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Totem Talk: Enhancement 201, spell selection

2010-02-13T10:40:00.000-08:00

Rich Maloy is currently working on a distributed processing application called SimIt!@HOME which will calculate all possible enhancement shaman spell rotations for any possible situation given any gear combination. The application will also have an option to calculate all potential scenarios in which "sim it" is a half-a** answer but you should say it anyway.

If I told you the enhancement shaman basic spell rotation was: SR, FE, SW, MW5_LB, MT(0), LS(1), ES_SS, SS, FS, ES, LL, FN would you run away screaming?

What if I told you that was just for single target boss encounters and there's a different priority for boss fights that require changing targets, another priority for boss fights with heavy adds, and yet another priority for trash mobs. Scared yet?

It's OK. Please come back. This is what we Enhancers have bouncing around in our head. I'll make everything alright by breaking it down into a few easy-to-remember chunks. Because we all like chunks.
My 101 article could have been more appropriately named "How to play enhancement in raids or dungeons if you are recently level 80 or would like to make it your off spec," but that was a bit long so I cut it down to Enhancement 101. In said article, commenter Angus noted "...enhance shaman need a simulator, a supercomputer, and a math genius to figure out what they should be gearing for at any particular moment.." I had to laugh because it's true.

Thankfully we enhancers have math geniuses calculating the theorycrafting and supercomputer geniuses writing the code to the simulator to help us tweak our output at any level for any given situation. However, this article is not for theorycrafting and not about running simulations.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-EnhSim. Just this week I went through a detailed iterative sim on Stoney's gear to recalculate optimal gemming and then maximize my output with a new rotation. EnhSim is a seriously awesome tool -- and we'll get to it in a later post -- but using it is a process. In fact at progression/end-game levels of play it's practically required for optimization. But for the Totem Talk enhancement columnist to say "sim it" is just a huge cop-out, and doesn't exactly make for good reading.

Today's article isn't about the utmost optimal and ideal rotation, nor is it about how to get that for yourself. It's about simplifying a complex rotation. This is to help the new-to-80 (or thereabouts) enhancement shaman wrap their head around a basic core spell rotation.

My goal in this article is to (1) break down the complex rotation into easy-to-remember chunks, then (2) put it together into a usable rotation that will work in most boss scenarios, and (3) explain why we do the things we do.

A shocking macro

There is one macro above all others that will simplify your life as an enhancement shaman. Even for the most anti-macro enhancer out there this little one will save headaches and action bar space. It is:

#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=18/combat Flame Shock, Earth Shock, Earth Shock

There are a few variations on this macro but for the purpose of this article I'm sticking with the one above. Some players prefer to separate the shocks on to different buttons, others (including me) prefer a more complex but flexible macro, but of all the shocking macros. But this macro is the best place to start. Learn it and hug it and love it and squeeze it with all your heart and call it George. George the Shock Macro.

The reason this macro is so important is because Flame Shock lasts for 18 seconds. If FS is reapplied before the end then it's wasted DPS. This is like a pro-tip and a beginner tip rolled into one. Add George the Shock Macro to your macro book because we'll be using it right away.

Break it down

The best way to think about the enhancement spell selection is to break it down into two parts: rotation and situation. Once it's broken down into these two section you'll see the rotation actually isn't all that complex. But you should still [Feign Complexity](Rank 10) when talking to the filthy rogues in your guild. Don't let them think you've got it easy. I fully expect you to go on and on about how you can successfully track at 15 spell rotation and still beat him in DPS.

Rotation

There are 5 spells in the rotation section. Commit these to memory. They are not cycled through in a straight sequence; instead, they're used in a priority order. Go down the list until you find one that's available and hit it. Then start again at the top.

This is the simplified rotation:

Lightning Bolt with 5 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon (MW5_LB)
Stormstrike (SS)
George the shock macro (FS, ES, ES)
Lava Lash (LL)
Fire Nova (FN)

After every cast start back at the top of the list and go down until you hit something off cooldown. It takes some getting used to so it's worth it to hit up a target dummy and work through the sequence a few times. After some practice you'll find a rhythm and spend less time staring at the action bar because you have a feel for what's coming up next.

Situation

Everything else in the enhancement arsenal is situational. The general rule of thumb is use them as soon as they become available or to be need refreshed.

First up are the situations where spells need to be refreshed. When either of these spells run out they become highest priority on the next GCD. (PRO TIP: whenever I have a free GCD I refresh whichever one is closest to running out, that way I don't have to interrupt my rotation as often.)

Magma Totem (MT) – Keep this down at all times because when your rotation comes around to Fire Nova, if you don't have MT down you'll miss out on the FN blast. Plus the passive damage is FTW.
Lightning Shield (LS) – Gotta love the Static Shock! Nine charges goes by pretty fast, especially if you have 2pc T9. The passive damage isn't huge, but it's important enough to keep this up at all times.

Next we move on to the special situation spells.

Shamanistic Rage (SR) – Under normal circumstances this should be used at or below 30-40% mana. 45 seconds goes by fast (60 second CD less 15 second duration) so you'll notice it being up often. If you have 2pc T10 then SR should be the very first thing cast after auto attack and then hit as the highest priority every time it comes available. (PRO TIP: with 2pc T10 create a macro to sync trinkets with SR)
Feral Spirit (SW) – Wolves actively scale with your stats, meaning if you get trinket procs while they are active, their stats will increase with yours. However they should be out before Heroism/Bloodlust is cast to get the full benefit from the buff.
Fire Elemental (FE) – On a 10 minute CD this spell should be available for most boss attempts even after wipes. As a general rule it's not worth glyphing for FE. One important thing to note is that your FE does not scale once the totem is planted; this is the opposite of SW. If you are dropping FE in a fight then plan on getting some procs up first and then put the totem down.

Bonus point

If you want bonus points there's a special situation in the rotation called ES_SS. This means if Earth Shock and Stormstrike are both off cooldown at the same time AND if the Stormstrike debuff is still up on the boss then cast Earth Shock first. It's not essential to the basics, but it is a step in the right direction to maximizing output.

All together now

Putting it all together yields the crazy thing we saw at the beginning: SR, FE, SW, MW5_LB, MT, LS, ES_SS, SS, FS, ES, LL, FN. The spells in bold are the "rotation" spells, the others are all situation spells. I hope this helped you wrap your head around enhancement shaman spell selection. Until next time ...

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Around Azeroth: If you go down in the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise

2010-02-13T10:38:00.000-08:00

Because today's the day the teddy bears had their picnic. Errai of on Argent Dawn sent in this picture along with an explanation: "Shame his clever disguise didn't help this poor hapless soul who found himself the main course at an impromptu Valentine's teddy bear picnic in the streets of Dalaran on Argent Dawn. Errai was one of many cuddly bears drawn to the festivities that evening as eating, drinking, bad bear jokes, and general merriment ensued. The fun concluded with a rockin' druid dance party and street parade of trees, moonkins, and bears – oh my!"

Do you have any unusual, beautiful or interesting World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see them on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word "Azeroth" in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing -- use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, Val'kyr on mounts, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran. Older screenshots can be found here.

The Queue: Elephants

2010-02-13T10:35:00.000-08:00

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today.Re: the title -- unlike them, I do forget. To write The Queue.Wil asked..."Is Blizzard considering making emblems bind-to-account? For someone who's got multiple alts (and intends to level more), this would be a godsend. What would be the pros and cons of such a change?"Blizzard has said that they intend for emblems to be an endgame, character-specific reward. Heirlooms, purchasable with said emblems, are a secondary reward to help your alts get to the point of being able to get their own badges.Will this change for Cataclysm, though? Do we ever really know the answer to that?Guitarwolf asked..."Do you think that with the revamping of quest rewards and items around Cataclysm will bring gear with gem slots to pre-level 60 items? I know that JC requires Burning Crusade to train, but Blizz adding minimum level requirements to equippable gems would make use of all the cruddy BC gems, as well as give people a chance to learn how to gem earlier in the game."Blizzard has said that they made a mistake making leveling gear gemmable at all in BC, and you'll notice that they fixed it for Wrath. You end up with weird item level problems and gear that shouldn't be as good as it is (remember the blue armor that bears wore in BC because it had three red sockets in it). I don't anticipate that this particular design philosophy will change, but nothing's set in stone.Zalvi24 asked..."Question: do you think with the simplification of stats and reforging system that is gonna come with cataclysm that we're gonna see the return of the beloved/hated shockadins with a 31/0/45?"Yes and no. I think we'll be seeing builds that are a lot more "fun", like shockadins, but it's important to remember that talent trees are changing a lot in Cataclysm and the general structure of your trees might or might not be quite different depending on what you play. Ghostcrawler has said that the intention of the talent tree changes is to make talents more fun. I hope he's right.Grinton asked..."It seems all the good PvP gear needs either Arena participation or VoA drops. The other alternative is the daily BG quest for arena points but those are so measly. So for someone who loves PvP in BG but despises arenas, are there any other ways to get arena points? I know lower Ilevel stuff only need honour but the weapons need points. Do I have any alternatives other than arena or raiding?"In Wrath? Unfortunately, not at the moment. In Cataclysm, though, the new rated Battlegrounds will give arena points for victories. Yes, that's right! You'll be able to get the best PVP gear by doing the type of PVP that you like. What a crazy world.

Ready Check: The long bleak winter of spontaneous raiding

2010-02-13T10:29:00.000-08:00

Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Icecrown Citadel, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. You might have heard that the east coast recently got slammed by an epic blizzard. Sure, sure, you folks out in Minnesota or Wisconsin are used to getting 50 inches of snow in the middle of summer. Heck, August only means your snowfall dwindles to a mere two or three inches. But out here on the right coast, from about Baltimore down to Florida, "snow" is something that we mostly see inside globes and Northrend.The last few weeks, however, have been so thick with the white stuff that many, many, many players are trapped in their homes. And they turn to a very natural, time-killing past time: World of Warcraft. The real issue with this snowy dynamic is that it led to a lot of people looking to spontaneously raid. In the middle of a Wednesday isn't when folks usually schedule their Icecrown Citadel raid. But this small legion of snow-stranded folks often already had pre-planned raids scheduled for the evenings. They were forced to look back at available content and try and figure out "What can we do as a group, without impeding already-set plans for our normal raid?"While I bring this subject up because I was one of the many trapped indoors by the Snowpocalypse, you will probably find dozens of reasons you need to come up with a spontaneous raid or two. Heck, maybe you just find yourself with a Friday night free. Take a look behind the jump and let's talk about what to do if you find yourself snowed in but wanting to raid.While farming, questing, and chain-gunning Dungeon Finder Heroics are popular ways of killing time, remember that what we're focused on is how to use that time on behalf of an entire raid. So, without further adieu, what can you raid without interrupting ICC?Trial of the CrusaderLet's be brutally, brutally honest here. Do you really have every single item that your raid could use out of Trial of the Crusader? There's not even so much as a side-grade in there, maybe from the big-bug Anub'arak? While you're probably not going to score a lot of huge gear improvements by running Trial of the Crusader, it does have the most likely chance of dropping something you can kind-of-use. Drops are fickle things, and even with Emblems of Frost rounding out a lot of gear in Icecrown, getting a handy side-grade from a drop will still save you some trouble.Vault of ArchavonMost guilds that I know don't plan Vault raids. It's usually a PUG thing. Even Toravon isn't all that hard if your group is rocking enough DPS, so Vault of Archavon is usually a pretty fair raid to do with PUGs.But if you are looking for "something to do" because you're trapped inside, I would pick up Vault of Archavon as your first option. It doesn't take long, so it's not going to kill a whole lot of time, but the random rewards make it pretty worth it.I always meant to . . .My guild calls these "Old World Club." We have a half dozen or so players who only started their World of Warcraft experience in the last twelve months. They never got to experience the awesome moments in some of WoW's earliest raids. The idea is that you gather together a couple dozen of your level 80s, and you go back to the old world raids. Did you ever get the chance to kill C'thun? Maybe now's the time to do that. 25 level 80s are more than capable of clearing even AQ40. (Well, they'll be capable if you pay attention to dance steps -- you should still read the guides and strategies, so that you have an idea of what you're doing.)The down side of revisiting this old content is that it can be a little depressing. When you realize that death knights and hunters are pillaging these old world raids for gold and bragging rights, it's a little bit of downer. Some of us spent hours or days or weeks in those places. We struggled to eek out just enough damage to down those old, epic bosses.But, then again, if the raids weren't worth it for the fun at the time, maybe we shouldn't have been doing them in the first place.Bootstrapping alts and new folks"Bootstrap" raids are those raids whose entire purpose is to quickly and efficiently bring level 80 characters up from just-dinged to ready-to-raid. There's a number of different ways to achieve that bootstrapping. My favorite tends to be to tell a fresh level 80 to "get thee unto a Dungeon Finder."But if you find yourself trapped with a handful of other usual raid members, you have a unique opportunity to power someone up to your group's current tier of progression. Power-run those alts (or newbies), and see how quickly they jump up to your level.Even though it might technically be faster to cycle Dungeon Finder groups, the issue is that you're also trying to include a half-dozen to two-dozen other people in this effort. I'd like to think that gearing up a newb gives this effort a nice "community" feel.Sell some titles and mountsYou can still score The Undying title from Naxxramas. Unless you're bootstrapping someone, you probably don't have a lot of reason to be going back to Kel'Thuzad's stomping ground. But the problem you're facing isn't one of "is it worth it," but rather "how can I make it worth it?"There's plenty of people who have never seen Naxxramas. I know, it seems shocking, but it's true. For every player who's seen Naxxramas, I bet there's one who's never quite been able to get a group. Offer those folks to not only take them into the instance, but also all the way through it. And then sweeten the pot with the instance's applicable title. This experience will easily be worth a few thousand gold.The same theory applies to Ulduar's mounts, of course. However, I suspect that many of your guild members probably want the mount for themselves. I've actually not personally been on one of these kinds of runs before, though, so I'm not sure how it'd work out with someone who's a complete novice running hard modes. I'm actually considering trying one out on my home server of Shadow Council to see how those folks do it.SummaryThese are, of course, just a few different ideas. The problem, of course, is that an experienced, progressed raid will be able to quickly blow through the available content within a few days. If you find yourself snowed in for longer, then you probably will need even more help.Good hunting out there!

Scattered Shots: It's all hunter loot in ICC, part 1

2010-01-09T01:18:00.001-08:00

Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week Frostheim uses logic and science mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout to look deep into the Hunter class.

Okay, maybe it's not all hunter loot -- certainly there are some useless plate pieces and decorative maces in there -- but our ICC loot shopping list is delightful and vast, and even impacts the balance of hunter specs. This is the end game loot folks. The last major raid instance with the coolest and shiniest and bestest toys we're gonna get (and some bows).

In fact, there's just so darned much hunter loot delight that it won't all fit into one post! So join me after the cut as we start to plan our ICC loot lists with a look at our itemization, tier 10 armor, Emblem of Frost options, and craftable loot.

Itemization

When we talk about itemization, we're not just talking about having more of each stat, but also how our itemization budget is spent. ICC is the best itemized hunter look of any tier. This means that we're seeing more of the stats we like -- more red sockets, more crit, more armor penetration -- and less of the stats we don't like, such as blue sockets and haste.

The biggest impact we're going to see from this fantastic itemization is the greatly increased amount of ArP we'll be seeing on our gear. ArP is all over the place in ICC, in large amounts, and it's not something you're going to be able to avoid. MM gains far more benefit from ArP than SV, and the ease with which tons of ArP is now available will shift the balance of best dps spec strongly in the MM direction. MM will no longer have to give up nearly as much to pursue the badass ArP builds. In fact we're going to see a lot of MM hunters hardcapping their ArP, rather than pursuing a softcap with a trinket like Mjolnir Runestone or Needle-Encrusted Scorpion.

In the ICC endgame of best hunter dps benchmarks, I think we'll see the gap between SV and MM widen substantially.

A Note on "Best" Gear

I'm going to make an effort to identify some of the best and most desirable hunter loot in ICC. But we need to realize that what gear is the best depends not just on your spec, not just on your specific talents, but also on what other gear you have, and exactly how you play.

So rather than try to identify a Best in Slot, we're going to look at what gear is generally on the top of the lists.

Tier 10

ICC is also bringing us the unpleasantly named Ahn'kahar Blood Hunter set, complete with two set bonuses we actually like! The tier 10 set 2-piece bonus is absolutely the first thing you should be pursuing with your Emblems of Frost. Let's take a closer look at these bonuses:

2-piece bonus:

Your Auto Shots have a 5% chance to cause you and your pet to deal 15% additional damage for 10 sec.

This is a phenomenal set bonus that favors BM and MM. BM has a much faster rate of Auto Shot fire with Serpent's Swiftness and will get the proc more often. Sadly it's not enough to put BM up into the SV/MM raid dps range, but it's something. MM has a smaller advantage with the ability to maintain the 15% damage boost to their serpent stings indefinitely with the way Chimera Shot refreshes percentage damage boosts. But for all 3 specs this is a fantastic set bonus that scales beautifully with gear and buffs.

As a side note, you still don't want to stack haste to try to get this proc more often. The amount of useful stats you'd give up just aren't worth it. That said, if you aren't already using the Improved Aspect of the Hawk talent, this set bonus might just be enough to push you over the edge!

4-piece bonus:

When your Serpent Sting and Wyvern Sting abilities deal damage, you have a 5% chance to gain 20% attack power for 10 sec.

This set bonus isn't nearly as attractive; however, it's still a good set bonus. Using some paper napkin math, this bonus looks worse than the tier 9 2-piece bonus (Serpent Sting crits!), though certainly with much better stats on the items. Proccing off of your sting damage means that on single-target fights, this ability will be proccing very seldom. The proc gets much stronger in fights where you have multiple targets up for a sustained amount of time, and you can keep your Serpent Sting on two targets at once (which you're doing anyway when you have the chance, right?).

Overall it's generally a good move for hunters of all specs to pursue the 4-piece set bonus. I suspect we'll see most hunters getting the head, shoulders, chest, and hands for their set, and leaving the legs out of the set. The Ahn'kahar Blood Hunter legs and hands have no ArP, and there's some hefty ArP legs available elsewhere that is likely to make it the logical non-set piece.

Emblem of Frost Gear

We have some fantastic gear options purchasable with our Emblems of Frost. There's a generic Emblem of Frost vendor in Dalaran, but the set vendor is located just inside the entrance to the ICC raid instance, as well as one in the Dalaran Leather & Links shop near the south bank.

Ahn'Kahar Blood Hunter set
- Spaulders, Handguards-- 60 emblems
- Headpiece, Tunic, Legguards-- 95 emblems
Back: Recovered Scarlet Onslaught Cape -- 50 emblems
Chest: Longstrider's Vest -- 95 emblems
Hands: Logsplitters -- 60 emblems
Waist: Band of the Night Raven -- 60 emblems
Trinket: Herkuml War Token -- 60 emblems

My recommendation (certainly what I'm doing) is to pursue your 2-piece tier 10 set bonus first, right out of the gate. Exactly which two pieces you get first will depend on what gear you currently have. I'm keeping my tier 9.5 legs and hands as long as I can, for example, so I'm stuck purchasing one of the expensive ones for my second piece and it'll be another week before I have enough emblems.

Once you have your 2-piece Ahn'kahar Blood Hunter bonus, you probably want to get the Recovered Scarlet Onslaught Cape next. There's not a lot of options for the back slot from ICC drops (and none in 10-man from any loot list I've seen). Maybe the Lich King is hoarding our cloaks (and our guns!). However this emblem cloak is currently the best back slot item available to us, and we can just buy it whenever we want!

The chest and hand pieces are probably going to be used for your set, so these aren't terribly attractive (unless you really want the ArP on the Logsplitters). The trinket is filled with Haste, which makes it far less desirable for hunters as opposed to other physical dps classes. You can get a better waist via drops (in 25 man anyway) but if you still haven't gotten a better waist by the time you've collected your entire tier 10 set and back, this could be a nice little upgrade to hang onto until something better comes around.

