WoW, Casually: Darkmoon Faire profiteering and Arathi Basin revisited
by Robin Torres 
Jan 4th 2008 at 6:00AM
Each week, Robin Torres writes WoW, Casually for the player who has 2 hours or less to play at a time.
Happy 2008! To begin the new year we have some PvP action and a little Faire fun. First with the PvP, the Call to Arms this weekend is for Arathi Basin. This means that queues should be shorter and honor gain should be more plentiful when fighting for your faction in Arathi Basin this weekend.
When I say that the honor is more plentiful, it really isn't that much more. As I learned, to my disappointment, the Call to Arms weekends don't add much in the way of bonus honor. Normally, you get the equivalent of 1 kill (20.9 honor at level 70) for every 330 resources acquired in AB. This weekend, you will get 1 kill for every 200 resources. This equates to about 82 extra honor if you win a level 70 game.
Happy 2008! To begin the new year we have some PvP action and a little Faire fun. First with the PvP, the Call to Arms this weekend is for Arathi Basin. This means that queues should be shorter and honor gain should be more plentiful when fighting for your faction in Arathi Basin this weekend.
When I say that the honor is more plentiful, it really isn't that much more. As I learned, to my disappointment, the Call to Arms weekends don't add much in the way of bonus honor. Normally, you get the equivalent of 1 kill (20.9 honor at level 70) for every 330 resources acquired in AB. This weekend, you will get 1 kill for every 200 resources. This equates to about 82 extra honor if you win a level 70 game.
Zach has written up an excellent strategy guide for AB that suggests different strategies depending on the situation. I highly recommend reading it, but you can use the following as a cheat sheet:
- Fight on the flag: It's the same for AV. "Controlling the road" is not an objective that's going to get you any honor.
- Defend the flag: If you own the node, keep an eye on it for sneaky attacks. Interrupting every attempt is much more important than chasing down and killing that leaping and spinning guy with the stupid name, no matter how satisfying that may be.
- Attack the flag: If you don't own the node, it is amazing how often stubborn flag attackers succeed. Because so many players don't fight on the flag and are too busy collecting HKs, it really isn't that difficult to put the node in conflict while in the middle of a battle. And once it is in conflict, the other side isn't collecting points on it.
- Call it out: Even if you suck at the actual killing part of PvP (like I do), you are still an asset to your team if you call for help when you see enemies approaching one of your nodes.
If you're looking for some fun at the Darkmoon Faire, it will be in Mulgore, just outside of Thunder Bluff starting Tuesday. Go here for the list of goodies you can exchange for tickets.
As commenter Swiss pointed out previously, the Darkmoon Faire has two Vendors that sell some very valuable items at extremely low prices. Now, I don't think vendor camping is particularly casual-friendly. I think that we have so little time to play that we should spend it having fun or having a little less fun to get gear that allows us to have more fun later. However, if you are able to have WoW on while you are doing other things so that you can just check in every once in a while to see what has spawned on the vendors, then this may be a good money making venture for you.
- Lhara: She can spawn some blues and greens in her shop, but her most valuable items are the herbs that may appear for sale at cheaper-than-AH prices.
- Professor Thaddeus Paleo: These are where the real gems are, literally. The professor's shop can spawn scrolls and potions, but his best wares are the motes and blue gems. He is why entrepreneurs are now such huge fans of the Faire.
What do you think your greatest challenges are as a player who is only able to play 2 hours or less at a time? Do you have suggestions for other casual WoW-ers? Send me an email at Robin.Torres AT weblogsinc DOT com for a possible future column.
Robin Torres is hoping that the spousal unit will be designated parent at some point this weekend so that she can try out a Sideways Snowman or three while defending the Farm in AB. She is not very optimistic about it.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Events, PvP, Features, WoW, Casually, Battlegrounds, Making money, Jewelcrafting
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Oilof Jan 4th 2008 6:42AM
The greatest challenge for is getting a solid, dependable group in the short period of time I have to play. I could never dream of doing Shadowlabs, maybe on a slow weekend when I have a group of reliable friends/guildies on. It's alright though, I love doing PvP the most, however, I do love to explore, and I simply can't do that for most instances.
Goat Jan 4th 2008 7:39AM
You will be lucky to get a bargain from the Darkmoon vendors because they are more or less permenantly camped. Even in Shattrath there always seems to be a level 1 guy sitting next to them
Good_Idea Jan 4th 2008 11:29AM
If I were grinding out honor for gear, I'm not sure I'd bother with any BG but AV. I did AB last night (for the daily quest) and I got 117 honor (lost) and the winners only got 167 I'm fairly sure, for a 30 minute game!! On AB weekend!
Compare that to AV, I spend 10-12 minutes (sometimes 20) and I get 300 honor for a loss, 500 for a win. Something is wrong here...
I still enjoy the other BGs for pvp fun, but the honor totals are completely out of whack right now. WSG being the worst for honor, especially with the diminishing returns on kills (only 10 opponents), and only flag caps counting for honor.
Verit Jan 4th 2008 1:38PM
82 extra honor is still better than zero for running AV. And alliance usually win AB :).
Green Armadillo Jan 4th 2008 1:54PM
AB weekend is actually a bigger deal for the losing side (read: Alliance Pug's in battlegroups where the Horde usually wins AB) than the winning side. Even a bad Pug can often scrape together 600 resources before losing. That would be 20 bonus honor normally but works out to 60 on AB weekend. If you need the marks anyway, it's a great deal, and honestly it isn't much worse than the honor you'll get out of losing a turtle match in AV.
Ikarus Jan 4th 2008 2:38PM
@4
Please tell me the name of your server so i can transfer :)
I'm on Aggramar and Alliance always lose. The worst part is no one learns the lesson. They keep doing the same dumb stuff EVERYTIME (capping a flag and then leaving it undefended, fighting on the roads, trying to camp the horde GY while we only have 2 nodes capped, not fighting on the flag while it gets ninja'd by the lowest level rogue etc etc etc).
I heard once that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. I guess that applies to me too, cause i keep going back thinking "maybe we'll win this one"