Head enchants are gone.

We decided that putting head enchants on the various faction vendors wasn't working well with our design intent for the factions. There is a lot of max-level quest content in MoP, much of it focused around the reputation with the new factions. I think it's really cool stuff -- worlds away from the old Argent Dawn scourge stone days.

In previous expansions, the head enchants on the faction vendors served to force players into that content. You couldn't even choose which reputation to pursue -- you had to pursue the one with your specific head enchant. Our design intent for MoP is to give players options in how to play, and the head enchant design wasn't compatible with that.

Once we decided to no longer offer new head enchants, we made the older ones non-functional or else players would feel like they had to go back to older content or be missing out on power. This way, helmets are just no longer enchantable and you'll have one less required step to get a piece of loot ready to wear.

Shoulder enchants can now be provided by scribes, so those still exist, but they are also not part of the faction reputation system.

Source: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/…

A blog by Hildegard, featuring Rasen from EU-Stormscale.

The WoW PVP community is known to be a bitter, troll-infested bunch of wanna-be hard asses, that hate on enthusiasm. With the lack of tournaments since Cataclysm started and the easy access to boosting services or the MMR exploit, Cataclysm was a huge letdown. Although most of all top players agree, that the game mechanics are better than ever before. Add two legendaries and other broken PVE stuff into the mix and it is no wonder, that the scene went stale, „Off topic“ became the most-read area of Arena Junkies and on the official forums things got even worse.

With the introduction of Real ID and war games as well as more players with high-speed internet connections suddenly tournaments became an option and the PVP landscape started to change. Competition was back, not about live ratings and titles, that could be exploited but for the best players in the region or even the world to compete against each others. Also RBGs started to be organized over multiple servers since the latest patch.

With the tournament realm balancing became easier, because tournament organizers did not need to check for hidden pve gear and everyone was on the same playing field. Teams could be created, comps and racials changed like on the original tournaments back in TBC and WotLK. You can also see, that every day new players start writing interesting topics on AJ, more and more players look for help there.

We are now at the end of an expansion, most that can be done has been seen. This is a time to prepare for what is coming with the new expansion Mists of Pandaria. The tournament realm will be extended to work on level 90 with the full new PvP gear. So we will have the chance to watch the best players in the world facing off against each other in a gear-balanced environment. I do not expect balance to be good or no exploits to exist, but expect to see amazing matches, new comps coming up and I have high hopes for monks as a class. They look solid, not overpowered, maybe even a bit weak.

I think the tournament viewership will sky-rocket with the start of MoP and overshadow everything except BlizzCon, that has been done before. We have many organizers, camera men and commentators, that became better and better over the last few months and a hooked up the community, that is actually interested in the results and the games. I know players, that never watched tournaments before, especially because of the bad times in Europe (middle of the night) and the lack of videos to watch what happened later on.

My readers know me to get excited, once I have an idea in my head, so I decided to ask Rasen, some questions, who is known to be the most insightful poster on the official WoW PVP forums in Europe.

Hildegard: Rasen, you read this blog, as someone following the PVP scene for quite some time, what are your thoughts?

Rasen: Well firstly, just a small correction, not really that important, but you couldn't change races on the original TBC tournaments, you were locked to playing a specific race, like all warlocks had to be Orc female for example.
Anyway about the content, I think honestly think that if Blizzard are going to make a permanent TR like you think they need to basically balance it on those realms, even if it means making balance changes which only effect that realm and nowhere else
Which I'm not sure Blizzard will actually do, but considering the state of live realms (filled with mass corruption) nobody really takes them seriously anymore. It just turned into a way for kids to make money instead of getting a job.
But I believe this would be the best thing for Blizzard as well, it's far easier to balance things when you know what gear people are going to be using, the high rated PvP community as a whole doesn't care about gear, some do, the vast majority of them don't, so if they made the TR permanent than actually do small balance changes here and there than you can get rid of a large amount of the complaining that happens about PvP.
They make the community much happier and WoW can only benefit from that. The more balanced it is the more people who will want to watch, eventually you'd have organizers of bigger organizations than just player-run events coming and wanting to pick it up. As it would already have an audience, a stable way of running tournaments and a history of successful tournaments.

Hildegard: Did you notice any change in the forums, since the tournaments started with the latest patch?

