Tis The Season To Be Ganked?

I'm still in my first year of playing World Of Warcraft and have never noticed ganking to be this bad until now.

Maybe it's because school's out and all the kiddies are holed up in their houses playing WoW all day. I don't know... My previous characters have never had a big problem questing over in Arathi Highlands. Sure I got ganked, but never camped. And there seems to be more Alliance questing in the area as well. Maybe it is cabin fever who knows. All I know is I'll be doing some ganking of my own :).

Season's greetings!

Holiday Questing

I'd just like to add that questing in Alterac is probably a big dangerous since there are some Holiday/Seasonal quests that have high level horde/alliance in that area. While I was completing the Frostmaw quest I got ganked a couple of times. A short time later a big group of horde came around and cleared the area of alliance and then some :D! So I gathered some snow balls while I watched the battles.

Ganking Alliance

Well after getting 'griefed' by alliance on my alternate character I decided to return the favour.

My friend and I started in Arathi Highlands and found this 41 druid in cat form running to Stromgarde. I didn't realize that my friend was lagging behind and jumped on the druid. I didn't keep her stunlocked and she bolted for the water behind Stromgarde. We gave chase, but she eventually made it into the water. My friend suggested that we stick around for a while since the only way back up to Stromgarde was on the other side of the tunnel. So we went through the tunnel and waited for a bit and lo and behold the druid came out of the water and started up the hillside. This time my friend was prepared and we ganked her rogue style :).

We then swam to Wetlands where we found 1 alliance strolling along the path to Loch Modan. Just the normal cheap shot followed by my friend's ambush did the trick :). We couldn't find any action after that so we returned to Hammerfall and flew to Stonard and then into Redridge. As we were running back to Hammerfall we spotted a mage who was on the road to Arathi and we ganked him as well.

Eventually we make it to Redridge and we make our rounds around the lake and find a group of alliance (4 maybye?). All players were around 23-27 except for a 45 hunter. We decided to gank the hunter since he was trailing behind his group. We tried the normal cheap shot ambush to dismount the hunter, but it wasn't enough and he got away :/. Oh well off to our next victim. It seems that a good number of alliance were questing in Redridge so we had a good variety to choose from. A dwarf paladin was strolling northward from the lake towards the gnolls area. And down he went. Next a draeni shaman who was in the middle of taking on 2 gnolls at the same time. Back to the graveyard for you too! We danced and laughed at our victims before stealthing and targeting our next victim. A big group of alliance ran past the gnoll area and headed for the orc caves (escort quest?). Anyways we were just about to gank the last straggler when a 70? warlock rode up and followed the group. It's always good to be cautious than trigger happy (you'll know more about this later).

Seeing that no more players were around we headed for the bridge over Lake. Great we found another player just waiting for someone? Anyways we did our thing and moved on. It seems that our 'visit' had an impact and players were heading to the flight master and jetting away :D. Just as we were leaving Redridge we spotted a couple of alliance players (warlock & druid) killing vultures and boars. Somehow the druid got separated and had a couple of gnolls on him, so we sliced up the warlock and went after the druid who was no longer around (killed by adds?).

Anyways we ventured into Duskwood where we found the druid running away from us? Which we ignored until we caught up to him and proceeded to gank him followed by a dance and lol.

Duskwood seemed to be quiet until we reached the cemetery where we discovered a few players questing. First up a dwarf hunter, then a gnome rogue finally a gnome paladin. It's a good thing I didn't celebrate that long on the last gank, because up strolled a gnome warlock (70?). And we scattered from the crime scene and headed southward. We didn't see anyone until we got to werewolf area. A mage, warlock and priest were happily killing werewolves as they rested we were planning on how we should proceed, sap the mage and warlock and gank the priest. Just as we were about to sap them the mage and warlock ran into the cave and left the priest to drink up. Great, cheap shot and ambush! We stealthed quickly after the gank, because we knew his friends were close. And we were right, plus the hunter that we ganked in the cemetery just arrived. As we were monitoring the fallout of our victory we spotted a gnome warlock riding on his mount. I think he was trying to find us with his 'detect stealthed' buff on.

