Radikal Noise link added

Radikal is a mage who is well known and respected for his PTR duels. He made a PTR movie around the same times as Ming's. I really enjoyed that movie. It is much easier to follow than Ming's since it is all in first person and I personally enjoyed the music. He doesn't do really heavy editting, but the intro is nice and things move along very smoothly. This is the type of movie you want to watch if you are switching classes and want to learn and get some tips on how to play a WE mage against a variety of classes. The video quality is good so you can easily see what is going on, and the play is very technical.

The biggest complaint about Radikal's movies on WCM is that he jumps to much:

"U JUPM 2 MUCH U SUK - rating 1/5"

He has a newer PTR movie out as well. I wasn't able to watch the whole thing, but it is in the same style as the first. A LOT of the opponents in both movies with be familiar to you if you have followed PvP movies for awhile. Ming, Unsouled, Akrios(Eviscerate), Dahis, Spoh, GC, Azael, etc. etc. IMO, it makes things a little more interesting when you are familiar with both opponents and you aren't quite certain which one of them is going to come out on top. (Although many of the outcomes I saw were somewhat predictable just from the class matchups themselves)

Again, if you are looking for some entertaining mage world PVP with some worthy opponents, then Drifting 3 is up your alley. If you are looking for a more technical movie in a clinical dueling enviroment for educational purposes then Radikal's movies are what you are looking for. He even gives fight-by-fight commentary for his more recent movie - something I got flamed for, but something which I think is appreciated by people looking to learn something about the class.

Not everyone is a vet, some people are fresh rerolls or players looking for tips. What's wrong with helping people? Information should be given freely and without flames, IMO.

Radikal's site also includes other important info for mages, such as gear changes or additions, an evolving strategy guide, and more.

Check it out!

Good World PvP Does Exist.

Adding on to earlier thoughts here. Yes, I still think that you really can't argue that you are more likely to find better opponents in the BGs in shorter time than you are able to find in World PvP. I don't think any reasonable person can really disagree with that.

However, that does NOT mean you can't find good world PvP fights. You just have to be incredibly more patient. When I got Chromed to L60 on Scilla I set out to make a world PvP movie. I mean, that is the whole reason I made Chromed to begin with. I wanted to make a glamourous World PvP movie. But, by this time BGs and the reward system was in full swing. There just wasn't much world PvP out there to be found. Of good quality anyway.

I spent two days ganking people on the Menethil Harbor boats. I had a lot of 1v2s and 1vNs (because of all of the lower level people adding in, heh) but when I went to examine the clips later closely what I saw were a bunch of people not fighting back or fighting back poorly. People who were AFK. People who just turned aimlessly doing nothing.

Let me tell you exactly when I gave up on trying to make world PvP movie. I spotted a L60 dwarf priest fishing on one of the boats, he had some gray 30ish toon standing next to him. If you recall, Chromed was using a prep dagger build that had blade flurry. So, I popped blade flurry, stealthed, and ambushed the dwarf priest. I oneshot both of them. The ambush and white hit killed the priest, the blade flurry damage killed the graybie.

I oneshot a L60 priest with a single ambush. The guy had no armor factor and around 2K HP unbuffed or something.

So, that is why the ICOBN series is almost entirely in the BGs (there are maybe a couple of world PvP clips in there).

The whole reason why I'm bringing this up is because a mage named Drifting contacted me and I went to go check out his blogsite http://worldofdrifting.com/. He has some of his movies posted there so I checked out the most recent one. Rogue and mage movies have always been the most entertaining movies for me to watch and Drifting's movie delivers in a big way, IMO.

It's all world PvP, but he doesn't just fight clueless fresh L70s in here. He actually fights people on his gear level that know how to fight back. This is what a world PvP movie should be, IMO. And, I can fully appreciate the patience he had to display while making this movie. You can tell he was looking for good competition by the clips he choose to include. It must have taken forever to get this many good world PvP clips. Well worth the download, IMO. Highly suggested by Mi... erm, I mean Oozo.

I'll be checking out his other movies later when I get the time. BTW, I'm kind of thinking of doing a "blogs or movies of the day type of thing." Something similar was suggested by Drifting himself.

I'm thinking it might be a good idea because the other day someone mentioned "Raddy's blog" in that ugly Ming v. Oozo thread. Radikal is a well known PTR mage. (His first PTR movie was great, BTW. Better than Ming's IMO for presentation.) And, I believe he is working on or has just put out another PTR movie. Anyway, it took me forever to find his blog via a googling expedition. It might be nice to have kind of a central hub for blogs like that.

