concentrate for the siege action, which is very important when ever you want to have large scale objective/capture PvP.

Everyone knows when its GO TIME and piles in.


One of the largest issues with DaoC (and WAR apparently) is the dilution of the PvP action. 5 guys at X keep, 10 guys at Y tower etc... it took a full moon to get everyone at the same spot for some real massive action.

[Feverdream]

The last stragglers in my guild that are left playing WAR are finally giving up.   We hung on as long as we did because there just isn't another PvP game out there that seems viable.  Bleh.

So in terms of looking for a game that has some quality and at least a bit of PvP, returning to WoW seems like our best bet. This does not thrill me, but I am just not seeing anything else out there for us.

I'm still unclear on Wintergrasp, though.  I keep seeing people mention that it's somehow tied to a PvE instance, and that is something I have no interest in =P.

If you win Wintergrasp, it opens an instance or something? Is that correct?  And once it opens, does your group have to go into it?

(tiny rant: If the 'victory' in Wintergrasp is indeed about opening access to yet another raid dungeon, why oh why must Blizzard tie PvP to PvE so directly?)

[Hawkbit]

You're not obligated to go into the instance.  You can only go into it (10 or 25man) if you control the keep on a win.  There's about 4 mobs to get to the boss in there, and the whole thing takes about 20minutes pugged.  The boss also drops both PvE and PvP gear randomly.  So you'll want to do him for the chance at free PvP gear. 

Best advice I can give is just play it and quit worrying.  You'll either like it or you won't.  We can all sit here and describe it, but you'll still have no idea what it's really like.  It's still WoW PvP, no matter what's changed.  It's just a new coat of paint on it. 

----------

Now, that said... my major bitch about this zone is the sheer amount of AoE going on.  If you're not in a siege vehicle, you're half health by the time you even ride into the keep. 

[Feverdream]

Hawk, thanks for the info.  I just wasn't sure how it worked; it doesn't sound bad even for a cranky old PvPer like me   ;)

I do look forward to checking it out.  My fondest hope is that WAR and WoW will keep hijacking ideas from one another until eventually one of them gets it right.