Posts with tag fight

I don't necessarily agree with everything we highlight here on WoW.com, but just because a post seems wrong doesn't mean it isn't interesting to talk about. Such is the case with Loregy's latest post -- they suggest that after all is said and done, the much beloved (whoops, not) Garrosh Hellscream will end up at the wrong end of our weapons. They say that the big fight between Garrosh and Thrall (rudely interrupted by the Wrath of the Lich King) means that Garrosh is in for a whooping at some future point. Matt basically said as much in his post a while back -- Garrosh is a flawed hero, to say the least, and it's likely that sometime here, those flaws are going to catch up with him, possibly in the form of us players.

Now of course whether that's true or not is an entirely different question from whether that's what you want or not. Kisirani has already said that there are sides of Garrosh we haven't seen yet, and Blizzard could go either way with him -- either put him through some troubles and teach him to learn some lessons (right now the guy is pretty dumb), or do what Loregy is suggesting and turn him into a raid boss (wouldn't be the first faction leader with such a fate, to be honest). Personally, I think Garrosh is headed for a little redemption -- all he really needs, to my mind, is a little experience and humility, and, as I understand it, war can teach those pretty well.

Michael Gray mentioned it in his writeup of the Premonition live raid at BlizzCon 2009, but this is a moment so epic it's worth mentioning again, and now that there's video online, you can see it: in the final fight, none other than Hogger appeared to take on one of the best guilds in the game. And this was no mere Hogger, nor even the slightly-more-powerful Memory of Hogger seen in the Trial of Champions. No no -- this thing was a foul raid boss from the bowls of Deepholm, a one-shotting maniac that couldn't be controlled even by the best tank. As you can see in the video above, he charges like an angry Rhino -- he was originally pulled by a Hunter who was then one-shot so fast the aggro table cleared and Hogger reset instantly. And after the raid changed their collective pants, they took him on again, and it was all over but the Gnoll snickering.

He was immune to taunt, and he appeared to just pick a target at random, pinging around the raid like Batman beating up bad guys in his recent videogame. He only had about 600 hit points (some say 666, which would make sense), but he was immune to damage, or at least all forms of damage that Premonition tried to throw at him. In the end, even though they'd beaten Thaddius, Anub'Rekhan, and Patchwerk all at once, this level 80 Heroic version of Hogger was the one who wiped them. I saw Ozzy do War Pigs, but this Hogger fight was probably the most epic thing I saw in Anaheim last weekend.

A number of sites have done a post-mortem on the Mountain Dew WoW Game Fuel ad (featuring two ladies battling it out through their WoW characters in a live-action supermarket), and they've uncovered a really interesting fact: the ad was actually directed by Indian director Tarsem Singh, one of my favorites -- he not only did the visually stunning sci-fi/horror flick The Cell a few years ago, but more recently made The Fall, which is an very well-done kind of mirror-life fairy tale. He's directed a number of commercials before, including some for Nike and Levi's, and teamed up with a company called Zoic Studios (they've done a few other spots for video games already) for this WoW commercial.

The original CGI models for the ad did come from Blizzard (I'd guess that they're the original models from the WoW CGI trailer), though they were spruced up quite a bit by Zoic to add facial expressions and dynamic costumes and hair. They were then connected to motion captures from stunt artists (which were probably also tweaked to seem a little more than human, and then composited all together in the supermarket scene.

Very cool stuff. This isn't the first time WoW characters have been used to sell soda, but hopefully we'll see more fun sequences like this come out of the deals between Blizzard and their partners.

1st Rule: You do not talk about the role forums.
2nd Rule: You do not talk about the role forums.
3rd Rule: If this is your first post on the role forums, you have to fight.

There are eight rules to Fight Club, and there are eight rules to the new role forums. Coincidence? Highly likely. Ghostcrawler has referenced the movie before, and for some reason I could see him kicking the crap out of himself screaming "Don't nerf me, bro!"

