Iron Banner Results

Evaluating Guardians

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I spent quite a bit of time this weekend looking at this screen or one very similar.  As I stated the other day, this is my first time really doing the Iron Banner weekend content, and I have to say I really enjoyed it.  The only sadness that I feel is that it seems like I am deeply leaning into the game as many of my clan mates are leaning out.  I did however get to run a few matches with the Axioma clan crew, but unfortunately I had someone come to the door and had to run quickly to go answer it leaving them somewhat stranded with some dead weight.  The biggest take away from the weekend is that I am not nearly as bad at PVP as I always thought I was.  There were several maps where I lead the score count, which is a pretty cool feeling.  I rarely if ever however have the best KDR.  I am super objective based and there are many times I will bum rush an objective just to keep the opposite team from having time to secure it.  It feels like maybe the rest of the folks in Iron Banner are not necessarily doing this.  I saw an awful lot of deathmatching in areas that were nowhere near objectives and since the name of the game was control… it felt like I spent a lot of time trying to make up for team mates that clearly had no interest in actually playing the “game”.

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As the weekend went on I felt like I learned a lot.  I fell for far fewer “traps” where people were trying to bait me into attacking and ending up getting picked off easily.  I also started to learn the maps significantly better.  There are still a few that are the bane of my existence…  namely the Firebase Delphi, and the Dreadnaught map are ones that no matter how many times I play them I just feel like I struggle.  Then there are maps like Widows Court and Bannerfall that I always seem to do really well on, but I guess this makes sense as there were always maps I did better on in Enemy Territory or Soldier of Fortune 2.  I mention those games because in many ways playing Crucible and Iron Banner reminds me of all the time I spent playing shooters during the late 90s and early 2000s… and it has been shocking how fast certain aspects of it has begun to feel “natural”.  I’ve been wondering if I had done myself a disservice all of these years by not playing PVP in MMOs and now I am starting to realize that it is just a different experience.  MMO PVP just does not feel anywhere near as fluid as Destiny, and because of that I am doubting if I will feel anywhere near as good.  That said I do absolutely intend to take some time and give World of Warcraft battlegrounds and Rift PVP another chance.

Spoils of War

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Yesterday afternoon I managed to hit rank 5 with the Iron Banner and in doing so got quite the cache of goodies.  I of course bought the cosmetic rewards first…  because I kinda have a thing for emblems and shaders.  Based on all the various emblems that I saw during the event, I am wondering if they alternate between designs or something?  As far as the shaders go both were thoroughly obnoxious and I doubt I will use either, but I still had to pick them up regardless.  The weapon I was most interested in this go round was Finnala’s Peril the Hand Cannon because I am really hoping that with the April changes we see some quality of life improvements to that type of weapon in general.  Though if there is any evidence by the number of times I was killed by a Hand Cannon this weekend, I would say they are mostly doing okay.  Other than that I have always liked the look of the Iron Banner Titan gear, so any of that I could pick up would make me happy.  At some point I would absolutely love to be rocking a full set of the gear so that I look like the tank that I always thought I was.  I still have one full day to try and get some drops, and I have a feeling that tonight I will be upstairs on the PS4 doing just that.

The gallery shows off some of the drops I managed to get through the weekend.  In total I have gotten three different versions of the chest piece, and the one that I am showing off in the above image is not actually the highest level version I got.  I am now trying to level up a 309 light version to be my primary chest piece.  Similarly I have seen I believe three of the Hand Cannon drops but sadly most of them are pretty crappy stat wise.  I did manage to get one that was worth holding onto, but hopefully tonight I might see some with better rolls.  From my Rank 5 package I managed to get a really awesome 312 helmet and a 310 Ghost Shell…  then about fifteen minutes later got a 320 version of the same shell.  So all in all I managed to get at least three pieces of gear that I will be holding onto and making part of my permanent set.  As far as purchases, I picked up the Iron Camelot shoulders, and Bretomart’s Stand Machine Gun.  I kinda went back and forth on the Machine Gun as to whether or not to purchase it.  Comparing it to the Legendary machine gun that I had been using, I actually thought it was a little better and have now infused it up to usable levels.  I gotta say I really enjoyed Iron Banner this week and I have a feeling that I will be trying to do this next time it comes around.  Sure it took up a lot of my time, but I really enjoyed that time spent.  I can also already tell that once Iron Banner is over… I will be back to playing a lot of Crucible.

