First of all, I'd like to apologize for not posting the past two days. I wouldn't be surprised if I just lost every reader that I had still checking the blog. It's not even like I wasn't playing, I just never got around to making a blog post - most of the time, out of a need for sleep. Anyway, the good news is that I have two people in mind for posts. The first will be featured in this post and the second will receive a post of his own as soon as I can remember his name.
Cragster is a paladin............................... who I just realized is on Aerie Peak by looking at his armory. I'm sorry, but he still deserves the post. Besides, he's definitely not a typical Aerie Peak arena player because I had no idea he was even on the server.
With all that said, Cragster is a paladin who I've actually run into multiple times and not just during the last week or so. His near 80,000 HK's on that toon definitely provide an explanation for that and they also, to a degree, account for his talents on the class. In the many times that I've come across him he has played entirely objectively. Most of the time, he positions himself slightly ahead of the flag carrier,especially while crossing mid, and, because of this, is somewhat difficult to find if you choose not to display enemy nameplates.
Cragster is definitely not the best paladin I've ever come across but he still stands out. He knows how to fake cast, dispels regularly (a mage actually complained about him) and, when I saw him, he had been using the correct talent, allowing him to be all over the field and make himself a real pain in the ass to counter.
I might as well finish the post here and I'll let you all draw your own opinions of him as you see him in the gulch - which you likely will as he continues to rack up the honorable kills.
Monday, April 1, 2013
Friday, March 29, 2013
And off the roof they go!
So I know in the original post I made it seem like I would be restricting the "Spotlight" to players outside of Aerie Peak, and that is for the most part what I intended, but tonight a paladin who I have never seen before really stood out above everyone else in the gulch. The game I was in with him Horde won 3-0 pretty quickly but it his skill level was still quite clear.
The player I'm talking about is a Human Paladin named Onmund. As you can see from armory, the toon itself is new: 700 HK's, no BoA's, etc. The account, however, has the 25,000 HK achieve so we can safely assume the character is a reroll.
The game that I came across him in was heavily one sided. Horde had a few healers, a flag carrier, and some fotm dps. Alliance did make a few decent flag attempts though and in these situations Onmund was able to stand out. His positioning while escorting the flag carrier was excellent. It took me a while to get within wind shear range and still keep an eye on all of my teammates/purges. He also out clicked me on the repick and grabbed my attention. As soon as he got the flag, he took off with his three stacks of holy power and 30% movement speed increase and left everyone behind as he went up tunnel. I was the only one able to keep up due to Ghost Wolf.
As the rest of Horde O caught up and converged on Alliance roof, he kept his calm even without assistance. He gracefully kited around the roof and had some very impressive jump jukes. I usually find them quite hard to execute with movement speed increase but he had no problem stopping right at the edge, hitting space bar and sending two prot paladins off.
The only thing that I didn't get a feel for was his fake casting but judging by the rest of his game play I'm certain that that would also be above average.
Anyway, props to Onmund for keeping it cool in a completely one sided game and sticking it out until the end. You're definitely the best holy pally that I've come across in WSG since my return to the gulch.
The player I'm talking about is a Human Paladin named Onmund. As you can see from armory, the toon itself is new: 700 HK's, no BoA's, etc. The account, however, has the 25,000 HK achieve so we can safely assume the character is a reroll.
The game that I came across him in was heavily one sided. Horde had a few healers, a flag carrier, and some fotm dps. Alliance did make a few decent flag attempts though and in these situations Onmund was able to stand out. His positioning while escorting the flag carrier was excellent. It took me a while to get within wind shear range and still keep an eye on all of my teammates/purges. He also out clicked me on the repick and grabbed my attention. As soon as he got the flag, he took off with his three stacks of holy power and 30% movement speed increase and left everyone behind as he went up tunnel. I was the only one able to keep up due to Ghost Wolf.
