Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Guide to Warsong Gulch


A valley bordering Ashenvale Forest and the Barrens, Warsong Gulch hosts a constant battle between the Horde and the Alliance, Orcs use their Warsong Mill to cut lumber reaped from Ashenvale, provoking the night elves of Silverwing Hold, Eager to aid their allies, members of every race in Azeroth rush to the Gulch to lend sword, or spell, to the conflict.

Level Bracket

  • 10–19
  • 20–29
  • 30–39
  • 40–49
  • 50–59
  • 60–69
  • 70–79
  • 80

How to Win

Warsong Gulch is a basic Capture the flag game just like any other game. Each team must capture their opponents flag 3 times in order to win. In order to score points you must pick up the opposing teams flag and carry it back to your home base and cap it while your flag remains untouched by the enemy. Warsong Gulch can currently be as long as it wants to be, there is no set timer for Warsong Gulch to end, therefore a game could go on forever. In patch 3.2 there will a time limit set on Warsong Gulch, this time limit will be 20 minutes, whoever has the most points in 20 minutes will win the game. If the score is tied, whoever capped the flag last will win the game. If the score is 0 to 0 it will be a draw.

Extra Power Ups in the Battleground include:

  • Image:BerserkingPowerUp.jpg Berserking - Increases all damage caused by 30%, all damage taken by 10% and increases your size by 10%. Lasts 1 min.
  • Image:RestorationPowerUp.jpg Restoration - Restores 10% of your health and mana every second for 10 seconds. Attacking or being attacked will cancel the effect.
  • Image:SpeedPowerUp.jpg Speed - Increases movement speed by 100% for 10 seconds.

Power ups can be found in the small houses in the battleground field and inside the tunnels of each base.

Achievements


Capture the Flag
Personally carry and capture the flag in Warsong Gulch.
Warsong GulchBoth10Warsong Gulch

Frenzied Defender
Return 5 flags in a single Warsong Gulch battle.
Warsong GulchBoth10Warsong Gulch

Ironman
In a single Warsong Gulch battle, carry and capture the flag 3 times without dying.
Warsong GulchBoth10Warsong Gulch

Master of Warsong Gulch
Complete the Warsong Gulch achievements listed below.
Warsong GulchHorde25Warsong Gulch

Master of Warsong Gulch
Complete the Warsong Gulch achievements listed below.
Warsong GulchAlliance25Warsong Gulch

Not In My House
In a single Warsong Gulch battle, kill 2 flag carriers before they leave the Warsong Flag Room.
Warsong GulchHorde10Warsong Gulch

Not In My House
In a single Warsong Gulch battle, kill 2 flag carriers before they leave the Silverwing Flag Room.
Warsong GulchAlliance10Warsong Gulch

Not So Fast
In Warsong Gulch, kill a player who is under the effects of the speed power-up.
Warsong GulchBoth10Warsong Gulch

Persistent Defender
Return 50 flags as a defender in Warsong Gulch.
Warsong GulchBoth10Warsong Gulch

Supreme Defender
Kill 100 flag carriers in Warsong Gulch.
Warsong GulchAlliance10Warsong Gulch

Supreme Defender
Kill 100 flag carriers in Warsong Gulch.
Warsong GulchHorde10Warsong Gulch

The Conqueror
Raise your reputation values in Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin and Alterac Valley to Exalted.

Horde20Player vs. Player

The Justicar
Raise your reputation values in Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin and Alterac Valley to Exalted.

Alliance20Player vs. Player

Warsong Expedience
Win Warsong Gulch in under 7 minutes.
Warsong GulchBoth10Warsong Gulch

Warsong Gulch Perfection
Win Warsong Gulch with a score of 3 to 0.
Warsong GulchBoth10Warsong Gulch

Warsong Gulch Veteran
Complete 100 victories in Warsong Gulch.
Warsong GulchBoth10Warsong Gulch

Warsong Gulch Victory
Win Warsong Gulch.
Warsong GulchBoth10Warsong Gulch

Warrior Guides

Blogging is Difficult when wearing Plate Armor and a Shield

Warrior Wednesday: The Basics, Protection Edition

Warrior Wednesday: Patch 3.2 and You (Belated Edition)

Warrior Wednesday: The Basics: DPS Edition.(Now with screwed up websites!)