Rasen: There has definitely been more activity since the tournaments started, people seem more interested in talking about PvP again, whereas there is still the usually complaining and that probably will never disappear there has been more constructive posts and more "Well I watched NAO yesterday and X class did well, whereas everyone through that class was awful so maybe I can do better if I tried", basically when you can see people of specific classes doing well which are considered weak on live than it can inspire people to do better themselves.
When the vast majority of the high rated community are just complaining about the "game being shit" that filters through to the entire community.
When people aren't complaining (Balance is still bad, but the tournaments can sometimes put balance on a backseat even if you still hear about "oh look its 7 shaman/lock teams lololol", when the games are good, and for the most part they have been good, than people are more willing to forgive balance problems when they are having fun.

Hildegard: You are one of the very few high-rated players, that frequent the official forums, while others simply bash on the players writing there. How come?

Rasen: That's just my personality, I generally prefer to avoid drama and things of that nature, which is basically all AJ has been about for some time now, so I stopped going to that site. I also have many friends who post there so generally most of the posts are just having fun and than every so often I'll have an issue I want to bring up where I'll make a "serious" post.
And I guess I like helping people, so if someone makes a post there I can help them, whereas there are many people who can help someone on AJ (although the vast majority of the community simple ignore that forum completely) so they are likely to find better help from someone who plays their class.

Hildegard: Would consider visiting AJ more often if the community further improves there?

Rasen: Well the thing about that is it's not just the drama nature of the community there are a lot of things I do not like about most high rated players, the willingness to cheat is a big one, I'm a very honest player and I don't change that just because of the anonymity of the internet, I don't believe something is worth "achieving" (example being a R1 title) though illegitimate means, something the community doesn't seem to have any issue whatsoever with
So I don't know, there would have to be a lot of changes for me to consider AJ being worthwhile again

Hildegard: Thank you for your time Rasen. Keep it up, I love reading your posts and I actually bookmarked the official PVP forums because of you.

Links:
Official forums: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/…
Rasen: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/…

Isaac 'Azael' Cummings-Bentley is a veteran World of Warcraft tournament player and one of the very few that maintained a sponsorship. We talked, among other topics, about him becoming the Day9 of WoW, his tournament history and tough decision making.

Hildegard: Welcome to the "Forscherliga Interview" Azael. As always the first question is the same: What did you eat today?

Azael: I woke up and had some cereal as well as a banana and then just ate some rice with onions carrots and other various veggies as well as some fried sausage mixed in! Gonna have a BBQ for dinner :D

Hildegard: Sounds great. You have been casting two tournaments today, I imagine you are quite hungry.

Azael: Haha, yeah I'm definitely pretty hungry. I hit the gym in between the two tournaments so that helped to work up some more hunger!

Hildegard: What was your favorite match of the day?

Azael: My favorite match of the day was probably Khuna's RMP vs Talb / Cdew / Snutz's Shadowplay - the level of play was incredibly high, and although my teammates didn't come out on top they played really well in the loss.

Hildegard: Do you think the latency affected the outcome a lot?

Azael: Well considering they're all East coast players I don't think it's that big of a deal. People love to complain about latency and make excuses but in my opinion unless you're playing West coast NA -> EU or NZ -> EU like Mes the DK on Sodah / Vanguards it shouldn't really cost you too many games once you're used to it.

Hildegard: You watched and commentated, while Snutz played your part. Did you see situations, where you knew "if I would play instead of Snutz, we would have done it better“?

Azael: Snutz is an amazing Warlock and I think he played awesome in the tournament to be honest, but I have played loads and loads of games with Talbadar and Cdew so I feel like we have better synergy and in my opinion my play style may fit the comp a bit better than his. The thing is though Snutz also does some things better than I do so you never know how things will go, and we might have had the same result or an even worse one, haha.

Hildegard: Snutz and you go back quite some time. What was the first tournament you faced off against each other?

Azael: I think the first tournament we faced off at was the first MLG that Snutz attended as Shadowcleave with Massivez.

Hildegard: Was that before he played with Sodah, Venruki and Reckful?

Azael: Yeah it was, I think he joined up with them one or two tournaments later.

Hildegard: How did the games turn out?

Azael: That tournament we had a ringer since our main third wasn't available and I believe we lost 3-2 haha, I think it was Cdew's first tournament as well as our replacement rogue Smatin so that's my excuse!

Hildegard: The Warlock that challenged you the most was Inflames, calling himself the best Warlock of all times. Did he ever win a series against you?

Azael: Nope, he lost every single series against me that he ever played at a tournament! Excluding one where I was playing Warrior as a ringer for Fnatic, but in Warlock vs Warlock I'm like 8-0 or something :P

Hildegard: Did you ever talk to him directly, after all the trash talk from his side?

