MLG WoW 2010 Info

Its time for MLG World of Warcraft competition again people! That’s right! One of my favorite things to watch on the Circuit is back at Columbus 2010. With the start of the season, I wanted to let everyone know what is to come in C-Bus, in later the three regular season events, and the ever-anticipated MLG WoW Championships.

Starting with C-Bus, Columbus for short, we will have the top 16 teams from all over the world squaring off to claim the MLG World of Warcraft Columbus crown. As always, these games will be held in 3v3 format and we will be held round robin style. The teams will be separated into two groups of eight teams and the round robin style tournament will begin. Once two top teams from each group are found, they will move onto the double elimination championship bracket. The winner of championship bracket will take home a cool $15,750 in cash prizes.

Now after Columbus, we will see the circuit moving to Raleigh North Carolina. With this event, we see a few changes in the WoW and all events after coming our way. Lets start with the online qualifier. This is going to be held prior to the event and will be open to anyone wanting to play. The four top teams from the qualifier will earn invitations to the next MLG event. The top two teams will also win hotel stay for the next MLG event. Along with these four teams joining the MLG WoW Circuit, we will see the top four teams from the previous event, four teams MLG invites, and four open registration teams that will be determined by passes that will go on sale prior to the event. That makes a total of 16 teams that will be seen competing starting in MLG Raleigh.

MLG is going to determine who attends the 2010 WoW Championships by awarding ranked points after each event. These points will determine which of up to eight teams will compete in the 2010 WoW Championship and a chance to win that 2010 crown later in the season.

For everyone that can’t make it to events, MLG is also promising to kick it up a notch this year. They plan on doing this by giving us Live Stream competition like always, a brand new WoW Primetime Show, and select matches from the Online Qualifiers being shown from GotFrag.com and MMO-Champion.com.

Be sure to glue yourselves to the MLG PC Circuit this year and have fun watching old and new faces rise through the ranks and fight for the number one title each and every event. With C-Bus coming June 4-6 and the rest of the season bringing us new competitors, more coverage, and even more game play, I can’t wait! Be sure to check back all season long for up to date information and all your MLG needs right here, at MLGinsider.com.

Lets Talk WoW Strats

World of Warcraft does have strategies, but are a bit different from other games. It is different because of the fact that players only really know what map they are playing on a few minutes before each match starts and they really have no idea the type of team they are playing until the first game begins. They don’t know the type of team because they really have no idea what combination of character classes their opponents are until they are in game waiting for the gates to open and the battle to begin. Once they get to this point they can see their opponents portraits on their user interface and start talking strategy.

With that said, the first game is usually played to feel the opponent out. This means that they are playing to win, but are really seeing what the other team is bringing to the table and who the opponent is trying to kill first. This may change as games go on, but all this stuff goes into consideration.

There are some things that the players always know when playing. One of these things is that they know whom they are playing. The WoW teams on the circuit usually play the same combination’s of characters from tournament to tournament. This is like knowing that someone like Snip3Down is a going to most likely have a sniper in Halo 3.

WoW players also know the objects and obstacles on every map. Some maps have objects like pillars, boxes, and coffins to hide behind, jump on, and run around. Some obstacles could be things like the water fall in the middle of Dalaran Sewers that breaks line of site and prevents movement through the fall and the fire walls on each side of The Ring of Valor that hurts who ever walks through it equal to a percentage of the player’s total health per second.

Simply knowing how a map plays out and when to run, hide, or fight effects WoW strategies. It also helps to have players know how to break line of site and having a healer that knows how to keep it. This helps either stop a spell from hitting them or having a healer get a critical heal off to keep players alive. If line of site is broken, it can really change the tide of a game.

Another key component in any WoW strategy is crowd control. When there are no objects to hide behind in site or a way to break line of site, crowd control comes into play. Crowd control is when a character casts a spell or ability that limits an enemy’s ability to fight. This can be from slowing the speed an opponent can run or completely stopping them from doing anything by turning them into a sheep or giving them a kidney shot. This may seem minor, but if a healer gets sheeped they are unable to cast any heals for a few seconds and it can make it easier to win the game. This same concept comes into play if a DPS gets crowd controlled. If a DPS gets Crowd Controlled, it can stop half the damage being dealt by their team for a few seconds. This can let their opponent take complete advantage of the situation and win the game in seconds. Crowd control is also known as CC for later reference.