The Resto Druid Guides

The Resto Druid Guide, Speccing your Druid

You and patch 3.2: A resto druid guide

The Resto Guide: Healing the Tanks


The Resto Druid Guide: Healing the Raid

Warrior Wednesday: The Basics: DPS Edition.(Now with screwed up websites!)


I promised, and here it is. Slightly delayed because of trouble on our main website, but here it is: The Warrior DPS stat focus guide. Some similarities are here between gearing as a DPS warrior and a Prot Warrior, but there are obvious differences in what you should be concentrating on.

Firstly, there is the choice of which talent tree you want to specialize in; Either Fury or Arms. Arms is generally regarded as the PvP tree with Fury being PvE, but either one can be viable in both situations. Fury is thought of as easier to play currently in patch 3.1 because of Arms needing to manage a debuff timer, watch for procs, and keeping one ability on cooldown. All that needs to be done for Fury is to keep certain abilities on cooldown while spamming one ability and watching for just one proc. Oh, they get a cooldown too, but Arms, instead of having a cooldown, brings a debuff that really helps other melee classes with bleed effects (which includes themselves). Overall, one's DPS isn't higher than the other, so just choose which one you want to play.

Anyway, as I mentioned in my Protection Guide, you want to concentrate on certain stats first, as they are the most important. For a DPS warrior, the stats you should concentrate on are as follows:

1. Hit Rating!: Trying to hit a big bad boss with your gigantic weapon(s) isn't very effective if you can't even hit him in the first place! For your yellow damage, the hit cap is always 263 hit rating, which translates into 8.00%. Semi-deep into the fury tree, there is a talent that, for 3 points, chops off 3% from that percentage, leaving you with 165 rating needed. Unfortunately, most Arms warriors will not take this as it is still relatively easy to reach 263. As for white damage, it is near impossible to reach the cap, so it is recommended that you just stay above this soft hit cap without going far over it.

2. Expertise!: Slightly less important than hit, but still recommended to have is your expertise capped at 6.50%, or approximately 26 expertise skill, which translates to 214 rating. Like the Protection tree, our two DPS talent trees have their own certain talents that allow us to lower this cap. The Arms tree has Strength of Arms while Fury has Weapon Mastery. Strength of Arms lowers the rating cap to 181, while Weapon Mastery lowers it to 148. Also, if you refer back to my Protection guide, certain races gain even more expertise through weapon racials. Any way it's looked at, being expertise capped means that all level 80 raid bosses won't dodge your attacks when you are standing behind them. Very helpful when you're trying to kill them, right?

3. (Arms Warriors Only) Armor Penetration!: All while you are gearing up as an arms warrior and trying to become hit and expertise capped, you want to have your armor penetration as high as possible until you have reached 100%. This is currently very difficult to accomplish, even with fully gemmed and enchanted gear, but being around the 40% range is fine through gear stats and gems (trinket procs work very well too, pushing you up into the 90%'s). Luckily, you get 10% from being in Battle Stance already.

4. Strength/Crit!: Once an Arms Warrior reaches a high enough Armor Penetration percentage, or once a Fury Warrior becomes hit and expertise capped, while maintaining these values as much as possible, they will start to focus their gear more towards strength and crit rating. Not only do you get 2 attack power per point of strength, but more crit means more chances for your procs to happen if you're Arms and even more damage for Fury. Please note that you should ONLY start focusing on strength and crit if your Armor Pen is high enough if you're an Arms warrior and if you are hit and expertise capped either way.

DPS Warriors can be very powerful forces to have in a raid, especially for Arms with their debuff. Fury is just as good as it is easy for them to interrupt spellcasting as well as bring immediate high dps with a cooldown and relatively easy priority rotations. Either way, a raid will always benefit from having a DPS Warrior because of their unique abilities and their impressive plate-armored survivability.

Next week, I guess I'll talk about some recent Patch 3.2 changes that have popped up since my last Patch post, and maybe more. Maybe. :) Until then,