Crafted Gear

ICC also brings us new crafted gear pieces that can be made with Primodial Saronite, the extremely costly by-product of the god of death. These include:

Shatter Rounds
Iceblade Arrows
Legs: Draconic Bonesplinter Legguards -- 8 Primordial Saronite
Feet: Rock-Steady Treads -- 5 Primordial Saronite

The epic ammo is epic. The AH prices have come down, and of course you want to use this stuff. 'Nuff said.

The Rock-Steady Treads are competitive for the best mail feet out there. You can get a bit more ArP from drops if that's what your after, and if you need hit rating you may prefer something else; however, in general you'll probably be content keeping these puppies throughout ICC. This is on my wish list as the Primordial Saronite prices continue to drop.

The Draconic Bonesplinter Legguards are also very good, though there is equivalent or better available through drops in early 25-man ICC as well as options with hit rating. In general if you are raiding 25-man ICC I think these are worth skipping; however, if you have deep pockets or only raid 10-man (or not at all) these are an excellent purchase.

Next Week

That pretty much covers the ICC hunter loot that we have space for today. The best thing about all of this epic joy we just talked about is that we don't have to rely on random drops for any of it. But, there is a lot more loot left to cover!

Next week we'll take a look at Quel'delar, the Ashen Verdict faction rings, and all the joyous purples that drop from the ICC raid bosses.

Around Azeroth: The ship, the ship, the ship is on fire

2010-01-09T01:17:00.001-08:00

Between yesterday's submission and today's, it seems like it's pretty easy to have Trial of the Crusader bug out on you. Gnolie of on Executus got to the gunship battle before the massive area lag brought the server to the edge of disaster. All the NPCs on the ship disappeared, and the constant spam of Death and Decay and Consecrate caused the ship to look like it had become the victim of a surprise volcanic eruption.

Do you have any unusual, beautiful or interesting World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see them on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word "Azeroth" in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing -- use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, Val'kyr on mounts, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran. Older screenshots can be found here.

Shifting Perspectives: The druid of 2009

2010-01-09T01:16:00.000-08:00

Every week, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week, Allison Robert has been at the cough syrup again, without the editors realizing in enough time to shut down her access to the blogging software. No good can come of this.

Lines composed more than 3,000 miles from Tintern Abbey, by someone who hated Wordsworth and thought he was a self-obsessed little prick, but managed to conceal this from her professor long enough to book it from the class with an A, and this is a run-on sentence just like the title of the original poem, which is what we call Irony.

One year has past; one year, with the length
Of one long winter! and again I lean
My head -- back, against the perch of chair and post
And snarf the Robitussin down. -- Once again
Do I behold the druid class in all its glory
That with the benefit of dual-specs allows
Me to be incompetent in more ways than simply one.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, in the glow lent by the laptop, and try to keep
My editors from killing me. The column, it is late.

Yes, folks, it's that time of year again. Allie is sick, druids are thriving, and 2010 is upon us like the rear axel of a pickup truck on an icy road with a "Guns don't kill people, I do" bumper sticker. It's time to revisit the Year That Was, keeping in mind that the author of this article is so blitzed on cold medication that an entertaining afternoon was spent delightedly watching the screensaver.

Balance

Balance had a promising beginning as Wrath revved up, helped in no small part by a talented stun from Starfall via Celestial Focus that was utterly amazing in PvP. For once in our miserable little lives, we could actually keep something away from us. This had all the joy of playing a Frost mage without the bothersome rigmarole of actually leveling one and having to devote a portion of one's day to complaining about being a Frost mage. It was Very Fun, and as such, it was nerfed.

You learn to expect these things. Anything too enjoyable should be looked upon sorrowfully, because we know it will not last. Druids in World of Warcraft have an inherently better grasp of the fleeting nature of life and human happiness -- that transitory glimpse, the distant, flickering corner of one's brain possessed by the terrible comprehension that we are as leaves upon the wind. Sic transit gloria m-- f^&# me, is this all the cough syrup we have in the house?

Where was I? Like it matters. At any rate, Balance had a good start out of the gate, so much so that I was surprised at the end of 2008 to think it had the best prospects of any druid spec. Feral was getting yanked around like a kid in the middle of divorce proceedings, and Restos were rerolling paladins en masse after getting fed up with being two-shot by death knights, so perhaps we could all be forgiven for thinking that the world had gone a little crazy.

But then there was Eclipse. Nobody knew quite what to make of it, apart from the fact that it blew the old Burning Crusade rotation to bits -- or at least, it was supposed to. Cool animation? Check. Made the rotation more interesting? Check. A pain in the ass on movement-dependent fights, half of its proc not really worth using at the time, too much of Balance DPS ultimately dependent on something with a looming +haste cap issue? Check, check, check, and check.

No, Mr. Barkeeper, I was not signaling for mine. You leave that there.

Eclipse was undeniably a significant improvement to Balance DPS, but its status as a proc-within-a-proc made it difficult, if not impossible, to get the most out of it when you really needed, except by chance alone. Was it going to be up during Bloodlust/Heroism? Would it proc right before Thaddius switched your charges or you had to run to avoid a Flame Wall? There wasn't an answer to either of these questions, and frustrated Balance players everywhere watched a huge portion of their potential damage vanish down the gullet of something completely beyond their control. Wildly inconsistent performance (as Gray Matter noted at the time) is not something that raid leaders are terribly overfond of accommodating, and players had limited means of regaining lost damage in other ways.

So Eclipse -- the proc, the cooldown, and tier bonuses reliant on it -- has been tinkered with pretty much the length of the year, and Balance is still in an iffy spot. Any dispassionate observer would admit the issues affecting the spec are pretty much immune to a quick fix, more particularly with how +haste interacts with Wrath/Nature's Grace, and the looming +crit cap on Starfire in Tier 10 content. The easiest way to deal with both would be to nerf Balance talents to the point where gear doesn't add a set of increasingly problematic stats to the moonkin arsenal, but I think we can all agree that deliberately making things worse in order to let existing gear solve the problem is an uninspiring solution. Beyond that, the two primary nukes -- Wrath and Starfire -- don't really do different things, as Ghostcrawler himself observed. The former is faster but travels to the target; the latter is slower but hits immediately. They also have different colors. That's it. There is no ancillary benefit to the use of either beyond switching them up for different Eclipse procs now that that the individual cooldowns have been decoupled.

So what does 2010 hold in store for the laserchicken contingent? I wouldn't be surprised to see Balance mechanics get an overhaul in the run-up to Cataclysm, because as things stand now, we will always be among the first victims of stat inflation, and Eclipse -- while more "reliable" in the sense that you can better predict when it's likely to be triggered -- still isn't a controllable damage boost along the lines of Icy Veins or Metamorphosis.

I have grown dangerously coherent. There may have been actual analysis in this portion.

This will not stand.

Neither can I, but that's why I'm writing this from bed with a cold compress now.

Totem Talk: Goodbyes

2010-01-09T01:15:00.001-08:00

First off, yes, I'm leaving Totem Talk. It's been a good ride, and no, I'm not quitting the shaman class nor WoW.com. You'll still see me around on Know Your Lore and The Care and Feeding of Warriors for the foreseeable future, and I'll be writing Totem Talks until we have a replacement. The reason I'm leaving Totem Talk is simple: I don't think I'm giving enough coverage to all the different specs and playstyles anymore, and frankly I don't want to have to try and respec every few days to catch up on spec mechanics for roles I don't want to play. For some classes I play, this isn't an issue, but I'm straight up never ever going to like elemental as a spec or a playstyle. I'm not a ranged DPS player, I never was, I never will be. There's a big difference between personal preference and a spec not being good, mind you. I don't dislike elemental, I simply don't like standing in the back and casting as my DPS role.

So I'm out, and we'll have new people come in and cover the class. I'll still be playing my shaman, healing and stormstriking my way through content. I still love the class, and I'm always going to play one as long as I'm playing WoW.

Before I go on to talk about the highlights of my two plus years of covering shamans for WoW.com (and WoW Insider before that), I do want to say that the Tier 10 bug that causes a seven day lockout just floors me. It's the kind of bug you'd almost expect to see on elemental shaman gear, frankly. If I were an egomaniac (well, more of one) I'd almost think this was done for me as a fitting tribute as I depart. Here's hoping it gets fixed soon.

And now, my favorite Totem Talk moments.
5: Shaman Itemization resists a clever title

Admittedly this was a recent piece, but I don't think the concerns it addresses have really gone out of style. Along with the gear consolidation post, I thought (and still think) it will benefit the shaman class as a whole when elemental and resto don't end up so far apart in terms of what stats they want and how they are designed via talents to go about gathering those stats. This is definitely an aspect of the class' hybridization that should be of interest as the class moves forward into Cataclysm.

I would call the increased variability in enhancement a triumph of making mail gear work for a shaman spec, and it's one of the success stories for Wrath. Now I'm hopeful we'll see a similar success story for elemental in Cataclysm helping revitalize it in similar fashion. Mastery is where I'm pinning my hopes.

4: 3.0.8, The Rise of Shamanism

Setting the stage for the redesigns of patch 3.1 and 3.2 came this talent, aimed at introducing a scaling element to elemental combat. The patch had other changes, of course: the reduction in AoE totem threat, the switch in positions between Static Shock and Mental Quickness, an attempt to improve Healing Way... but it was Shamanism that was the big star of patch 3.0.8 and harbinger for pretty much all that was to come. Frankly, I was thrilled to see it come into the game. Shamanism has been buffed to work with Chain Lightning and to apply more of a bonus to both CL and Lighting Bolt since it was introduced, and I think (along with the Fire Nova changes) this was one of Blizzard's better calls all told.

3: The Elusive Shaman Tank

Picking up the thread of an older post about shaman tanking, I honestly had a surprising amount of fun writing about this topic. Not only did I get to go back in my memory to when I first rolled my orc shaman and ended up tanking lowbie instances on him (SFK was a particular favorite, as was Wailing Caverns) but I got to detail how the changes to the game with the launch of first Burning Crusade (letting Horde have Pallies and Alliance Shammies, thus freeing each class from trying to mirror the other) and Wrath of the Lich King (new talents, new spells, some abilities changed or even mostly abandoned) helped alter and eventual spelled the effective end of shamans as tanks in World of Warcraft.

My one regret in writing about the subject is that I'm afraid I may have sounded too negative or too much like I rejected the players trying it when I rejected the idea. For the record, I think shamans are never going to be progression tanks, but I admire the heck out of the players working to test the class and its limits to the utmost. This is how fun discoveries get made! This is how people learn the tolerances and thresholds of their talents and spells.

Shaman tanking may not be a viable concept, but the players trying to do it anyway make me smile every time. It's the ultimate refusal to accept the prevailing wisdom, and it's awesome.

2: On the edge of change

Wrath dropping was one of the most exciting times to be writing about shamans. We didn't yet have the benefit of hindsight showing us how 2009 would be the year of shaman redesign, we had Hex, Thunderstorm, Maelstrom Weapon, Spirit Wolves, Riptide to look forward to. Everything was new and exciting again. I loved playing my shaman in the Wrath beta and talking about it with you all was just the delicious icing on an already awesome cake.

I also got to complain about losing downranking, but in retrospect my reliance on downranking was probably a sign that I make a better DPS than a healer as a shaman. I tend to take people dying when I'm healing fairly to heart, which may be why I'm a better tank, where that kind of stress actually seems beneficial. I felt like I learned how to do it pretty well, mind you, but I never really felt as comfortable with it as I should have.

1: Sentry Totem

This is the best thing I have ever written, about the best ability any class has every had. It was Sentry Totem, and writing about said totem, that made me love being Totem Talk's writer for these past years. People didn't think I could write a serious column about it, and yet, here we are, and here it is. Watching. Always watching. Until it gets one shot by a stealthed rogue in the flag room, anyway. And while it's not actually in this column, the passage that caused me to write it has always stuck with me: It's also stuck with the totem's description on WoWhead.

I'll miss you most of all, Sentry Totem.

I'm still going to be writing Totem Talk until a new writer is found, of course, but I owed you guys a proper sendoff, and here it is. It's been an amazing experience working on this column with you all. Thank you for reading it.

Two Bosses Enter: Anub'Arak pounds Dred, Eregos faces Skadi

2010-01-09T01:10:00.000-08:00

Two Bosses Enter ... but only One Boss Leaves, in WoW.com's series of fantasy death matches. Welcome to the quarter-finals of the Original Five-Man Wrath of the Lich King season. Grab a seat, and let's get ready to rumble!

Last week's battle was all about size. In the end, being tougher trumped being larger, as Anub'Arak Pounded King Dred with 64% of the spectator vote. We'll get a view of the beat-down after the break -- plus we'll set up the vote for this week's battle between Ley-Guardian Eregos and Skadi the Ruthless.

Alert fans will note a different schedule on their weekly Thunderdome tickets. Starting this week, you'll find the past week's roundup and the next week's fight and vote in a single post. Be sure to follow the jump if you'd like to debate and vote on the upcoming battle between Eregos and Skadi. Then starting next week, we'll be hosting the Two Bosses Thunderdome on Wednesdays (moved up from Thursdays).

Join us after the break for last week's wrap-up plus next week's battle: Ley-Guardian Eregos (The Oculus) versus Skadi the Ruthless (Utgarde Pinnacle). Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls ... Dyin' time's here.

Anub'Arak Pounds King Dred

Spectators roared their approval for Anub'Arak last week, with the former Nerubian royal bringing in 64.5% of the votes against King Dred's 31.9%. (Only 3.5% thought the match would end in a tie or other scenario.) The battle ultimately boiled down to physical size -- but the question is, how much did it matter?

Cuwi: Are people seriously arguing that Dred would win because he's too big to be Pounded? The rules specifically state that their abilities work on each other.

SR: For your information, Tyrannosaurus Rex (or all large bipedal dinosaurs, for that matter) had a HUGE flaw to their design: They were easily thrown off-balance, and when they fell, it was their end. The thing is, herbivores with clubs on their tails AIMED at their legs, so that they would break under all that WEIGHT that the BIPEDAL holds on their BODY. How easy is it to knock over an upside-down wine bottle? Quite easy. You can even see it with horses ... How many of them survive in nature if they fell over and broke their leg?

With that said, Anub can literally SMASH INTO Dred's legs with all his weight ... And I dunno about you, but he looks damn heavy with his size, his natural armor AND additional armor that he wears. When Dred falls, he's gonna get eaten alive or simply impaled to death, as geveldion said. And what's to stop Anub'Arak from doing that?

Outofideas: I think a lot of people are seriously overestimating the size difference between the two combatants. King Dred may be a tower of teeth and claws, but Anub'Arak still dwarfs us lowly bipeds. When he rears up for Pound, I wouldn't be surprised if Anub could carve up Dred's stomach like a birthday cake. Add in the Spider Lord's intelligence, combat prowess and the pound-for-pound equality of all his adds vs. Dred's, and the true king brings home mighty new corpse for his lord to reanimate.

Ley-Guardian Eregos vs. Skadi the Ruthless

The Two Bosses Thunderdome is considered neutral territory, where both combatants are able to access their usual encounter mechanics and abilities. If you can't imagine it inside the Thunderdome, imagine it someplace else – but you must include all of each bosses' abilities and mechanics.
All of the competitors' abilities, including crowd control and other effects to which bosses are usually immune, work on their opponents (with apologies to considerations of lore on this count).
Assume that the opponents share similar levels, health pools and comparative overall damage output.
Don't get caught up in gameplay mechanics and what actual players might do in each encounter.
Don't neglect style, story and scale.

In Corner One: Ley-Guardian Eregos (The Oculus)

Simpletons! You cannot comprehend the forces you have set in motion. The ley line conduit will not be disrupted! Your defeat shall be absolute!

Ley-Guardian Eregos, the great Blue Dragon boss, flies at the pinnacle of The Oculus. Players normally battle him astride drake mounts with various abilities.

Inside the Two Bosses Thunderdome, there will be no player drake mechanic. Judge the battle on the basis of the abilities of Eregos and Skadi themselves. Eregos may engage in battle in the air and/or on the ground -- your choice; neither is mandatory -- without the player drake mechanic. Consider Eregos' minions capable of handling the harpooning of Skadi's drake mount.

Arcane Barrage
Arcane Volley
Enraged Assault
Planar Anomalies
Planar Shift
Whelps Two to three spawn at a time; heavy DPS can push Eregos into a Planar Shift before he has a chance to summon

Learn more about Ley-Guardian Eregos' key abilities, and review comments from players who've battled him. (Remember: no player drakes here!)

In Corner Two: Skadi the Ruthless (Utgarde Pinnacle)

What mongrels dare intrude here? Look alive, my brothers! A feast for the one that brings me their heads!

Skadi the Ruthless, an Undead Frost Vrykul who resides in Utgarde Pinnacle, is named after the northern goddess of winter and the hunt in Norse mythology. Upon engaging in battle, he flies up above the terrace on his Protodrake, to strafe foes below as they push through waves of his Frost Vrykul. Opponents pick up harpoons to shoot the drake, eventually killing it and forcing Skadi to the ground and into hand-to-hand battle.

Remember that inside the Two Bosses Thunderdome, you should consider Skadi's minions to have the same comparative output as Eregos' minions. Don't forget that we are considering Eregos' minions to be capable of handling the harpooning of Skadi's mount.

Crush
Poisoned Spear
Whirlwind

Read more about Skadi the Ruthless's battle tactics, and review comments from players who've faced him.

Inside the Thunderdome
Two Boss matchups are about substance and style, not game play and mechanics. Don't base your strategies on player tactics, which opponent has been easiest or most difficult for you personally, or the difficulty of each opponent relative to instance progression. Vote for the spirit of the battle as set forth above. Set aside differences in opponents' health pools, game level and actual damage output. Absolutely no game-mechanic nitpicking!

Before you cast your vote, join the debate in the comments. Who wins, and why? Style points go to spectators who use the comments to sway other readers to their point of view!

ORIGINAL WRATH FIVE-MAN SEASON: QUARTER FINALS

MATCH 1

Anub'Arak (Azjol-Nerub) -- WINNER!
vs.
King Dred (Drak'tharon Keep)

MATCH 2

Skadi the Ruthless (Utgarde Pinnacle) (seeded at 63.8%)
vs.
Ley-Guardian Eregos (The Oculus) (seeded at 50.7%)

MATCH 3

Xevozz (Violet Hold) (seeded at 62.1%)
vs.
Loken (Halls of Lightning) (seeded at 58.1%)

MATCH 4

King Ymiron (Utgarde Pinnacle) (seeded at 60.3%)
vs.
Krik'thir the Gatewatcher (Azjol-Nerub) (seeded at 58.6%)

The Queue: A plea for help

2010-01-09T01:09:00.001-08:00

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

Somewhere along the line, I've picked up this habit of discussing games I've been playing (besides WoW) as my introduction to The Queue. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's fun. Unfortunately, I'm currently playing Bayonetta and I'm not sure I can really talk about that one here. Just look it up on Youtube, you'll know what I'm talking about. Now before I shame myself any more, let's get to the Q&A.

Reuben asked...

"How does the disenchanting option work? I find that sometimes I can choose disenchant, and other times I can't. What determines the availability of that option?"

You need an enchanter of appropriate skill in your party to disenchant things. If you have no enchanter at all, you can't disenchant anything. If you have an enchanter that hasn't finished leveling the tradeskill, you might be able to disenchant greens but not blues or epics. If they have skilled it up high enough, you'll be able to disenchant anything that drops.

Many people asked...

"Why do people hate the Oculus so much? It's really easy since the nerfs, but people keep dropping group."

I don't think it has anything to do with the difficulty at all. The problem is that the Oculus is completely absent of tried-and-true methods of guiding players through a playing field. It isn't often that bosses wipe raids (besides Eregos), but rather the inability to keep your party going in one direction if someone that's never been there before decides to wander off by themself. They go in a different direction because they're not sure where they're supposed to go, they get jumped by drakes. They cry for help, everyone goes looking for them, people get split up and eventually the mobs pick them off one by one and everyone is falling to their doom.

