Solipsist
They/Them
The 19 Fiesta : A Look into the 19 Bracket
Welcome to one of the many blogs you’ll be seeing from me on twinkinfo.com. Today we are going to explore the realm of 19s. It came to my intention whilst making my ‘’Restoring 19 Threads’’ that there was no basic guideline for new players coming into the bracket. So I’m going to give you my personal run down on how the bracket works. I’ll also point out tips and tricks to get your 19 twink(s) up and running.
What are 19s about? What you can expect coming into the bracket.
19s have been known as one of the most iconic brackets of twinking, with a competitive atmosphere that separates it from other twinking brackets to this day. The competitive atmosphere fuels from various aspects, the first being drama. Drama has been a huge powerhouse for 19s. One might look at ‘Drama’ as a negative point. Personally, I believe it is a huge factor in the brackets success. It has proven time and time again to create another unique interest. What other bracket has such stern rivalry between players? Rap Battles, Picnic Destruction's. You'll find no other bracket that has such heartbreaking events.
Premades are also a huge part of the competitive atmosphere. Many twinks from across the board have heard of the <Waw Tawent> vs <tRain cOw> premade. This event was a surprise to all. <Waw Tawent>, who was undefeated for years, fell to an underdog team. Guilds tried to defeat <Waw Tawent> failing time after time again. People never expected the kings of the bracket to fall. It created one of the biggest shocks in the 19 twinking community. An event like this could only be found in the 19 bracket. The rivalry and contention between teams has hyped up some of the most interesting premades in the history of the bracket.
Unlike a lot of other brackets people have a good understanding of how the meta game works. A unique aspect you’ll find about the 19 bracket is it contains both the Offensive/Defensive strat and what us 19s call ''the mid strat''. The ''mid strat''[FONT=&] is similar to a push and pull method which sees each side battle it out to kill the enemy team as fast as possible. However this doesn’t factor out the objective but it seemingly makes it much more difficult with people cutting off flag carriers. Teams must play smart and get their flag carrier to safety. [/FONT]There is controversy over the ''mid strat'' in the form of ''containment''. You'll see me go into more detail in my next blog where I will outline why this is a legitimate strategy. However, what I will say is that the ''mid strat'' does offer a challenge. Some people believe there is no skill in aimlessly nuking people. I strongly disagree from a healing point of view where I have to be on my game to keep my allies up. I need to predict and monitor the incoming burst otherwise my team will collapse.
The O/D strat was a trademark for Vanilla WoW to Wrath. Once we hit Cata the slope then changed and we began moving towards the ''mid strat''. Only in MoP did we see the full extent of the ''mid strat'' where both teams stayed in midfield(as well as the flag carriers) for a majority of the game. Recently we have seen a change to this. Both the Mid strat and the O/D strat have been merged together as of late. I've played games where I've been in mid healing my team in the first ten minutes then in the last I've been kiting and rooting people around roof. I think it's really great to see the O/D strat come back into play. Alot of the 19 twinks are used to the ''mid strat'' and going away from it puts people on their feet.
The 19 bracket is more than just a competitive junk fest. I have met some awesome people playing in the bracket. Like my old guild motto use to say ''Pirates would go from shore to shore looking for buried treasure when the real treasure's in the friendships made along the way''. The bracket is not all full with ego maniacs which alot of people perceive. 19s like Laurasia (the nicest twink in the world)
are people who brighten up the bracket. So don't be cautious that it's all COMPETITION COMPETITION!.
Restoring 19s Summer:
I took it upon myself to start a revival for Summer. Why? Well, I loved the competitive atmosphere of the 19 twink bracket. Other brackets just didn't have the same feel for me. The 19 twink bracket will always be my home bracket. Beforehand the bracket was on a schedule where people would only queue on certain nights, usually only two nights a week. Games never went that long and I honestly don’t think people got much out of it. The 19 twink bracket has always been a bracket that was active everyday so I decided that someone needed to step up and get this bracket active again. Overall it has been a success. Sure there a few days with not a large amount of pops but you can’t expect a whirlwind of activity everyday.
Myrm's Tournament:
If you don't know about the 19 Tournament on July 25th-27th I would advise you check it out here and here. Grand prize of $1300!!!
I can't wait for this tournament. I will playing along with Skill Ratio in hopes of winning it all. Should be a very interesting tournament. Can't wait to see what other teams deliver.
Overview of the Bracket
Queue time is scheduled at 8pm EST everyday.
Weekday games: 8pm-1am
Weekend games: 8pm-2am
Note: This is a rough estimate over the last month.
Are you wondering what you would like to roll? Below you'll find a table on the appearance of classes/specs for each faction as well as my rating on how these classes perform in the mid strat and the O/D strat. Keep in mind this is just an average. A good player can excel the rating.