It looked like we've worn out our welcome and ran eastward to the next area. A night elf hunter and draeni warrior were killing undead. They didn't seem to be questing together and the hunter ran back towards the road so the warrior was all by himself. After celebrating our kill we headed further east and ran into a priest who was also killing undead. Just before I went in for the cheapshot my friend yelled out there's a ?? mage around! So I retreated back to the safe zone and waited. We then spotted the same draeni warrior doing some mining, but this time he had backup, the 70 gnome warlock. I only noticed him when I moved my mouse over some bushes nearby. Sneaky gnomes! Whenever you're in some wooded areas always check things out, before ganking!

We brought things to a close by ganking an NPC which triggered a couple of guards to attack us! My friend was laughing, but if I didn't have my vanish on cooldown I'd be pissed!

Post BG Weekend

I managed to get 35/70 marks of honor and have accumulated 2500-3000 honor points. And that's from losing 70% of my games :/. I spent about 2-3.5 hours playing Arathi Basin over the past 4 days. My last game was a win and was over in 10 minutes! Next up Alterac Valley or should I try Eye of the Storm?

Check the World of Warcraft calendar link for upcoming events.

Arathi Basin Weekend

How much honour & marks are you striving for? I'll be setting my sights on 70 marks, yes 70! This is for my level 60 priest gear which consists of:

General's Satin Boots
General's Satin Gloves
General's Satin Leggings
Warlord's Satin Cowl
Warlord's Satin Mantle
Warlord's Satin Robe

What can I say, I like satin :). I might not get all of the marks, but I'll definitely try for 35. Good luck to you all!

So How'd Your Battlegrounds Weekend Go?

I don't like Warsong Gulch that much, but I had to get my marks for my level 60 gear. Even though some say that the honour and marks are better spent on level 70 gear, I must upgrade my 40-45 gear before entering Outlands. Oh by the way I'm referring to my priest, who is still sitting at level 59. Anyways here's my fruits of my labour, 50 marks, approximately 5000 honour points.

I must say that 2 games were torturous, lasting an hour or more! Blizzard should really change the mechanics of Warsong Gulch. If both teams can't score, because the other team has their flag and one side is basically holed up on the roof and have a boomkin who 2 shots everyone, what happens? People start to either give up and leave the match or one side gives up and hands their flag back OR both teams try desperately to get their own flag back. Giving up seems to be the best solution since who really wants to spend an hour or more playing 1 game!

The next day I spent a total of 30-33 mins playing 3 games and winning every one (about 10 mins per match). And then Warsong Gulch crashed? Then I proceeded to go on a losing streak, which is fine, because I just wanted to get my marks and do some quests with my alt. It's not like I'm idle sitting somewhere in Warsong Gulch. I really try to help my team get the flag, but what am I supposed to do when it's 2-0 for the allies and we're getting slaughtered at midfield?
It's basically a lost cause and time to pack it in. It's a different story when it's 2-2 though, which is why I stuck with my team mates in those hour long matches.

So follow Homer's quote:

You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is 'never try'.

Undead Priest Ganking Video

Here's another ganking video of an undead priest mindcontrolling an elite and killing allies.

Enjoy!

Yes Another Priest Update

I hit level 59 three days ago and have played Alterac Valley 5 times over the past weekend.

I have to say that healing in Alterac Valley is so fun! You can heal and then cast Shadow Word: Pain just to annoy those pesky Allies. When they (Allies) try to chase you down, cast your Power Word: Shield and run towards your team mates or your friendly horde NPCs and/or Psychic Scream them to make them even more frustrated. To top it off I've increased my honor to about 1,100 (with only a handful of real kills :)). Playing Alterac Valley is probably the best way to gain honor in the shortest time. I suggest for all those cloth wearers to play Alterac Valley to get your honor points, so you can purchase those nice items when you hit 70.

At 59 you can also play Warsong Gulch & Arathi Basin and be in the top of your level bracket (50-59). So during this upcoming week I'll have to find some way(s) NOT to level (I never thought I'd say that :)).

Check the World of Warcraft calendar for upcoming events.

Priest Update

Well, I've finally hit level 55 with my shadow priest and managed to get the flight points in Outlands to learn Master Tailoring and Enchanting. I'm thinking of leveling my priest to 60, but that's what I said at 50 :). My reasoning is that to do those great enchants you need materials that are only exist in level 60 instances. I'll probably respec to the Holy tree when I hit 60, but I'll wait before making any decisions.