Azael: I had chatted with him a few times, and we were actually pretty friendly and then he randomly started trash talking which I always just kinda chalked up to class envy or something. He was a pretty strange guy though so who knows!

Hildegard: When looking back you always chose very consistent players for your team.

Azael: I think that having consistent teammates is extremely important to me because my biggest pet peeve is losing games in which we haven't used all our cooldowns. I also really look for players who have similar personalities to me, and all the players I've had success with have also become very good friends which is extremely important because if you're gonna get good you have to spend a lot of time together!
I also always emphasize playing a style of game play in which we always give ourselves a shot to win, and I think the best way to do that is generally having a nice mix of offensive and defensive play. The longer the game goes the more chances you have to outplay your opponents and make your skill / practice pay off for you and your team.

Hildegard: Do you think you have your ideal team mates with Talbadar and Cdew?

Azael: Yep, without a question. I'll gladly state that I think I have not only some amazing friends, but also the best Shadowpriest and the best Resto Shaman in the world on my team. I simply couldn't ask for anything more!

Hildegard: Warlocks have traditionally been a very good class in arena. Would you agree, that from looking back Warlock is the best choice over all the seasons up until now for anyone, that wants to be successful?

Azael: There have been times when Warlocks weren't very strong, but overall I think it has been a super consistent class and the top locks have always found success so in that regard it's an awesome choice. I also feel lucky that I have picked it because it has allowed me to always compete at the top level in basically every tournament, and I feel like although WoW isn't always balanced you can spot the best players by seeing who can overcome and play near the top in all patches.

Cdew Azael and Woundman after winning IEM Global Championships

Hildegard: You are known for doing everything it takes to win. In some situations this causes issues, like when you gave your games away against Khuna/Xandyn/Zunniyaki in the NAO2. Did you feel bad for it afterward?

Azael: Haha, well although some people might not have enjoyed that it wasn't against the rules and I feel like we didn't really do anything wrong. We had already secured our place in the top 2 of our group and felt that it was likely we could play them in the finals of the tournament. We had a lot of success against them on ladder so we didn't want to show them any of our strategies and allow them a chance to adapt to our play style. That in combination with the fact that we preferred playing vs VIP Pet Cleaves pushed us to make that decision and it's not one that I regret.
Khuna Xandyn and Zunnyaki also were extremely confident vs RLS, so they didn't really seem to care at the time and had told us they were sure to beat Snutz team so we assumed we'd meet in the finals and decide who was the better team there!

Hildegard: How did you learn to make hard decisions in order to ensure success?

Azael: I think it just comes with experience, the easy decision isn't always the correct one and when you're competing in tournaments with the goal of winning, you have to do whatever helps you have the best shot. It's not easy choosing who to play with for tournaments, or making calls you know might not always be popular but at the same time, if you're not going to look out for you and your teammates then who will?

Hildegard: Did you read books by Machiavelli?

Azael: I've read The Prince, but am not super familiar with all of his books or anything.

Hildegard: Interesting. You are one of the very few sponsored WoW players at the moment and have a manager. That is pretty impressive. Why did Team EG keep around a World of Warcraft team, while nearly every other sponsor dropped theirs?

Azael: It's because EG is a team that is about more than just tournaments and simple results, it's a team that believes in the mutual promotion of both players and the brand. EG will promote their popular players and help build them up, and in exchange the players are expected to help promote and build the brand. I've been with Team EG for going on 5 years now, and am the longest standing player in the organization so I have done a lot for the team with both promotional things such as sponsor work, ads etc as well as tournament results. They know that I've been worth the investment and because of that are sticking by me even when WoW isn't giving as much return of investment as it has in the past and I respect them greatly for it!

Hildegard: Boosting is something that seemingly scares away sponsors from tournaments. Do you think that holds back WoW's success as an E-Sport?

Azael: Nah, I don't think so. I think the thing that scares away sponsors the most is the instability of the game. It has always had the viewer base but I feel like it has always lacked the high level casting you see in many other games and that unfortunately makes it way less entertaining. I also feel like when a sponsor or team isn't sure if the players they pick up will still be successful in the next patch they're scared to support them fully.

Hildegard: The casting picked up dramatically since you became WoW's Day9.

Azael: Haha, well I've always had great feedback from commentating but the great debate that rages on inside me is simply that I still love to compete and still feel that I can win these tournaments. I love both casting and competing so it's a tough decision each and every time I'm asked, but thankfully there are loads of tournaments going on at the moment and because I'm so busy casting SC2 as well it seemed like a good time to get some serious casting in!