But nonetheless, Ghostcrawler has outlined eight simple and easy to follow rules for these new discussion forums. We'll take a look at them all after the break, but the highlight of the rules is rule #4 which in part says, "Sometimes Blizzard employees, such as me, respond to threads." That along with the preamble remark that "...class designers, such as myself, visit [the class forums] less often than the role forums," makes these new forums very interesting.

It looks like the discussion and back and forth we've come to see in the beta will continue on the new role forums. This can only lead to good things.

The full rules after the break for all you special and unique snowflakes.

Blizzard has posted a helpful page of tips on how to run, in my opinion, the best setup of organized World PvP so far: Halaa, the conquerable city in Nagrand.

The tips are pretty straightforward: stick together (team-- where's my CS homies at?), do as much bombing as you can before heading into the town, and make sure, once you've liberated Halaa from its evil oppressors, that you stick around to keep control and defend against any counterattacks. One thing I like about Halaa is that the Wyverns make it super easy for even lower geared players to join the fight and make a real difference. Plus, the layout is done well, and I like, as we heard at BlizzCon, that Blizzard went with a pretty persistent reward-- it's no fun to conquer something just to lose it again in 5 minutes.

And Halaa, surely, will serve as a model for the next big noninstanced PvP zone coming in Wrath of the Lich King, Lake Wintergrasp. Blizzard hasn't actually designed the zone yet, but they did share their goals with us-- multiple targets and rewards, a persistent effect, and of course while Halaa doesn't have them, siege weapons will make an appearance as well.

So if you haven't tried Halaa yet, definitely check it out. From everything we've heard, this kind of thing is the future of where World PvP is headed.

The battle between Jin'do and Moam was our most closely contested battle to date -- with Moam emerging victorious by only a slim margin. You decided Moam would come out on top in this fight by a mere 26 votes!

Last week we considered a fight between General Rajaxx and Bloodlord Mandokir, and the results of the vote were quite clear: Bloodlord Mandokir emerged vitorious, and by a wide margin. As you can see by the vote results, it wasn't even a close fight:

Of the people who commented on the battle, all seemed to think that Mandokir's ability to level up off of kills would render him completely unstoppable after he eliminated Rajaxx's army of minions. Those voting for Rajaxx felt that his Thunder Clap ability, which halves the health of anyone nearby, would manage to take Mandokir down anyway.

So another battle is finished, leaving the overall standings as follows. And our next fight starts tonight -- so stay tuned!

There are a lot of interesting encounters throughout Azeroth, but some seem to be more memorable than others.  Certain raid bosses will always inspire players to gather around the corpse to take screenshots and display their accomplishment, but sometimes smaller encounters are more intense and exciting.  One of my favorites must be the fight on the top of the temple in Zul'Ferak, where you look down to see a mass of trolls grouping up at the bottom of the stairs - and knowing you're going to need to fight through all of them to escape.  What's the one fight you most remember?  An instance or a wandering elite?  Or maybe even a PvP kill - let's hear about them!

Oh, man. So last night, I got a chance to play a few rounds in Warsong Gulch. Usually, I have a good amount of fun doing so, following along with nicely placed orders and helping out while trying not to get slaughtered, lose my tank, or go through all my soul shards. I'm not going to name names here, but last night, I was in a group with a complete and total jerk who continually bossed everyone in the team around because he was a higher level, continually calling us all noobs and flipping out constantly about how we all couldn't do anything right.

The thing is, we were winning until he started yelling repeatedly, "EVERYONE IN THE MIDDLE NOW!" And since the team was a little n00b heavy, most people listened to him. This left our flag unguarded by any but my lone self, who ignored him until I just gave up, and we quickly had our flag stolen and planted and he just kept shouting "WHAT? HOW!?"

Because your strategy sucked. You need people to charge in the raid, and people to guard the flag. Put all your cards too heavily in one place or the other and you are screwed. Word to the wise: good leaders don't start yelling at you and calling you all noobs. If that happens to you in game, it is time to pick a new leader. What do you think? What's your best BattleGround strategy? Who has been your worst leader?

ps—There's an update this morning, and I only need one more signature on the charter for Akama's Horde WoW Insider Guild.