The past 3 days I've done healing for groups in the Sunken Temple and Blackrock Depths. It's not all that bad being a shadow priest after all :).

Also, leveling my priest after the 2.3.0 patch seems to be going very nicely. I find that some of the zones/quests can even be skipped. Hopefully I'll find better gear soon, because mine is a bit outdated.

Priest Respec

I've respecced from my previous build to this,

0 / 5 / 36 (Discipline / Holy / Shadow)

I did this to speed up my grinding for my last 3 levels. I really didn't notice that big of a difference until I got Vampiric Embrace and started using Mind Flay rank 4 (instead of 1 !). According to the official forums, I'll need to respec again, but I'm not in a rush to do that quite yet.

Finally

Well, I finally leveled to 50 with my priest! I can now learn the Grand Master Tailoring and Enchanting skills. AND I did it before the patch went live, but I could have waited until today which would have made that last little chunk of level 50 easier to attain. What can I say, I'm hardcore :).

As the patch goes live I've read a helpful tip on WoWInsider, that tells you to NOT to hand in quests until the patch (unless you're already past level 59). Why? Because the experience for turning in a quest after the patch increases AFTER the 2.3 patch. So any green quests you didn't finish go do them now, because they'll get you that much closer to 70 :).

Now to find a helpful warlock to get me to Thrallmar...

About My Priest

While I'm on the subject of my priest...

Here's his talent tree

8 / 3 / 23 (Discipline / Holy / Shadow)

link

I basically followed the talent tree from wowwiki.com. I've also looked at the forums and thought about respeccing again into full shadow to get Shadowform. At this point, I don't think there's any reason to since I'll only be leveling this character to 50/52 and only using him when I need some Netherweave bags :). And maybe make some equipment for my brother's mage.

I stopped playing my priest about 3 months ago (level 35), then about 4 weeks ago I decided to respec from mostly all holy to what I basically have above. It definitely is easier to grind and finish quests, but I also believe that my spell rotation was faulty. My spell rotation is,

1. Mind Blast
2. Shadow Word: Pain
3. Mind Flay
4. Power Word: Shield
5. (use my wand until dead)

If I'm fighting a mob 1-2 levels above me I use:

1. Mind Blast
2. Shadow Word: Pain
3. Mind Flay
4. Power Word: Shield
5. (repeat 1 & 3)

I sometimes mix it up and use a wand and then cast Mind Blast and Mind Flay or just cast Mind Flay and then wand. I've also created some Shadoweave equipment (I never even knew they were learnt from a different NPC !), but I've disenchanted them and went with a combination of Dreamweave and Black Mageweave items instead. This way my mana regeneration is better and my mana pool is increased significantly. The vest armor might look a little funny, but as long as it does the job I'm all for it.

Suggestions for a better talent tree or spell rotation? For faster grinding and less drinking time?

Playing My Priest

Another rant...

I've been playing my priest for the past week to level him to 50 (currently 44), so I can learn Grand Master Tailoring and Enchanting.

Every time I'm asked to run an instance everyone thinks I have unlimited mana! Plus, I end up trying to heal everyone because of that (and or bad pulls or tank not holding aggro). Especially those mages or warlocks, they don't have much stamina and armor, but they seem to aggro too much and ignore their health. Just yesterday I had 2 (partial) runs through Zul'Farrak & Uldaman and every time I said, "oom" or /oom, they just ignored me and started attacking the next mobs. I even said, "wait mana", but they kept on hacking and slashing away. Eventually all the runs ended up in a wipe, sometimes 2-3 times. And of course my equipment took a beating and ended up with a pricey repair bill.

So please, keep your priest happy by paying attention to his/her messages.

Battlegrounds Weekend: Alterac Valley

I managed to get all of my marks and honor over the past weekend for Frostwolf Leather Belt. Here's the breakdown:

Win (3 marks of honor)
Win (3 marks of honor)
Win (3 marks of honor)
Loss (1 mark of honor)
Win (3 marks of honor) - took 1.5 hours to complete!
Win (3 marks of honor)
Loss (1 marks of honor)
Loss (1 marks of honor)
Win (3 marks of honor)

Totaling: 21 marks of honor and about 2300 honor

Plus I completed three quests, one of which rewarded me with my first crossbow (Bloodseeker) !

