Jousting by numbers

[Dog Pants]

Jousting in the Argent Tournament can be very frustrating at first, and it can look like the NPCs cheat. Wowhead's comments are riddled with accusations of unfairness, and at first I was in agreement. However, they don't cheat, it's just that many beginners don't understand what they're doing.

First off, then, understanding jousting. You get six 'skills';

Thrust (hur hur): A melee attack.
Shield Breaker: A ranged attack that reduces the target's defence.
Charge: A charge attack that does a lot of damage and reduces the target's defence.
Defend: A buff that increases your defence.
Refresh Mount: An out of combat heal for your mount.
Duel: Challenges another player to a duel.

The last two you won't use in normal combat, so that's only four things to concentrate on.

Defending
The Defend buff can be stacked up to three times, and you'll want it triple stacked for as much time as possible. Each buff reduces damage by 30%, so that's a 90% reduction while it's full. It's easy to track as it is represented by little shields spinning round your character. A red single shield (30%), two yellow shields (60%), or three green shields (90%). You want it to be green all the time. The accusations of cheating come from your opponent's ability to knock you from 3 to 0 in one hit. This never happens. What actually happens is that the 60 second timer on their defence expires. Keep an eye on the buff and top it up if it's below 30 seconds. If it runs out in combat you've got problems because building it up can be hard.

Attacking
Now you know how defence works, you can think about going out and spanging some other riders. The NPCs are predictable all the way up to the Black Knight, so can be exploited. Once you know their routine it's just a matter of following it by numbers, hence the title. The enemy will do as follows:

1: Gain distance
2: Charge
3: Hang around thrusting for a bit (arf)
4: Repeat
5: Rarely, pull back a bit to chuck a shield breaker

So all you need to do is be aware what it is he's doing. When he's close up spanging, you stay with him and spang him back. This is when you should be topping up your defence. When he pulls back, let him. As soon as he gets far enough to charge, hit it. You'll gallop up to him and shove your lance up his arse before he has chance to turn round. After you've shot past him your mount will start to wheel round. While it's doing this follow up with a shield breaker, and by the time you close up for another bout of thrusting he'll be down on defence and receptive to your attacks. Simply repeat this until they yield. So the fight sequence now goes:

1: Spam Thrust, refresh Defence as needed.
2: Opponent withdraws. Let him.
3: Charge as soon as available.
4: Wheel round and spam Shield Breaker.
5: Repeat.

Opening Combat
An advantage can be had when first starting the combat. When you speak to your opponent to open combat, ensure your defence is full and position yourself behind them. They'll start off shield-less, and the first thing they do is saunter forward. This gives you a nice opportunity to Charge them for free, and if they didn't get chance to put up a defence you'll do considerable damage.

Oddities
Occassionally your opponent will retreat a bit then stop. I assume this is to throw a Shield Breaker. Either follow them and keep Thrusting, or chuck a Shield Breaker of your own then close again. Pulling back will give them the opportunity to charge you, just as you do with them.
Also be aware that they will sometimes get lost in amongst other melees. There's not a lot you can do about this other than make sure your shields are up, spam Shield Breaker, and wait for them to emerge, or go in and hope you hit them.

The Panic Button
Every now and then you'll find yourself with no defence. This is bad. Usually it's because you forgot to put them up before initiating combat, but sometimes it will happen if you get distracted and the time elapses. Not to worry though, just keep close and hit the Defence button as often as possible. Make sure they don't get away for a charge, because they're most likely to get a good hit on you while you're wheeling round. Eventually you should pick back up to three charges and can continue relatively uninjured. If you can keep those up you can win a fight barely losing any health, so even a bad thrashing can be recovered from in theory.

[Killavodka]

1: Spam Thrust, refresh Defence as needed.
2: Opponent withdraws. Let him.
3: Charge as soon as available.
4: Wheel round and spam Shield Breaker.
5: Repeat.

That's my approach too

[Davius]

Mine too and it totally works!!!!

See:

Now to farm exalted with em :D

[Dog Pants]

Crikey, that's some tournament grinding. I've got Exalted Champion with Thunder Bluff and Sen'Jin, but I really can't face doing those dailies any more for the rest. Especially not the one jousting against the Scourge with those bloody flying bastards.

[Davius]

Daily grind wasn;t too bad... I had a nice cycle going....

Log in pick up all q's from tournament.
Joust with valient/champions until someone in general is lfg Threat from above.
Join said group complete this quest. Whilst in group ask if any need Battle before the citadel and the other q for down there (9/10 times they all need it)
Double team (or more) those two q's, Commander is cake with two ppl.
Complete that, fly over towards dalaran, do jacking for lumber.
Which ever weapon quest you have do that now, always easiest for daily route.
Complete and head to stormpeaks and do sons of hodir dailies, you need your shoulder enchants ppl!!!
Complete and head back towards icecrown, loot chip of the ulduar block on the way.
Once at icecrown nuke 15 scourge for those two dailies
Head north hand in all! Finish the jousts if you got group for chillmaw quickly.

Bam 10 dailes for argent tournament done!
6 Sons of hodir dailies done
and on this route there is always the spot for profession dailies... I do, JC,fishing and cooking on the way.

All in all that takes around 1h 30 if your in uber speed mode... 2 hours casually. Netting you a nice sum of cash and rep

At one point i really needed argent crusade rep for exalted items so i swung by zuldrak to do Troll Patrol, after weapon quest and on way to storm peaks for sons of hodir.

I been quite the farmer lately heh

[Dr. kitteny berk]

I couldn't keep up that level of dailying.

Bought relics of ulduar to get SoH out of the way, tabard + a few dungeons for Arg crusade

[Davius]

I've been a gold whore lately Getting rep and getting paid for it. I bought a few BoE epics from ah so I was low on funds to buy relics :D

Everfrost chips are awesome way of grinding SoH rep...

they spawn like the old netherwing eggs did... around the area of dun niffenhelm, they are small but always spawn next to clumps of trees, sometimes up the cliffs. There are like 6-8 up at one time, in a circuit, only then have around a 40 mins respawn timer.

I think i was the only farming them on Sylvanas as whenever i chose to do a circuit, usually few hours between each, whilst waiting for instance etc i found around 3-4 on my circuits.... hand em in at Niff for 350 rep boost! 385 if your human!!!

[Roman Totale]

Everfrost chips are awesome way of grinding SoH rep...

I managed to get about 3 during the course of the other dailies - nice rep for little effort if you know where to look. Got me to exalted in no time.

[Dog Pants]

I got to honoured with SoH and got a similar feeling about the grind for exalted. Might have a wander about looking for those chips for a bit.

[Roman Totale]

Prod me next time you're doing the dailies and I'll show you the usual spots. Once you collect a few and know what they look like it gets a lot easier.

[Dog Pants]

Ta!

[Davius]

Yeah they are a pain initially....

I started out with this...

[map!!!!]

Followed that looking up and down cliffs at base of trees.
Also got a couple that spawn right in the middle of where you pick up dailies and middle of the valley west of that, within the circle though i didn;t find any out of that!