BG9

I found out that Blizzard changed it recently(ish) so that in diablo 2, if your characters expire, they don't actually get deleted until someone takes your name. Even if the character says expired under it, if someone hasnt taken your name, a quick double click will refresh it to the 90 day limit.

So all you need to do is make future character names something very unlikely to be taken, and its as good as permanent!

Hey, Im going to start a series of blogs about my 'escapades' on the battlegroup Bloodlust, aka BG9, in World of Wacraft. For those who dont know, WoW's 200-something US servers are split up into 13 battlegroups for PvP. A battlegroup is a bunch of realms that share arena and battleground participation, basically. BG9 is widely considered the most competitive US battlegroup. Arenas will be the main focus of this, as they are pretty much the only important aspect of WoW pvp.
I know that a lot of people on this site dont exactly hold a high opinion of WoW, but I urge you to be open minded. While PvE doesnt require much skill at all, PvP arena does. Broodwar is by far and away a 'harder' game, and a ridiculously great game, but the skillcap of WoW pvp can get pretty high, especially at the highest level of play which is what Ill be covering.

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So I just transferred to BG9 earlier today from my long time battlegroup of Whirlwind, and its a stark difference. Whereas my Mage arena partner and I were the best priest/mage 2v2 on whirlwind, we're two noobs in a sea of players on Blackrock realm, horde side. I did manage to get me and Tenc (mage partner} an invite to the current top pvp guild in the world, <sup fresh our turn baby>, but its not that hard to get in to, they pretty much invite anyone who asks since pvp guild serve no real purpose.

Tenc and I found a rogue to round out our 3v3 team, rogue/mage/priest (RMP) almost immediately, and he's pretty damn good at that. Despite this, our first arena matches on BG9 went pretty badly... at around a 2300 arena rating, we ran into 3 seperate paladin/hunter/death knight (PHD) teams, which are a soft counter to RMP. we went something like 18-21, which pretty much sucks balls. A good team will usually win about 70% of their matches, and here we're under 50%. We could blame it on counter-comping, but I know better, this is BG9 bitches. Anyways, we need to improve our coordination and personal skill levels, but thats what we're here for isnt it? Interestingly, we fought Euneek, the best ret paladin in the world, and his team, but our rogue disconnected and it was a 2v3, so I died in a global (meaning I died in the 1.5 second 'global cooldown' of any ability, or basically got destroyed instantly What do you expect, best ret paladin in the world)

So 3v3 didnt go so well, but after that me and Tenc did some tried and true 2v2, and that went quite well, we went 5-1, beating some 2400 teams and one 2500 team. I guess me and Tenc are already very coordinated and versed in mage/priest 2v2, so we could play at our maximum.
Right now Im sitting in front of Orgrimmar getting ready for some 1v1 duels, which I'll probably be at for awhile, getting my ass handed to me and such.

That basically sums up this entry, Im not looking to make these 'episodes' very long, just little updates and interesting tidbits for anyone who cares. Also, feel free to ask me anything about priest pvp or RMP or really anytihng about WoW in here, Ill answer.

so, my last 5 games on iccup have been against cheese, and I would say on average 3-4 out of 5 games I play on average are against cheese. If I wanted to become B at fighting 2 port wraith and proxy 2 gates Id be fine with that, but I want to become B at fighting standard play that (I hope) will become more common as I get higher in iccup ranks.

I understand that cheese is a part of the game and that I should learn to fight it, but I would much, much rather get my standard play up to par first and then work on that kind of thing with specific counters memorized.

all that being said, Id really like to find some D/D+/C-ish practice partners that I could play against that wouldn't cheese me 100% of the time to get some good practice! so PM me or add me on iccup (Amaroq) for some games