Go the the official World Of Warcraft Calendar for the full schedule.

Mallet of Zul'Farrak

Well, I managed to get and charge the mallet of Zul'Farrak!

Ok, it's not that great, but I managed to do it all by myself (level 53 rogue), really! Here's how I did it...

I first went to The Altar of Zul and killed a couple of Vilebranch Soothsayer trolls on the steps of the altar. Then I sapped the 50 elite mob (Qiaga the Keeper) that was closer to the steps and took out another Soothsayer. Now comes the tricky part, I sapped Morta'gya the Keeper (50 elite furthest away from the steps) and took down Qiaga the Keeper. I shot an arrow to pull Qiaga down the stairs and then swung away. I used evasion after the first couple of chops and used my Black Pearl Panther trinket to get a bit more attack power. Once I had 5 combo points I cast expose armor and then used slice and dice. After getting Qiaga down to 90-95% health, she started to run and Morta'gya came out of the sap. I finished off Qiaga and quickly used vanish (down to 30% health). Luckily the dot that Morta'gya placed on me didn't kick in until I was far enough to lose aggro. I went to loot Qiaga and got the sacred mallet. Part 1 complete!

Off to Jintha'Alor to charge the mallet...

I also had the quest called, Dark Vessels, so I might as well "kill 2 birds with 1 stone". I found my first vessel after climbing the first set of steps. A level 46 elite mob was patrolling so I waited and then killed the NON elite Soothsayer. I re-stealthed and sneaked my way up to the next level. I found a couple of vessels, but they were guarded by 47 elite mobs. I used pretty much the same method I used at the Altar of Zul for 2 mobs. Fortunately another group (70 warrior and 47 warrior) had just cleared some of the mobs for me and I was able to ninja loot some vessels. It was getting late so I skipped looking for the last 2 vessels and quickly ascended to the amphitheater.

I scoped out the altar to find a patrolling priestess, guard and 2 wolves in my path. So I jumped the closest wolf (between steps) and used 1 superior healing potion during the melee. I sat ate some cured ham steak and waited for my evasion to cool down. Good thing I invested in the endurance talent (reduced my cool down by 1.5 minutes). Then I crept up the altar and sapped the guard and retreated to where the I killed the first wolf. I shot an arrow at the wolf and pulled it away from the altar. Next thing I knew it was just me and the guard. I quickly sapped the guard and got as far as I could and started charging the mallet. Done! I mounted up thinking the guard was going to aggro, but then I noticed I could re-stealth, nice! I stealthed and went back to my safe corner and hearthed out of there.

There you have it, 8/10 vessels and 1 charged mallet of Zul'Farrak.

Grouping Problems

Over the weekend I decided to group up with other players to finish some quests in Zul'Farrak. No party members are listed, because I can't quite remember all of them.

It started fine (always does) and I announced to that I was sapping mobs. The group leader agreed and told me to pick one (no labels).

1st sign of a bad group - No leadership qualities, no labels on mobs which could result in problems during the battle.

So I sap one and everything is going ok for the first 3 battles. Then we arrive at the first open area with a bunch of which doctors around some altar. The priest says, "I have a costume wand, does anyone want a costume?". I say no but he asks me directly and I repeat, "No I don't want a costume.".

So I'm stealthed and I'm about to sap a witch doctor when what happens, the priest uses the wand on me and exposes my stealth! The group leader obviously yells at me. Luckily we killed them all with only 1 death. After I tell the group that my stealth was exposed, because 'someone' used a costume wand on me. The priest replies, "It was me and that costume is totally random. What's your point?". "It exposed my stealth when I was about to sap", I chirp back. I then stated, "Please don't use that costume wand on me when I'm stealthed.". Nothing else was said about the topic and we moved on.