I'm not looking for a huge audience, of course, but just for people who might share my tastes and sense of humor.

Until later.

Oh, and be sure to check out Venick's blog for a rather interesting arena screenshot. WTG, Venick! Stick it to the man! ;)

PvE Servers vs. PvP Servers

As mentioned before I've played on both as a rogue so I feel I have some insight into this subject that some others might lack. I levelled Chromed from 0 to 60 on Scilla (PvP). During that whole time I got ganked once. It was by a rogue 8 levels higher than me when I was at 25% health, poisoned, and fighting a spider near the river in Hillsbrad. It was my own stupid fault for fighting out in an exposed area.

Once again, I got ganked once going from 0 to 60.

Playing a rogue on a world PvP server = EZmode when compared to other classes. All you have to be is somewhat intelligent in where and how you fight and be aware of your surroundings. See a bunch of dead MOBs laying around? OMG, there might be somebody nearby! Never fight in the same place for a long period of time. Move around. Pull stuff to out of the way areas that are hard to see. You can avoid fights you don't want and lay in to people you do want to fight as a rogue.

Now, on the other hand. If you are a nonstealth class and you levelled up doing world quests (rather than just instance grinding in complete safety). Then, you have my respect. You have probably been jumped numerous times by rogues and other classes while half health and fighting a mob.... and that shit... will toughen you up.

/hats off

But, for a ROGUE to talk like they are all badass just because they play on a PVP is absolutely 100% laughable. I'm talking to you here, Ming. Play a nonstealth class on a PvP server and then you can talk about how rough and tough it is. But, if you are a rogue, just keep your mouth shut IMO.

Now, with that said. Cross-server BGs mix PvE and PvP servers and I will freely admit that, overall, the better PvPers DO come from PvP servers. When I actually sit down to make my cuts, I'm surprised by how many people show up from Arthas and Mannoroth. I don't have the actual percentages, but it's significant. People on PvP servers tend to be better at PvP than people on PvE servers. I'm convinced of that.

That does NOT mean that there are no great PvPers on PvE servers. When I killed all of those PvP server players in the BGs, I wonder if their last words were something like: "How could this be? How.. could.. I have... been... killed by.... a .... PvE.... player..... gahhhhck."

Probably not, but the image of that amuses me nonetheless.

Response to Ming's Libelous Post

Of course, if your name is Oozo, who doesn’t seem to understand 1900 this late in the season is not what it used to be, who loves to gank mediocre rank players missing key cooldowns in BGs, who is afraid of real competition in arena and only plays PUG BGs, who plays on a PVE server, rogues are fine! - Ming

1 "1900 this late in the season is not what it used to be"

First of all, most of the footage for Oozo Lives was taken from well over a month ago. One of the warlocks I killed easily in that movie currently has a 2300+ 2v2 rating. Most of the opponents in Neilyo's movie are 1600ish rating and lower. 1600 this late in the season is not what it used to be, I hear.

2 "mediocre rank players missing key cooldowns in BGs"

And that is worse than ganking less than mediocre players missing key cooldowns in World PvP? Ming, World PvP is far weaker than BG PvP. It's not even a contest. There is no argument to be had. But, hell... don't take my word for it.

idk why people cry about bg scenes, a bg scene as long as your not being helped is more credible than a world pvp scene in chain/1vN killing because most of the opponets are more aware & alert about your prescence, and more willing to fight.

In world pvp a lot of the people dont even demount before they die or they are noobs going to 5/10 mans or autorunning while minimized / doing something else. - Neilyo

What can I say? I agree with you on this one 100%, Neilyo. I mean it's almost like you are talking about that 6.5K HP warlock you killed that didn't even dismount until he was almost dead, am I right?

3 "who plays on a PVE server"

I levelled Chromed 0-60 on Scilla, a PvP server. I later moved Chromed to Medivh to consolidate all my toons on one server. I had to transfer them to a PvE server because you can't transfer toons from PvE to PvP. I did this transfer after cross-server BGs came out. Also, I had many more toons on Medivh so it was much less expensive to move everyone there, anyway.