As the rest of Horde O caught up and converged on Alliance roof, he kept his calm even without assistance. He gracefully kited around the roof and had some very impressive jump jukes. I usually find them quite hard to execute with movement speed increase but he had no problem stopping right at the edge, hitting space bar and sending two prot paladins off.
The only thing that I didn't get a feel for was his fake casting but judging by the rest of his game play I'm certain that that would also be above average.
Anyway, props to Onmund for keeping it cool in a completely one sided game and sticking it out until the end. You're definitely the best holy pally that I've come across in WSG since my return to the gulch.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Y driuodz moov so fast???
I'm ashamed to say that I've
pretty much been BG'ing all day long. The games have been one sided face rolls,
for the most part, up until about an hour ago. Now they're not as bad but they
still don't come close to matching the quality of last night's. Even with these
largely one sided games, one player stood out earlier and is beginning to make
more of an impact as the games grow even. That player is Çápz,
a worgen druid from Garrosh.
I've played a few games with Capz today and he has proven to take
on quite versatile role. He is a competent healer, often positioning himself on
stumps or ledges and always within range for roots and heals while out of range
for easy melee swaps. I believe,
however, that he excels much more as a flag carrier. He doesn’t really as much
on jumps as other stand out FC’s, but instead has a much better sense of
routing than one usually sees. He knows when is the best time to start the move
from roof to second, out to graveyard, choose to loop around to ramp or go back
up to roof through tunnel etc. and times it so well that there is a strong
chance you could wander around Alliance base for hours and not see him.
On top of his sense of
positioning and movement, he has swift power shifts and near instant trinkets
and dark flight to help him through rough moments. He also doesn’t waste, like
many mediocre carriers, his trinket in “oh shit” situations. He expertly
exploited the power of resto druid healing by keeping up rejuv and regrowth in
anticipation of stuns on himself and healers. He also utilizes Wild Charge,
particularly well – to get in range for flag pickups and also as a juke off of
ledges, roof, etc. The juke portion of this also speaks somewhat to his ability
to communicate with teammates.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
And the First Post Goes to... Cheesetòast
So I've played six or so games so far tonight and Cheesetòast has been in all of them. The toon only has 1000 honorable kills but he definitely stands out. He made my life hell as an FC and I think its a name that we'll be hearing a lot more of.
He only has 50 WSG's played since last armory update and, although its a bit early to be looking at this, is maintaining a solid 1.34 returns per game even with a sub 50% win ratio.
Outside of landing some pretty clutch returns in the games I played against him, many other things caused him to draw my attention. He is significantly harder to fake - landing probably half of his kicks on me - than most rogues I've played against. That includes Nvdiss, Brov, Medanx and many other well known Aerie Peak rogues.
From what I can tell his strategy is pretty straight forward and became predictable but was still very hard to counteract with PuG's to depend on. As an FC, he lets the main group open on you while he proceeds to start pounding on your healer. If the FC crosses the healer or vice versa, which is very common in pugs, he quickly switches, usually after locking out a healer. He managed to pull this off like clockwork in the games I played and his several returns were well deserved. On top of this, he is almost always in position for a sap on the FC followed by a repick. If you don't make the jump from roof right onto the cap spot chances are he'll end up with the flag.
To conclude this post, props to you Cheesetoast and good luck to anyone who sees him in the future.
He only has 50 WSG's played since last armory update and, although its a bit early to be looking at this, is maintaining a solid 1.34 returns per game even with a sub 50% win ratio.
Outside of landing some pretty clutch returns in the games I played against him, many other things caused him to draw my attention. He is significantly harder to fake - landing probably half of his kicks on me - than most rogues I've played against. That includes Nvdiss, Brov, Medanx and many other well known Aerie Peak rogues.
From what I can tell his strategy is pretty straight forward and became predictable but was still very hard to counteract with PuG's to depend on. As an FC, he lets the main group open on you while he proceeds to start pounding on your healer. If the FC crosses the healer or vice versa, which is very common in pugs, he quickly switches, usually after locking out a healer. He managed to pull this off like clockwork in the games I played and his several returns were well deserved. On top of this, he is almost always in position for a sap on the FC followed by a repick. If you don't make the jump from roof right onto the cap spot chances are he'll end up with the flag.