Hildegard: Do you think that WoW has a chance to get back in the esports circus with the now rising popularity?

Azael: Yeah, I definitely think so. As long as the numbers are there as far as viewership goes there's no reason that tournaments wouldn't pick it back up!

Hildegard: So, any hints for top teams looking for sponsors?

Azael: Qualify for the Blizzard tournament and do well at the Regional events and you may find some interest!

Hildegard: Do you think that working with media, like streaming, a Facebook page etc. are necessary to get picked up or is simply the play the deciding factor?

Azael: I think that play is the main factor for sure, but the rest is a definite bonus. I have never paid much attention to social media stuff like Facebook / Twitter etc, but now am realizing the value of being into it. Fans love interaction with the players and that's a great place to do it. I just got my Twitter account a month or so ago since coming down to Arizona and have been enjoying using it / interacting with people on there! I can put in my fanpage too if you want but I never really promote it.

Hildegard: Do it, I think it is a good example. So, looking to MoP, do you think WoW will continue to be popular for PVP tournaments or do you think that GW2 will take away a large part of the scene?

Azael: Honestly I just think that WoW's game play is just too smooth compared to every other MMO so I don't think they can really keep up even if they're balanced better etc.

Hildegard: We are coming to the end of the interview and as tradition is, it always ends with a best of five list. You can choose between your five favorite jokes by Conrad or the five favorite teams to enter the BlizzCon finals in Korea.

Azael of course chooses Conrad's jokes.

Azael:

1. Comeback Train

2. Conradical 1 PvP video (you'll understand why it's a joke when you watch it :DDDD)

3. Conrads blind fish joke

4. "gettin it poppin"

5. "we'll have to see"

Hildegard: haha

Azael: That's what comes to mind off the top of my head!

Hildegard: Thank you for the interview Azael and enjoy your BBQ. Any shoutouts?

Azael: I will! Brace yourself cause I have a number of shoutouts :P
First off Team EG and my teammates Cdew and Talbadar, all our sponsors - Intel, Steelseries, Monster Energy, Sapphire, 6pool Gaming, In Win, Gunnar, Slappa and Split Reason. Also a big shout out to NAO, Yaspresents, and Curse / AJ for getting the WoW tournaments running once again! Last but not least, a shoutout to all my friends, family, and fans who always support me through thick and thin and most importantly my Mom - Happy Mothers Day! :D

Hildegard: Thank you for your time.

Azael: Have a good night / day / whatever.

Hildegard: It is 5:16am in Europe and I got up at 3:50am in order to do the interview.

Big thanks to Hildegard for talking to Azael, I hope all of you enjoyed reading as much as I did!

New videos to X_6825X
Help the bads: RMP vs. RPS on TR
Help the bads: RMP vs. Kitty Cleave on TR

Comment:
We have a different priest on the TR than on live. He has multiple classes on 2,2k-2,4k . Recently I read, how hard Kitty Cleave has it against RMP. Well here is one match, in which we get destroyed. These two comps gave us the hardest time on the TR up until now. We went 2:4 vs. the Kitty Cleave and 3:5 against the RPS (two of the wins were disconnects however, so actually 1:5). Our best rating on the TR is 1770 currently.

No comment. Just enjoy it: http://youtu.be/emfkv9WZz_kX_6779X

Hotted, a well known arena video producer from the US, commentated one of our matches on his YouTube Channel. The match is about 10 days old and shows us playing before our latest improvement. Still fun to watch and see yourself being commentated by him. Hopefully I will be able to make a better video soon.


Watch Hildegard's RMP vs. WLS commentated by Hotted  Starts 0:56 in the video.

Anyone that reads this nook for a time knows, that I try to improve, to play better. The last days were a huge step, as Doomsen played with me on the tournament realm. He recruited a Shadowpriest from Trade Chat, whom I will call Mr. P. I was the player with the lowest max-rating on the team and learned quite some tricks. One day later the Mr P. played with me on the tournament realm as well, this time as Discipline and with Lucié, the mage from my RMP on live (Forscherliga). Lucié learned a lot while playing with this priest, especially performing well, while being pressured and utilizing his instant control. Not soon after Mr. P. decided to transfer his priest and paladin to the Forscherliga server, while staying in Skype with our RMP. 