All these things go into effect with WoW strategies. With the 2010 MLG circuit fast approaching, be sure to check out these kinds of things going into play when watching World of Warcraft being played. Check back soon for more WoW content coming soon!

WoW Character Class Breakdown

Along with choosing a race, like Human or Troll, players also choose one class for their character to be from a choice of ten character classes. These ten classes are, the Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, Warrior, and Deathknight. These classes can be categorized into Healers, Damage Per Second, and Tanks. Healers have the ability to heal everyone and pets. Damage per second have the ability to do mass numbers of damage and kill very fast. Tanks can take huge amounts of damage and are very difficult to kill. In player vs. player, like you see at MLG WoW events, there are usually only Healers and DPS on teams because Tanks just drag out the game and do not do damage like DPS can.

Healer classes are Druids, Paladins, Priests, and Shaman. Death Knights can also heal but only Blood Speced Death Knights can and most of their spells only heal themselves. Healers have small and big heals and the magic used and cast time is less with smaller heals and more with bigger ones. The trick to being a good healer is to always keep a line of sight with your teammates and to choose when to cast bigger and smaller heals.

Damage Per Second, or DPS, can be played by ever class as long as you choose the right talent tree to go down. The classes you see played in MLG will change with the patches that come out for the game. Patches come out for the game to change up the over powered classes and give everyone a fair chance at winning.

Tanks are not played because they are just too hard to kill with their armor, defense rating, and huge amounts of health. They also do too little damage to be considered in competitive play. Look forward to more World of Warcraft articles coming soon!

World of Warcraft Rosters

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2	SK
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3	CompLexity
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5	Fnatic
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6	SK EU
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8	BHMS
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WoW Racial Ability Breakdown

World of Warcraft lets players create a character from a choice of ten races. These ten races are split between the Horde and Alliance armies. The Horde consists of five races. The Blood Elves, Orcs, Tauren, Trolls, and Undead. The Alliance consists of the other five races. The Draenei, Dwarves, Gnomes, Humans, and Night Elves. Each race has certain racial abilities that are special to them and them alone.

Some of these racial abilities can help in battle, while others help in different ways. I am only going to explain the racial abilities of all ten races that help during player versus player or PvP. This is because the 3v3 Arena death match game play at MLG World of Warcraft events are considered PvP.

Racial abilities can be passive abilities that are always active and do not need to be activated or they can be abilities needed to be activated by the player. Below is a list all ten races and their respective racial abilities that help in battle. Any racial abilities that do not help in battle are not listed.

Draenei have Gift of the Naaru, Heroic Presence, and Shadow Resistance. Gift of the Naaru is an instant cast that lets the player heal a target for 50 Health points + 15 more points for each level the character gains over 15 seconds. Heroic Presences which is a passive ability that increases the chance to hit with spells and attacks by 1% for all party members within 30 yards. Shadow Resistance is a passive ability that reduces the chance to be hit by Shadow spells by 2%.

Dwarves have Stoneform, Gun Specialization, and Frost Resistance. Stoneform is an instant cast that increases armor and removes all poison, disease, and bleed effects by 10% for 8 seconds.  Gun Specialization is a passive ability that increases the chance to critically hit with guns by 1%. Frost Resistance is a passive ability that reduces the chance to be hit by Frost spells by 2%.

Gnomes have Escape Artist, Expansive Mind, and Arcane Resistance. Escape Artist gives Gnomes the ability to escape the effects of any immobilization or movement speed reduction effects. Expansive Mind increases intellect by 5%. This 5% increase in intellect increases the Gnome’s mana, which gives them more magic to cast spells. The last ability is Arcane Resistance which reduces the chance of being hit by Arcane spells by 2%.