There is no doubt in my mind that if Blizzard used some very basic visual cues as to where you're supposed to be going, this would not be a problem. Even in games where you're given the illusion of wide open exploration, there are cues guiding you in the direction the game thinks you should be going. The dragon GPS simply saying "kill all robots" is not helpful. The purple glow on the robots themselves? Also not helpful, since you begin this phase of the instance underneath all of those platforms. If you don't know ahead of time what you should be killing, there is nothing guiding you toward them. This isn't a problem in an instance where you're on the ground. In those cases, you go down a hallway or a path or whatever else. In Oculus, you're in a wide open area where you can move in any direction. Players need more direction.

Everyone has been in a group where that scenario I outlined at the beginning of this answer plays out. Nobody has fun in those runs. Some people have more patience for it than others. People with no patience for it drop group. I usually stick it out, but make it very clear that the group should follow whoever has a mark over their head. If they can't follow the person with the mark around when we're all on our drakes, that's a problem and we deal with it when it happens. But dropping group as soon as you get in wastes the time of too many people.

Velleekwitay asked...

"Why are most WoW videos, such as recordings of raids, on Youtube accompanied by bad music? Is there a rule against using the original soundtrack?"

There's no rule against using the original soundtrack, but it's pretty hard to get it out of the game files if you don't know how ahead of time (which actually is against the TOS, isn't it?). Plus, maybe those people like that so-called bad music and are perfectly happy with it. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean nobody likes it. People who have watched my videos here on WoW.com know I like to stick to the game's soundtrack, but now and then I mix it up with some crazy jazz. Not everybody likes it, but I do. I made it, so that's what counts.

Ending with a question for you...

Hey, dear readers! In the near future (not this week, probably not next week) we're going to try to restart our ancient Pimp My Profile feature. If you haven't been reading us long enough to know about it, we essentially take "bad" armory profiles and help people fix them up. Poor gear choices? We'll help you fix that. Bad talent spec? We'll recommend better ones. Same thing with your glyphs, enchants, the whole deal. The problem is that this is a user driven feature dependent on submissions, so we can't start it until you give us something to work with. So if you want our expert opinions on how to fix your character, email us your armory link! Until we have a mailbox set up dedicated to this feature, send your armory submissions to alex @ wow . com, just remove the spaces. Please only submit your own characters, not some random schmuck you found in Ironforge.

In addition, give us as much information about your playstyle as possible. Are you a player that has time to run a single heroic per play period at most? Are you an aspiring raider? Do you have a ton of time on your hands to grind things out? They more you tell us, the more we can tailor our advice to you personally!

Breakfast Topic: Effective Communication

2010-01-09T01:08:00.000-08:00

One of the good things about running more PuG's than ever before is that it's forced me to learn how to communicate what I intend on a pull to a group of people I don't really know. This, in turn, has made me better at communicating with my guildies and friends when we raid, in part because now I'm finally thinking about how to express what I intend to do in a more organized way.

One example is the pulls directly after Krick and Ick in Pit of Saron: even in raiding gear, these pulls can be fairly difficult if steps aren't taken to ensure that the caster mobs are controlled properly from the start and the diseases aren't allowed to run rampant. The Flamebearers in particular with their Tactical Blink and Hellfire abilities can wreak havoc. It's not that these pulls are super difficult, especially not if you make use of abilities like Hex or Polymorph (on the Deathbringers), Shackle, Repentance and so on to ensure that a couple of the mobs are taken out of the equation for a few seconds. I've had these pulls go extremely poorly in groups that were extremely chatty, mind, if what they're chatting about isn't really exchanging any meaningful information.

In our new age of grouping with complete strangers, do you find yourself just hoping your group knows what it is doing? Do you take a leadership role, or have one foisted upon you, and if so how do you go about making sure everyone knows what they should?

Around Azeroth: The power behind the throne

2010-01-09T01:06:00.000-08:00

Vitrioli of on Durotan snapped this shot after killing Loken in Halls of Lightning. He searched the area behind Loken's throne for hidden treasure, but was only able to discover that the throne was actually made of foil-covered chocolate instead of stone. However, you can't really consider this treasure. Even the most hardcore gamers would balk at eating chocolate that someone has been sitting on for twenty thousand years.

Do you have any unusual, beautiful or interesting World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see them on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word "Azeroth" in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing -- use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, Val'kyr on mounts, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran. Older screenshots can be found here.

Man forced to choose between his wife and his orc

2010-01-09T01:04:00.000-08:00

The Scottish Sun reports that a Scottish man made the news for having to choose between his wife and his orc. 42-year old Robert Cushnie was the proud owner of a life-sized World of Warcraft Thrall statue, one of several that Vivendi commissioned from Studio Oxmox to promote Warcraft III (along with a Night Elf female statue). The telecommunications manager scored the 185cm. tall statue when a toy store in nearby Falkirk closed down six years ago.

Much to the dismay of geeks everywhere, Cushnie's wife Dee wasn't comfortable sharing her home with a green-skinned orc and threatened to move back to her Canadian homeland if her husband didn't ditch the Horde Warchief. His wife reportedly said that there was "no room for (the orc) in our life," and Cushnie prudently chose Dee, whom he married in February 2009, over the huge statue. "I just don't like it," Dee said, "I'm only 5ft 3in, so it towers over me, which is quite creepy."

The statue was adopted by a couple in Aberdeen, Michael Thomson, 61, and his wife, Patricia, 55, who report that their 16-year old granddaughter is thrilled with the acquisition. "We wanted him because he's so unusual," said Patricia. Robert and Dee will move to Canada later this month sans the orc. "I'll miss him," Cushnie said, "but I'm glad he's gone to a good home." As this little episode proves, not even the most badass orc can mess with marital bliss!

How flaws in Blizzard's billing department are being exploited

2010-01-09T01:03:00.000-08:00

Please see the update to this original post.In our continuing series on account security issues present within Blizzard's offices, we bring you news that lax training in Blizzard's billing department is being exploited by those attempting to game the system and illegitimately acquire more gold and high value in-game items. The critical flaw in Blizzard's system is that billing support personnel are currently given the ability to "roll back" characters to previous versions more or less on the spot, with the customer on the phone. Because of this, there is a high degree of flexibility and personal accountability on the part of the billing representative. The flexibility extended here is vitally important to customer service, however the training that comes with the flexibility, we are told by multiple sources, is inadequate and leads to this exploit being practiced by a growing number of individuals.The exploit involves human interaction (aka social engineering), which in security systems is the notoriously weak point. The exploit is often referred to internally as "onioning," which involves the player repeatedly claiming the account was compromised to the Blizzard billing support representatives. There are obviously more details to doing this, but we don't want to provide a how-to. Blizzard is aware of how this is done, and they are currently not implementing checks to combat this.More alarming is the fact that this vulnerability exists, to a large extent, only in Blizzard's billing department. The training to combat this exploit is available and indeed given to account administrators and game masters, however Blizzard for some reason sees fit not to train their customer contacts in the billing department -- yet allows them much of the same powers (in this case) as an account administrator would have. Some of these concerns may be alleviated when the department rolls out its all-in-one customer service tool instead of the wide variety of separate tools that are currently in use.This becomes a larger issue when looked at from the perspective of time and effort put into correcting such exploitative action. Blizzard has a limited number of support personnel, and the time it takes to correct actions by exploitative players detracts from the time Blizzard has to help lower long restoration queues and help out the customer elsewhere. The prevalence of these exploits is directly affecting the well-being of the game, and leads to things like requiring mandatory authenticators.Finally, we want to make it clear that we are publishing this article not to encourage exploitation, but to report policies and practices which allow these exploits to happen.

White and longer than your average cloak

2010-01-09T01:00:00.000-08:00

It seems like so long ago. But only three or four years ago, I got a very special drop from Stratholme. No, the original Stratholme, not even the Culling of Stratholme. I want to say we were doing one of the old timed runs, when you tried to kill Baron Rivendare within 45 minutes. But, we just happened to have a night when the rare-spawn gargoyle, Stonespine, appeared. I got luck and won my very own Stoneskin Gargoyle Cape. When I looked up information about the cape on Thottbot, I found myself a little treat.The very first comment proclaimed that this cape was "white and looks longer than your average cloak or cape." Something about that comment must have caught the imagination of other WoW players, because the comment thread went on for pages. The Stoneskin Gargoyle Cape became a Thottbot meme, and was (perhaps) a predecessor to things like the Three Wolf Moon shirt. It was an amusing blip on the community of World of Warcraft, but not one I've thought about for a long time.It's with great joy that I am now the proud owner of a Saronite Gargoyle Cloak, which "drops" from the box after you complete Icecrown Citadel's gunship battle. The flavor text for the cloak proclaims that it is "even longer than your average cloak or cape." It's an unmistakeable shout out to that original item, and one that had me giggling like a mad man. I love it when Blizzard pokes a little fun at themselves, and indulge in a bit of metagame.I usually leave my cloak invisible, but I absolutely had to turn it back on for the Saronite Gargoyle Cloak. And I assure you, gentle reader, that this item is absolutely white and even longer than your average cape or cloak.

Insider Trader: More Craftable Items of the Ashen Verdict

2010-01-09T00:58:00.000-08:00

We've talked at length about the Icecrown craftables last week, but we were mostly focused on the driving, universal material required to make them. That is, we were mostly talking about the Primordial Saronite. The recipes for Icecrown craftable are given to you by the Ashen Verdict, in order to help you do battle with the legions of the Lich King.This week, let's start looking at the items created by these recipes, and see how they perform in their respective roles. I think some of the craftable items will be pleasantly useful even over the occasional tier gear, especially if you consider that you can grab these items from the Auction House. (Primordial Saronite seems to have now dropped in price across the board, even selling for less than 2,000 on some servers.)Take a look behind the cut, and let's start talking about the gear itself.Blacksmithing -- Tank GearThe two recipes for Blacksmithing-created tank gear are the Boots of Kingly Upheaval and the Pillars of Might. Both are fairly solid tanking items if you are already uncrittable. (For plate classes, that's usually at the 540 Defense mark.) If you're already past that landmark for tanking prowess, then the boots and legs focus on the other key avoidance stats. Namely, dodge and parry. Since there's no Block stats on either of the boots, they're fairly usable by any of the three, plate tanking classes. Each item is item level 264, so they're going to be fairly worthwhile compared to most items that drop from 10-man normal mode.Blacksmithing -- Physical DPSThe physical DPS items for Blacksmithing are the Hellfrozen Bonegrinders and the Legplates of Painful Death. They both sound terribly harsh and mean, don't they? Although, I suppose that's absolutely appropriate for warriors, death knights, and paladins whose sole purpose is to smash your face in.Similar to the situation with Blacksmithing's tank gear, we can assume that most plate-wearing DPS are already hit and expertise capped by the time they're storming Icecrown Citadel. As a result, neither of those stats appear on the physical DPS items. Instead, the Hellfrozen Bonegrinders and the Legplates of Painful death sport Critical Strike Rating and Armor Penetration. Different classes have different levels of priority on Armor Penetration, but the Critical Strike Rating will be useful for everyone.Blacksmithing -- Spellpower PlateThose holy paladins are always coming along adding a third type of plate armor. In this case, the Holy paladins are represented in the blacksmithing plans by the Protectors of Life and the Puresteel Leggings. Spellpower plate can always be kind of a tricky subject, when you're trying to rate "what's best." Some paladins might prefer Haste, if they're not already capped out, while others are big fans of crit. Still, since these are about equivalent to the Sanctified Lightsworn Greaves, for example, they're a pretty good deal if you're being thrifty with badges.Engineering -- AmmunitionWe've already talked at length about the Iceblade Arrows and Shatter Rounds, but it's worth reinforcing. For the cheap price of a couple crystallized elements, you can build a stack of ammunition that every hunter will want to get their hands on. Definitely worth the time to make it.Leatherworking -- Physical Combat LeatherYou can't call the Bladeborn Leggings and Footpads of Impending Death simply physical DPS items because many bears will also crave this gear for their tanking sets. It wouldn't take much for a bear to shove all Stam gems into the Bladeborn Leggings to turn them into an absolutely amazing hit point item. It's notable, however, that neither of these items are made with actual leather. The closest you get to "leather" for these items are Arctic Fur and Nerubian Chitin. The gear must have a hard outer shell, with a very nice fur lining.Leatherworking -- Physical DPS MailThe Draconic Bonesplinter Legguards and Rock-Steady Treads represent the physical combat mail armor for hunters and Enhancement shamans. This pair of gear assumes that your physical DPS character is already rocking out at the hit cap, and thus focused on stats like Critical Strike and Armor Penetration. Notably, the Draconic Bonesplinter Legguards might be more attractive to many hunters than their own T10.5 legs, the Sanctified Ahn'Kahar Blood Hunter's Legguards, since those items "waste" itemization allocation on Haste.Leatherworking -- Spellpower LeatherThe leatherworking spellpower leather patterns create the Blessed Cenarion Boots and the Legwraps of Unleashed Nature. In a moment of sublime convenience, neither of these items have Hit Rating. Trees don't need hit rating for much, and most Boomkin in Icecrown are already going to be hit-capped. Blizzard has saved themselves a little itemization trouble this way.Leatherworking -- Spellpower MailLike holy paladins, Elemental shaman always manage to add an interesting category of gear. They also tend to have the coolest names for their gear. The leatherworking spellpower mail pieces are the Earthsoul Boots and the Lightning-Infused Leggings. I really like the vibe of these two names, since they give shaman a nice "grounded lightning" feel to their pants and feet.Tailoring -- (Mostly) Healing ClothI specify "mostly" healing cloth for the Sandals of Consecration and Lightweave Leggings because otherwise I would no sooner finish typing this article than someone would present very good argument for why a mage or warlock would want to wear the items. That being said, you can tell these items are probably intended for your healing priests because of the names (Lightweave), and the hefty amount of Spirit boasted by both items. Here's hoping you've been stocking up on Moonshroud, because you'll need 30 to make both piece of gear.Tailoring -- (Mostly) DPS ClothSimilar to the healing cloth, I'm strictly specifying that the Leggings of Woven Death and Deathfrost Boots are only mostly for DPS. But still, the hit rating on the Deathfrost Boots are a dead giveaway that they're intended for damage dealers. However, I'm not quite why the boots are the only Icecrown craftable to sport Hit rating, since all the other gear mostly assumes you've got that stat covered. Maybe it's the prodigious amounts of Hit required for spellcasters, or maybe that's just the way the itemization budget lined up.SummarySo, most general character roles have a pair of Icecrown craftables that will be useful for them. With the exception of the Deathfrost Boots, though, all of the gear assumes your basic, required stats are already covered. That's Defense for the tanky types and Hit for the damage dealers. Since all of the gear is item level 264, they'll be well-worth the time for anyone who's not doing 25-man raids, but some of the gear will be good even for those folks.If you manage to get these up on the Auction House, remember that you should be charging at least your server's going rate for Primordial Saronite, or you'll just be giving away materials for free. Take the time to look at all of the individual costs for the materials, and try hit a fair price just a little bit above that. We'll be talking more about how to set a minimum market price for items next week. Until then, good trading!

The Care and Feeding of Warriors: I deserved that

2010-01-09T00:54:00.001-08:00

Every week, Matthew Rossi writes The Care and Feeding of Warriors. Every week, he claws at his feeble brain to come up with a header paragraph, which really is kind of unfair. Warriors shouldn't have to think. Do you have any idea how many blows to the head we take?So yeah, turns out I should probably have shut up and not told you guys that prot was actually good at PvP. Sorry about that. I'm not going to actually freak out until I see how they plan to balance prot so we're not good at PvP anymore, since I barely even PvP and am far more concerned with prot as a PvE spec, that is to say, tanking with it. If they make a bunch of changes and my threat stays the same and my survivability stays the same and I'm not seeing any major hits to my tanking, then whatever, I'm sure there will be enraged prot warriors still but I won't be one. If, however, I see a 2k threat loss and I'm dying like a chicken trying to tank a bloody heroic, then yeah, I'm gonna be upset. I'll probably skip 'fevered pet' and move straight into 'enraged mouth breathing' territory. I can think of all sorts of ways to tweak prot in PvP that wouldn't have much of an effect in PvE, and I know the folks at Blizzard are better at class design than I am, so waiting and seeing is the order of the day. That being said I do find it irritating when we get told over and over again that we're fine until suddenly we're not. Just saying, some consistency would be nice.I should probably also share something I admitted on Twitter the other day: yeah, I went ahead and race changed to draenei. Yeah, after writing a long post about how I probably wouldn't, I did. Effectively all of my alliance toons are now space goats. I didn't do it for the racial, mind you: ICC tanking gear is positively ridiculous in terms of hit, I'm swimming in hit. I did it purely because I wanted to play a draenei.But that leads me to a discussion of ICC gear, gearing in general, and intimations of future design for warriors after patch 3.3 has passed and we're heading towards Cataclysm.So far, ICC gear (and T10 tanking gear) is pretty sweet. When I originally typed that sentence there was a swear in it, but I went back and backspaced over it. How sweet, you may ask? Well, in the past weeks of ICC 10 and 25, I've reached almost 46k health unbuffed, my dodge, parry and even block have reached ridiculous levels, and the 2 piece Tier 10 bonus is so good that I don't even notice how my actual block value has dropped. The four piece bonus? It makes angels cry in joy.I have spent absolutely no time in ICC doing anything but tanking. This week we cleared out Rotface and Festergut, but I missed our Putricide attempts (stupid me) so I have to wait for this weekend to get to see him. Festergut (who I always mistype as Festerguy) was an interesting race fight with some tank trade offs and managing cooldowns to keep from getting your face pushed in as Fester inhales and buffs himself, I actually enjoyed it rather immensely. Plus, he handed me a really nice belt that makes me look like the Heavyweight Champion of the Raid.

Seriously I look like I should be standing on top of a rope calling out someone about their deficiencies in the square circle. (I'd use actual wrestler names here, but man, I'm old and all the wrestlers I knew are probably retired.)Festergut was a fun tanking challenge. Rotface can be a fun tanking challenge, or a boring tank and spank depending on what role you're playing. I got to play "Stand in one place and play patty-cake with a huge, pustulent fat corpse who will jam his ulcerated prolapsed hernia in your face at every opportunity." As my guildmate Kol put it, "this is an interesting fight for everyone who isn't you." The ooze kiting, avoiding the flooding and otherwise managing Rotface's Grobbulus + Twin Valkyr style is pretty engaging and I'm looking forward to trying it out this weekend. He didn't drop the chestplate, but that's what furture raids are for.Seriously, even with Chill of the Throne my avoidance/mitigation stats are damn solid (we're talking almost 14% dodge, close to 22% parry, and around 18% block with raid buffs even after CotT yanking out 20% of my dodge) and I'm looking forward to getting my hands on that sweet proc mace from Putricide. I would like to see the proc get a buff to put it on par with Bryntroll (wow, was I wrong about the value of that proc, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa) but if it's got uptime even remotely comparable that +100 str proc by itself should be a nice threat boost and the healing bonus will be nice for high damage fights. I'm already tanking with a high DPS axe a lot of the time because I simply don't need any more avoidance or mitigation on my weapon (I'm at 580 defense already) so I think a proc is actually kind of welcome at this point.
Again, that's using a DPS axe from TotGC. Tanking gear in ICC is some of the absolute best gear I've ever seen, even the non set pieces (I agonize over which of them I'll stop using for my 4 piece T10 set bonus, believe me, the idea of not wearing my Broken Ram makes me unhappy) and it only gets better as we will eventually get heroic modes down. (Please note I mean relative here: I am aware that Onslaught was a set designed for level 70 and this is level 80 gear. But the itemization here is proportionately better, I believe, and that's saying something, as both BT and later Sunwell gear was well itemized.)At first I was kind of surprised to see how high the strength values can get, but that just seems to be part of a move to get tanks to pick up some threat stats and it's working fine for me (I haven't even missed the block value from my old TotC Set legs) as threat's gone up as steadily as everything else. At present, I don't even bother to wear a threat set to heroics anymore, I just use my current stam/avoidance set and that first shield block hits just as hard thanks to the set bonus on T10, and the shockwaves hit even harder.I find myself wondering where tanking design will go in Cat: clearly there won't be defense on gear. For the moment I'm assuming Dodge and Parry will remain unchanged and Block will become a pure percentage stat (you have a 20% block chance that shears off 20% of incoming damage on a successful block) which leads me to think that stat values on tanking gear will be going more and more towards parity. Instead of seeing, say, 1500 str and almost 4k stam, you'll see 2k str and 4k stam, and that str will provide a more meaningful contribution to how Block (and perhaps Parry) works for warrior tanks. One of the reasons I think this way is their continuing discussion of getting Fury and Arms warriors to tank in five mans. At present, most DPS warriors I know pass on tank gear unless everyone already has it and that's often due to the fact that they don't want gear they'll only wear to tank unless they have a tank offspec they really like using. I expect in Cat we'll see some itemization changes to muddy the waters between DPS and tanking plate: high strength gear with hit and expertise on it, for instance, could pretty easily serve in either role in a system without Defense. (I also expect to see even more homogenization in plate tanks as a result.)ICC itemization is, to some degree, the absolute pinnacle of Wrath's design philosophy, and while we know it's changing in Cataclysm the designers aren't working in a vacuum: they're designing the new paradigm while working with the old one, and I think the rise of high strength tanking gear and proc based weapons is a sign that we're going to be shifting away from super stat stacking for specialized roles (tank or DPS) and towards a more fluid system where you'll tank in the gear you have, and talents and mastery will help make it more suitable to a role. (This is clearly what I've believed before ICC, but I find ICC a confirmation of it.) I expect, for the first time, that Cataclysm will actually make warriors feel hybrid rather than like two classes (a DPS class and a tank class) jammed together at the hip.Next week: tanking Rotface. Festergut and Putricide, unless something else happens.

