Not much to catch up on here since I changed my routine around slightly. Well, I suppose that in and of itself is something to talk about, eh?
So, basically what I was doing before was a PPL split coupled with a single day of strength work. This is similar to popular templates like PHAT/PHUL with some slight differences - both of those split up the strength work into two days, Upper and Lower body, and PHUL also combines the hypertrophy work into two days (Upper and Lower again). My strength day routine was based on the progression outlined in 5/3/1 which basically means that on your 1 RM test day you do 5 reps at a lower weight, 3 weights at a little heavier, than as many reps as you can at your new weight.
I didn't feel like I was progressing enough using this scheme, likely because I was lacking the rest of the program's strength work and so the amount of reps I was doing wasn't enough. So I switched from that to doing what PHAT/PHUL recommend which is 3-4 sets of 3-5 reps. I started off with 4 sets of 3 reps on Monday, and for progression I was thinking I'd do this:
1. 4 sets of 3 reps
2. Repeat if fail, otherwise:
3. 4 sets of 4 reps
4. Repeat if fail, otherwise:
4. Add weight, start back at #1
Hopefully that helps me get stronger!
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Conquest Points
I had a couple hours of time to play last night so I queued up for Ashran and did a few BGs while I waited. It took about an hour for it to pop (ugh), but once inside I did a couple of events and got about 500 Broken Bones. When you win an event, it rewards all participating players with 125 Conquest Points and 250-500 Honor Points (based on location). I have no idea how often the events take place, but it seemed like the started pretty quickly - maybe ever 15 minutes?
Conquest Points are used to buy the good PvP gear. You can earn them from Ashran, Rated Battlegrounds, and Arena matches. Amazingly enough, you can actually earn up to the weekly cap just from playing in Ashran! Being that I don't have an Arena partner and haven't tried Rated BGs yet, this is my plan for the time being.
Conquest points are capped at 1800 a week unless you have a high Arena or Battleground rating. You can check your personal cap here: http://www.whatsmycap.com/
Assuming that the cost of gear is the same as when I was doing Arenas many years ago, that's roughly one epic piece of PvP gear a week! Some back-of-the-napkin math - it would take 15 Ashran events to earn 1800 conquest points. If they really start every 15 minutes, that's just under 4 hours of Ashran farming to hit the cap every week. Of course, that's assuming you actually win them all. I wonder if it's possible to do Rated Battlegrounds without a premade group? That would be interesting, I'd like to try that out!
Conquest Points are used to buy the good PvP gear. You can earn them from Ashran, Rated Battlegrounds, and Arena matches. Amazingly enough, you can actually earn up to the weekly cap just from playing in Ashran! Being that I don't have an Arena partner and haven't tried Rated BGs yet, this is my plan for the time being.
Conquest points are capped at 1800 a week unless you have a high Arena or Battleground rating. You can check your personal cap here: http://www.whatsmycap.com/
Assuming that the cost of gear is the same as when I was doing Arenas many years ago, that's roughly one epic piece of PvP gear a week! Some back-of-the-napkin math - it would take 15 Ashran events to earn 1800 conquest points. If they really start every 15 minutes, that's just under 4 hours of Ashran farming to hit the cap every week. Of course, that's assuming you actually win them all. I wonder if it's possible to do Rated Battlegrounds without a premade group? That would be interesting, I'd like to try that out!
Monday, January 12, 2015
Pee vee pee.
So it turns out that the +15 follower enhancements do not stack on top of each other which is a pretty big disappointment. That means they're basically only useful when your followers first hit 100 to get them over the 615 hump. The +3 enhancements seem to stack as much as you want though, which is nice because you get an awful lot of them.
Over the weekend I finally dipped my toe back in the PvP water. My gear isn't great, but oh man, so much fun! It seems like there are a dozen battlegrounds now, half of which I had never tried before. You can queue for a specific battleground or for a random one; doing a random battleground gives you a reward of a strongbox for completing the battleground (or at least, it's supposed to. sometimes I did not get a strongbox, but I'm unclear as to why that was). You're even able to remove up to two battlegrounds from the list so you don't get stuck in Alterac Valley every single time.
