Wake Up Call: Go Learn to Joust!
So… about that jousting…
If you’re that person who can’t joust, who tried it a handful of times and hated it or were bored to tears, believe me, I feel your pain. You may or may not recall what a big huge baby I was about jousting when the tournament came out. I loathed it. I despised it. I despaired of ever being able to do it.
But I wanted the Teldrassil Sproutling so much that I kept hammering away at it until it finally clicked and I could do it successfully every time. Now I’m a champion of all the factions and Crusader Sylly (awesome, awesome, awesome name/title combo rofl!). If I can do it, BELIEVE ME, you can too. And you should do it. You should do it right now.
Even if you’re not motivated by the pets or Argent Tournament rewards like I was, I’m still going to tell you as gently as I can that it is time to bite the bullet and learn to do this. Here’s why: Testing for Trial of the Crusader started on the PTR last night. It’s the new 5 man instance at the Tournament that will go live with patch 3.2. The loot is great… all epics with Naxx10 level epics on the heroic mode, plus Champion Seals and Emblems of Conquest. In addition, I imagine that this instance will get added into the rotation for the regular instance daily quests and heroic instance daily quests, which means you can also get the highest emblems in the game, the upcoming Emblems of Triumph, for doing this instance when it comes up as a daily. And guess what? The instance opens up with a jousting encounter. Yep, if you want to get your branches on any of the juicy loot or badgy goodness from the new 5 man, you’re going to have to joust.
Now, you may feel like you have loads of time to learn this. The PTR will probably be up for 3-4 weeks or so, or you can just take your time and learn how to joust after the patch goes live, what’s the hurry, right? Wrong.
If you raid at all in WOLK, think about the conditions surrounding the summoning stone at Naxx. The most lagtastic place in Azeroth, right? Ulduar can be the same. Now imagine what the Argent Tournament is going to be like after patch day. There will be new Tourney rewards and quest content, bringing out the people who already do the Tournament dailies to check out the new quest zones and start saving more badges for the new rewards. There will be the new 5 man instance, which has a normal and a heroic level of difficulty, drawing players of a wide range of gear and experience to try it out. And there will be a new raid that caters to normal and heroic difficulty for 10 and 25 man raiding groups, another wide range of raiders. And they will all be converging on the same spot, within yards of where you will be learning to joust if you haven’t done so already.
One thing about jousting is that it requires your attention and quick repsonse for the duration of the duel. Even though I’ve beat the system and know how to get it done, I can’t exactly respond to whispers when I’m jousting. I have to be, well, jousting. I can’t miss a beat. If the Argent Tournament becomes the lagfest that I suspect it will when the patch hits (and even leading up to the patch coming as more players make the realization that they need to joust for the upcoming instance), it is going to become harder and more frustrating than it already can be to practice jousting.
So my advice, free from me to you, is that if you want to participate on all the new content that is coming with the patch, the time to get your jousting on is now. Go prepare yourself.
There are 11 Comments to "Wake Up Call: Go Learn to Joust!"
I started jousting back when it was released but I too hated it so much. And I was really awful at it as well. I don’t know why, I just suck with loss of control of my normal character.
However after some time a guildie gave me some tips and I got confident I could do it. And with some practice it has now become almost too easy.
Good post, didn’t know that we would be forced to joust in the new instance.
I think I’d rather just refrain from doing that instance. And pray they don’t make a jousting raid encounter.
Whilst I can joust, I hate it from the bottom of my heart and really really wish they would stop adding these vehicle fights to instances. If I wanted to play a three button class I would have rolled a dpser
Mmmm, yeah you’ve gotta be good if you’re going to be jousting in lag. Beating those champions in under a minute yet Sylly (before your mount refresh…refreshes)? /poke.
Man all this exciting stuff coming. Le sigh.
I’m one of those people. I’m a fairly good player and learn very quickly, but after trying Jousting the first week, I’ve thrown in the towel and given up on the pets, the mounts, and the titles, despite already being exalted with all five factions and being a mount collector.
I just can’t do it and no amount of people telling me “It’s easy if you do this or that” can solve that. I hate it, I hate it more than vehicle combat.
I’ve taken the news of “You have to joust as part of this instance as” Oh hey look, Bliz is forcing us to use their crappy designed new combat crap again.
My guildlings are telling me they’ll probably be able to four man it. I’ll give it one or two tries, if I can’t do it and they can’t carry me through it I’m simply going to tell them to take another healer to that instance.
Zandrae´s last blog ..Fiveboxing Progress report.
I feel your pain! My husband took to jousting right away, but it’s always been difficult for me. That said, I don’t hate the Argent tournament dailies – I just…kind of…avoided them. *Sigh* With the new content coming out, though, every day my fingers twitch a little closer towards sending my main off to the tourney for some jousting. At the very least, I want my own little squire!
Taz´s last blog ..Take Me To Your Leader
Back when it first arrived, I didn’t even go check the Argent Tournament. “A tournament, right on Arthas’ doorstep? What a silly idea,” I thought.
But then I found out I could get a Darnassian tabard and an “of Darnassus” title, and there might even be some nice gear there for me too. So I read up on things a bit more, went off to the Argent Tournament to learn to joust, and just couldn’t do it. My fingers simply couldn’t dance between 1 and 4 and 2 and 3 and the movement keys the way they had to and I kept on losing horribly. I’d end up on 0 health and my opponent would be sitting smugly at 95% health on his or her horse.
One match away from throwing in the towel completely and never coming back to the Argent Tournament, I tried meleeing my opponent into submission instead of shieldbreaking and charging all over the place. I still lost, but I had found the One True Way.
Now, many annoying matches later I have learned how to joust (sort of) and am “Shukeralle of Darnassus.”
I might even go for the Sproutling next.
The trick is that you can actually get everything out of the tournament stuff without having to joust very much at all. There are lots of non-jousting dailies you can do…
Lissanna´s last blog ..New 3.2 Argent Tournamen quests: I need more reputation!
@Lissanna, right you are, but there are a couple of jousts you have to do along the way to progress up the ladder to make the other goodies available.
I refused to put a toe in this area, except for the flight master. I don’t even collect flowers in Icecrown… I don’t know why, I really dislike the zone and the idea of this tournament didn’t appealed to me.
But reading this, it seems I will have to try… I just cannot be in the new raid if I don’t know what jousting is like…
Nefernet´s last blog ..Qualities of a good raider
Argent Tournament drives me nuts, plain and simple. I’ve done a few quests there but have no real interest and the jousting, well …
Sian´s last blog ..Festival of Light