Cross-server BGs totally ruined any and all PvP community that Scilla had. World PvP became non-existant. Everyone was doing PvP in the BGs. Scilla, a PVP server, was for all intents and purposes just like a PvE server when it came down to PvPing.

But, none of that really matters much. I'm not sure if Ming is purposefully being retarded here or not, but cross-server BGs include both PvE and PvP servers. The majority of people I fight come from Arthas and Mannoroth. Look them up.

Isn't this "comes from a PvE server" just a hollow and childish insult anymore? I mean World PvP is the weakest variety of PvP you can get. Neilyo has got my back on this one and after watching his last movie, it's obvious he knows this from experience. Furthermore, the people you encounter in the BGs and the Arenas are a mixture of PvE and PvP Players.

Grow up, Ming.

4 "rogues are fine!"

Here is the libel. I'm going to quote myself from all the way back when I first introduced my last movie as Oozo on WCM and emphasis the key statements. This was posted way before any of the flames I have gotten recently. This has been my position throughout all of this time. You can see that many people have been flaming me based upon outright lies and distortions. Read, actually READ what I say here.

http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=40544

As far as content, I've always *tried* to find the hardest competition available to me. If I see a former R14 or some guy running around in gladiators I'm going to stalk them and try to single them out. This can be a very frustrating process. Sometimes I never get them alone. Sometimes I do but one or the other of us gets zerged during the fight. Sometimes I do and the GD battleground shuts down during our fight.

Nonetheless, I was able to isolate several R14s and gladiator-geared people for this movie. Now, these are not the best of the best. The best arena-geared people I fought in this movie came from around the 1800-2100 arena rating range with 100-200 points of resilience.

So, (in theory) they aren't the best... but they aren't complete slouches either.

It's not from a lack of wanting or trying that I don't have people with higher arena ratings in this movie. In fact, I actually isolated the team leader of what was at the time the #1 5v5 team in my battlegroup for a 1v1 while in WSG. That "fight" didn't make it into this movie, but it will make it into my next movie.

In any case, I didn't really have many problems competing with people in the 1800-2100 range of gear, in general. Sure, I lost some fights... but I won most of them.

I'm not saying their isn't a problem with rogues 1v1 in the high resilience game. I think there is. But, it doesn't seem to show up until the 200-300 range perhaps.

As far as rogues sucking in 5v5. Well, rogues have *always* kind of sucked in group v. group battles when compared to what other classes can do in those situations.

If you are curious about the guy I was referring to up there. The team leader of the #1 5v5 team in my battlegroup... He ran away from me. I had him isolated for a pure 1v1 and the best PvPer in my battlegroup (according to arena ratings) ran away from me to get help from his teammates. If you watch the intro of Oozo Lives (I know, I know.. the pain, the horror, it hurts! Please, stop the pain!) he is the guy running away on the horse. He's not going to be in my next movie, however. Because there is not going to be a next Oozo movie. At least not in this game...

Why do people think I point to Ming's PTR movie as the best "educational" TBC movie released yet? Do you think I would do that if I didn't agree with it's major premise?

Let me quote myself again:

I'm not saying their isn't a problem with rogues 1v1 in the high resilience game. I think there is.

I THINK THERE IS. I THINK THERE IS. I THINK THERE IS. I THINK THERE IS.

Can I be any clearer than this people? Seriously, can I? If you think I've been running around everywhere saying "rogues are fine" you are either dishonest, or you have fallen for the lies and distortions that dishonest people have been spreading about me. You have been duped. You have been lied to.

I know I'm abrasive and sometimes I snap at people unfairly. And if that is the case with you, then I truly do apologize. But look at what I have to put up with? I have people flat out lying about me. Defaming me. Distorting everything I say at nearly ever turn. Yesterday, someone pretending to me posted on Ming's blog under my name. Then, not much later Pyrrho takes this fake quote which is NOT from me and puts it up on his blog to ridicule me. Look at my blog entry below for info on that.

And now, I'm curious. How many other places have I had someone impersonating me, assuming my name, and saying things that I've never said? Yes, I get cranky and yes, I start assuming the worst in people. Wouldn't you, if you had people pulling this shit on you?

"As far as rogues sucking in 5v5. Well, rogues have *always* kind of sucked in group v. group battles when compared to what other classes can do in those situations."

What I am saying here is that rogues DO have a problem in 5v5. But, that it is a deep-rooted problem that has existed for a long time and is most likely very difficult to fix.