The strongboxes vary in quality and can have extra honor points or even gear in them! I think the lowest level gear I got from one of these boxes was iLvl 600, but that gets bumped up to 660 in PvP so that's better than the iLvl 645 PvE epics I have.
I think I ended up in ~4 new battlegrounds that I had never tried before. One was essentially Warsong Gulch with a 15 minute time limit. One was like a combination of Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin but also with mining carts added in (?!?). One required you to 'control' mine carts as they moved from the center of the map to their end stop (this one had a lot of fun fighting). And the last was kind of weird - there are four orbs in each corner. Once you pick one up, you earn points but become easier to kill (I think; there's a buff that details the changes that you get, but I died almost immediately upon picking it up so I didn't have a chance to read it too closely).
I'm pretty sure we lost every battleground I was in. We may have one once. Still, I had a lot of fun! I also tried out Ashran which is the new "open world" battleground. It's not quite a battleground, as you can be queued for Ashran and still queue/run the normal battlegrounds. I know this because Ashran takes forever to get into. The queues are awful and to top it all off, it doesn't even give you an estimate until you'll get in. This is probably because Ashran doesn't really finish. Think back to when Alterac Valley first came out and matches were weeks long, and all the fun was in killing the Alliance and their NPCs, handing in upgrades and summoning new NPCs ... it reminded me a lot of that. We were "winning" at the time I was in there in that sense that we had the Alliance pushed back and they were unable to reach the side events. Every so often, there's an announcement that there will be an Event in one of the side areas. The winner of the Event gets a Strongbox. There are also rare NPCs that spawn, giving you a large amount of Artifacts. Artifacts can also be stolen from any Alliance you kill and can be turned in for Honor points (can't remember if you get Conquest points as well).
You also get a ton of Broken Bones from Ashran. Broken Bones are gotten from killing the opposing faction in World PvP and are used to process work orders at the Gladiator's Sanctum. These work orders then provide you with honor and conquest points! So, doing random battlegrounds and hitting up Ashran seems like the way to go if you want to gear up quickly. Coming into the weekend I had just the PvP cloak and Belt ... I now have an Amulet, Shoulders, Chest, Bracers, and two trinkets. The two trinkets give a set bonus of 10% less damage taken and the Shoulders/Chest give a 2 piece bonus of resetting the spell interrupt on a successful attempt (usually a 6 second cooldown).
The next step, outside of continuing the gearing process, is taking a close look at the talents I selected while leveling up. I was looking at them last night and there are definitely some that need to be changed.
Over the weekend I finally dipped my toe back in the PvP water. My gear isn't great, but oh man, so much fun! It seems like there are a dozen battlegrounds now, half of which I had never tried before. You can queue for a specific battleground or for a random one; doing a random battleground gives you a reward of a strongbox for completing the battleground (or at least, it's supposed to. sometimes I did not get a strongbox, but I'm unclear as to why that was). You're even able to remove up to two battlegrounds from the list so you don't get stuck in Alterac Valley every single time.
The strongboxes vary in quality and can have extra honor points or even gear in them! I think the lowest level gear I got from one of these boxes was iLvl 600, but that gets bumped up to 660 in PvP so that's better than the iLvl 645 PvE epics I have.
I think I ended up in ~4 new battlegrounds that I had never tried before. One was essentially Warsong Gulch with a 15 minute time limit. One was like a combination of Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin but also with mining carts added in (?!?). One required you to 'control' mine carts as they moved from the center of the map to their end stop (this one had a lot of fun fighting). And the last was kind of weird - there are four orbs in each corner. Once you pick one up, you earn points but become easier to kill (I think; there's a buff that details the changes that you get, but I died almost immediately upon picking it up so I didn't have a chance to read it too closely).