Hellfire and Horde

Adulting Sucks

This morning I am sitting here trying to eat my oatmeal and drink my coffee… and this Monday guy keeps pestering me and trying to make me adult.  Really freaking annoying.  This weekend was a tale of my wife and I avoiding adulting..  so much so that finally yesterday we had to get out and do things in the world.  Essentially yesterday was the day of doing all of the things we put off the rest of the break.  In the grand scheme of things it wasn’t too bad, but the world was cold and rainy… and when I first set foot outside yesterday morning my first instinct was to rush back inside and swear off breakfast.  Then my tummy kicked in and told me that it was hungry, and it was also sick of the options we had available in the house.  So I ventured out and got breakfast, and realized that I could in fact survive outside of my house shaped bubble with its blanket cocoon.  You can tell the hibernation instinct is strong… because we bought the fixings for a bunch of various crock pot meals…  so we don’t have to leave the house at all once we make it in from work.

Unexpected Activity

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A good chunk of my weekend was spent doing things to get gear for Belgrace my newly 100 Tauren Paladin.  When you boost a character they end up giving you a full set of green 640 gear, which is a significant increase over the sort of gear you end up with by natively leveling.  Also apart from having to get silver in the proving grounds… you are level appropriate for heroics and the first two LFR raids.  I however had pretty crappy luck in Blackrock Foundry with getting upgrades, but I did have a fair amount of luck picking up Baleful drops in the Tanaan Jungle campaign area.  So last night I was sitting at 656 with a decent purple weapon… that was sadly as good if not better than Belghast’s alliance side.  I had settled down into my blanket cocoon on the sofa prepping to watch my Sunday evening television binge of Once Upon a Time > Walking Dead > Into the Badlands > Talking Dead when I got a random invite from my friend Nubzy.

I knew that they raided on Sunday nights, but I had no clue they planned on dragging me into Hellfire Citadel.  I had told her that I was working on gearing and that I had managed to get to 656, but that did not necessarily mean I was expecting to raid.  They were resetting the instance apparently and were grabbing a ton of other people into what was their largest raid group to date of around sixteen people.  Brerhoof has always been awesome, and he set to making me some upgrades for my remaining 640 green slots.  So before I had even really set foot into the dungeon Brer handed me Gauntlets, Pants and Boots that were significant upgrades.  Then off the very first drop I managed to pick up Shell-Resistant Stompers and luckily I had not bound the boots yet so I equipped the drop and holding onto the BOEs for the time being.  Either I will get an upgrade for them, or pass them on to the next guildie that needs them.  The night as a whole saw me getting a bunch of really nice upgrades…  in addition to the boots I picked up a Helm of Precognition, an Warlord’s Unseeing Eye for offspec… and most importantly a 690 weapon upgrade Fel-Burning Blade.

Old School Feels

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While the gear upgrades were awesome… the real take away from the night was just how much fun I had.  The horde guild is named Facepull, and that should tell you something about the attitude and demeanor.  More than anything running with them… reminded me of the nights raiding with Duranub before Cataclysm.  It was an old school kind of fun, and even when we did something stupid… no one really got pissy about it.  We just kept pushing forward and making progress.  For having a bit of a strange balance we did really well making it up to Gorefiend before hitting a bit of a wall.  At that point we had a few members of the raid have to leave… one of which was a healer leaving us with a fairly unbalanced party.  The big surprise of the evening is I guess I did not realize that Nubzy was now one of the tanks.  I guess I knew her most as a Shadow Priest, so I guess in the back of my head I just assumed she was booming it up on her Druid.  Right now the plan is to gear out my offspec for tanking, but if we continue to need healing… I might change those plans at some point.

Paladin is the only class I have really successfully healed on… but that was back during  Burning Crusade/Wrath of the Lich King.  I know Paladin healing is far less whack-a-mole than it was… and for some people that is probably a good thing.  For me that really has no healing instincts left anymore from my Everquest days…  that is definitely a bad thing.  The only sort of healer I am is really the “mash button faster for more heals” kind.  Granted I did level as a healer in SWTOR on my Scoundrel, but good at healing companions is one thing…  good at healing people is a completely different one.  In Final Fantasy XIV I kinda fail at my Scholar and I am not exactly the sort of healer you really want on my White Mage either.  In any case I had a lot of fun, and the Sunday evening thing is something I could potentially get used to.  They don’t start until almost 8pm EST, which by that time I am always downstairs watching television anyways.  I managed to dps just fine while watching my shows last night, so in theory this is a decent fit.  I have to say I could get used to this raiding as a cow thing…  and the group of people seemed pretty damned cool as well.