Phat Loot Phriday: Bryntroll, the Bone Arbiter

2010-01-09T00:49:00.000-08:00

How would you plate-wearing raiders like your best-in-slot (pre-Shadowmourne) weapon first thing upon stepping into the 25-man version of Icecrown Citadel? If Lady Luck is on your side, it could happen. Bryntroll the Bone Arbiter was, for a few glorious weeks, far and away the best weapon available to death knights and retribution paladins before Shadowmourne and its own Heroic counterpart. Slightly less awesome for warriors, but still pretty amazing. Can you believe it drops from Lord Marrowgar, the first (and probably the easiest) boss in ICC?Let's talk numbers, shall we?Name: Bryntroll, the Bone ArbiterType: Two-Handed AxeDamage: 801 - 1203 Damage, 294.7 DPSSpeed: 3.40Attributes:
169 Strength
161 Stamina
One red socket and one blue socket
Chance on hit: Steals 2138 to 2362 life from target enemy.And once we're seeing hard modes downed in a few months (weeks?) the Heroic version will be an available alternative.Name: Bryntroll, the Bone Arbiter (Heroic)Type: Two-Handed AxeDamage: 888-1329 Damage, 325.7 DPSSpeed: 3.40Attributes:
185 Strength
173 Stamina
One red socket and one yellow socket
Chance on hit: Steals 2412 to 2664 life from target enemy.Looking at these stats, you might be a little skeptical due to the complete lack of "green" stats on the weapons. There's no crit, no haste, no armor penetration or anything like that. Believe me when I say the proc makes up for it. Before the recent bug fix, which will prevent certain paladin and death knight abilities from proccing the drain twice, Bryntroll made up anywhere from 6-10% of a player's damage in a raid. Post-fix, it's going to be somewhere in the area of 3-4% which is still significant, and it remains one of the best weapons 2H users can get their hands on at the moment.Heroic Bryntroll is even one of the best death knight tanking weapons available in the game, with only Ramaladni's Blade of Culling coming close. Depending on your other stats, you could go either way there.How to Get It: As mentioned above, you waltz into Icecrown Citadel, de-bone Lord Marrowgar, and hope the loot gods smile upon your pallid husk. It's a simple fight, but we have a strategy guide for you should you need it.Getting Rid of It: The current upgrades to Bryntroll are Heroic Bryntroll, Shadow's Edge (for certain classes) or the legendary Shadowmourne. Additional Information: It's rare that I point people to Elitist Jerks, but at this level of the raid game, you can probably handle it. If you want to know exactly how this weapon stacks up for your class compared to the competition, Elitist Jerks is the place to be. Just make sure you follow the rules, or you might find yourself kicked to the curb rather fast.
Tags: axe, bryntroll, bryntroll-the-bone-arbiter, icecrown, icecrown-citadel, icecrown-gear, icecrown-loot, loot, lord-marrowgar, raid-loot, shadows-edge, two-handed-axe

The Wrath you never saw

2009-12-29T04:23:00.001-08:00

As we're heading towards the final confrontation with the Lich King and the end of this chapter of the World of Warcraft saga, we end up reminded of how much of Wrath of the Lich King was designed and never used, or used sparingly, or even resurrected later, fittingly enough. But not only do we have loads of models that either weren't used at all or were used later in places completely unrelated to where they were supposed to drop, we have entire zones that either didn't happen at all, or did but which don't seem to go anywhere.

We're all familiar with the strange case of Azjol-Nerub. Originally it was intended to be a complete underground zone that players were to level in, do quests, and so on. Then that was scrapped and we instead got two instances and an NPC who was clearly the remnant of a once far more expansive plot. It's a shame, too, because those two instances are tantalizing hints at how vast and expansive an Azjol-Nerub zone could have been. Frankly, I found (and still find) the Nerubian architecture in those instances far superior to Naxx both in design and its surprising color palette. And when you look around Ahn-Katet and realize how vast the cavern is and how little of it is actually seen in the instance, or run Trial of the Crusader and fall into yet another astonishingly vast and underused space, I don't see how you can not wonder why the Azjol-Nerub zone never manifested itself. Perhaps we'll see World of Warcraft: Underground at some point.

But while in Azjol-Nerub we have a zone that failed to materialize, in Crystalsong Forest we have a fully developed zone with floating, magically altered forests of shattered crystal trees filled with ruins and NPC's and... no real point. There's two flight points, one for each faction, but you could easily miss them because why would you go to them with Dalaran floating right there overhead anyway and no quests to drive you down to them? Why does each faction need its own flight point in the region? Are they fighting over some objective? What is it?

Likewise, Dalaran's presence is intended to somehow oppose the Blue Dragonflight but aside from erecting yet another giant purple bubble (man, they love giant purple bubbles) they don't really seem to be doing anything to all those Blue Dragonflight mobs floating around on flying platforms in the zone. You get sent to Crystalsong by the Argent Crusade a couple of times, first off when they're pushing into Icecrown and then after they've erected their tournament and want you to kill satyrs for scrying crystals or knock out the Black Knight's squire.

This just begs the question: why is the Black Knight's squire in Crystalsong? Why are the satyrs there? There are ancient night elf ghosts haunting the ruins, the Blue Dragonflight, this zone should be positively bustling with player activity and instead it's a ghost town because there's no actual content here, just hints at it. There's a really interesting bit of backstory hinting at a war between the Black and Blue Dragonflights here that made the trees turn to crystal, and the Lich King's attempt to harvest the forest's power, but it doesn't actually appear anywhere in the game that I've seen. Crystalsong is basically just a very elaborate backdrop to fly over to get to Dalaran at this point.

Another thing that's interesting when looking through the data files is how many items that ended up in Naxx and (more recently) the new five man instances were, at least during the design process, intended to drop somewhere else. For instance, here you can see various familiar shield designs but also at the top and bottom you'll notice two designs you've yet to see. One of them, the bottom design, has an art style that clearly matches the Hate-Forged Cleaver which drops in regular Halls of Reflection, and which you can find in the item files as 'axe_1h_draktharon_d_01'.

The axe and shield are hardly unique as being designed and created for an instance that they don't appear in. It's not even unique to this expansion: there are 2h sword models in the files which are named for Auchindoun, for example. What's interesting in all these models that either don't drop at all or which drop in ICC instead of the places which they are named for is what they suggest, namely that once there was the intention to have more varied raiding across Northrend instead of one large Naxxramas raid and two smaller one-encounter raids in Obsidian Sanctum and the Eye of Eternity.

Several sword models, as an example, either appear only on NPC's or in instances completely disconnected from their file names. Here, for example, we see several swords named for the Nexus, but only one of them drops in the Eye of Eternity raid, the rest all drop in Naxxramas (or Forge of Souls in the case of one of the reskins). Again, this isn't terribly unusual: several of the original sword models in the first release of World of Warcraft have names that hint at a faction bias that never came to pass, for example. We can, however, speculate that perhaps there was to originally have been more expansive content at Utgarde Keep, Drak'Tharon/Gundrak and the Nexus than actually came to pass, and that several of the art assets and models originally designed for these zones ended up moving to other instances like Naxxramas 25. (Naxx 10 more or less just re-used original Naxx 40 models.)

Now, at this point I hasten to add I am just speculating. I have no way of knowing and have found no conclusive comments from Blizzard saying "Yeah, we were going to do a bunch more raids but then we didn't and we just focused on Naxx instead" but it is clear that there was a great deal of work put into designing item models for zones that they never appeared in or appeared only on NPC's such as Ulduar. (And yes, I still wish that big Blinkstrike looking 2h had dropped somewhere, but I'm glad to see that axe and 2h sword get into player hands.) It's hard not to get caught up in wondering what Wrath would have looked like with more raids at start... one can imagine an Utgarde Keep with a UP raid on top. The place certainly seems big enough for a raid with King Ymiron having gotten a lot of build up in Howling Fjord only to then sort of fizzle out by being farmed constantly by pre-Naxx guilds looking for a Red Sword of Courage.

Likewise, both Drak'Tharon Keep and Gun'Drak just look overdesigned for the amount of content accessible: there's multiple structures and portals at Gun'Drak. Not only does Drak'Tharon look like you could easily have another instance there, the one we have is kind of confused and unfinished to me. Who exactly is the Prophet Tharon'ja? He looks vaguely like the Avatar of Hakkar from Sunken Temple... is he intended to be the harbinger for the various priests of the animal gods we encounter cannibalizing their own gods in Zul'Drak? Because we already have one of those, and he actually looks identical to Tharon'ja until you drain him for Quetz'lun's spirit. I'm fascinated by the lore hints in all the Zul'Drak instances (heck, the animal gods from Zul'Aman show up! Thankfully they didn't hold a grudge) and so, the idea that there was a possible raid exploring this in more depth and maybe explaining what exactly gave them the idea of eating their gods in the first place would have been fine by me. Maybe we could even find out what that enormous serpent tail in Gundrak is connected to.

I have no idea why, if there was work on UP and Drak'Tharon raids, that work was stopped. Then again, I don't know why Azjol-Nerub didn't pan out as an underground zone or why Crystalsong just sits there like an endless footnote in the Nexus war. I don't even know why we kill Malygos, Aspect of Magic and lord of the Blue Dragonflight, two raid tiers before we fight his undead consort. An argument could be made for Malygos as an immediate and arbitrary threat that needed to be dealt with, of course. It's just always seemed odd to me that we killed Malygos, empowered by Norgannon himself as Aspect, and then we go to the Titan-constructed prison of Ulduar and there's no real connection between the two events. It sometimes feels that in their drive to put Arthas on center stage they took the spotlight away from others too soon, and left a lot of interesting ideas undeveloped.

I've always wished they'd forgotten about Wintergrasp and its weird Titan structures and done AN as the PvP zone. Man, imagine mass battles crawling through the depths, fighting both the other faction and hordes of faceless ones? I'd be so down for that. Alas, as we approach the Fall of the Lich King and the oncoming Cataclysm, the possibility of seeing any of these underdeveloped or undeveloped ideas becomes ever more remote.

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Dungeon Finder bingo

2009-12-29T04:22:00.001-08:00

Tinwhisker sent us this link to a set of entertaining PUG bingo cards on the official forums, made by Cruce of Scarlet Crusade. While I'm not sure I would actually have gotten bingo on any single run, some of the squares have certainly happened in many of my runs:

A pure DPS class doing triple digit DPS (especially Death Knights; sorry to all the good DKs out there).
RankWatch. Almost every run.
Three or more members are "the Patient." I guess it's nice to show that they have some PuG experience, but that just makes egregious failures that much more disappointing.
Someone starts on a mob the tank hasn't even hit yet. More often than not.
Melee DPS attacking from the front. It's really not that hard, folks.

One thing I'd add to the list is people protesting that they don't take the game that seriously when you give them advice, like that they might want to put up diseases before using other strikes on their DK. You don't have to break out the spreadsheets, but there's a certain minimum effort to not be letting everyone else in your group down.

What do you guys think of this bingo set? Going to print out a few sheets to keep you entertained during those long, cold dungeon runs? Are there any squares you'd add?

The best of WoW.com: September 2009

2009-12-29T04:21:00.001-08:00

One of the things that jumps out at me while reviewing September is that it was a fantastic month for Moviewatch. Apart from that players were occupied with the new version of Onyxia, the Argent Coliseum, still discussing some questions raised by BlizzCon, and arguing over whether Garrosh was a jerk or what.

WoW Moviewatch: Warrior's Dream: My nomination for the best Moviewatch of the year. A lovely film, well-made, beautifully scored, and it crammed a thoughtful story (and insight concerning the sometimes-uncomfortable perspective on ourselves granted by nightmares) into 5 minutes.

Faction change service now available: A feature players had been wondering about getting for years suddenly went live. Did things go crazy? Maybe a little.

A critical examination of Garrosh Hellscream: Garrosh, as we'd previously observed, is not among the more well-received NPCs these days. Rossi asks -- how did this guy go from the demoralized Orc we see in Nagrand to the arrogant jerk we find in Northrend?

Ask a Faction Leader: Garrosh Hellscream: On the subject of Garrosh, personally I found this AAFL to be among the funniest in the series. If that whole Warchief bid doesn't work out for him, Garrosh has a bright future as an interior designer.

Yogg-Saron in blues: A sterling rebuttal to the idea that epics make the player.

Conclusions from the WoW.com faction transfer survey: We've heard (unofficially, of course) that our reader polls tend to be a fairly accurate gloss on numbers Blizzard sees internally, and we decided to ask readers if they'd used the new faction change service and (if so) what they'd done.

12 reasons why you don't want to play a priest: Matt Low turns a critical eye to his beloved class and admits -- not all is rosy.

WoW Moviewatch: Ulduar: Defiance: We'd really been impressed by the trailer, and Atraira delivered.

Drama Mamas: My GM is a succubus: Fascinating Drama Mamas about a GM unwittingly destroying her own guild, but guaranteed to enrage you if you're a female player who hates her attention-ho counterparts.

Additional instances can now be launched: One of the headaches plaguing Wrath has been overcrowded instance servers -- or, more accurately, Blizzard's efforts to keep them from being overcrowded by limiting the number of people who can occupy them at one time. By September, they'd completed a long, arduous process upgrading the servers to reduce the odds of the dreaded "Additional instances cannot be launched" message from appearing.

Why Blizzard should make authenticators mandatory on Battle.net accounts: A strong argument for more widespread use of authenticators, which would not only cut down on the stress experienced by Blizzard's customer support, but would also reap benefits for players (in addition to the near-immunity to account hacking) in the form of faster tickets. Waits for a Game Master these days number in the days-to-weeks, and it's almost entirely due to the number of compromised accounts.

WoW Moviewatch: How to win at PvP: Wowcrendor hits battlegrounds, Wintergrasp, and arena with hilarious results.

Ready Check: Onyxia: Rossi, an old hand at the original Onyxia, faces her later incarnation and returns to school readers on why standing in front of her is only for the quick or the dead.

WoW Moviewatch: Quest: Impossible: One of the most polished and well-made 2009 Moviewatch features.

The Queue: Trinket-palooza 2009: A lot of people had fun with this edition of the Queue, where we listed raid trinkets from the classic game that you might still get some use from at 80.

The Colosseum: A basic guide to the Arena rating system: The rating system for arena is a pain in the ass to navigate. Michael Gray walks you through it.

Tuesday Morning Post: Same Old Auld Lang Syne edition

2009-12-29T04:20:00.000-08:00

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. Winter Veil is winding down, and as we here at the WoW.com offices fight over the last carton of eggnog, we've been taking a lot of time to look over the past year and celebrate. Of course, here in the Tuesday Morning Post, we generally look at the past 7 days or so. So yeah, there's plenty of the navel gazing stuff, but there's a good smattering of news too. Nothing too major, I suppose. Even the dev team likes to see their family over the holidays, I guess. But it's there. And in the meantime, a little bit of a navel gazing never hurt anyone. Our navels are pretty awesome anyway.

Join me for the last Tuesday morning of 2009 and catch up on your WoW reading. The usual list is after the break.

Hot News and Features

Could the building blocks for the Cataclysm world event be right under our noses?
As Wrath winds down, we remember the abandoned and half-finished things.
We know why ICC's gated. You can, of course, always blame the gnome.
The 2009 WoW.com best stories showcases our personal picks for the best articles of 2009. Check out what we've posted so far, and watch out for the last few months to go up in the next few days.
If you logged on and got to the tree, hopefully you got your 2009 Winter Veil gifts -- And hopefully, you didn't shoot your eye out.
The official WoW magazine has a preview out.

Class News and Guides

Encrypted Text looks back at 2009 from a rogue point of view.
Totem talk looks at 2009 from a shaman's eye view.
Care and Feeding of Warriors looks back at 2009 for warriors.
Arcane Brilliance looks back at 2009 for mages.
The Light and How to Swing It looks at 2009 for paladins.
Spiritual Guidance looks back at priesting in 2009.
Warlocks look back at 2009 in Blood Pact as well.
Healing's going through some changes in Cataclysm. Here's what we know so far.

Dungeons, Items, PvP, Professions, and More

Sometimes, especially when it comes to Dungeon Finder groups, it's best not to know.
Rossi has his own philosophies for powering through PuG dungeons in manner not unlike one might expect of a Wookie Jedi.
Rejoice, disciples of the rod. You get a new fishing skill enchant in patch 3.3.
Ready Check takes a look back at the raiding scene of 2009.
In the mood for spoilers? We have some footage of one of the early quest encounters in the Shadowmourne quest line.
Officers' Quarters tells you how to make friends and influence guild leaders.

Odds and Ends

If you like it, then you should have rolled need on it. Note that we do not condone the actual viewpoints condoned in the video, but damn if the song isn't catchy.
Congratulations to November 2009's guild of the month, Sleeper Cartel!
WoW Rookie looks at making the most of the new tutorial tips.
Drama Mamas has more advice for handling the drama of the new Dungeon Finder.

Breakfast Topic: Lamented Mechanics

2009-12-29T04:17:00.001-08:00

This isn't a breakfast topic where I protest. I'm not signing petitions or grumping, I'm simply looking back and saying "Gee, I wish X".

For instance, I wish there were tanking fist weapons. I love, love, love fist weapons. I'd settle for a fist that had hit and expertise on it, even. But while I'm willing to switch to a slow main hander when I have a full rage bar to dump as Devastate threat (or for huge Cleaves when tanking lots of trash) it's just not really suitable for a good 80 to 90% of my time tanking. And yet, how I love fist weapons. I have an enhancement shaman, of course, and yet fists almost never drop for him (he's using axes at the moment) while they rain from the heavens and are almost constantly sharded when I'm tanking. I've taken to just picking them up and using them for fun. I understand there will most likely never be a dedicated tanking fist, as the only class that could use it would be a warrior (Paladins and DKs can't use fist weapons, Druids can but would almost never use one over a staff since they can't use shields).

Similarly, whenever I go elemental I always end up drooling over caster swords, and there have been a few times I've heard paladin healers sigh at a dagger drop. So what I turn to ask you is, what do you wish you could use? What drop can you either not equip or just can't effectively use?

Spiritual Guidance: The Priest of 2009

2009-12-29T04:16:00.000-08:00

Every week (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a UI and addons blog for WoW.

I'm going to cheat.

I'm going to dip back slightly into 2008 to the point where Wrath of the Lich King came out. Priests everywhere had high hopes for their class. We were coming off an expansion where Circle of Healing Priests and Resto Shamans were the king. Since then, the other healing classes have been improved where they could hold their own in raids and compete.