Humans have Perception, The Human Spirit, Every Man for Himself, Sword and Mace Specialization. Perception is a passive ability that increases stealth detection. The Human Spirit is a passive ability that increases spirit by 3%. Every Man for Himself is an instant cast ability that removes all movement impairing effects and all effects that cause players to loose control of their characters. The last ability is sword and mace specialization, which are passive abilities that increase specialization with swords and maces by 3.

Night Elves have Shadowmeld, Elusiveness, Quickness, and Nature Resistance. Shadowmeld is as an instant cast that lets the player go invisible so that enemies cannot detect them as easy. Players cannot move while this ability is in effect or it cancels. Elusiveness is a passive ability only available to rouge and druid Night Elves. It reduces the chance of enemies detecting the play while Stealthed or Shadowmelded. Quickness is a passive ability that reduces the chance of melee or ranged attacks hitting by 2%. The last Night Elf racial ability is Nature Resistance, which reduces the chance of getting hit by nature attacks by 2%.

Blood Elves have Arcane Torrent and Magic Resistance as their racial abilities. Magic Resistance reduces the chance that spells will hit by 2%. The Blood Elf’s last racial ability is Arcane Torrent, which has many different effects depending on what class uses it. Hunters, Mages, Paladins, Priests, and Warlocks receive 5 mana + 1% of their total mana points. Rogues receive 15 focus and Death Knights receive 15 runic power. Arcane Torrent also silences all enemies within 8 yards for 2 seconds for all classes. Silence is when an opponent’s spell casting is cancelled.

Orcs have Blood Fury, Hardiness, Command, and Axe Specialization. Blood Fury is an instant cast that does different things for each class. Death Knights, Warriors, Rogues, and Hunters gain 322-attack power at level 80, which lasts for 15 seconds. Shamans get their attack power and their spell damage increased for 15 seconds. Command is a passive ability that increases the damage dealt by Hunter, Warlock, and Death Knight pets by 5%. The last Orc racial ability is their axe specialization, which increases their axe and fist weapon specialization by 5%.

Tauren have War Stomp, Endurance, and Nature Resistance. War Stomp is an instant cast that stuns up to 5 enemies within 8 yards for 2 seconds. Endurance is a passive ability that increases a Tauren’s base health by 5%. The last racial ability for the Tauren is Nature Resistance, which is a passive ability and reduces the chance they will get hit by Nature spells by 2%.

Trolls have Berserking, Regeneration, Bow Specialization, and Da Voodoo Shuffle. Berserking is an instant cast that increases attack speed by 10% – 30% for 10 seconds. They get a 10% increase if they are at full health and 30% if they are badly hurt. Regeneration is a passive ability that speeds the regeneration of health by 10%. Bow Specialization is a passive ability that increases the chances to critically hit with their bow by 1%. Da Voodoo Shuffle is a passive ability that reduces the duration of all movement-impairing effects by 15%.

Undead have Will of the Forsaken, Cannibalize, and Shadow Resistance. Will of the Forsaken is an instant cast that removes charm, fear, and sleep effects. Cannibalize is an instant cast that allows undead to eat humanoid or undead corpses to regain 7% of their total health every 2 seconds for 10 seconds. The last racial ability the Undead have is Show Resistance, which is passive and reduces the chance to get hit by Shadow spell by 2%.

These racial abilities are the reason you see many different races from both armies fighting each other during MLG World of Warcraft tournaments. The only thing players are limited to at MLG tournaments is that teams can only consist of three characters from the same army. Players also need to choose from the pre made characters and races uploaded to the account they are using to play. This is because the server used to play at MLG events has pre made characters uploaded to the server by the Admins at MLG. The race that players may want might not be there and they might have to settle. I hope this helps you understand WoW racial abilities a little better. Watch for more on competitive WoW coming soon!

Understanding Competitive World of Warcraft

Many console gamers cannot get into the competitive World of Warcraft craze because it tends to be so fast and complex. Others may watch and simply become too confused to follow. If I could slow down the pace of a match, would you watch? Well, that is what I intend to do with this article. I will try and make World of Warcraft, also known as WoW, more understandable to anyone watching during MLG events.