To conclude this post, props to you Cheesetoast and good luck to anyone who sees him in the future.
What's the Deal?
So before I start posting regularly I should probably tell you guys what the purpose of this blog is. I always follow "Best Of" threads, no matter how biased they tend to be and how much drama they tend to cause. Partially because I like to have my ego fed and partially because I have a genuine interest in who people perceive as "the best." Due to the most recent one over on Twink Info, I noticed two things.
The first is that people on certain servers tend to recognize other people on that server as the best at their class. Granted, this makes perfect sense. People who play with each other more often are 1) More friendly with that person and 2) More likely to see them in their more outstanding moments. This wasn't necessarily a new concept to me, it just appeared to be much more prevalent than usual in this thread - especially considering that a number of people openly criticized it.
The second comes from a combination of the thread and my recent PuG'ing experiences. Many people on servers other than AP simply don't get the recognition that they deserve. As an avid arena enthusiast myself, I completely understand the motives for being slow to make decisions on a player based on WSG where they have nine other players to back them (thus providing a larger margin for error). This, however, does not warrant total disregard of a player's ability.
By this point, you may be asking yourself saying to yourself: "Great, now I've wasted a minute reading his wall of text and he still hasn't made his point." To that I say, don't worry, I'm getting there.
In light of these observations and my recent experiences in the gulch, I have decided to devote this blog to highlighting players whose talents merit acknowledgment. I could be posting several times a day or only once a week depending on the quality of games and players that I encounter. Most posts will be descriptions of their playstyle or stories regarding my game(s). Some on the other hand may resemble Twink Spotlight posts like this one from Twinking.net The things I will be looking for in potential candidates are:
The first is that people on certain servers tend to recognize other people on that server as the best at their class. Granted, this makes perfect sense. People who play with each other more often are 1) More friendly with that person and 2) More likely to see them in their more outstanding moments. This wasn't necessarily a new concept to me, it just appeared to be much more prevalent than usual in this thread - especially considering that a number of people openly criticized it.
The second comes from a combination of the thread and my recent PuG'ing experiences. Many people on servers other than AP simply don't get the recognition that they deserve. As an avid arena enthusiast myself, I completely understand the motives for being slow to make decisions on a player based on WSG where they have nine other players to back them (thus providing a larger margin for error). This, however, does not warrant total disregard of a player's ability.
By this point, you may be asking yourself saying to yourself: "Great, now I've wasted a minute reading his wall of text and he still hasn't made his point." To that I say, don't worry, I'm getting there.
In light of these observations and my recent experiences in the gulch, I have decided to devote this blog to highlighting players whose talents merit acknowledgment. I could be posting several times a day or only once a week depending on the quality of games and players that I encounter. Most posts will be descriptions of their playstyle or stories regarding my game(s). Some on the other hand may resemble Twink Spotlight posts like this one from Twinking.net The things I will be looking for in potential candidates are:
- Almost entirely objective game play. I don't care if you can farm graveyard like a pro, you're just going to slowly encourage people to leave the bracket and, simultaneously, create more farm fests.
- In healers, I'm going to be looking mainly at positioning and CD usage. Use of dispels are also a pretty simple way to separate good shamans/paladins from bad ones. Positioning is also pretty significant for ranged.
- Stuff that catches be by surprise. Blink jukes off roof as FC with 30 HP left, quick shifts to bear to wild charge an FC right in front of cap and grab flag, twelve flag returns in one game, crazy demo leap jumps or flag carring, etc.
I actually hoping to come up with a more substantial list but this is off the top of my head and I'm sure I'll think of things later. If all goes well, I'll play a few games tonight and have our first featured player written up before I go to sleep. For now, here's a cute baby boomkin picture.
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