2nd sign of a bad your group - Immature players

We get past Antu'sul (oddly enough) and proceeded to Witch Doctor Zum’Rah. The leader notifies everyone NOT to click on the graves, and everyone acknowledges him. So everyone gets ready and goes after the boss. During the battle though the boss summons a few of his ghosts, no biggie, then more show up (what the hell?). As I'm hacking away at the boss I notice even more ghost trolls show up. Well, eventually the group wipes and the leader questions, "Who clicked on the graves?". Nobody claims responsibility, but the priest says, "I gotta leave now, sorry.". I'm not sure if the priest was to blame, but all of my gut instinct says yes.

3rd sign of a bad group - Not following instructions or immaturity (back to second sign)

(no need to write a paragraph on this one...)

4th sign of a bad group - Does not know how to play their character
ie. a tank not holding aggro because they do not know how to hold aggro or gain threat

Comment with your own bad signs.

Leveling Guilds

I've been thinking of joining a leveling guild to level my rogue and get better gear. But where can you find any? I'd also like to level players lower than me when I have time. I've also looked in the official Blizzard forums and there's not much there. If there are any out there please list them, thanks.

New Ganking Videos

Here's a list of good videos that I've watched over the past week:

Wow lvl 70 undead rogue Hit and Run
Pure Pwnage - ganking
Top of Ironforge AH
DotoftheDead and Holyshnikes Gank a 70

More Ganking

My partner in crime (rogue) wasn't satisfied with just ganking in Redridge and Duskwood, so we trekked over to Arathi Highlands. He'd already started ganking, but couldn't find anyone else to gank, so off to Wetlands we went. We journeyed north and west past the murlocs when we found a lonesome mage (28) by a bridge. We waited for a bit just to be sure he didn't have some stealthed body guard and pounced on him. A bit south we stumbled upon a warrior (30) and he was AFK as well. As they say, "It's like shooting fish in a barrel". Nobody to be found in the excavation site or orc area.

So back to Arathi Highlands...

We discovered a druid (cat form) killing some mobs around Northfold Manor. We waited for her to attack a mob and then jumped her. On the way back to Hammerfall we found a gnome warrior killing a plains creeper. This almost ended in him getting away, because I didn't get my ambush off at the right time, plus the other rogue hit slice & dice instead of eviserate :).

Just when we thought we were done we see a draeni shaman (37) and night elf rogue (41) killing some water elementals by the Circle of East Binding. This time I sapped the stealthed rogue and took out the shaman. Right after the sap expired, my partner vanished, but I proceeded to wail away at the night elf. My partner then unstealthed and joined in the melee. I eviserated after 3 combos and that made the night elf weak, so she bolted and turned on sprint. I chased her by activating my sprint, but she was just out of reach for my backstab, so I distracted her and then she was mine. We wailed on her some more and then an undead warrior (40) showed up and joined in as well. All cheered and danced after the victory and then we logged out at Hammerfall.

Ganking

I grouped together with my usual buddy (a rogue) in Duskwood. The rogue just wanted to get revenge, who was ganked/camped by allies in Hillsbrad & Ashenvale (with his alt character).

The rogue had already started to gank before I met up with him. I guess he had alot of pent up anger :). So we ventured the south side of Duskwood before heading north, nobody to be found. We decided to go to Redridge and found our first victim. A level 16 mage was killing murlocs under water in Lakeshire. We waited for him to cast frost nova and then cheap shotted & ambushed him. We searched around and found a mage (18) and warlock (18) questing together. Once again we 1 - 2 punched them. After celebrating our ganks we stealthed and couldn't find anyone else to grief so we proceeded back to Duskwood.

Around the cemetery in Duskwood a hunter was questing along with a AFK warlock. We split up again and took them out fast. The hunter resurrected pretty quick and was back to his quest. We spotted a druid in cat form questing in the same area and didn't notice the ganking going on? Anyways we circled around the cemetery and waited for the druid to unstealth. Well she unstealted while talking to an npc to turn in a quest. Slash & bonk, lights out for her.

We couldn't find any other allies questing so we called it a night and logged off.

BG Weekend and Grouping

So my weekend started off well getting all of my Arathi Basin games in to get these great boots. The next day wasn't so great, I wasted about 4 hours in Maraudon with 4 other people, but didn't complete the Corruption of Eath and Seed.

The party was made up of a warrior (47), Hunter (49), Shaman (48), Rogue (47) and myself (49 - leveled to 50 in the dungeon).