| Class/Spec | Population Alliance | Population Horde | Focuses on | Rating Mid strat | Rating O/D strat |
| Balance Druid | Medium | Medium | Dot damage/Burst Damage/Off heals | 10 | 5 |
| Feral Druid | Medium | Low | Burst/Sustained Damage | 4 | 9 |
| Guardian Druid | Low | Low | Flag Carriers | 9 | 9 |
| Restoration Druid | High | Medium | Hot healing/Single target healing/AoE healing | 10 | 8 |
| Survival Hunter | Very High | Medium | Sustained damage/Burst Damage/CC | 10 | 10 |
| Arcane Mage | High | Medium | Sustained Damage/Heavy Burst/CC | 10 | 8 |
| Frost Mage | Low | Low | Sustained Damage/CC | 6 | 9 |
| Brewmaster Monk | Medium | High | CC/Flag Carrier | 10 | 10 |
| Mistweaver Monk | Low | Low | Single Target Healing | 10 | 7 |
| Windwalker Monk | Very Low | Very Low | Sustained Damage/Flag Carrier | 3 | 7 |
| Holy Paladin | Medium | Medium | Single Target Healing/CC | 8 | 8 |
| Protection Paladin | Low | Medium | Multiple Target Damage/CC | 8 | 8 |
| Discipline Priest | Medium | High | Single Target Healing/Absorbs/Burst Damage/Sustained Damage/CC | 10 | 10 |
| Assassination Rogue | Very High | Very High | Burst Damage/Sustained Damged/CC | 9 | 9 |
| Subtlety Rogue | High | High | Burst Damage/Sustained Damged/CC | 9 | 9 |
| Elemental Shaman | Medium | High | Sustained Damage/Off Heals | 10 | 9 |
| Restoration Shaman | Low | Medium | Single Target Heals | 9 | 8 |
| Destruction Warlock | Medium | Medium | Heavy Burst Damage/CC/Dot Damage | 10 | 5 |
| Demonology Warlock Arms Warrior Protection Warrior | Very Low Medium Medium | Very Low Low Low | Dot Damage/CC/AoE CC Sustained Damage Flag Carrier | 6 5 9 | 8 8 8 |
Note from the table above: I'm not playing 100% of the time so i'm just going by the games i've played.
Gearing/Guilds
I’ve created an Armory and Guild Directory, so try to start there. If you want to see some of the guilds in detail I would recommend having a look at the guild recruitment section. A few notes on gearing: I have geared a countless amount of twinks from cata. The most time consuming items to get unless you’re farming for the likes of shadowfang etc is getting your desired tumultuous cloak and/or vigorous belt. Make sure if you are gearing a new twink that you turn of your xp at 15 so you ONLY do RFC and Deadmines. Doing randoms for SFK and Wailing Caverns will make you go mental. Whilst you’re waiting for your random queue try to level your professions.Remember there is always the Wowhead item search in case you don’t agree with some of the sets or wish to look at the other options.
Professions: I can’t urge enough how important it is to get your professions done. Here I have created a step by step guide for two of the most important professions for most people (Skinning and Herbalism). If you are looking to do mining here is a good guide Mining Leveling Guide - Level Mining with Smelting from 1 to 600
Addons you need for Herbalism!
Gathermate 2
Gathermate 2 data
Routes
For a easy guide to set this up click here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcjYNBbMyvk
Quick notes for professions:
-If you have a healing spec make sure you change in to it because you gain 15% hit!
-If you’re doing professions on classes such as mage and warrior where it’s hard to not get trampled on, I would advise getting your main or a high level to kill the mobs and loot them, then you can log back onto your twink and skin them. Or you can have friends do it, but I mean, come on, who the hell has friends?
-Listen to some relaxing music!
-The process should take no longer than 3 hours
Here is the rotation you should go through for Horde:
Skinning 1-50(Durotar)
Skinning 50-150 and Herbalism 1-125(Northern Barrens)
Skinning 150-210 and Herbalism 150 (Stonetalon Mountains)
Skinning 210-225 and Herbalism 150-225(Western Plaguelands)
-For herbalism make sure you go around the lake(as shown below) and collect liferoot. You will not get hit by any enemies doing so and it will get you to 225 by itself.
Alliance:
Skinning 1-50(Elwyn Forrest)
Skinning 50-120(Westfall)
Skinning 120-180 (Duskwood or Wetlands)
Skinning- 180-225(Arathi Highlands)
Herbalism 1-120(Westfall)
Herbalism 120-150(Wetlands)
Herbalism150-225 (Western Plaguelands)
Or
Herbalism 1-225(Wetlands)
Note: You might find this harder to level past 150 since there aren’t a lot of liferoot nodes. But has you can see below this has all the roots required to get to 225 in one area, so this zone is extremely useful!
Skinning 1-50(Elwyn Forrest)
Skinning 50-120(Westfall)
Skinning 120-180 (Duskwood or Wetlands)
Skinning- 180-225(Arathi Highlands)
Herbalism 1-120(Westfall)
Herbalism 120-150(Wetlands)
Herbalism150-225 (Western Plaguelands)
Or
Herbalism 1-225(Wetlands)
Note: You might find this harder to level past 150 since there aren’t a lot of liferoot nodes. But has you can see below this has all the roots required to get to 225 in one area, so this zone is extremely useful!
Future for 19s in Warlords of Draenor
I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited for an expansion. 19s look amazing coming into WOD. With the addition of skirmishes which was a huge part of 19s before they got removed, and the addition of the 10-19 merge will see activity sky rocket. I personally can’t wait to dive into skirmishes and play some intense matches. I think we will see 19s restored to another great period with competition flourishing. It will be good see players like Saxxon and Dirtyauction going ham in skirmishes. Experiences from the WOD alpha say that the game feels like wrath with a sprinkle of MOP. I hope this true and we see a great balance to lower level PvP. The Twink Domain has a bright future!
If you ever have any questions about 19s, gear, guilds you name it, then pm me here on TI or whisper me in game. Make sure you do it when I’m not in the Gulch.
I'll see you in my next blog!
© Solipsist, Dominik Sarce. Edited by The Mage Union
Last edited by a moderator:
.
