Restricted Notes by a Geek

It’s been an interesting few weeks for me as for both guilds as well I believe. I feel a little sad inside that I could not be part the last couple weeks in this competition but I am damn sure it was fun, between the technical difficulties both guilds experienced as well as human relationships… aah the fun factor of that you can not control!

Flame of Anduril finally made it happen 2 weeks since they first set eyes on the Master of the Temple. We do not know how barely they made that kill but we do know they hit the final blow adding him to their kill list.

Natural Perfection came close, not quite there yet however they believe they will kill him soon.

What is next? Sunwell of coarse and I hope the two guilds can share another competition in there as well. I am sure both guilds will work hard to make sure they have the best players available with everything needed to go with that.

Who will have the first kill in Sunwell?

Update:
NP also killed Illidan 1  day after FoA a good feat in itself. Congratulations to both guilds would love to see both in Sunwell soon !

Another week has gone by and while I was quite busy myself with both work and social activities in between playing games I think it was not such a bad week or should I say…

Flame of Anduril I assume cleared all their farm content this week and perhaps worked on the Illidari Council last night however I do not see any new screenshots on their website.

Natural Perfection on the other hand slowly started catching back up again and killed Reliquary of Souls. According to AlliancePansy’s point system NP should have 2 points now on par with FoA’s 2. None the less NP is still playing catch up and FoA still stand a very good chance to maybe beat Illidan first.

After killing RoS I decided to fool around a bit with PvP talent specs in PvE just to see what can be done and to my surprisement not only does it compete at all it can even surpas pve specs in some very specific circumstances. For example on Archimond the airbust is just another spell you counter like blink, by Shadow stepping back right to the boss’s back as you get affected by air burst. For a melee character on this specific fight it means a huge amount of extra dps time making this spec very competitive. That’s without mentioning that I almost reached 2720 attack power buffed without having a dps warrior in the group at all.

Then there is the sad part, Shiv was actually a bug ever since the release of TBC and they finally nerfed it. Even though its technically a magic spell, it is now also affected by melee mechanics and can be dodged/parried and resisted by your target.

Since the comments have popped up on 2 articles I thought maybe its a good time to add a quick update.

FoA (Flame of Anduril) killed 2 more boss’s and NP (Natural Perfection) will now have to play catch up big time.

Currently the stance is:
FoA: 2
NP: 1 (They were infront the first)

The race is still on for Illidan anything can happen!

This morning I woke up early which is kind of strange since I had quite a hectic week making me quite tired but I guess that is what happen if you take an early night off.

I was however impressed when I opened my mail and find a comment from Toothpick again. Without even going to the website to read it I just opened FoA’s (Flame of Anduril) website. They have indeed killed the RoS event before NP (Natural Perfection) had a chance.

I want to congratulate them, for the first time since TBC, well probably only for the MH/BT part they are now the leading South African guild. In a way I am a little jealous. They only have 3 more bosses to go to clean all the TBC content with the exception of Sunwell that will be released in 2.4.

Since both NP (Natural Perfection) and FoA (Flame of Anduril) killed Archimond in the same week I thought I would see some nice competition.

They have not killed any new boss since then but NP added Bloodboil to their kill list. Now my sources inform me that FoA was informed of NP’s progression but it doesn’t seem they replied with any competition yet.

NP is still in the beginning phase of learning RoS (Reliquiary of Souls) and working hard on crafting all their Shadow Resist gear for the Mother.

Will keep you guys updated as this story unfolds as we all await patch 2.4!

While I have not had much news the last couple of days thought I could post these so long which is available everywhere but none the less interesting.

• Arena Water Nerfed! - Blizzard has decided to change how drinking in arenas works. When players sit to drink now they receive a full tick of mana every 2 seconds, so every 2 seconds you would be awarded 480 mana plus your out of combat regeneration rate. When 2.4 is released players will need to sit longer in order to gain the same amount of mana. Here is how the ticks will break down:Tick #1 after 2 seconds - 0%, you will get no mana back after 2 seconds.Tick #2 after 4 seconds - Normal + extra 66%, you will get 797 Mana back plus your normal regeneration rate out of combat.
  Tick #3 after 6 seconds - Normal + extra 33%, you will get 639 Mana back. For a total of 1436 mana after 6 seconds from the water.So essentially after 6 seconds you will have gained an equal amount to the pre-nerf water, this is just to guard against players drinking 20 or 30 times per match for only 2 seconds and making matches last 20+ minutes!
• Tier 6 Set Piece Stats Reworked - Blizzard dropped about half of the Stamina on the new Tier 6 pieces found in the Sunwell for more damage stats. This is a much welcomed change by most raiding members, as many of them already have very high stamina and would much rather add more damage, damage mitigation, or healing to their set pieces.
• Midsummer Festival Changes Announced - Some very nice changes will be implemented to this year’s midsummer festival. First there will be a “Headless Horseman” (Remember the boss in Scarlet Monastery Graveyard) type boss found in Slave Pens. The ability to summon him will be linked to a daily quest so a typical group should be able to summon him 5 times. He will drop some pretty nice epic loot for all classes, and is an extremely fun and interesting fight. If you want to check the fight out he is up on the PTR right now, so get your practice in so you won’t lose your summon chances on live servers!
• Sunwell Crafted Recipes Materials Changed - Just as Blizzard normally does when the new crafted loot was released the materials list was insanely low. Those materials have been updated and players will now find them much more difficult to craft. However, the items are of Black Temple and above quality and players will still strive to craft them as they are often best in slot items!
• Global Arena Tournament Announced - Blizzard has unveiled their plans for a Worldwide Arena Tournament, the tournament will be played on special servers for those who enroll. Characters will be premade and given top tier PvP gear so that all players are on an equal playing field. Players will be divided into regions at first, and the top four teams from each region will then advance to the Global Invitational World Championship which is at a time and place yet to be announced. Entry fee is $20 per team, but regional champions will win $15,000 and the world champion prize is $75,000!
• Hyjal / Black Temple Jewelcrafting Recipes from Shattered Sun Rep in 2.4- All recipes from Black Temple and Mount Hyjal epic gems will now be available for players through Shattered Sun Offensive. One complication, at least for right now, is very few epic gems will be available for those unable to clear high level raid instances such as Sunwell, Hyjal, or Black Temple. More news should be forthcoming on this topic in the next few days.

A few mornings ago, while drinking coffee a fellow SA WoW gamer informed me of the progress Flame of Anduril was making. Now don’t get me wrong, this has always been one of the best PvE guilds formed by South African players. It is also one of the oldest South African guilds. They are located on Stormrage in the US (A PvE realm) and about +/- 2-3 years old.

Natural Perfection, another South African guild located on Twilight’s Hammer (A PvP realm) formed by a select few players who had a vision for being one of the best guilds with only casual raiding. This is the guild I am currently in with a few friends and a bunch of players who can almost be qualified as friends as well.

Up until a few weeks ago NP were far ahead of FoA however they quickly caught up to us. Now there is no official competition between the 2 guilds, however I like the spirit of competition, and having a bit of it is never a bad idea.

NP might have cleared Archimond about 1 week before FoA have, but their progression speed the last couple of weeks have been at a higher rate than that of NP. The question is, who will kill the next boss in Black Temple first. For 2 guilds with different backgrounds, different stories and completely different ideas this will be interesting.

It is a PvE guild vs almost PvP guild.
More importantly, it is a Alliance vs Horde guild.

Who will be the first to take down Illidan himself?