Ming what you posted is libel. It is a lie of omission. It is defamation of character. Are you familiar with these terms?

I would like you to correct your blog entry to say that I think rogues are fine in the BGs and the non-high resilience game, but are not fine in the high resilience game and I would like you to issue a formal apology to me.

I'm not threatening a lawsuit here. I am not a litigious person. You might want to be careful what you say about others though, because you just might run afoul of someone who is.

I am asking this out of common courtesy for you to set the record straight. If you don't change it and apologize, that says all there needs to be said about your character.

Death is not the End

As I said before, I really quit Oozo about a month ago and starting working on levelling an old shadow priest alt I had sitting around.

What typically inspires me to make a movie is music. That might sound a bit strange considering how many people hate my taste in music. ;) I'll pop in some old CD on the way to work and catch some song I had forgotten about and think to myself, "man, that would be a cool song for a movie."

Well, a lot of times these songs I pop in and think would be great for a movie have female lead vocals or vocals that refer to females. I mean, playing a song where some eerie female voice repeats "Give me love, so that I can kill" would not really be appropriate for an Oozo movie. "GIB ME DA LUB, SO DAT I KIN GIT 2 KILLIN" Nah, it just doesn't work. So, I made a female alt with the intention of someday using her so I could use these songs that I like so much for PvP videos.

And thus was born Iwl. A female undead priest.

Over the last month I've been levelling her and doing PvP so I can learn the class. I decided to take clips I had from L66-L68 and make a movie out of it. Again, the main reason here was the music. If you like my taste in music (all 2 of you) then you will probably like the songs in the movie.

I posted this movie with no name recognition knowing that not many people are interested in subL70 movies but it's gotten some play with mixed reviews. Here is a typical bad review:

"OMG I LIK TACHNO, U LIK TACHNO? LATS HAF GEY SECXCX - rating 1/5"

I'm not making that up, BTW. That is actually rating and comment from a PREMIUM Warcraftmovies member. That place really is a joke. If they had any serious competition that actually moderated and banned their members for making comments like the one above, they'd be out of business.

I'm not sure how much longer I'll be with WoW. I mean, if one of those beta invites comes in, I'm gone!

But, until then the plan is to keep on working on the SP. I'll probably do another movie or two with her if I don't get any invites.

Here is her first movie.

Death is not the End

HOPE U LIEK TEH GEY SECKXXX TACHNO

People just don't seem to get it.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=109901382&sid=1&pageNo=1

I'm not saying my movie is better than Neilyo's. It was more entertaining, obviously, than mine. That is fine.

The problem is that there is a group of hypocritical elitists who slammed my movie by insulting the opponents I had in it.

"1900-2100 rated players are scrubs"
"ur opponents all sucked"

etc. etc.... and then to see THESE SAME VERY PEOPLE call Neilyo's movie "the best TBC" movie when he is a 2300+ rating rogue killing people he SEVERELY OUTGEARS and out matches is a bit too much hypocrisy for me to handle.

Fact: There are only two people in Neilyo's movie with a rating higher than 1700. The best player has a rating of just over 2K.

Why are MY opponents held to a higher standard than the opponents of a 2300+ rated rogue? THAT IS THE QUESTION AND THE ISSUE AT HAND. It's a simple question that the hypocrites don't want to answer.

"All you do is spam hemorrhage and eviscerate" - total bullshit, I use all my abilities appropriately. My openers are textbook.

Here is an opener I used in my last movie that I never see anyone do:

Premed>CS>Shiv>5ptEA>Gouge>...

All I do is hemo and eviscerate, my ass. I guess the problem is that these so-called elites can't even understand what I'm doing when they watch my movies. I took way too much for granted by not including my combat box in my last movie. I thought people would understand what they were seeing. But, a lot of rogues simply can't tell what is going on by watching a movie. They miss details, and get things wrong constantly. Different openers and different strategies for different classes.

But, all they can see is hemo and eviscerate? They suck. Not me.

Thoughts on the Tosan 4 (preview)

Tosan4 (preview)

Tosan,

This is in no way a flame directed towards you. You are very upfront about the type of movies you are putting together. You want quick, fast action. You admit that your goal is not necessarily to put tough opponents in or to show your skill. Hell, you even admit that the warrior in the first clip got on an alt and asked you to stop fighting because he wanted to farm elementals.