I'm pretty sure we lost every battleground I was in. We may have one once. Still, I had a lot of fun! I also tried out Ashran which is the new "open world" battleground. It's not quite a battleground, as you can be queued for Ashran and still queue/run the normal battlegrounds. I know this because Ashran takes forever to get into. The queues are awful and to top it all off, it doesn't even give you an estimate until you'll get in. This is probably because Ashran doesn't really finish. Think back to when Alterac Valley first came out and matches were weeks long, and all the fun was in killing the Alliance and their NPCs, handing in upgrades and summoning new NPCs ... it reminded me a lot of that. We were "winning" at the time I was in there in that sense that we had the Alliance pushed back and they were unable to reach the side events. Every so often, there's an announcement that there will be an Event in one of the side areas. The winner of the Event gets a Strongbox. There are also rare NPCs that spawn, giving you a large amount of Artifacts. Artifacts can also be stolen from any Alliance you kill and can be turned in for Honor points (can't remember if you get Conquest points as well).
You also get a ton of Broken Bones from Ashran. Broken Bones are gotten from killing the opposing faction in World PvP and are used to process work orders at the Gladiator's Sanctum. These work orders then provide you with honor and conquest points! So, doing random battlegrounds and hitting up Ashran seems like the way to go if you want to gear up quickly. Coming into the weekend I had just the PvP cloak and Belt ... I now have an Amulet, Shoulders, Chest, Bracers, and two trinkets. The two trinkets give a set bonus of 10% less damage taken and the Shoulders/Chest give a 2 piece bonus of resetting the spell interrupt on a successful attempt (usually a 6 second cooldown).
The next step, outside of continuing the gearing process, is taking a close look at the talents I selected while leveling up. I was looking at them last night and there are definitely some that need to be changed.
Friday, January 9, 2015
Revisiting Garrison Follower Enchancements
Once your followers hit level 100, you can equip them with gear, essentially. There are only two pieces - armor and weapons, both of which start off at iLvl 600. You can acquire the gear for your followers from Garrison Missions, Salvage Crates, and from the work orders at the War Mill.
I believe there are two levels of upgrades. Each level has an Uncommon (green), Rare (blue), and Epic (purple) enhancement. The lower level of upgrades is 3, 6, 9 and the higher level is 15, 30, 45.
The current max for followers' iLvl is 655. How do you get there? Well, certain enhancements stack. Generally, the worse enhancements tend to stack on top of the better ones (or, the more common ones tend to stack on the rarer ones). As an example, let's pretend that we have three upgrades: 3, 6, 9.
Using the 3 first and then the 6 will cause the 6 to overwrite the 3, giving us an iLvl of 606. However, if we use the 9 first, then the 6, then the 3 we will end up with an iLvl of 618. It should also be noted that the 3 stacks upon itself at least 3 times (haven't tried more). I haven't tried stacking anything other than the 3s, but thinking about it now it kind of makes sense that it would work. I'll try it out tonight and report back!
The higher level of upgrades does not work the same way. If you use a 30 first and then a 15, you're given a message that you can't add them together. So in order to reach max (or close enough) starting with a 30, you need to add a 9, 6, and then three 3s. I've only seen one 45 so far, but have begun getting 30s from Garrison Missions. I believe this is related to the iLvl of your follower.
Once your followers hit level 100, you get the level 100 quests. Once you have at least one follower with an average iLvl of 615, you start getting 615 quests. It works the same way with iLvl 630 and 630 quests, so I assume there are also 645 quests. Followers that do not have at least 615 iLvl cannot help contribute to 615 quests so it is sometimes hard to find the right combination.
I believe there are two levels of upgrades. Each level has an Uncommon (green), Rare (blue), and Epic (purple) enhancement. The lower level of upgrades is 3, 6, 9 and the higher level is 15, 30, 45.