Wand specialization removed

Yes! I jumped for joy when I discovered this useless talent had been removed from the Discipline tree. It was then replaced with the new PvE staple talent: Twin Disciplines. The only time I really used wands at the end game level was when I was regenerating my mana.

Lightwell became more useful

I am not a Lightwell fan. There's just something about an ability that requires other players to interact with it in order to be useful. Seriously! Players had to find it, then click on it in order to use it. But I will credit the blues on this. They did their best to try and make the spell interesting. They dropped the cast time, increased the number of charges, and increased the amount of damage needed for the effect to break.

Oh, and let's not forget that they dropped the cooldown to 3 minutes.

A valiant effort but I don't think it was enough for it to see widespread use by Holy Priests. Just for kicks though, I'm going to grab Lightwell anyway and start giving it a shot in Icecrown Citadel.

Circle of Healing became smart

Just before the debut of Wrath of the Lich King, the developers made Circle of Healing a smart heal. It would automatically target players nearby who were lowest on health regardless of their party. At that point, priests became an extremely attractive class to raid heal with.

Circle of Healing hit with a nerf bat

"I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of Priest voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened. "

Circle of Healing was deemed too powerful. Either the smart heal had to change, or a cooldown had to be added between spell usage. There was a lot of criticism about this change. "No one's going to play a priest anymore." "Great, now we suck."

Several months later, priests continue to be sought after and brought into raids to heal.

Levitate castable on others

Actually, this change was two fold. When glyphs were added, one of the new minor glyphs was Glyph of Levitate which removed the reagent cost of Levitate. I didn't have to slaughter any birds to fulfill my desire to walk above water or to safely jump off a cliff to avoid a Horde shadow priest trying to fry my brains.

Fissure in Obsidian Sanctum changed colors

Okay, this wasn't a major change that affected priests. Even though the void zone changed from red to blue, I still noticed players had a hard time seeing and staying out of them. Evidence that it had nothing to do with colors!

Hymns had been redesigned

Divine Hymn: Anyone still remember what this spell used to do? It was originally a PvP-esque spell. It incapacitated nearby targets and healed friendly targets. I remember using it in the original form during arena to try to knock out opposing players. That changed in 3.1.0 when Divine Hymn single handedly became the best healing spell in the game. Continuing the trend of smart healing spells, Divine Hymn became a channeled healing spell which would automatically target the players with the lowest health.

Hymn of Hope: This former priest racial turned a baseline ability accessible to all Priests. After 3.1.0, it turned into the mana equivalent of Divine Hymn. Yes, a channeled spell that restored mana raid wide for several seconds to players with the lowest mana.

Prayer of Healing castable on anyone

Prayer of Healing used to only heal up the party of the current priest. It was changed later on so that it could be used on any player within the raid. Not only that, it would continue to heal the target's party as well. That gave a great tactical edge to a healing priest since healing leads could set group specific healing assignments without having to position priests in certain groups.

Prayer of Healing then gets nerfed

Of course, it was (like Circle of Healing) deemed too overpowered and the healing coefficient was scaled back down even further. Although given the choice between being able to target any party with Prayer of Healing versus extra healing oomph, I'd go for the any party.

Body and Soul talent

Feel like going for a run? With Body and Soul, your Power Word: Shield gave you the ability to run quicker for several seconds. It's impractical since most PvP priests go down the discipline tree and Body and Soul is too far down in Holy. From the PvE standpoint, I've only seen it used specifically on the Anub'arak encounter in Trial of the Grand Crusader. I'm always willing to say that it's a must have to stretch out the kiting but I'm sure there are guilds who have done it without the use of this talent.

Dual spec

To be fair, the addition of dual spec wasn't strictly limited to priests. But it allowed us an extraordinary amount of flexibility in our roles in the game. We had the ability to go shadow and destroy stuff or switch to holy and discipline in order to heal. Granted, we had the capability to do this any time. Having dual spec just made the overall process cheaper and easier to manage. Priests didn't have to hearth back to town to change specs and curse if they screwed up a talent point somewhere.

Replenishment

Shadow Priests had their utility levels reworked. Instead of providing a flat mana return, Replenishment gave back mana based on the mana pool of players. They were one of the first classes to do so along with Ret Paladins and Hunters. Warlocks and Mages joined them later on. This buff continues to be one of the most sought after buff and just about every 25-man raid has someone providing them (who is hopefully a Shadow Priest)!

Dispersion

Another new iconic ability for Shadow Priests is Dispersion. This all-in-one spell causes the player to take reduced incoming damage, remove all snaring or stun effects and regenerate their mana back.

2009 brought in some great times and changes to the Priest class. Some of updates were a pleasant surprise while others were anticipated well in advance and frowned upon. Cataclysm promises even more Priest changes to come and even though Arthas isn't dead yet, I'm really looking forward to 2010 already.

What were your favourite Priest changes? What didn't you like?

[1.Local]: The best of 2009, January-June

2009-12-29T04:15:00.000-08:00

Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week.

The story's not over 'til [1.Local] has picked it to bits and pieces ... So what did the local denizens have to say about the world of WoW during the first half of the year? In fact, the [1.Local] scene itself became the news back in June, as [1.Local]: The epic rap battle comment war edition hit readers' screens: "Players disagree over Blizzard's upcoming badge changes. Rap battle ensues. Site is left terrified and confused."

epsilon343: Ahh yes, the rap battle. Nothing like mad rhymes to cool off tempers.

Higher on Killchrono's list of memories, though, was all the commotion about scamming: Aaah, I remember that run of articles about scamming. The best (and simultaneously worst) part about them were the numerous comments by phishers and scammers who tried to justify their actions by saying non-security savvy people deserved to get hacked and how they were 'doing them a favour' by showing them how stupid they were. A testament to how deplorable and vile malicious scammers truly are.

The best of WoW.com: August 2009

2009-12-29T04:14:00.001-08:00

BlizzCon, BlizzCon, BlizzCon! That's pretty much what August was all about -- well, that and patch 3.2. Because this month was mostly crammed full of pure, unadulterated news about the upcoming convention and Cataclysm, there weren't quite as many one-off features this time around.

All the World's a Stage: Reflections on the passing of a roleplayer's mom: This isn't a very easy article to summarize. All I can say is -- please read it. One of David Bowers' most elegant and introspective pieces: "WoW is not an escape from life, it is a reflection of it."

WoW.com's Patch 3.2 Guide and content for the day: Patch 3.2 went live on August 4th and was (oddly enough) one of the top stories for the year. In hindsight, it probably wasn't that surprising -- it had been a while since Ulduar had gone live, and the Argent Tournament patch heralded the introduction of a slew of new pets, mounts, titles, and new druid forms. Huzzah!

Playing WoW for charity: Interview with the WoWathon team: Three college students managed to raise $5,000 for Child's Play with a marathon WoW session coupled with "dramatic readings of bad fanfiction."

Researchers study WoW to see how gangs form and fade: A UC-Irvine team has been studying guild and group formation ingame for data on "group ecology." As Schramm observed, "Listen, guys, all you have to do to break up gangs is ensure there's not enough loot to go around."

The lost art of crowd control: Both the emblems change in 3.2 and the emblems/Dungeon Finder changes in 3.3 have sent masses of people back to heroics, and we're not the only people to notice that crowd control's all but disappeared. Blizzard's answer (5 months later)? Heroic Halls of Reflection.

Felicia Day unleashes geeky pop single: So it turns out The Guild cast has both musical talent, the ability to reach #1 on the iTunes music video charts, and a sense of humor concerning their source material. We're shocked.

BlizzCon 2009: Don't forget to look for us: We decided to deploy special Zach Yonzon-designed t-shirts on the convention floor so that readers could pick us out easily.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm announced: "All haters, disbelievers, skeptics, muggers, druggers, post-modernists, and trolls, we are graciously willing to accept your apologies. Line forms to the left, people. No pushing! And mister, I hope you brought enough gum for everybody."

BlizzCon round-up -- Day 1 and Day 2: Rather than make this article a huge list of all the reporting we did from BlizzCon, I'll shorten it to these.

Grunty vs. Zergling battle video: The Grunty pet from BlizzCon has an...interesting interaction with the zergling pet. Robin films for us, her kid provides audio, site traffic quadruples.

A discussion in defense of new race/class combinations: The team banded together to discuss the lore behind the new race/class combinations we knew were going live in Cataclysm, and speculated on the possible racial advantages/disadvantages that would result.

Around Azeroth: In loving memory: This got my vote as the best Around Azeroth of the year.

Raid Rx: Raid bosses that brought healers to their knees (part 1) and (part 2): I loved reading Matt Low's list of nightmare raid bosses for healers. For some time I've been meaning to do an equivalent list for tanks, but will probably wait until we've seen all of the ICC raid bosses and hard modes to make a call on it.

Why am I suddenly so popular?: Tank population has ebbed and flowed over the course of the year. Rossi finds himself in high demand in the "ebbed" portion.

Officers' Quarters: Cataclysm will reshape guilds: Scott Andrews goes through the news from BlizzCon concerning upcoming guild improvements with a fine-tooth comb.

2009's drawing to a close, and we're wrapping up the most interesting articles we've published all year, one day at a time. Join us every day for the next twelve days with this year's best of WoW.com!

The Twelve Days of Winter Veil: Day six

2009-12-29T04:13:00.001-08:00

WoW.com continues celebrating Winter Veil with our Twelve Days of Winter Veil contests. Only six more days and today we are giving away a set of World of Warcraft novels written by Christie Golden to one lucky winner courtesy of Pocket Books. The set includes:

Arthas
Beyond The Dark Portal
Rise of the Horde
Warcraft Archive

The contest is open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec), and everyone who enters must be 18 or older. To enter, leave a comment on this post before 12pm ET (noon) Tuesday, December 29, 2009. Please be sure to use a real email that you check often to enter, so we can contact you should you be the winner. You may enter only once and one winner will be selected randomly. The winner will receive 1 set of Christie Golden World of Warcaft novels including Arthas, Beyond The Dark Portal, Rise of the Horde and the Warcraft Archive with a total retail value of US$58. Click here to read the official contest rules.

And if you don't win today (or even if you do!) check back later today for loot card giveaways and tomorrow for more contests -- the prizes only get better as we count down the Twelve Days of Winter Veil!

Breakfast Topic: Celebrated Mechanics

2009-12-29T04:12:00.001-08:00

While thinking about the lack of tanking fist weapons, I got into a discussion with my wife about her favorite ability (or perhaps my favorite ability of hers), Misdirection. The discussion came out of the fact that I basically threw her into the deep water by having her misdirect the adds on a TotC 25 Anub kill last night (which she did spectacularly, of course) and from there we started talking about one of the seventy billion Halls of Lightning runs we did yesterday. (Seriously, Halls of Lightning? You can stop now. No, really, I'm fairly certain I've killed Loken enough times.) The rogue in this group was simply phenomenal. Solid DPS, didn't stun mobs when I tried to pull them back, didn't constantly say 'go go go', and used Tricks of the Trade whenever he was going to open up on a big trash pull. Seriously, if you could adopt gnome rogues from another realm and just keep them in your backpack to pop into the open DPS slot in your pugs I'd have done so. I salute you, sir or madam.

I have no idea how Misdirection is supposed to work, love it though I do. Does the hunter shoot someone, then yell loudly "Holy crap, Mr. Tank, I can't believe you shot that guy!" while pointing at me? Perhaps the rogue using Tricks whispers into the mob's ear that I told him to stab right in the buttcheeks? How does Vigilance work? Oh, sweet Vigilance, how do you work? I suppose as long as you keep working I shouldn't question you too much, Vigilance, and yet I must know. I often imagine myself lumbering over to a gnome warlock and saying in an insanely deep voice "Little friend, do not anger Jaraxxus so with your shadowbolting and your demon summoning, I will be watching you" before waggling a finger at her. She of course proceeds to light him up, sweetcheeks. "That is correct, large eredar moron, I told her to do that!"

So now we come to you. Is it Shield of the Righteous? Flight Form? The ability to equip polearms? Intervene? Blink? Thunderstorm? (I can't resist singing AC/DC's "You've been THUNDERSTRUCK" when I cast that spell.) Conflagrate, Death and Decay, maybe it's Prayer of Mending? (Who doesn't love PoM really? Bing!) What facet or ability of your class or classes just makes your day?

Blood Pact: 2009 through the Eye of Kilrogg

2009-12-29T04:11:00.001-08:00

Blood Pact is your weekly warlock digest brought to you by Dominic Hobbs. "The avarice never ends! 'I want golf clubs. I want diamonds. I want a pony so I can ride it twice, get bored and sell it to make glue.' Look, I don't wanna make waves, but this whole Christmas season is stupid, stupid, stupid!" ~ The Grinch

Hmmm... a look back at changes for warlocks in 2009. Well there was... no, wait, that was 2008. Well what about... nah, that's planned for Cataclysm. Wow, this is harder than I thought. Nothing particularly outstanding has happened in the warlock area this year; but so much has happened and, well things have changed. It's like waking up each morning and something is subtly different. Your blue toothbrush is now red... The sofa is now against this wall, not that one... each change is pretty unremarkable in it's own right but by the end of the year you are a stuntman living in LA married to a small, blond Portuguese skier who when she's not training does abstract painting, practices yoga and brews her own beer.

As we surfaced, bleary-eyed into January our memories of sacrificing succubus and SL/SL were fading faster than those of December 31st. Those heady days of power that also led to FotM wannabes flooding our ranks. Skill and complexity had been leaking out of the class for a while and Naxx wasn't really providing any of us with much of a worthwhile proving ground. Affliction spell rotations were causing carpal-tunnel injuries on those who were determined to take the cold-turkey approach to dropping their addiction to Shadow Bolt spam. Fans of demonology were taking felguards like some sort of methadone for simplistic raiding, meanwhile retaining the use of their fingers.

Towards the end of January we stopped the quick summoning of one person, and instead summoned a strange demonic wardrobe-like object and let everyone else summon whomever from wherever (often that guy who just fell off the pipe). Shortly after this we remembered that one of our minions came in a box labeled 'tank' and used him as one. It turned out that this invalidated some kind of warranty, and there was a global recall of tanking voidwalkers. I think we got a big, blue vanity-pet as compensation but I can't be sure as I haven't seen one since.

Anyway, by now Ulduar had opened up and the move towards destruction began. I don't personally believe that the destruction talent build makes us like mages but it's true that those who like piling on DoTs, running with demons or being raid-useful were starting to feel a little disenfranchised about now. Not all bad though, a change was made to ease our soul-shard problems (a problem acknowledged by Ghostcrawler himself). Drain Soul might give a shard on each tick and we were now no longer able to carry more than 32 shards.

*silence*

I did say at the start that there wasn't anything outstanding. To be fair this did mean we no longer had to head out and find things to kill for our fragments of soul. Instead we find a load of locks lining up by the practice dummies before and after raids, presumably gathering wooden practice souls.

Well, Ulduar was fun and destruction fairly interesting, the tiered items pretty nice (if a little weird); things were ok and moving along. Then the Argent guys finished their arena and... well, not much changed really. If you weren't raiding but leveling then you could summon your mounts sooner and just by speaking to the trainer. Also Banish could be removed by yourself or some other warlock with a sense of humor. For those that were raiding, demonology (or more specifically Demonic Pact) was making a name for itself and felguards making a raiding return.

Now we're seeing Arthas' homestead invaded and the pull between affliction and destruction hotting-up as they are both up to fighting weight -- with demo looking on in amusement throwing spell power to them both. It certainly feels a different world that we woke up in 12 months ago and there sure seem to be less locks kicking about these days (where did all those death knights and paladins come from?).

Looking forward to the next year seems a little odd since there's high hopes that it will contain the release of Cataclysm -- the expansion set to shake up the warlock class as much as Deathwing shakes Azeroth. Certainly I hope for a shard system that feels more like a benefit than a burden. I quite like the sound of the new system as it has been communicated so far, but I do have some reservations that it's just going to be another set of numbers to watch. This is the burning of a soul -- the very essence of a being -- to unleash its power for our own aims. It should be something emotive and worthy of the sacrifice made, not a simple resource like a rune or a candle.

I'm also going to kick the termite mound that is 'green fire'. This debate has gone back and forth for so long I'm wary of getting anywhere near it but... If I have any voice at all I add it to those calling for a minor glyph to make warlock spell-fire become fel-fire. I don't say this because I dislike our spells as they are, or because I feel like a mage when casting them. I just think that many people play a warlock because of the 'RP' nature of them. Sure, most people don't role play in the least, but warlocks have a dark edge to them, they have a sinister tang, a malicious essence. I would like to see more that enhances this feel and frankly, green fire is just freaky and 'wrong' enough to capture that demonic nastiness nicely. Also, our minor glyphs suck.

Ghostcrawler has stated that demonology locks should be included in raids for their own damage, not just for an awesome buff. I do hope there are plans afoot to deliver on this statement. Demonology should be able to offer so much to a raid but is almost always left out in the cold. Beastmaster hunters have been raid viable before so we know the theory can work though wouldn't it also be nice to have to consider demon selection for each fight? While I approve of the measures made to get formerly ignored minions summoned once again (welcome back felpuppies) it would be great to have all of them powerful, if situational. Unlike hunters, we can summon any of our pets (minions) at any time but we don't. We are pretty much tied into one minion when we select our talent spec. Only when soloing (or the very occasional boss fight) do we summon something else. Let's see more of the minions next year.

Well, that's it from Blood Pact for this week and 2009. While I've only been writing it for these last few months I hope you'll accept my thanks to all the loyal Blood Pact readers this year (even the mages in IAPEWARLOCKS). I hope that while you are reading this, you and yours are happy and well. A very merry Christmas and joyous new year to you all from myself and Blood Pact!

Blood Pact is a weekly column detailing DoTs, demons, and all the dastardly deeds done by Warlocks. If you're curious about what's new with Locks since the last patch, check out WoW.com's guide to patch 3.3 or find out what's upcoming in Cataclysm from the BlizzCon 2009: Class Discussion Panel.

Around Azeroth: The helium-filled dragon

2009-12-29T04:10:00.001-08:00

Millya of on Moonrunner writes in with this tale: "Last night during our guild's quick Onyxia-10 run I encountered a ... rather unique situation. Being a mage, it's my job to terrorize her while she's flying around with her halitosis. Being a mage who doesn't want to be a smear on the ground, I always pop invisibility when she's landing!

This time, however, when I reappeared, our tank's fearsome posture had apparently frozen her in fear. She stayed like this, simply frozen and rotating in place for the rest of the fight while I laughed. Even after she was down, this is what she looked like. So of course I organized a group photo that is a marvel of coordination - "OK guys, stand to my left and right!" "But you're standing right in her corpse!" "Just trust me!" One of my guildies said she looks like a parade float. We do Christmas parade floats in style! Now with more dragon."

Do you have any unusual, beautiful or interesting World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see them on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word "Azeroth" in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing -- use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, Val'kyr on mounts, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran. Older screenshots can be found here.

Gallery: Around Azeroth

The Queue: Scourge frost

2009-12-29T04:08:00.002-08:00

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky be your host today.

Hopefully you all had a nice Christmas, and are as glad it's over as I am.

Time for a handful of WoW questions and answers!

Stella asked...

"Why do Scourge necromancers (including Kel'Thuzad and death knights) get access to frost-abilities? The Scourge's power derives from Kil'Jaeden and he's a member of the Burning Legion. Demonic power is mostly fire and shadow based (for obvious reasons). So where does the Scourge's power over frost come from?"

A fair question, one with lots of answers. While only someone like Metzen would be able to give you the definitive reply, I'd say that the Scourge have picked up control over frost abilities from their stay in Northrend. It's pretty hard not to realize how awesome throwing snow and ice is when you live with it year round.

An argument could also be made that because Ner'zhul was a shaman prior to becoming the first Lich King, he transferred some of his shaman abilities (which include control over frost) to the Scourge.

Dayninator asked...

"When Cataclysm arrives, I know Shadowfang Keep and Deadmines will be reworked as heroics. But what will happen to their original forms? Will SFK still be available for pallies seeking Verigan's Fist, for example?"