We did pretty well killing all of the bosses, up to the princess and only wiped once. Just before the last battle began, we were discussing strategies and what to watch out for when the warrior pulls a Leroy Jenkins. It didn't last too long and the warrior died first, then me and everyone else ran. Little did we know that the boss doesn't lose aggro! So, eventually the princess killed everyone. After resurrecting we noticed that the mobs had respawned. That was the last straw and everyone started to leave.

The hunter (leader) blamed the warrior for the wipe (and other tanking issues like not holding aggro) and the other rogue for attacking the ice trapped mobs. Even though they did make mistakes I tried to play the embassador to keep the group together.

The next day, I found another group for Maraudon that just wanted to kill the last boss (perfect I thought). I made my way to the dungeon portal and then stealthed past the respawned mobs. I met up with the 2 other party members who were just sitting in the water by the hydras. One party member was AFK outside of the portal and the other was in the Hinterlands. Well after the AFK person came back online, he couldn't make it past the mobs and left the group, then 2 others and finally myself and another rogue.

Basically I wasted another afternoon running around and achieving nothing. And before that I waited around for a group for Zul'Farrak.

After all of that I decided to quest for a bit and forget about grouping. Now I'm half way to 51. Sheesh.

Official 2.3 Patch Notes

With the upcoming 2.3 patch made official, what features/nerfs did you like? I personally don't like the warrior talent Weapon Mastery nerfed. Why invest 2 points when you CAN be disarmed 50% of the time. The point of investing 2 points is to NOT get disarmed! I don't play a shaman character, but people are fuming over the continuous nerfs it's getting.

I do like that the rogue's Blind no longer requires reagents (yay 2 free bag slots) though. And the poisons last an hour instead of 30 mins.

Your thoughts of the upcoming patch?

How Many Alts Is Too Much?

Ok, I haven't been playing World of Warcraft that long (7 months maybe ?), but I've created 5 alternate characters. I have a warrior, priest, rogue and 2 druids (alliance). And I've been thinking of creating a paladin (better tanking class ?). I don't play my druids much unless my main realm is offline, so that leaves the warrior, priest and rogue, and / or paladin. It's always fun leveling characters, but when am I going to find the time to level all of them :). Plus being able to learn all of the professions and be a mule are another reasons to create alternate characters. So what's your limit?

Leveling

If you're looking for a good guide to level your character try Jame's guide (along with other people's guides). There's also a good resource on most of dungeons as well. Currently Jame and other's are working on a guide for levels 60-70.

I have used this guide to level my main character and it has worked well, but even better for my rogue. I'm not sure if it's doing the same quests the second or third time around that helps level quicker or if it's a class difference. In any case the guides are free and you can even add your own guide to the repository.

I've opted to skip most of the quests in Stranglethorn Vale and grinded a bit along with running Scarlet Monastery, Razorfen Downs and Uldaman. I usually make notes of where to quests and the locations to complete the quests on paper first (thottbot.com & wowhead.com). Also, thottbot.com offers good hints & tips in the comments section. After researching my quests I know what to expect and where to go.

Using a map/GPS addon will save you time as well. I use Titan Panel, but have tried Cartographer and MetaMaps as well (http://wow.curse.com/downloads/addons/). I like Titan Panel because it doesn't take up too much memory. I also use MozzFullWorldMap to display the whole map including the undiscovered areas.

A good tip when leveling your first character is to create an alternate character as a mule to bank/auction your loot. This really helps when you have very little gold and no bags.

Learn To Aggro or Not

Here's what happened on my second attempt at Uldaman. It was a full group and we had a warrior (48), warlock (46), paladin (46), warlock (40) and myself (rogue 48). We started off running past all of the dwarves at the cave entrance into the portal. Nobody died getting here, everything seemed to be going according to plan!

First battle went ok, but I noticed that the warlock was a little trigger happy and jumping right in and grabbing aggro. The warrior didn't even get to charge. Since we just started the instance I didn't mention it. We kept going and before we got even go to Ironaya, I mention to the 'gun happy' warlock that the warrior should start the battles so he can gain threat and hold the aggro. I might've came off a little harsh, but I didn't want the rest of the group to suffer because of one player's mistake. I waited for a reply from the warlock, but didn't get one.