The current max for followers' iLvl is 655. How do you get there? Well, certain enhancements stack. Generally, the worse enhancements tend to stack on top of the better ones (or, the more common ones tend to stack on the rarer ones). As an example, let's pretend that we have three upgrades: 3, 6, 9.
Using the 3 first and then the 6 will cause the 6 to overwrite the 3, giving us an iLvl of 606. However, if we use the 9 first, then the 6, then the 3 we will end up with an iLvl of 618. It should also be noted that the 3 stacks upon itself at least 3 times (haven't tried more). I haven't tried stacking anything other than the 3s, but thinking about it now it kind of makes sense that it would work. I'll try it out tonight and report back!
The higher level of upgrades does not work the same way. If you use a 30 first and then a 15, you're given a message that you can't add them together. So in order to reach max (or close enough) starting with a 30, you need to add a 9, 6, and then three 3s. I've only seen one 45 so far, but have begun getting 30s from Garrison Missions. I believe this is related to the iLvl of your follower.
Once your followers hit level 100, you get the level 100 quests. Once you have at least one follower with an average iLvl of 615, you start getting 615 quests. It works the same way with iLvl 630 and 630 quests, so I assume there are also 645 quests. Followers that do not have at least 615 iLvl cannot help contribute to 615 quests so it is sometimes hard to find the right combination.
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Weekly Wednesday Fitness Check-in
Well, the holidays certainly make it easy to gain weight! Between family feasts and friendly gatherings I've managed to put on almost 4 pounds over the past two weeks. Certainly not ideal, but eh, what are you going to do. #YOLO
I've managed to set some new PRs along the way, at least.
Squat: 3x 275 (pre-bulk best 2x270)
Deadlift: 3x335 (pre-bulk best 2x315)
So that's encouraging. I tried 285 for squat on Monday this week and got only 1 rep, the second I got like half-way up and failed.
I also had split pea soup for the first time! It was delicious. And the package that we got said they had 110 calories to 11 g protein which is a great ratio for a legume.
I've managed to set some new PRs along the way, at least.
Squat: 3x 275 (pre-bulk best 2x270)
Deadlift: 3x335 (pre-bulk best 2x315)
So that's encouraging. I tried 285 for squat on Monday this week and got only 1 rep, the second I got like half-way up and failed.
I also had split pea soup for the first time! It was delicious. And the package that we got said they had 110 calories to 11 g protein which is a great ratio for a legume.
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
The War Mill
The War Mill is a Large Garrison building that has several perks:
1) It doubles the chance for quest items to get an epic upgrade.
2) It allows you to turn in garrison resources in exchange for follower improvements.
3) It allows you to turn in Iron Horde scraps for Transmog items. (Iron Horde scraps are lootable items found on some mobs)
4) It provides you with one free Raid Bonus Roll each week. Otherwise these can be purchased with gold, honor, or apexis crystals. I'm not entirely clear how the Bonus Rolls work!
The way #2 works is that you turn in 20 resources per work order. Those work orders provide Iron Horde scraps, Follower Enhancement items (I don't remember the best that I've seen, but I know that you can get up to +15), and Apexis Crystals.
The transmog items require you to turn in a certain amount of Scraps and some of them also require an additional item that drops less frequently.They have sets for all types of armor:
1) It doubles the chance for quest items to get an epic upgrade.
2) It allows you to turn in garrison resources in exchange for follower improvements.
3) It allows you to turn in Iron Horde scraps for Transmog items. (Iron Horde scraps are lootable items found on some mobs)
4) It provides you with one free Raid Bonus Roll each week. Otherwise these can be purchased with gold, honor, or apexis crystals. I'm not entirely clear how the Bonus Rolls work!
The way #2 works is that you turn in 20 resources per work order. Those work orders provide Iron Horde scraps, Follower Enhancement items (I don't remember the best that I've seen, but I know that you can get up to +15), and Apexis Crystals.