We don't know for sure. The alpha is not out yet, nor has there been any information released on this subject since BlizzCon. What we do know is that at BlizzCon they talked about these dungeons being heroic versions of the older dungeons, which would lead me to believe the previous versions of them would still be available for low level characters to run.

But that's just speculation, the only legitimate answer is that we don't know yet.

Waggins asked...

"Are there any sites that list best in slot gear for level 60's without the BC expansion?"

While it doesn't say "best in slot" exactly, Kaliban's Class Loot Lists still has the level 60 version accessible.

Gamer am I asked...

"Why can't we buy weapons with emblems, but we could but them with badges in Burning Crusade?"

Badges in BC got out of hand. The gear you could get with them, from armor to weapons, at points rivaled what you could get from the latest raid content. Blizzard has learned from this mistake and toned it down a notch to a more acceptable level. If you want weapons, you're going to have to run instances and get them as drops. Item level 232 weapons are available from the heroic versions of the Icecrown 5-mans, but you're going to have to farm them; not jut run heroic Violet Hold for a month.

Are invisible mobs ushering in the Cataclysm world event?

2009-12-29T04:08:00.001-08:00

There's been some interesting chatter going on around the internet lately about mysterious in-game earthquakes happening throughout Azeroth. Seemingly at random the screen will shake back and forth for a few moments. There are no visible mobs or other occurrences that would cause this. However, these earthquakes are being reported by more and more people.

We know that Deathwing is going to tear Azeroth up in a big way. Take a look at the Cataclysm trailer for how destroyed the land is going to be. Barrens ripped in half, parts of Azeroth's climate will change, and general hell will come forth unto the plentiful lands. We also know that the world event ushering in the Cataclysm is going to be big, really big. The event itself is not in the patch files yet.

Or is it?

There are invisible mobs called Shakers in the game right now. There are two types of these mobs. The first is just called [DND] Shaker that was potentially in the game as early as patch 3.2.2, based on comments left on the live version of WoWHead. There was also another mob added in patch 3.3 called [DND] Shaker - Small.

People on the PTR briefly reported seeing these mobs as targetable entities in Stormwind. They were mobs without any textures, with only their nameplate showing. You were able to damage them, but never kill them. Just like a target dummy. After a PTR patch the mobs became untargetable and entirely invisible again.

It is possible that these mobs are the hidden game mechanic causing the screen to shake. And given that they appear to have been activated with patch 3.3, it does make at least some sense that they could be tied to the beginning of the Cataclysm world event.

Of course, there is no official or unofficial word from Blizzard on this yet. Kisirani, the world designer, has been quiet as of late, and she's usually the one to let on hints about world events and other hidden things like this. We'll keep and eye out and an ear to the ground for more information, but we thought given the evidence out there now this was worth letting you all know about.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it. Nothing will be the same. In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion. From Goblins and Worgens to Mastery and Guild changes, it's all there for your cataclysmic enjoyment.

Naxxramas Raid Deck and Treasure Packs now available

2009-12-29T04:07:00.001-08:00

Following the success of their previous raid sets, Onyxia's Lair, Molten Core, Magtheridon's Lair, and the Black Temple, Upper Deck has released the first Wrath-themed event pack with the Naxxramas Raid Deck and Treasure Pack last December 22. Unlike their previous raid offerings, however, the Naxxramas Treasure Packs are stand-alone products which can be used separately from the raid deck.

According to Dan Bojanowski, Upper Deck's World of Warcraft TCG Senior Brand Manager, the stand-alone approach "was created as a direct result of customer feedback." Aside from containing the standard content such as exclusive foil cards, the set would also include "alternate art heroes featuring heroes from the Drums of War block in Naxxramas-themed gear and settings."

The Raid Deck, which is available for $29.99, contains a 110-card raid deck, 15 oversized boss cards, a 16-card Treasure Pack, and a UDE points card (or Loot card) and rulebook. Treasure Packs retail for $9.99 apiece and contain 15 random foil Treasure Pack cards out of a total of thirty collectible cards, a hero in Naxxramas-themed armor, and a UDE points card or Loot card. Hero cards are drawn from the Drums of War expansion set with variant art, with a total of ten cards with new art to collect. Each Treasure Pack also has a chance to contain a random Loot card from the Fields of Honor expansion set.

Landro's Pet Box available for UDE points

2009-12-29T04:06:00.000-08:00

Upper Deck recently announced a new item available in-game for players to claim using UDE points accrued from collecting the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game. The item, Landro's Pet Box, is a grab bag of sorts that can randomly give the character one of the following loot items: Papa Hummel's Old-Fashioned Pet Biscuit, Path of Cenarius, Sandbox Tiger, Dragon Kite, Ethereal Soul-Trader, or Bananas, the Monkey. Items previously available through UDE points were limited to a selection of epic tabards, permanent fireworks, and a Carved Ogre Idol that turns characters into ogres for 10 minutes.

According to the product description, Landro's Pet Box will more commonly give out Pet Biscuits, Paths of Cenarius, or the Sandbox Tiger, but will occasionally grant the rarer vanity pets. Players will not receive duplicates of vanity pets already obtained through the Pet Box. The item can be purchased through the UDE points store for 2,000 UDE points (the same cost as tabards) and is only available on US and EU realms. Landro's Pet Box marks the first time items previously available only through loot cards would be made available through UDE points, allowing players who miss out on elusive loot cards another shot at obtaining the items.

World of WarCrafts: Holiday ornaments, cookies and more

2009-12-29T04:05:00.000-08:00

World of WarCrafts spotlights art and creativity by WoW players, including fan art, cooking, comics, cosplay, music and fan fiction. Show us how you express yourself; contact our tips line (attention: World of WarCrafts) with your not-for-profit, WoW-inspired creations.

It may be relatively quiet around here this week, but World of WarCrafts is still managing to keep the holiday spirit rolling. Allow us to pass along several submissions from crafty readers with a Christmas-y bent ... First up, the Christmas tree ornaments (above) sent in by Faylinne from US Duskwood. Faylinne created these as a gift for Cyer of US Blade's Edge, the friend she credits as inspiring her to play World of Warcraft. Sounds like great results from both sides of that particular equation.

Join us after the break for a Horde cookie cutter and gingerbread cookies, plus a small gallery of sweets from a baker new to WoW-themed desserts.

Next up, a mini-gallery of Horde holiday gingerbread cookies from Herzreh from Ysera. Herzreh fashioned an old cookie cutter into the Horde symbol to add a WoW twist to the usual tree cookies on this year's holiday cookie tray. Nicely done!

Gallery: Herzreh's Horde Gingerbread Cookies

Finally, in non-holiday (but still sweet) WarCrafts news, we have a small gallery of treats from Talootah. We especially like the Fish Feast made from apricots, candied cherries and orange slices.

Gallery: Talootah's Sweet Treats

Blood Pact: Warlock tips for Icecrown Citadel, part 1

2009-12-21T23:12:00.001-08:00

Blood Pact is your weekly warlock digest brought to you by Dominic Hobbs. "You have found your way here, because you are among the few gifted with true vision in a world cursed with blindness! You can see through the fog that hangs over this world like a shroud and grasp where true power lies!" ~ Lady Deathwhisper

This week we delve into Icecrown Citadel and see what these new bosses are all about. We face a bag of bones that won't sit still, a somewhat effeminate version of Kel'Thuzad, a lift boss that is actually supposed to kill you and an orc-gone-bad. All in a day's work for your warlock on the go.

Lord Marrowgar

Time to dance with the bone lord. There are a couple things to avoid here. First is the boss himself when he spins around and drunkenly staggers all round the room. He moves pretty quickly so there's actually little chance of avoiding him completely but it's not a bad idea to try and minimize the damage you take from him. This ability is called Bone Storm and is well announced, spreading out from others will reduce the chances of you getting hit while he molests someone else. The second thing to get out the way of is Coldflame. He'll be sending out four lines of blue fire frequently throughout the fight, radiating away from him. This happens even when he's spinning about the place. Simple and fundamental rule of raiding -- don't stand in the stuff on the floor.

You can completely avoid Coldflame between Bone Storms by standing close behind him, since they spawn just a little way out. This position is normally held by the melee and possibly the healers so you might not be welcome (more people means more risk when he starts to spin). If you are allowed to stand in there then a Circle might be a good idea to get back out fast.

After each Bone Storm his threat list is wiped, so you want to pay attention to your DoTs, especially Curse of Doom. Make sure you allow your tanks a chance to pick him back up and reposition him before nuking away.

The last thing you need to think about is the Bone Spike Graveyards. These get thrown on raid members semi-randomly and need to be targeted and killed very quickly. Melee should really be dealing with any that appear amid their ranks but ranged DPS need to deal with the others. I found that tab-targeting was fine but you might want to put together a macro that gets you onto the target more quickly; something like:

/stopCasting
/tar Bone
/petattack
/cast Immolate

These should be going down in pretty short order so use a burst damage rotation. For destro locks it's the same as your normal one so carry on. Affliction and demo locks should just spam Shadow Bolts (swap to Soul Fire if you get the chance).

Lady Deathwhisper

I find this the most interesting fight open in Icecrown Citadel so far but there's still little that is specific for a lock. I'm not about to fill this article with all the mechanics of the boss and the adds, you'll have to go look them up elsewhere (Wowhead or Wowwiki for example). The basics I will cover however. Phase one sees the boss put up a mana bubble that means damage done to her diminishes her mana; when it's all gone we enter phase two. Don't try to use Drain Mana, you will do far more if you just do normal damage.

During phase one a load of adds will spawn, don't get anywhere near them, they really hurt. You can't do any damage to the casters, so if you're not assigned to nuking the boss stick to killing the melee adds. If one comes for you then kite it away and let everyone else deal with it. It's worth spreading out somewhat as sometimes the casters spells splash from their targets. If you have a melee pet I suggest putting it on the boss the whole time.

During phase two you can just nuke the boss, this is a pretty easy tank-and-spank phase, the only thing you really need to be aware of is not standing in the green stuff, but that's true of phase one as well. Make sure all adds from phase one have been cleared up before turning onto her.

On the 25 man version she also casts Dominate Mind every so often. I found that Fear was a good defense against this as it's duration was about the same. Range is a bit of an issue but by standing in the middle of the raid you can fear almost anyone that gets dominated. I used Grid to see who had the debuff and a mouse-over macro to fear them quickly. They are buffed while dominated so can quickly pose a threat.

#showtooltip Fear
/stopCasting
/cast [target=mouseover,harm,exists] [harm,exists] Fear
/focus [target=mouseover,harm,exists] [harm,exists]

That macro lets you just hover your mouse over the dominated character's unit frame and press the keybind for the macro. I added the focus line so I could more easily track if the Fear dropped off.

Gunship Battle

This is a pretty easy encounter if people stick to their jobs, but it can get hectic if not. Before the fight have a word with the Zafod Boombox ("He's just this goblin, you know?") and get the Goblin Rocket Pack. Add this to your hotbar and equip it (it goes in the shirt slot). This can be used to jump between ships, it's worth having a practice before the fight starts. Watch out for any practical-joker priests putting levitate on you, it's all too easy to overshoot the edge of the ship... you might want to suggest Slow Fall to the mage, see what happens.

Since you have the awesome Rain of Fire spell you will probably be told to stay on your own ship and just AoE down the mobs that board it. If so just do this and dodge rockets. Runes will appear on the floor where rockets are about to land so stay sharp.

If you are put onto a cannon (not a great idea if you are demo) then use the ability bound to '1' to shoot the closest mobs on the other boat and build up heat. This heat is indicated on your pet (the cannon) mana bar. Don't let the heat reach 100 but when it's nice and high you can use the other ability (number '2') to fire a high-damage ability and dump all the heat. That '1' button can be mashed really fast, so go for your life. Also, build up a good bit of heat before you start the fight, to speed things up a little.

The only other job you might get is to board the enemy ship. If so then you want to kill the mobs on the far side of the ship most of the time. Every so often a mage will step into the middle of the ship and freeze your cannons. Oh yes, you guessed it, you kill the mage as a priority to everything else. Yay! Don't worry about the other boat's captain; they just need to be tanked out of the way to keep him busy. That tank may need to have a break from getting hit for a while, as the captain gains a stacking buff. This is done by everyone jumping back to their own ship. If he doesn't hit anyone for about twenty seconds the stacks drop off and you can carry on. Be sure not to get back over to their boat until it's safe to do so (not even to get that pesky mage) as one hit from the captain will reset the counter on his buff (and kill you).

I never actually spent any time on the other ship so can't tell you if Circle works for a quick return, but I expect it does and it certainly sounds like a good idea to me. That said, the rocket packs are fun.

Deathbringer Saurfang

Another great fight and one that seems to cause some problems though it doesn't need to, everything is quite manageable. As ranged DPS you need to stand as far from the boss as you can and nuke (easy so far), then when the adds spawn, you turn on them and nuke them till they all die (still pretty easy). The tricky part is making sure that the adds never touch you. This is done by killing them before they reach anyone -- either by killing them really quickly or by slowing them down. Frost traps, and earthbind totems are commenly employed for this second option, but your Conflag stun and (should you have it) Shadowfury can also help. Listen to the raid leader on how this will be managed but do everything you can not to get hit at all.

Here's why: Every time one of Saurfang's abilities, or one of those of his adds, does any damage he gains energy. When he has enough energy he applies a really nasty DoT to a random raid member. This will in turn also give him energy, so he starts to gain energy faster and apply more DoTs. The people with DoTs are about as hard to heal as the tanks so your healers start sweating and people might die. This is always bad but when the boss gains 5% health back each time someone dies (Saurfang does by the way) it's horrible.

Liberal use of Power Word: Shield around the raid helps a ton, but generally avoiding the beasties is the key. That and letting someone die... Not the normal way of doing things but actually letting the first person to get Mark of the Fallen Champion die is usually worth it (even if they are a healer). Don't be upset if that's you, but do send out a silent prayer for it to be the mage. Also, don't put a Soulstone on the marked person, while that sounds like a great idea the mark persists through death so they will just come back as a liability, die again and give the boss another hit of %5 health.

So it comes down to slowing the adds, kiting them if needs be (smart use of Circle again) and nuking the boss in between. Stick to direct damage on the adds as they are almost immune to AoE. Keep yourself safe and look forward to some nice tier tokens.

Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne Cheats

2009-12-21T23:02:00.000-08:00

Every week (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a UI and addons blog for WoW. Too bad he was too busy running heroics to come to the aid of the King!

With the new dungeon finder tool released, I felt it was a good idea to write up how a priest should handle themselves in instances with a group of players they don't know. Once I started using the system, I became exposed to a large variety of different personalities, skill levels and gear levels. Quite the experience grouping with players packing gear ranging from Trial of the Grand Crusader to the random hunter wielding the grey bow of death.

My approach to pugging has not been that different since the pre-dungeon tool era when players would randomly form up in groups for whatever the heroic daily was. After a while, I stopped doing heroics because I didn't need the emblems anymore. In the end, I had to re-learn and remember some of the core philosophies I held onto when I dived back into the world of running heroic dungeons again.

You set the pace

Traditionally, the pace of the dungeon is set by the healer. As long as the healer has enough mana in the tank, trash can be chain pulled. In fact, I've noticed that speed and efficiency continue to be the norm. I'm not talking about pull speeds to the point where it could be considered reckless. The tanks I've grouped with are pulling the next set of trash the moment the current is nearly finished.

I've had tanks take one look at me and go "Whoa! Legendary! I'm in good hands" before they begin grabbing everything within visual range expecting me to keep them and the group alive. I barely even have time to breathe because the action is just so frantic.

Not every priest can handle pulls of that magnitude. Lay down some guidelines if you like. Don't ever be afraid to speak up when you're down to low mana levels. I like to tell the tanks at the beginning that they're cleared to continue pulling as long as my mana bar is about a quarter full or if I don't say anything about drinking.

A strong healer is able to support an undergeared group. Slightly weak tank? No problem! Pile them with extra overhealing if necessary. Slightly weak DPS players? That's okay since your mana pool or mana regeneration is high enough to endure the length of the boss fight, however long it takes.

Bring your own consumables

Specifically, don't forget to bring water. I keep 2 stacks of Honeymint Tea. Runic Mana Potions can come in handy in case you need them in a pinch. If you plan on being in there for the long haul, consider investing in a Flask of the Frost Wyrm or a Flask of Pure Mojo.

Cooldowns

I tend to forget about using Power Infusion. Have any casters in your party? Hit them with the haste buff every chance you get. They'll love you for it. Even defensive cooldowns like Guardian Spirit of Pain Suppression can come in handy with larger trash groups that might jeopardize the tank. It also demonstrates that, y'know, you're awesome.

Buffs

You are buffing every player, right? It should go without saying but I'm going to say it anyway because I've been in groups were certain players forget to hand out buffs.

Did your group wipe inside? No problem. Automatic rebuff. Did a player die to slimes or something? Automatic rebuff. There's no need to spite someone. For me personally, I want to get in the dungeon and finish up quickly so I can move on to other items (like getting Loremaster or something).

Resurrecting

Speaking of wipes, definitely release and run back. Politely remind everyone to do it as well if you happen to notice some players not releasing. At the same time though, if there's a legitimate AFK, I don't mind casting a resurrect on someone inside when I reach their corpse. I already spend the time flying or running back. I don't want to spend even more time waiting for them to do the same, so II end up telling them to stay down. Emblems are the only reason I'm there and I want to get it over with. If that means spending 10 precious second to res someone, so be it.

Gear

Roll on the gear that you're going to use. That doesn't mean rolling need on Frozen Orbs unless it is agreed upon in advance. Get healing trinkets if you plan on doing that. Pass (or greed) on the DPS trinkets if you're not planning on dishing out the face melt.

Handling the haters and the bad players

Inevitably, you're going to run into the bad players. Maybe he's the guy that likes to hit the target the tank isn't on forcing you to unload heals on him. Maybe she's the tank that has difficulty maintaining threat. Maybe he's the guy that likes to chat and dish out some attitude. Maybe she likes to stand in fires. Or that player just happens to be AFK.

There's nothing you can really change about it other than dropping out of the queue and eating the dungeon timer debuff.

Me personally, I'll bite the bullet and just do my job. I don't pay attention to party chat anyway. If someone's being especially nasty, I'll whip out the vote to kick option. It's been used twice to great effect (both against AFK players actually).

I try to assume the best in everyone. Jaded thinking? Probably. Everyone was new once. And being a veteran of one class or role doesn't make them an automatic expert at the other (I'm a terrible ret paladin, for one). Besides, it gives me a bit of an extra challenge for healing and allows me to hone my skills further.

So don't let the bozos get you down!

10 million players of World of Warcraft

2009-12-21T22:54:00.000-08:00

The game's flagship Entairtenment Blizzard (Vivendi) has just reached 10 million players worldwide. This figure is staggering so it is huge. This makes the first PC game (source Nielsen).

Following the publication of the number of subscribers to XBox Live (8 million), had already spoken of the interest to learn about brands in the world of virtual gaming. But I will not talk much. All digital marketers are very interested in mobile virtual communities but little gaming. It's a shame no?

Breakfast Topic: Fickle loot table, I stab at thee

2009-12-18T04:45:00.001-08:00

That's right, we're a week into patch 3.3 (well, almost) and we're still running random PuG's on our alts. Well, I am, anyway, and if the emails we at WoW.com are seeing are accurate so are a lot of you. And as is often the case when dungeons are being run, we're seeing loot issues.

Oddly enough, I for once don't really have much to complain about loot wise. My tauren got a swanky trinket, an upgrade to his main hand weapon, and plenty of emblems for his DPS set as well as some nice tanking gear. Since I don't get as much time to play Horde side as I used to, the new Dungeon Finder has been a positive boon for me as a DPS warrior while at the same time giving me something to do to use up some time on Alliance side as well before raids. But I've seen and heard plenty of the opposite result: people queuing up over and over and over again hoping for a drop and seeing the Orca-Hunter's Harpoon get sharded for the sixteenth run in a row. (I admit to taking one for my arms set and then sharding it after the axe dropped, but in my defense no one wanted it).