This is directed to the rogue community, in general.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q u o t e:
PvP footage was excellent
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The editting, pace, and action were all excellent but some of his opponents were extremely lacking. The first warlock only has 8300 HPs. That is absolutely horrible for a demo warlock. I've never seen a L70 warlock with that low of a HP pool. Now, the protection warrior did have 13K HP, but as mentioned above he was far more interested in fighting water elementals than other people. His mainhand was a 1.6 speed blue weapon and he had a max dmg range of 250 dmg.

The second clip has Tosan attacking the half-health warrior while he is fighting a water elemental and he gets cheapshotted by a rogue. That rogue goes down amazingly fast. Yes, because the rogue only had 40% health when he attacked Tosan to begin with. Quite frankly, this scene would have never made it past the cutting room floor for any of movies because they weren't full health and one of them was fighting an NPC. But, it looks great with flashy editting.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q u o t e:
Ganking in world pvp is basically the only way you can 1vN anymore nowadays with our sad dmg output compared to high HP :( Even bad players are hard to multi-fight nowadays cause we can't thistle tea triple backstab CB evis the first 1 to death lol ;P The good ole days!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

QFT. World PvP is about the weakest PvP you can get (people who don't want to PvP, people in PvE gear not PvP gear). However it does open up the possibilities for 1vNs and string kills since they are weaker opponents.

Again, you are very upfront about this Tosan. It's the rogue community, in general, I'm disatisfied with (check my new sig!). Can't wait for the full version.

Addition: Needed to add this since some people insist on reading too much into things.

Saying that some of Tosan's opponents suck is not the same thing as saying Tosan sucks. Tosan has got skillz, IMO. <3

-

Why I hate people (reason #346)

Being a KB-vulture isn't exclusive to the rogue class. All classes have their talentless, no skill asshats. However, stealth and sprint makes it a bit easier for a rogue or feral druid to do it than some other classes.

I have literally had rogues and druids burn a sprint just so they could have that chance at an oh-so-important KB, heh. They are literally the bane of my existence and I hate them with a #@$ing passion. They have ruined so many good clips out of their pointless need to be at the top of the killboard it makes me want to rip their heads off IRL.

Just kidding... of course.


For the HQ version: hate.wmv

For those not wanting to d/l the HQ version, that is my L67 shadow priest against this warlock: Nicsnock

That same druid did that to me twice in a row. The other fight was a 70 mage. In fact, the whole day so far has had fights ruined by druids and hunters. No rogues though!

What Vanish Bug?*

(*actually applies to any two events that happen too closely together)


For HQ version - vanish.wmv

If the hunter's mark hit first, then the vanish should have cleared it. If the vanish hit first, then I should have never got hit with hunter's mark to begin with. The hunter was way too far away to see me while vanished, even with track hidden up.

It seems to me that when two events happen within x seconds of each other the Blizzard game engine (out of fairness for people with low latencies - this is what the global cooldowns are all about too, ladies and gents) calls it a draw and views them as simultaneous events and says that both events happened. BUT, it seems that vanish gets the short end of the stick in these situations an inordinate amount of times.

In other words, the vanish event usually gets #@#$ed, but not always.

I've had situations where my KS was "simultaneous" to another rogue's vanish and their vanish is the one that held true. I've vanished a warrior's charge and cheapshotted him. However, it seems that the vanish is the event that gets screwed 90% of the time.

Now, this doesn't only effect vanish. I'm sure many of you could of swore you got that kick in before the polymorph and sure enough, after you go back and check the combat log you did get the kick in before the polymorph and it even says you interrupted it! Yet, you still became a sheep.

Simultaneous gouges anyone? Simultaneous kidney shot right after the simultaneous gouge? Seriously what are the chances you both did the same action twice in a row at the same exact time?

One of you was faster, there is no doubt about it. The WoW game engine just can't recognize that, and willingfully so (fairness to those with low latency, remember).

So, when your vanish shows up before the hunter's mark in your combat log what does it mean? Does it mean that you were really first, but the game engine is being fair to other guy by giving a time cushion where it considers your two events as simultaneous. Or does it put the events up there in alphabetical order? Hrm... abcdefgh... Maybe it's reverse alphabetical order? Kick...polymorph. Hrm... Or maybe it just makes a call to its psuedo-random number generator: /random 0 1

The world may never know, but if Blizzard makes this into an esport stuff like this is going to determine some outcomes. INSTANT REPLAY PLEASE!