What happens on the very next battle? The warlock aggros again, but this time I didn't help out and the warlock was running around with her pet trying to get the trogg off her. I watched her health go down and luckily the warrior was helping her out, while the warlock and I took out the other troggs. I kept quiet this time, but the warrior mentioned (party chat) that the warlock not to aggro anymore. Still no reply from the warlock, so we forge ahead.

Again the warlock sees the first trogg and sends her pet. The warrior and myself jump in and then the paladin asks, "Who's pet is always aggroing?". The warrior and myself answered, "40 warlock". After finishing off the troggs we loot everything and find that our 'trigger happy' warlock has disconnected. I'm pretty sure she disconnected during the battle after our comments. In any case the warrior joked about it after all the loot we found :).

I don't know if she (40 warlock) ran instances like that before, but if she did, she couldn't have lasted that long without a wipe. I also found it strange that she didn't know how to get to Badlands. Neewb? Maybe? My point was to teach her about aggro, not to alienate her.

Closing In...

I'm almost at level 50! Pretty quick leveling compared to my main character (which sits at 64). I'm thinking of holding off on leveling my rogue and continue leveling my main character to 70. After which I'll be able to gather all of the materials required for my rogues jewelcrafting and engineering skills. I'll also be able to help level my brother's characters (rogue & paladin) quicker.

On a side note... I was questing over in Stranglethorn Vale and stumbled upon a dwarf warrior and gnome warrior (separate locations). I took them out as quick as possible to make the gank as painless as possible :D. For the dwarf, I did the run of the mill cheap shot and sinister strike followed by a kidney shot and another sinister strike. As for the gnome he managed to escape from my stun lock, but the mob finished him off along with my poisons.

As I was making my way out of that area when I myself was ganked (50/70 dwarf warrior). I guess you can't win them all!

So not much ganking was done since I was mostly farming materials and trying to finish Find the Gems and Power Source. I ran Uldaman twice, but didn't finish it.

The first time my group got to the part with dwarves and the cache (spawns the dwarves with gem) and wiped which was a result of a bad pull. After that everyone quit. The second time I got a group together we managed to get past that and the ring of golems (spawns 1 at a time). We thought we were pretty good (even with 4 players more... details here). Then wiped on some mobs 2 battles later :/.

Brewfest

Has anyone tried the quests? Like it? Hate it? Should Blizzard add more mini games and events more frequently? Post your opions.

Tanaris Questing

So I was questing around Tanaris yesterday and picked up Wirt's Third Leg in a chest or lockbox around Lost Rigger Cove. Later on doing the Wastewander Justice and Water Pouch Bounty I found 3 Tough Scorpid Gloves patterns in a row! What a nice haul for the night and I got 4 quests done at the same time.

As I was heading back to Gadgetzan, I ran into a 49 Draeni priest who was looking to gank. So I pulled out some tricks in my hat and I managed to get away leaving the dumbfounded priest on his Elekk runing in circles trying to find me :) .

Last Night...

What was with the server(s) last night? Terrible lag caused by the new Voice Chat feature? Or a bug in the 2.20 patch? After 10-15 mins of lag I did finish my quest in Booty Bay and logged out. I could've logged out where I was, but I didn't want to log back in the next day to face 2-3 mobs wailing on my toon. Plus I'd be losing rested XP.

Well...

I didn't get a ganking group over the weekend to raid Redridge or Duskwood. I did manage to get my PvP bracers (First Sergeant's Leather Armguards) though. And I acquired my new helm (Sprightring Helm) by doing a group quest (Twisted Evils) from Maraudon by myself (thanks thottbot and wowhead for tips).

Basically I went down the purple tunnel and entered the dungeon and killed the Poison Sprites 1 by 1, then jumped back out (through the portal). You can do this because the sprites are so close to the portal. There are about 1-2 sprites in each group so you'll need to reset the instance. The only problem is that you can only reset the dungeon 4/5 times in a 10/20 min span. So you'll need to do another quest or fish out the pools in Desolace before going back to finish up Twisted Evils. You could also kill another group of sprites further down the path from the portal but taking on 4 sprites is going to be difficult at level 45 (for me it was anyways). Sometimes I was lucky though and only had to deal with 3 sprites (yay extra crystals).