So we move the question to you: have you snagged that elusive drop yet? Has the Battered Hilt dropped for you? (Blasted thing!) Have you gotten that shield, trinket, armor piece or weapon that haunts your dreams or are said dreams still haunted by nights of fitful, tortured yearning? (Sorry, watching old Taxi reruns.) How have those fickle loot gods been treating you?

World of Warcraft comic moves to graphic novels

2009-12-18T04:42:00.000-08:00

According to a post on IGN Comics, Blizzard's Warcraft and Starcraft series of comic books, published by Wildstorm (which in turn is owned by DC comics, owned by Time Warner) are from now on to be published as stand alone graphic novels. The current World of Warcraft comic will end, according to the article, with a special issue arriving in stores while Starcraft will end on issue 7.

I have mixed feelings about this. The World of Warcraft comic has gotten, shall we say, mixed reviews. As a long time comics geek, I had high hopes for it, since it was written by Walt Simonson (one of my personal heroes), justly famous in comics circles for his runs on Thor, Manhunter and Orion. The comic didn't always work for me (fanboy though I am, even I couldn't digest a 'diet of steel' so to speak) but I'm still sad to see the monthly title end before splitting into the Horde and Alliance versions we were expecting. Hopefully we'll still get to see those stories as stand alone graphic novels yet.

Totem Talk: Patch 3.3 and shamans, part 2 -- How not to PUG

2009-12-18T04:39:00.000-08:00

Totem Talk is the column for shamans. With the new Random Dungeons and Dungeon Finder, healing has never been more in demand, and shamans find themselves faced with the dilemma: do I wait 10 minutes and go as DPS, or get instantly invited by being willing to heal? Matthew Rossi is impatient and terrifyingly willing to heal random strangers.

Ah, the Pick Up Group. Long a staple of our gameplay in WoW, patch 3.3 revolutionized the way we do it with the new dungeon finder, giving us incentives to put up with fury warriors who rush the tank, ret paladins who forget to turn Righteous Fury off, and runs consisting of two DK's, a paladin, a warrior and a shaman where people ask the shaman if he's tanking. (Hint, he wasn't.) Other things the shaman will not be doing in a PUG include making a summoning portal, a mage table (it's got mage in the name what is wrong with you), casting combat res on the tank when he dies, summoning Army of the Dead (seriously, I can understand being frustrated that someone cast that and it dragged the trash around, but shamans do not generally summon forth armies of walking corpses), washing your laundry (that's just gross), making a pinhole camera, performing a complicated medley of Andrew Lloyd Webber's greatest showtunes (unless you catch me in a really good mood), or casting Divine Intervention.

Sure, I realize these are all fine things, and it's a shame that the shaman or shamans in your group won't be able to do them. That being said, shamans do bring all sorts of fun things to PUG's. Things like hybrid magical/physical DPS, caster DPS, or healing, a plethora of totem buffs, a cornucopia of ancillary benefits like Unleashed Rage, Totem of Wrath, and of course Sentry Totem. I know that's really why you bring us, it's okay.
I promise we'll drop Sentry Totem when you ask us for it. Oh, and we could cast Bloodlust or Heroism, but you guys probably don't even care about that stuff. I mean, not when all of your thoughts are probably consumed wondering just when the best time to drop Sentry Totem is.

Okay, now that we've had the funny, we'll get serious. How can you bring your best effort as a shaman in a PUG?

For starters, please be honest about what you can and can't do in a group. If you're a resto shaman but you have a couple of elemental pieces you got because no one else wanted them and want to go DPS, cool, but if you end up in a heroic Halls of Reflection and you're putting out less than 1k DPS, don't be terribly surprised when people get upset. (For all I know, you put out 4k DPS while AFK using the bathroom because you're secretly William Wallace, but I'm just saying.) Likewise, if you sign up as a healer to get into a PUG faster, please be geared and specced to heal. I'm not saying full T10 or go home, I'm just saying you probably can't heal a heroic just by slapping Earthliving on your Golden Saronite Dragon. Except for you, Mr. Wallace.

Secondly, please remember your totems. I'm not just saying remember to drop your totems, although that certainly would be nice. I'm also saying, if you're in a group with two shamans, or a paladin or death knight or someone else who replicates a buff you supply, make sure to coordinate. There's no point to dropping SoE totem if the DK's got Horn of Winter covered already, and the group could then benefit from Stoneskin or Tremor. As an example, if you happen to be running Drak'Tharon Keep on heroic in a group with an enhancement, elemental and restoration shaman, and you are fighting King Dred, it really makes no sense at all to wipe because absolutely no one dropped a Tremor Totem. Not that I know anyone that this has happened to. Because I don't, and that Sentry Totem didn't see anything of the sort.

Thirdly, don't just randomly cast Bloodlust/Heroism because you're bored. Even if you're really, really bored. You never know when you'll do that and then find yourself in a tense pull gone wrong and that Bloodlust might have saved the day. Or just gotten you killed faster.

Fourthly, be aware of the changes to certain shaman abilities in patch 3.3 that we discussed last week. Our elemental totems are far more accessible now, so don't shy away from dropping big red on a boss. Also, don't forget to cast Fire Nova when a pulse would do a solid chunk of AoE damage. Heck, you can combine the two and have your fire elemental running around while his/her/its (hey, I'm sorry, but I did not take the class in 'how to determine elemental's genders') totem also pulses damage. I have a friend who giggles hysterically in AoE situations now, dropping Magma and hitting Fire Nova for up to 10k DPS for a few glorious seconds on the trash pulls in Pit of Saron. And while it's true that in a good PUG you shouldn't need to Reincarnate more often, you still can.

Much of this comes down to common sense, of course. Shamans are fortunate in that they can be either healing or DPS at a time that healing is at a premium, of course. But it's good to keep in mind abilities like Hex, Earthbind, Frost Shock, Wind Shear, Cleansing Totem and others are mostly not spec specific. Any shaman can drop a Cleansing Totem or a Tremor Totem, even a DPS shaman, to help out with poison volleys and fears and so on.

Shamans have a ridiculously wide toolkit, and while running a PUG it benefits the run if even the most focused DPS minded shaman is willing to sacrifice a little of that DPS to do things that buff and cleanse the group. You'd be amazed the runs I've done where a DPS shaman outright refused to drop a Cleansing Totem to help out with Hadronox or Skadi, for example. Putting a shaman's spell interrupt off onto its own cooldown with Wind Shear wasn't done so we could forget we had one. Make a focus macro if you have to, but don't just ignore the Purge button because it means you'd have to switch targets (as a healing shaman, I hate having to purge Nether Power, but sometimes I'm the only one in the 10 man who can do it). Basically, as a shaman, you often have a solution to a strange problem. Please don't forget or refuse to use them.

Two Bosses Enter: Anub'Arak vs. Tribunal of Ages

2009-12-18T04:38:00.000-08:00

Two Bosses Enter ... but only One Boss Leaves, in WoW.com's series of fantasy death matches. Welcome to what's nearly the end of the current round of the five-man Wrath of the Lich King season. Grab a seat, and let's get ready to rumble!

I'm hiding my eyes behind my hands for this one: Anub'Arak (Azjol-Nerub) versus Tribunal of Ages (Halls of Stone). Storyweavers, get ready to spin your webs ... This is the type of match where a good blow-by-blow account in the comments can go a long way toward swaying the vote.

But first, the ~~pound~~ ground rules:

This match takes place inside the Tribunal of Ages in the Halls of Stone ... or perhaps the Tribunal has been transplanted to the Two Bosses Thunderdome ... or perhaps they're someplace else ... Any way you slice it, the Tribunal's basic encounter mechanic functions as usual. Work with it, people! It's a fantasy tournie.
No matter where you choose to set the match and who you may choose to stand in for Brann Bronzebeard, his survival ultimately determines the success or failure of the mission. Anub'Arak is therefore challenged with holding the Tribunal at bay long enough for Bronzebeard to complete his task. Technically, a "win" for Anub'Arak means that neither opponent dies.
All of the competitors' abilities, including crowd control and other effects to which bosses are usually immune, work on their opponents.
Assume that the opponents share similar levels, health pools and comparative overall damage output.
Don't get caught up in gameplay mechanics and what actual players might do in each encounter.
Don't neglect style, story and scale.

Welcome to the Two Bosses Thunderdome. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls ... Dyin' time's here.

In Corner One: Anub'Arak (Azjol-Nerub)
I was king of this empire once, long ago. In life I stood as champion. In death I returned as conqueror. Now I protect the kingdom once more. Ironic, yes?

Anub'Arak, the former king of Azjol-Nerub, was among the Nerubians slaughtered in the War of the Spider and later raised as Undead by Ner'zhul the Lich King to do his bidding. Read the extensive lore page on Anub'Arak to learn more about his background.

Anub'Arak's battle strategy includes truly relentless tactics. Besides wreaking havoc with vicious attacks and environmental damage, he swarms opponents with protective Locusts and nettling Carrion Beetles. He periodically burrows underground, besieging opponents with packs of summoned minions.

Learn more about Anub'Arak's strategies, and review comments from players who've battled him.

In Corner Two: The Tribunal of Ages, Halls of Stone
Abedneum: Warning! Life form pattern not recognized. Archival processing terminated. Continued interference will result in targeted response.
Kaddrak: Security breach in progress. Analysis of historical archives transferred to lower priority queue. Countermeasures engaged.
Marnak: Threat index threshold exceeded. Celestial archive aborted. Security level heightened.
Abedneum: Critical threat index. Void analysis diverted. Initiating sanitization protocol.

During the Tribunal of Ages encounter, adventurers must protect Dwarven explorer Brann Bronzebeard long enough that he can access a database to retrieve information required to complete the Halls of Stone quest. Hindering Brann and his helpers are the three stone faces of the Tribunal, Kaddrak, Abedneum and Marnak, plus wave after wave of foes including Dark Rune Protectors, Dark Rune Stormcallers and an Iron Golem Custodian.

Kaddrak

Glare of the Tribunal

Marnak

Dark Matter

Abedneum

Searing Gaze

Dark Rune Protector

Dark Rune Stormcaller

Iron Golem Custodian

Read a description of the Tribunal of Ages event and review comments from players who've completed the related achievement. Review the Tribunal's first-bracket shut-out of Anomalus.

The smackdown
Two Boss matchups are about substance and style, not game play and mechanics. Don't base your strategies on player tactics, which opponent has been easiest or most difficult for you personally, or the difficulty of each opponent relative to instance progression. Vote for the spirit of the battle as set forth above. Set aside differences in opponents' health pools, game level and actual damage output. Absolutely no game-mechanic nitpicking!

Who wins, and why? We'll see you down below in the comments. Can you come up with a convincing scenario that will sway other readers to your point of view?

More options for party communication

2009-12-18T04:37:00.001-08:00

Our buddy Rufus from the WoW LJ brings word of a sneaky change in the recent patch: raid warnings (those warnings that pop up in the middle of your screen, created by typing "/rw" while leading a raid) no longer work in parties. Apparently you have to be in a raid to actually toss off a warning. Of course, that could have happened before this patch, but at any rate, it's in the game now. No more /rw in party chat.

Not only is it a bummer because some people used to use it constantly to keep party members in line, but this also means that there's one less means of communication between all of these random parties forming out there on the realms. Sure, in a perfect world, everyone would know the fights and chat would be enough to make sure everyone was on the same page (or depending of your vision of a perfect world, everyone actually uses the in-game voice chat -- a quick survey of our staff here presumes that it works in cross-realm PuGs, but given that I've never actually seen it used on the live realms by anyone, who knows?), but we're hardly running instances in a perfect world. Sometimes chat is not the best way to get a complicated boss fight organized and ready.

One idea that I've seen popping up on the realms is an addon that would copy a boss strategy for any given instance into party chat for you, just to avoid having to type out "stay out of the fire, run away when you get this debuff on you, etc." all the time. A search on Curse doesn't pull up too much in that vein -- there are certainly tactics addons that will help, but usually they're just warning addons (like DBM), or they require everyone to have the addon installed. There's nothing simple for just putting a strat into chat during a PuG.

Other than that, though, options are limited. You can still mark targets (and in fact, anyone can now mark targets in a party), and of course there are optional items -- flares and such -- used to show placement when needed. But what other options could there be? It seems a little lame for Blizzard to start building some strategies into the interface (though we do already get some automatic raid warnings on major events), but that's probably preferable to spending five minutes explaining the Devourer of Souls fight yet again.

Wintergrasp defense / offense on unbalanced realms

2009-12-18T04:34:00.000-08:00

Blizzard released a rather cryptic statement this morning concerning the offensive and defensive mechanics of Wintergrasp. Their entire statement is after the break, but it essentially comes down to the fact that there are some realms where one faction controls Wintergrasp nearly the entire time, and Blizzard has now shed some light on mechanics in place to correct this.

The faction hording of Wintergrasp happens particularly often on unbalanced realms. Because the faction imbalance can be so extreme in some cases, the smaller population faction has virtually no chance at winning back the Wintergrasp fortress and obtaining the heirlooms and PvP items, nor any chance at accessing the VoA bosses. This can cause frustration on the part of players in the smaller faction.

In this mechanic, which we presume is live, Wintergrasp zone mechanics will make it easier for the offense to gain access to siege vehicles if the opposing faction holds Wintergrasp more often. Blizzard is not specifying how long the opposing faction must defend Wintergrasp for the the offense to receive these significant buffs, but one can assume there is some sort of threshold.

The full Blizzard statement after the break.

WoW Moviewatch: Ballad of the Green Beret

2009-12-18T04:31:00.000-08:00

The Ballad of the Green Beret has been one of my favorite songs since childhood. I've always been enthralled by song's epic poetry and steadfast resolve of its descriptions. When I saw ThreePipeProblem's World of Warcraft video take on the song, I instantly fell in love. While this piece features the same music that we all know, the creator used the backdrop of Azeroth to create a music video for the ballad.

The video actually does a surprisingly good job of translating the themes and emotions of the original song into the Azeroth universe. ThreePipeProblem used a lot of great Wrath of the Lich King imagery that speaks to ideas like dedication and bravery. Even the shots of Shattrath convey a wonderful martial, patriotic feel.

This video is likely to sit in my Favorites folder for a long time.

One Boss Leaves: Xevozz buffets Chrono-Lord Epoch

2009-12-18T04:30:00.001-08:00

Two Bosses Enter ... but only One Boss Leaves, in WoW.com's series of fantasy death matches. This season's combatants come from the original five-man instances of Wrath of the Lich King.

Could the Chrono-Lord not kite? Xevozz moved through the Two Bosses Thunderdome with ease this week, overcoming Chrono-Lord Epoch with 62% of the spectators' roaring approval. Just how one-sided was this match? "This fight is so one-sided, it should instead be a vote to see if Xevozz makes it past Epoch fast enough to get a drake as well," smirks Stone_Rhino.

Of course, not everyone agreed. "Come on, guys!" protests mtwcmarsh. "You're talking about a gangster thug who got himself locked away in the Violet Hold fighting a freakin' Chrono-Lord! You seriously think his little ethereal balls mean squat to someone who can stop time?" Adds Clydtsdk-Rivendare: "Time travel > all (except, of course, LOLDRAIN). Also, nobody said bosses can't kite -- that's a game play mechanic (threat), not lore. MG kited Arthas the whole flippin' way to Northrend, so to speak. (Okay, that one's a joke, but srsly ...) Xevozz hardly stands a chance, with that in mind."

More fodder from the stands:

Undra: Smooth-talking Xevozz sells Epoch on the idea that the Chrono-Lord should die. For a nominal fee, the Ethereal includes a life insurance policy payable to ... oh, don't worry about that. I'll fill it in later for you. Sign here.

mtwcmarsh: For the benefit of everyone who is so fixated on Xevozz' amazing glowing balls ... Let's go over the ground rules: "... Don't get caught up in gameplay mechanics and what actual players might do in each encounter. ... Don't neglect style, story and scale." Xevozz may be a very talented white collar criminal, but that's all he is. In fact, he's a criminal who not only got caught but lost his day in court and got thrown in the slammer! This fight is Bernie Madoff meets the Terminator.

World of Warcraft target of latest suit from PSN plaintiff

2009-12-15T01:49:00.000-08:00

After being banned from Sony's PlayStation Network during a game of Resistance: Fall of Man, a San Jose, California gamer sued the electronics giant, alleging a violation of his First Amendment rights. That case was dismissed in September, but the plaintiff was undeterred. In addition to filing in an appeal in that case, earlier this month he filed a new suit against Microsoft and Nintendo. In that case, he alleged that a broken Xbox 360 caused him undue stress, and that a Wii system update blocking access to the Homebrew Channel third-party program interfered with his inalienable right to pursue happiness.

Are the normal World of Warcraft fees any worse than those of the World of Warcraft Visa card?

With the big-three platform holders accounted for, the same plaintiff is now turning his attention to largest third-party publisher. The gamer, Erik Estavillo, provided GameSpot with copies of his latest civil suit, a case against Activision Blizzard filed this morning in the Santa Clara County Superior Court of California. A court clerk confirmed for GameSpot that the suit had been filed.

The suit comprises a handful of complaints against Activision Blizzard, specifically relating to the company's successful massively multiplayer online role-playing game, World of Warcraft. Specifically, the gamer accuses the publisher of maintaining a "harmful virtual environment" with "sneaky and deceitful practices."

He first takes exception to the game's $14.99 monthly subscription fee, calling it the highest of any MMORPG. He contends the fee is aggravated by the game requiring players to travel great distances at a slow walking or running pace, with fast travel options like teleportation stones and mounts only available to gamers who rise to an advanced level or purchase the game's expansion packs.

He also cited the game's resurrection process, in which players travel in spirit from cemeteries back to the spots where they died in order to revive themselves, as an unnecessary part of the game designed to cost gamers money. Other fees at issue include the charges (up to $25) Blizzard levies to change their characters' names, races, factions, or servers.

Beyond the monetary complaints, the suit also references the 2001 suicide of an EverQuest player, attributing it to a sense of alienation related to the game and mental health problems. The suit goes on to say the plaintiff has suffered from similar problems, including major depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, panic disorder, and Crohn's disease, and he "doesn't want to end up like [the EverQuest player] did as he relies on video games heavily for the little ongoing happiness he can achieve in this life, via the gaming medium."

In addition to the suit, the plaintiff also wants a pair of celebrities to attest to the effects of alienation. The gamer is subpoenaing Depeche Mode's Martin Lee Gore "since he himself has been known to be sad, lonely, and alienated, as can be seen in the songs he writes." He is also calling Winona Ryder to testify, saying the actress' appreciation for Catcher in the Rye will make her a relevant witness "to how alienation in the book can tie to alienation in real live [sic]/video games such as World of Warcraft."

The gamer is asking for $1 million in punitive damages and a court order forcing Activision Blizzard to address the problems alleged in the suit. As of press time, representatives with Activision and Blizzard had not returned GameSpot's requests for comment.

Blood Pact: Meet the minions, part 4 - the felhunter and mage-hate

2009-12-15T01:31:00.001-08:00

Blood Pact is your weekly warlock digest brought to you by Dominic Hobbs. "Ah, of course. Our latest prodigy. The real thing can't live up to the legend, I'm afraid. No matter, you've come here to learn, not to hear me make jokes to myself. ~ Strahad Farsan

When Wrath first came along I wrote a piece about how warlock utility in 25 man raids had all but disappeared. I had many dissenters to that statement, using examples such as Soul Stones and the like. One that came up a few times was the Felhound and how useful he is. I have to agree, he's a regular bag of tricks, but when it comes to 25 man raiding he's been (rightly) left in the kennel for quite some time. This is about to change.

"But Dominic, you seething pot of demonic mage-hating bile..." I hear you cry "...where is all the mage-hate?" Well, yes, I can imagine the title did lead you to expect an article so vitriolic and anti-arcane as to leave nothing more in its wake than quivering lumps of nerdy arcanists, armpit-deep in tears; and maybe a lost looking sheep. I'm not sure I can do that though, as I don't really hate mages -- that point is really going to need clarifying.