World of Warcraft lets players create a character from a choice of ten races. These ten races are split between the Horde and Alliance armies. The Horde consists of five races, the Blood Elves, Orcs, Tauren, Trolls, and Undead. The Alliance consists of the other five races, the draenei, dwarves, gnomes, Humans, and night elves. Each of the races has certain racial abilities that are special to their respective race.

Some of these racial abilities can help in battle many players in battle. For instance, the Gnomes have Escape Artist and Expansive Mind as just two of their racial abilities. Escape Artist gives Gnomes the ability to escape the effects of any immobilization or movement speed reduction effect and Expansive Mind increases intellect by 5%. This 5% increase in intellect increases the Gnome’s mana, which gives them more magic to cast spells. All the other races have racial abilities that do different things to help them in battle as well. This is the reason you see many different races from both armies fighting each other during MLG World of Warcraft tournaments. The only catch is that teams can only consist of three characters from the same army, either Alliance or Horde.
Along with choosing a race, players also choose one class for their character from ten character classes. These ten classes are, the Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, Warrior, and Deathknight. Only certain races have the ability to be certain classes. For instance, the Blood Elf is the only Horde race with the ability to be a Paladin and the Draenei is the only Alliance race with the ability to be a Shaman.

One misconception of World of Warcraft is that players only run around leveling their characters. This is true, but only until players hit level 80, which is the current level cap in World of Warcraft. After players hit level 80 the goal is to get the best gear they can and fight each other in battlegrounds and arenas (player vs. player or PvP) or complete end game dungeons (player vs. environment or PvE). It is the player’s preference when choosing between PvP and PvE.  Some players even do both! In MLG events, characters are outfitted with gear from both the PvP and PvE aspects of the game.

Another misconception made by people when thinking of World of Warcraft competitive play is that players use their own characters to play at MLG. Contrary to popular belief, players do not use their own characters. MLG actually has premade characters of each race and class that are already at level 80. All these characters have the same season 5 PvP and season 5 PvP gear equivalent on every computer. This makes sure all teams are equally matched when playing at MLG tournaments.

There are also strategies used during the game. There are many different class combinations that can be used. Players usually go with a combination of one healer class and two DPS classes. DPS is short for damage per second. This allows teams to keep each other alive while dealing a great amount of damage. It has also been known for teams to use two healers and one DPS to catch opponents off guard. Healer classes include the Priest, Shaman, Druid, and Paladin. Any class can play DPS if it gets set up the right way.

Another important part to any World of Warcraft strategy is crowd control. Most classes can do this. Crowd control makes an enemy player loose control of their character for a few seconds. Some examples of crowd control are Mages using polymorph and Rogues using kidney shot. Polymorph changes the enemy into a sheep for a few seconds and kidney shot stuns an enemy for a few seconds.
There are also pillars and other objects on each arena that players can hide behind. This helps players run away to get healed by their healer or heal themselves with bandages. They also drink so they can get back mana for spell casting or healing. These pillars and other objects can also break a spell caster’s line of site. This line of site is needed to cast a spell on their target. Whether the target is an enemy or their teammate, both spell casters and healers need this line of site. If it is broken before or during a spell casting, the spell will be cancelled and will not be cast. This is why the pillars and objects on maps are an important part of any strategy.

Most people think it would be easy to just take out the healer so their enemies cannot get healed. This is true some times but not all the time. Most of the time players like to try and single out a player behind a pillar or object where games could end in seconds because the enemy healer may not have a line of site. The player that gets singled out may be a healer or DPS. Games can also be all out wars in wide-open playing field and last the full 20-minute time limit. Most battles depend on the combination of classes and teams that are battling and which arena is being played.

MLG World of Warcraft tournaments are played in 3v3 arena matches. Each match is a best of 5 series. However, all 5 games are played because MLG plays a round robin style tournament until Championship Sunday. The game type is 3v3 death match. Teams can only change their characters and class combinations during a 5-minute break after games 3 and 5.

World of Warcraft is fast pace and can be hard to understand with out knowledge towards the game. Then again, most games are hard to understand without proper knowledge. I hope that this helps shine some light on any confusion you may have had about World of Warcraft competitive play.