On Monday we played again on live, with new concepts, new moves, with a priest coached by Zunniyaki, a mage coached by Mr. P, who plays mage on 2,3k rating and myself. We had a rating of around 1860 at that time and began to play and to win a lot. At around 1920 we encountered a Feral/Enhancer/Holy Paladin team, that destroyed us two times pretty fast. Usually after such matches, Lucié and Nory (our priest) start bitching and we lose focus. This time however we changed things up and scored a kill, while playing better than ever before, forcing trinkets, managing DRs  , moving coordinated and bursting together. The next match the enemy Shaman used a bug and gave their paladin earth shield, while still playing Enchancement. They managed to score a kill on our still undergeared priest. Now the amazing thing happened. Instead of complaining, we decided to stomp these f***ers and that we did. We killed them four times in a row until they stopped queing. 

We moved up further and continued to play strong. On 1980 we encountered an RMP from another battlegroup after a seven minute wait time. Without thinking too much we moved in, unstealthed their rogue, forcing trinket and vanish at once. We switched to their mage, and spam dispel on me combined with Escape Artist and Vanish kept me on the enemy mage constantly, while their rogue tried to peel our mage. After a Kidney, Smoke before the enemy mage had Blink again we forced the block, that was dispelled in less than one second by our priest. Their priest was deeped, used trinket to avoid the ring and got into a full fear. 

I managed to get onto the mage, that desperately tried to survive,  blanketed my priest, deeped me, while their rogue silenced my mage. I trinketed, kicked his evocation and killed him one second before the priest came out of the fear. We looked them up on the armory and the team had experience between 2340 and 2520, two of them with 410 gear. 1989 rating now. Next match was easy, a 1700 rated Vanguards Cleave after five minutes of waiting. 1996. 

Next match. RLS on Nagrad. We open hard on the shaman, force the trinket instantly, force Nature's Swiftness seconds later. Shatter and Eviscerate and Smoke Bomb, 300 life left, but the Spirit Link does not bug out and although it is killed fast, the Shaman gets away. We focus too much on pressuring, switch to the Lock and get him to 30%, while our priest calls for help. I think, that he could manage the rogue himself, but he gets kicked and dies, because Luciè and me did not peel fast enough. We had little time left that evening, tried it two more times and lost both matches against the RLS, but all of them very close. 1957 again. 

While this is not spectacular for anyone that plays on higher ratings, it is cetainly for us. I think we never had as much fun in the arena as yesterday and we are on fire right now. The 2,2k hunt continues, although we lost a lot of rating during the last three games.

Live streamed this Saturday and Sunday 10pm/22:00 CET (Berlin/Paris/Rome) at This Stream!

Arena Junkies first invitational tournament is just right ahead of us! Together with help from Curse and Alienware we'll be featuring eight of the best World of Warcraft 3v3 teams. These players will battle it out for glory and for a prize pool of $5000!

Prizes:
1st Place - $4000
2nd Place - $1000

Group A - Saturday 3EST / 12PST:

• Massives - Filovirus - Thingtwo
• 
  
• Venruki - Snutz - Kollektiv
• 
  
• Vanguards - Mes - Sodahs
• 
  
• Khuna - Xandyn - Zunniyaki
• 
  

Round 1
vs

Round 2
vs


Round 3
vs Round 4
vs Round 5
vs Round 6
vs






The tournament looks awesome and has a strong line-up, although heavy on Warlock/Shaman. I will watch it and root for Khuna, Xandyn and Zunniyaki.

You can check out the finals here: Yaspresents Tournaments Final

Lovely games yesterday and some very intense series. If you ignore the matches by Abni, Maldiva and Karvinen, that got stomped without winning a simple round (although being rank one on live with 79:1) the matches are all worth a watch.

Highlights are the matches including Khuna/Xandyn/Zunniyaki and so I found them for you.


Yaspresents Tournament: Khuna/Xandyn/Zunniyaki vs. Talbadar/Snutz/Cdew Part One
Starts 22 minutes into the video

Yaspresents Tournament: Khuna/Xandyn/Zunniyaki vs. Talbadar/Snutz/Cdew Part Two
Starts 2 hours and 8 minutes into the video

Yaspresents Tournament: Khuna/Xandyn/Zunniyaki vs. Abni/Maldiva/Karvinen
Starts 47 minutes into the video

Yaspresents Tournament: Khuna/Xandyn/Zunniyaki vs. Mirlol/Skenz/Geru
Starts 1 hours and 17 minutes into the video

NAO Invitational Tournament: Khuna/Xandyn/Zunniyaki vs. Bubblist/Sudal/Kamtwo
Starts 8 minutes into the video

What was your favorite match?

Also: Azael accepted my interview request