Spicing things up

Today's theme is 'keeping WoW fresh'. Been doing a lot to distract myself lately, since the arena grind is at a standstill until we're done selling teams, and both my warlock and rogue are just turtling points til next season.

I'm leveling Grimtock (granted slowly) with the pipe dream that I may be able to extend APV's empire into the grimy scene of Silver Hand horde arena. Catching up to the gear curve doesn't conscern me nearly as much as it does my colleagues, but I expect to top out at 1600 with eternia's hordelock and valkring's mage (already 70 and 67, respectively). I'm not much of a quester, so I'm just doing my usual 61-67 leveling strat of grinding Wolves and harpies in AV, accumulating massive amounts of bonus honor on the way up. Might be 70 before season 3 hits, but only time will tell.

Another distraction I'm going to start indulging is firing the old Heroic Farm Crew back up. Apparently, the 2.3 PvP trinkets available for purchase via heroic badges are gamebreaking, so there's no reason not to stockpile badges now. Already have 10 leftover from my glory days, so 3-6 badges a day, I should be at 50 by the time 2.3 rolls around. If push comes to shove, I hear Karazhan bosses will be dropping badges as well, so even if I'm short of 50, I'm confident I'll be able to sew up the trinket within the first week.

Those trinkets look nice, but I just can't see this 'return to burst' thing other arena junkies are talking about. I understand that we're at the resilience cap, and crit numbers are still growing, but Blizzard has done a good job with itemization to prevent a return to crit-based pvp. Adding in an emphasis on Armor-piercing, for example, or my personal prediction: spell haste, are great ways to bring damage increases to pvp without relying on crit.

I've managed to convince one of my closest WoW friends to rejoin the red-headed step child of BG9, and pending leveling, Valkring's shaman should be an integral part of my mythical 4dps 5v5. Valk's return to Silver Hand really opens the door for a LOT of matrices I never thought I'd get to play, and I'm looking forward to trying out Shaman/Warlock, Rogue/Warlock, Rogue/Rogue, and (hordeside) Warlock/Mage with him. Finding dedicated players is the best thing you can do for yourself in today's arena scene, and even if these matrices don't work out, Valkring is a close friend of mine, and I'm sure we'll have a ball. Heck, we might even get to try out some 3v3's with Eternia's alts. I'd love to try out warrior/shaman/rogue. Terrible matrix is terrible, but if Dahis and Minti can get Warrior/Rogue to 2,200 (granted, they climbed on BDF, not BG9), there's no reason we shouldn't be able to float 1850 once we get our alts geared up.

Keep it fresh, kids. Battleground Daily quests are going to be a riot. Heroic instance is heroic. Alt pvp is a good dose of humility. And apparently, Ocktoberfest has come to WoW. You stay classy, San Diego.