After that I went over to Dustwallow Marsh and finished up some prerequisite quests to face Overlord Mok'Morokk (Challenge Overlord Mok'Morokk). Luckily I found a level 62 Troll Shaman to 'help' me complete it.

Co-Ordinated Ganking Missions

Has anyone ever organized one? I'm thinking of getting a group together to gank some lowbies in Redgidge & Duskwood this weekend. My current group will probably be made up of rogues, but I'm also considering adding druids (feral) to the group as well. If I do manage to get a group together I'll post some screenshots.

Patch Day 2.20

Did the 80 mb download include your fixes or nerfs you were expecting?

Redridge Chronicles...

Here's how my night of ganking in Redridge Mountains went...

I first met up with a rogue in Stonard and then we made our way to Redridge via the mountains. We then circled west and north around the Tower of Ilgalar to Alther's Mill. And so our first victim appeared a lowly gnome rogue practicing her lockpicking skill. I used cheapshot while the other rogue used ambush, that's all it took to send her back to the grave yard.

We then jumped into Lake Everstill and traveled south and westward towards the upper banks of the lake (gnoll camp). When we arrived at the banks we found a draeni shaman mining some copper which turned out to be our highlight of our night. I started out cheapshotting and then the other rogue finished with an ambush. We celebrated around our victim and just to add more salt to the wound, the other rogue mined out the copper vein.

Lastly we continued going north around the lake to find another alliance just killing some boars. A nice ripe dwarf hunter received the same treatment we gave the other two and sent him packing to the grave yard as well. We celebrated some more and jumped into the lake and proceeded eastward. As we were passing the flight master we noticed 2 to 3 high level alliance land, which meant our night was done.

We found a suitable area surrounded by mountains and hearthed out.

Must Have Ganking Trinkets?

What are your most used trinkets when ganking? And where or how can it be acquired? List yours...

Things To Do Before Ganking?

What to do before your prey comes along? How about farming some herb or ore? How about fishing? Maybe even pickpocketing. What do you do to keep yourself busy before your victims come along?

Unexpected Ganking

Sometimes opportunities to gank arise when you'd least expected... I was questing around Arathi Highlands and I finished a few quests with a group of 3 other horde members (4 rogues and 1 priest) when I came across an 2 alliance players (level 40 druid and a mage?). Both groups froze and didn't know what the other was going to do. Suddenly one of the horde rogues decided to "get this party started" and jumped at the mage. We lost that rogue during the melee, but killed the druid and mage. The priest resurrected the dead rogue and we headed back to Hammerfall.

So using the 'Looking For Group' feature can have great results. Try it out if you've never used it before (black and yellow circle button).

Ganking Gear

You don't have to be decked out in blue and purple items, greens will do fine. Finding them might be tricky, but if you do quests and some dungeons you should be set. You can find your equipment on ThottBot.com and WowHead.com.

I would suggest running dungeons to get blue items which might help you to level up quicker and make your job as a ganker easier. And do be courteous to your group members and don't NEED on everything!

And check the auction house frequently for those hard to find items.

Examples of Horde Ganking Alliance

• World of Warcraft Pirate (70 rogue ganking lowbies)
• 60 Undead Rogue Gankage
• prist 70 elit

(These are NOT my videos)

Tips for Ganking

• Use an Ornate Spyglass to find your victim or see if enemy reinforcements are heading your way
• Always know what your victim's strengths and weaknesses are before you attack
• Beginners should start out small, gank your victim when they are occupied and alone, then work your way up by ganking multiple lowbies
  
• Be sure to have a getaway plan ready if the situation goes bad
  
• Try not to corpse camp your victims (really !)
  
• Use engineering tricks if you have them (ie. land mine)
• Always find new ways to gank
• Make videos of your conquests
  

Areas to Gank the Alliance

If you're looking to gank low level Alliance I suggest these areas:

Ashenvale (levels 18-30)
Redridge (levels 15-25)
Duskwood (levels 20-30)
Wetlands (levels 20-30)

Now getting to those areas might be a little troublesome, but if you're a serious ganker you'll get there :).