Eric Replied

Regaining Momentum

It’s always tough to pick up where I last left off. It has been suggested that I set off to battle said 26 5-year olds and that I was defeated. This was not the case. I survived, I battled, and I won. Between work, travel, and moving to a new apartment, it’s been much busier than I would have liked.

The major downside to every mega-patch with loads of content changes is the feeling of futility I get when playing WoW. 2.4 was a sort of killer for me. I saw so many desirable changes and interesting things that instead of wanting to get home and playing the existing game, I would much rather have just waited for 2.4 before getting back into it. And wait, I did.

Back in the Groove

This post is really two weeks late. I’ve been back in the game for two weeks and I’ve been getting used to my Warrior again. I recently dropped my S3 Sword for an S3 Mace. The major driving factor is my participating in 3v3 more often than 5v5. I haven’t done a 5v5 in almost 2 months now…

More on that in the future. =ERP=

26

This message provided to you by Amelio @ Resolute. Expect a real post tonight.

It’s Time to Reflect (No, not Shield Reflect)
It’s been just about two months since I started this blog, and it’s been growing in terms of regular visitors.  I put Google Analytics in place around January 6, and I’ve (almost religiously) kept an eye on the growth of the site.  As a side effect of having all the stats on hand, I’ve actually tried to tailor some of the posts that I’ve written according to the hits on google that I’ve been getting.  For example, if you look up paladin, shaman, warrior in Google, my site (as of Feb 13, 2008) was #1 no matter which order you typed it in.

The Beginning to Now
When this site first began, it started with probably only 15 real unique visitors, but as of late, it’s bringing in about 40 unique people a day.  Those are pretty pleasing numbers. In line with the growth, the google search hits to this site has gone from 15% to a pretty big 43% of all new visitors.  That’s some nice growth through Google.  Oddly, I’ve never done anything to actually try bringing people in, but Google’s algorithm (I guess) likes the content that I’ve been putting out.

If you’re wondering where I’m pulling these numbers from, I used Google Analytics: a great free tool that tracks all sorts of data ranging from unique visitors to what kind of browsers are used to visit the site to what kind of keywords give me the most hits (Paladin, Warrior, Shaman being my current #1).  The peak unique visitors in a day was set a monthish ago with 72, and on February 13, we hit 52 visitors.  The growth was somewhat eradic, but as I try to make my posts more consistent, the visitor count steadily grows.

I reckon, a thank you is in order for coming by and checking out the blog.  It’s (in some ways) an ego booster to know that people are actually reading the banter that I’m typing (except this post. I bet no one is reading this.)  Here’s to 100 unique a day!

-ERP-

Skip the Crowd
I hate wading through the World of Warcraft forums.  It’s just a giant repository full of crap that’s just hard to follow in general.  The one major reason for lurking on the forums is to catch those rare “Blue Posts” that gives insight into some new things coming up on the WoW Horizon. The search functionality, while nice, offers no “Find all Blue Posts” option.  There is a solution for this mini-problem.

WoW Blue Tracker

Months Behind
While some of you are probably already following this site, it’s surprising to see how many people are unaware of its existence.  It’s usually on track and only delayed by an hour so any new posts are available throughout the day.  It combines both the European and US forums (and they are appropriately marked).

I highly recommend checking through the site every once in awhile and especially around patch time.  Most of the major WoW news sites use it to get their “hot-and-fresh” news without having to troll the forums all day long.  They even recently added a new option which lets users vote a topic as News or as Spam.

-ERP-

Warrior Rule #1
There shalt be no PvP spec beside Arms, for thou only has one Mortal Strike and no other. Thou shalt not worship any other Mortal Strike.

Warrior Rule #2
Respect Critical Strike. Thou shall always take five points in said talent.

Preach Away, Preacher Man!
Alright, well, I mentioned several weeks ago that Amelio had tried a build that included Concussion Blow. More specifically, his spec was something like 39/1/21. Well, I broke Warrior Rule #2. I gave up 4% critical strike to get Concussion Blow.

Before you call me crazy, let me preface this by saying: It works. Oh God (I think I just broke a commandment), it works. That 2k Shoulder wearing Druid didn’t even have a chance to cheese cannon us with his cyclones because he was too busy getting beat in the face. I recommend every warrior try this spec (or a variation thereof) at least once in his career.

Why take Concussion Blow?
+ Five second stun. Again: FIVE SECONDS.
+ You get Defiance (6 expertise - Ignore 1.5% Dodge and 1.5% Parry)
+ You get Last Stand (30% Temporary HP Buff on DEMAND)
+ 20 Defense (Gogo increased dodge and parry)
+ 10% more Armor (I’m almost to 12k!)
+ Improved Sunder (12 rage vs. 15 is pretty nice)
+ You get the option of tanking if the need in PvE arises …
+ Oh yeah, it’s a 45 second cooldown too.

You get the option of taking Imp. Revenge (45% stun chance that doesn’t share DR with Concussion Blow) or improved disarm (3 more seconds of disarm is pretty nice). It’s a judgement call. In any case, those are a lot of nice benefits.

There is a Cost to Gaining a Stun
- Lose Anti-Disarm Talent (situational)
- Lose Sweeping Strike (situational)
- Lose 4% critical strike (painful!)
- Lose Piercing Howl (If they get out of range … bye bye.)
- No option for Enrage.
- No option for Endless Rage.

My Thought Train
Well, my first thought is that “man, I gave up so much just for an on-demand stun.” But then I thought, “Well, on the plus side, every talent I put into Protection is actually useful in its own right. In many respects, it guarantees that I don’t instant die.” I’ve found that it comes incredibly useful when intercepting someone and then stunning the healer standing near by, or something to that effect. You get to lock out two people at once. Since I’m Sword Spec, I don’t have any actual on-demand stuns outside of intercept. This ability gives me quick access at least one stun.

We played 3v3 tonight (Shadow Priest/Warrior/Holy Paladin) and we had no problem on any team that sported a Druid. Even a Rogue/Druid/Warrior team was easy. The druid tried to outrun us, but between Judge of Justice, hamstring, and instant stuns, it was over.

Disclaimer
This talent does not fit all team setups. Concussion Blow works best when the warrior is actually a secondary DPSer for the group instead of the primary DPS. 3v3 teams that rock 2 healers might not benefit at all from having a strong-CC oriented warrior. On the flip side, a team that has a warlock, shadow priest, hunter, or mage (and any combination of the listed) can allow the Warrior the ability to play partial CC. Nothing is more brutal than conc’ing your target DPS target when they thought they could run away.

P.S. Vitamins, you can pretend that’s a picture of me since you keep asking.

-ERP-