The transmog items require you to turn in a certain amount of Scraps and some of them also require an additional item that drops less frequently.They have sets for all types of armor:
 |
| One of the Mail or Plate sets (I think it was Mail) |
 |
| Cloth? |
 |
| Leather |
 |
| Plate |
 |
| Looking like an Orgrimmar guard! |
Monday, January 5, 2015
Sounds like somebody's got a case of the Mondays!
Boy do I. The first Monday back after the Holidays is always rough. Bleah.
On the bright side, I had plenty of time to play World of Warcraft over the weekend(s) and accomplished a variety of things. The first goal was upgrading my ring!
This meant accumulating almost 5,000 Apexis crystals and running through three different Heroics. The crystals was pretty easy - not only do you get a small amount from various work orders, but there's also a daily quest for either 800 or 1,000. These quests basically just require you to kill some mobs in a certain area (there are clickable items that aid in your "Assault" as well), and the one that rewards 1,000 requires a group since the mobs are elite. You can easily find a group in the LFR tool, generally there are several going at a time. I found this interesting because you get grouped with people from other realms and yet you're not in an instanced dungeon; you're running around in the open world. Sometimes the daily quest is even for Ashran, the new PvP zone; unfortunately, I haven't had much luck with the queues for Ashran so I've stayed away (only tried twice).
The Heroics were intimidating. First time through as a tank always is, for me at least. I read through the dungeon journal and watched a couple of videos and it went pretty okay. Two of the dungeons I had already done, Blood Slag Mines and Everbloom, but one was totally new - Grimrail Depot. Out of all the dungeons I've done so far, this is by far my least favorite. Some of the trash mobs hit really hard (Gunners - they have a channeled spell that does a ton of health unless you move out of the way) and the second boss is just ... weird. I probably just don't "get" the fight yet, but you essentially have to hide during his gunner phase otherwise you just die. Lame. At any rate, I made it through those just to find out that then you have to go to a fourth heroic!
The best part of this whole quest line (outside of the awesome epic ring) is that Khadgar's lines are pretty darned funny.
The next part of the quest chain requires you to go to Highmaul, which is the only raid out currently. Supposedly you can do this through LFR, so we shall see!
On the bright side, I had plenty of time to play World of Warcraft over the weekend(s) and accomplished a variety of things. The first goal was upgrading my ring!
This meant accumulating almost 5,000 Apexis crystals and running through three different Heroics. The crystals was pretty easy - not only do you get a small amount from various work orders, but there's also a daily quest for either 800 or 1,000. These quests basically just require you to kill some mobs in a certain area (there are clickable items that aid in your "Assault" as well), and the one that rewards 1,000 requires a group since the mobs are elite. You can easily find a group in the LFR tool, generally there are several going at a time. I found this interesting because you get grouped with people from other realms and yet you're not in an instanced dungeon; you're running around in the open world. Sometimes the daily quest is even for Ashran, the new PvP zone; unfortunately, I haven't had much luck with the queues for Ashran so I've stayed away (only tried twice).
The Heroics were intimidating. First time through as a tank always is, for me at least. I read through the dungeon journal and watched a couple of videos and it went pretty okay. Two of the dungeons I had already done, Blood Slag Mines and Everbloom, but one was totally new - Grimrail Depot. Out of all the dungeons I've done so far, this is by far my least favorite. Some of the trash mobs hit really hard (Gunners - they have a channeled spell that does a ton of health unless you move out of the way) and the second boss is just ... weird. I probably just don't "get" the fight yet, but you essentially have to hide during his gunner phase otherwise you just die. Lame. At any rate, I made it through those just to find out that then you have to go to a fourth heroic!
The best part of this whole quest line (outside of the awesome epic ring) is that Khadgar's lines are pretty darned funny.
 |
| Oh Khadgar, you silly goof! |
And then, of course, you get your brand new ilvl 680 ring. It's nice that you can have one for each spec, as long as you're willing to spend some additional gold.
 |
| The tanking ring |
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