The thing is, hating mages (or anything) takes effort, and frankly I can't be bothered to muster that much effort to spend on mages. Disdain, derision and contempt are all free, and I feel I have more than enough of that to spare. You see, while mages may be nasty and irritating like cockroaches or sand in your swimsuit, they have their place. You don't necessarily want them around you or making their presence felt, but you have to accept that sand and bugs have their uses. Mage players are also pretty special, though I refer to the great Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw for his definition of 'special':

"I'm sorry my son ate your shoes, he's a little bit special."

That said, I'm not opposed to having the odd dig at mages, and in particular one extra-special mage, whom I'm very pleased to see is even referred to as Archmage Pants by his own commenters and the WoW.com staff. I've also noted that a certain former WoW.com columnist has launched a 'war' on warlocks. It seems that hunters have declared an open season for locks, even going so far as to have a particular talent build for the task. It tickles me greatly that so many hunters are investing so much time effort into trying to annoy warlocks. I found it especially amusing to imagine the hunter that, despite making it his goal to hunt locks, was having such a hard time of it he put together (and paid gold to get) a talent build to give him a better chance.

Anyway, all that aside, lets talk about the Felhunter. As with the Succubus quests, there is an awful lot of running about required to get these quests complete, so be very thankful you can now ride about the place. The chains are almost exactly the same for Horde and Alliance. First you go speak to someone in the Barrens who sends you to Undercity or Ironforge (respectively). Then you head out to grab a book and a piece of paper (see map).

Once you have those it's off to the Wetlands to fetch a few sticks (how appropriate) and back to Strahad Farsan in the Barrens for the hand-in. You also receive a soul bag but as I mentioned in a previous article, these aren't overly handy while questing. It might be worth keeping, but probably not.

If you get all through that and summon your Felhunter at level 30 then he'll only know the one trick, that's Devour Magic. This is a cool little trick that will either remove a magic debuff from a friendly character or a buff from an enemy. When soloing a nice macro to target the ability is:

/use [target=player][target=pet][]Devour Magic

This will try and take a debuff from you, failing that from himself, failing that it'll try and take a buff from your target. As an extra bonus, every magic effect he devours will heal him up a bit. This can come in pretty handy when questing alone and you come up against a caster.

The only time I have actively used this ability in a raid situation was in Karazhan (Maiden of Virtue), mostly having the ability on auto-cast is sufficient.

At level 32 your Felhunter will learn Fel Intelligence. This is where a lot of the 'lock utility' that was mentioned in the first paragraph was coming from. It's true, this is a nice party buff if your party doesn't include a priest or a mage, but does include several other casters. I don't find myself in that situation very often and to be honest this buff is just a little extra love from the puppy when you have him out for some other reason.

Level 36 sees him learn Spell Lock. This is a hugely valuable ability in PvP (so I'm told) and in PvE it's kinda nice too. When you're fighting a caster you can use this to shut them up completely. Often this means that they come up to you and hit you with laughably puny mage-fists. All the while you are tearing their body and soul asunder with shadow and flame. Nice.

Again though, in a raid this ability is pretty useless. I have only had it manually cast once, again back in Kara on Aran. Since then I've used the puppy on Faction Champions where he's great for pestering the healers (especially the one-school paladin), but that was just a case of using auto-cast once more.

The Felhunter's final ability to learn comes in at level 42. This is Shadow Bite, a nice little direct damage ability. The puppy does have a melee attack as well so he's not just been humping your opponent's leg between snacks until now, but the ability can double the damage this little 'goggie' can do. Remember that it increases in damage for each DoT you have on the target.

The Felhunter is (seemingly) intended to be the minion associated with the affliction talent tree. As far as end-game raiding was concerned, this hasn't really been the case so far; the Succubus and Imp have had the job. Now that patch 3.3 has landed there's been a change. Mostly due to the buffs that Shadow Bite has received, more damage can be gained from the Felhunter. Affliction is pulling the biggest raid numbers on paper but we're yet to see if there's going to be much of a conversion from Destruction and a flood of puppies in raids.

Before I end this article I did want to congratulate Archmage Pants on something. That might be a bit of a surprise but you see it appears he's also not one to put too much effort into his hate. You are probably aware of the IHATEWARLOCKS book-club he founded. I had a quick look back to the naming of this group and found that the acronym apparently stands for "Interracial Humanitarian Association of Tauren and Everyone in WoW Against Race Limits On Choosing Kinship with Sorcerers,"...

What? Oh, so it was all about getting cows to become casters. I see.

Well, after a few minutes thought I offer this alternative: "Insipid Half-baked Arcanists Throwing Emo-fits at Warlocks Although Really Lamenting their Own Character's Known Sadness" Maybe it will catch on or perhaps you have your own version.

The Guild the Comic Book this Spring 2010

2009-12-15T01:21:00.000-08:00

Felicia Day confirmed to Newsarama during an interview that The Guild is coming to a newsstand near you as a comic book that will be published by Dark Horse at a rate of one issue per month. Thus far, Felicia has written enough material for three issues. There is no release date yet, but it is coming for certain on Spring 2010.

In this interview she talks briefly about her participation in Joss Whedon's Dollhouse and Dr. Horrible. She is considering a new music video. Their first one titled "Do You Wanna Date My Avatar" was very popular, viewed over six million times.

World of WarCrafts: Cross-faction goblet

2009-12-14T22:56:00.000-08:00

What happens when you combine an art class degree requirement with a WoW player who's been locked out of the game due to the school's unresolved router issues with Battle.net? For Hurbz of US Sargeras-A, you get "WoW on the brain," plus this classy faction goblet. "This was my first real experience with pottery," he admits, "and though I had done some projects earlier for the class, this was my first time using the potters wheel." We'd say this guy deserves an A -- and a clear path through his school network's Battle.net issues. Let the guy get his game on so he's not throwing WoW into every project he gets his hands on, hmm?

More details from Hurbz on how his creation came together, after the break.

Totally jazzed by his foray into clay, Hurbz gave us a blow-by-blow account of his goblet's creation. We'll let him tell the story, because his obvious enthusiasm is so infectious: "I measured out some chunks of clay and wedged them to get all the air pockets out, then made some softball-sized balls of clay for use on the wheel. Slam the ball into the center (hopefully) of the wheel and start your engines. This is where it gets messy. You have to use a lot of water to keep the clay lubed up, or it'll stick to your hands. If one part is gripping and the other part is spinning, well that's no bueno.

"First, you shape the top cup part of the goblet, so it's like making a small bowl. That took a few tries before I got it looking like I wanted, but overall it wasn't too bad. Just stick your thumbs into the center of the ball and work it out and up -- so much more fun than coil building. Cut that off the bat and let it start drying some.

"After the top is made, you make the bottom handle. You have to do it upside down so you can get that nice flare at the base (which is the top when you're working on it). This part gave me a lot of trouble, just because of the narrow construction of the handle. It got unstable very easily when I was working it up. I went through about five mishaps before I finally got one I was happy with (bit of a perfectionist). Cut that off the bat and set it aside to dry a bit too. You have to let them dry some before joining them, because the clay is so saturated with water from using the wheel that the structures are extremely flimsy, and the added weight could cause either piece to collapse.

"Most potters would use the wheel again to attach the base and the cup to be sure they were centered, but I figured I would mess something up, so I just eyeballed it and used a classic score-and-slip method to join them. I smoothed out the joint, and it was starting to look like a goblet! The base was much smaller than it is in the final pictures -- so small, in fact, that I feared it wouldn't support the cup and it would tip over really easily. So I rolled out a slab of clay, cut a circle and joined that to the base; much better.

Carving the faction designs

"Then came the really fun part. I printed off some pictures of the Alliance and Horde emblems. Just laid them on the side of the cup and traced over them with a pencil. This left a nice imprint of the designs for me to carve out. It was super easy, as the paper didn't exactly lay flat on the side of the goblet, but it worked out really well for me.

"Then came the carving, my specialty. I had learned from a previous project that I was quite good at carving in the clay media. I traced out the whole thing with a sharp pencil and needle tool to give nice crisp lines, then carved out the blue parts of the lion and the red parts of the Horde logo. My school doesn't exactly have the nicest pottery department, so I was a bit limited with tools to use, but I made it work. I used a fettling knife with a dull tip to gouge out little pieces and smooth out the indentations. That took a long time and I thought I was beginning to get arthritis, but I finally had a product I was pleased with.

"The base and handle were too plain, though. I was brainstorming what I should do to spice up the handle and thought, 'Well, swords have handles.' A bit of a stretch, but my idea was to make it look like the handle on Frostmourne (with the three spiked metal rings), so I measured out where three rings would look best and went to town again. Then I just rounded off the base to make it look nice, and that's the unglazed goblet!"

Glazing and finishing

"Glazing was my least favorite part of the class. It can just be so unpredictable and absolutely ruin a piece that you worked so hard on. I had a couple projects earlier be absolutely ruined by the glazing process, so I was a bit worried. We didn't have any good red glazes to use for the Horde side, so I had to opt for painting it in after. For the sake of balance, I decided to paint both sides. The glaze makes a glassy-like surface which paint wouldn't stick to real well, so I had to put wax over the emblems so the glaze wouldn't stick to them and in the kiln would just melt off and leave the bare clay underneath.

"Overall, the glaze worked really well, and I'm pretty happy with it. There were some minor issues around the edges of the emblems and a bit of crawling on the Horde side, which I just touched up with a Sharpie. I was going to silver-leaf the three rings then add the studs, but for the size of the goblet, the silver leaf would just be overpowering and take away from the carvings, so I decided not to do that. I may still add studs around the rings; we'll see. Now all my friends want one!"

Heck, we'd like one, too. Great work, Hurbz -- and welcome to the world of pottery.

Happy holidays with World of WarCrafts

Hey, craftaholics -- we know you're busily creating WoW ornaments and gifts galore for your WoW-playing RL groupmates. Show us what's on (and under) your tree! We'd love to feature your arts and crafts in World of WarCrafts. Send submissions to lisa (at) wow (dot) com.

Recent in-game fixes for 12/14/2009

2009-12-14T22:43:00.000-08:00

Bornakk has just posted a new round of in-game hot fixes, some bug fixes, some actual quick balancing fixes. They include some relief for Affliction Warlocks after that last hotfix nerf, as well as a nerf to 10-man Lord Marrowgar. For a complete list of hotfixes, check after the break.

In Ulduar, the Salvaged Demolisher's Hurl Boulder ability will now properly ignite tar.
Vault of Archavon bosses are again able to be hit by area of effect abilities.
Chains of Ice is no longer limited to a single target. In addition, when Chains of Ice is used on a snare immune target with Everlasting Winter talented, it will once again apply Frost Fever.
Druids will now be able to shapeshift out of a spell-reflected Entangling Roots spell.
The trinket Ephemeral Snowflake will now be triggered by all healing spells.
The players' Gunship will now appropriately dock after achieving victory.
Lord Marrowgar will now do significantly less melee damage in both the 10 player normal and 10 player heroic difficulty.
Everlasting Affliction can now refresh the duration of Corruption on a target when the Warlock casts Shadow Bolt. This talent also refreshes the duration of Corruption with Drain Life and Haunt.

All the World's a Stage: Time to kill Arthas

2009-12-14T22:01:00.000-08:00

It's been a year since the Wrath of the Lich King hit the shelves. Since that time, our myriad characters have stormed the beaches of Howling Fjord and Borean Tundra. We've fought and rescued dragons, worked with Murlocs, slaughtered each other in Wintergrasp, and clashed in the sea, land, and air. But with the final content patch of the expansion now chilling out on our hard drives, it's time for the final countdown.
We're going to get to kill Arthas. And as excited about that as we are as players, you have to imagine the mounting incursion against the Lich King gets a much deeper and visceral emotion for our characters. This represents a relatively unique opportunity to roleplay your characters in an otherwise static world. After all, the entire game is about to change in some pretty radical ways. This is the purest possible fodder for roleplay, and it would be remiss of us to lose this opportunity.

Join me behind the jump so that we can talk about the roleplay opportunities. The good, the bad, the ugly.

The Good

The good opportunities here are massive. It's easy to simply roleplay your way through quests and enjoy the character immersion, but the real benefits can also be had outside of your simple quests. You can (and should!) explore the events surrounding your character by discussing what's going on in-character.

Certainly, I would expect everyone to want to roleplay those stellar, introductory quests in Icecrown. In these quests, you will have the unique opportunity to team up with faction leaders like Lady Sylvanas and Jaina Proudmoore. Not only will you get to team up with them, you'll actually get to fight alongside them. They will treat your character like a hero, as a luminary of your respective faction.

For many of our characters, this will be a final, notable "coming of age." If your character has been struggling as an outcast of your faction, then this could be a final, immutable blessing from a beloved leader. Maybe your character will be surprised and taken off-guard by this level of respect.

More cynical characters should wonder if Jaina is just setting them up. After all, it seems a little foolish to go storming the Lich King's castle with only six people. Maybe Jaina has finally given over to her love for Thrall, and this is a betrayal to trick your crack team of operatives into certain doom.

Sylvanas has got to have her own baggage. You can almost hear the Lament of the Highborn while cruising through the opening quests. Sylvanas takes this fight very personally. We'll talk more about the Forsaken's approach to this conflict a little bit later.

Regardless, the final incursion against the Icecrown Citadel should be treated as a massive, overwhelming thing. After all, this is the final big-to-do of the expansion. This is what (in theory) most of our characters have been working toward for a year. This whole event will live forever in the minds and dreams of Azeroth's races.

Try and remember that your characters are becoming famous. They've just succeeded as the chosen champions from Tirion's trials. Every little nod and twist is could become a character quirk that spells out stories. Do you still distrust Tirion and his plans? Do you travel with a pet? These are the little details that add depth to your roleplay and it's just the kind of detail that the bards of Azeroth will sing about for centuries.

The Bad

It's not just all war and roses, though. Primordial Saronite is being turned into armor for those storming the Lich King's fortress. Now would be a great time to roleplay your character's doubts and fears about that. (Or, maybe, your character's overwhelming support of such a plan.) Why would it seem like a good idea to clothe your finest warriors in the very blood of an Old God?

The Forsaken still have more than a little explaining to do. It's not like Wrathgate has suddenly become ancient history. During your in-character raids, maybe roleplay through keeping a special eye on the rotting among you. You never know when "Death to the Scourge" is going to make a simple flip over to "Death to the Living." If you are an Undead yourself, now would be a great time to roleplay your vast sorrow for the event -- or maybe your overwhelming indifference.

And don't forget this whole fight is awfully damned personal to the Undead and Death Knights. This fight isn't just about "us versus them" or anything so abstract as "good versus evil." For the Ebon Blade and the Forsaken, Arthas isn't a general enemy. Phrases like "You did this to me" and "I've finally come for you" should be pretty common.

The Ugly

The hardest part about this kind of event, in terms of successful roleplay on a MMORPG, is that you won't be the only person to do those awesome introductory quests. And, in terms of "game reality," you didn't even do them together. How can you reconcile the fact that your 5-man group already killed Scourgelord Tyrannus . . . but so did the guy at the next bar seat over?

There's a couple ways you can reinforce your suspension of disbelief. First, it's pretty easy to assume that it wasn't actually a single five-man group. After all, that was a pretty big assault. Maybe it was dozens of 5-man groups all doing about the same thing. And in the furor of war, you guys just didn't notice each other. Secondly, you can go with the "we didn't finish the job the first time." Maybe they all got better. I know, that's a pretty weak statement, but sometimes you have to stretch disbelief a little thin to make it all work out.

Your last option is to decide that you didn't all fight the same guy. Maybe he fought Tyrannus, and I fought Bobyrannus. This is probably my favorite option for disbelief, because it allows you to place your own, unique spin on the situation. Maybe instead of charging up onto a mountain top for the final boss fight, you found yourself spiraling deeper and deeper into the Pits of Saron. You could also "seed" your own future stories that way. Maybe while there, you saw something frightening that reminded you of old Ulduar, something that you'll become obsessed with for years.

The Real Ugly

The biggest danger zone about roleplaying through the death of Arthas, however, is one of lore. I've seen immense roleplay arguments spring up because folks have different opinion of "what happened before now." It's not even a matter of being right and wrong. World of Warcraft has a massive amount of stories, characters, and events. It's a huge world, and it can be very tough to keep track of it all.

I recommend anyone who's trying to roleplay through the Icecrown Citadel take the time to check out Adam Holisky, Alex Ziebart, and Michael Sacco's collaborative post, The Lore of Patch 3.3. Even if your character has no knowledge of these people or events, it's really best for you, as the player, to have a solid grounding in the shared universe. The story hooks to be found via this lore, of course, are also very helpful when you're trying to plot out your storylines.

Ultimately, this event is going to be about what you can make it. If you just do your quests, the whole thing will fly by, and you'll find yourself sitting in the Cataclysm before you know it. If, however, you take the time to roleplay your character, interact with other people, and explore the lore... you're going to bring yourself a whole deeper level of play.

Good luck in there.

From Level 1 to 80 without dying

2009-12-13T23:04:00.000-08:00

I came to death wow never a news article on WoW.com about the warrior Cautious (fitting name) who actually leveled from level 1 to 80 without dying once. It’s quite impressive, and I have to say it requires a lot of planning, and some luck I would guess. It kind of makes the Undying-achievements for Naxxramas sound like a cakewalk.

When you check his profile in the WoW Armory, you see that he didn’t enter many instances, which I guess is key if you ever plan on trying the same. Also never try to do some quests you are unsure about, and never ever go AFK anywhere. I would also guess that leveling on a PvE-server is required to even think about getting to 80 without dying.

We don’t know if this player is the only one who has leveled to the level-cap without dying, and without a confirmation from Blizzard it is impossible to know. However, if you check his statistics right now, you will see that he actually has died once. She posted in the forum that it was caused by using Nitro Boots inside Dalaran, and dieing when they backfired and blew her into the air. That must have been one of the most annoying deaths in WoW history!

How To Make More Gold In The World Of Warcraft Game – Are They Any Special Tips?

2009-12-02T10:49:00.000-08:00

All over the internet, there are so many searches on how to make more gold in the world of warcraft game. This is simply due to the fact the world of warcraft has become so popular and you can find millions of dedicated players everywhere in the world all with the desire to make more gold in the game.

When I first started out plying the world of warcraft, I really sucked. I used to doubt how people will get thousands and thousands of gold in their gold bags. I thought there could be frauds or something similar to that! All the same, I began my search on How to make more gold in the World of Warcraft Game.

As I kept on playing the game, I stated discovering some few ways that were helping me make more gold, however, I knew with those techniques I could never go anywhere close to making the amount of gold I see some players have. I was interested in Knowing how to make that much gold but my entire search did not really mead me to any good results.

After being so frustrated, I decided to buy a gold making guide to learn some of the techniques they claim to have. Bu the guides I bought really were not any good. I kept on trying the guides till I found this one called The Secret Gold Guide.

The Secret Gold Guide is writing By Hayden Hawke, an experienced world of warcraft player. It is from this guide that I really learned the secrets, tricks and techniques which have enabled me be able to make as much as 600 gold every how I am laying the game!

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2009-11-02T01:00:00.000-08:00

Peggle: World of Warcraft (WoW) Edition Free Download

Addicted to Addicted to Peggle Extreme Peggle Extreme that available for free on Steam? that available for free on Steam? PopCap Games, the developer of Peggle series of casual action video game, has teamed up with Blizzard Entertainment, the developer of World of Warcraft (WoW), to release a special Peggle: World of Warcraft Edition, available for free download at no cost. PopCap Games, the developer of Peggle series of casual action game, has been associated with Blizzard Entertainment, the developer of World of Warcraft (WoW), to release a Peggle: World of Warcraft Edition available for free download at no cost.

Peggle World of Warcraft Edition

WoW Peggle Peggle Edition uses the same engine, and the gameplay challenges the player to shoot a Certain number of balls at a field of colored pegs to clear out specifically-marked pegs while attempting to Achieve a high score shot through skilled planning. WoW Edition Peggle Peggle engine uses similar, and the game challenges players to shoot a set number of balls in a field of colored pins marking pins out specifically to try to achieve a high score through skilled planning shot. Special powers associated with a number of cartoon "Peggle Masters" can be activated to benefit the player to aid in this task. Special powers associated with a series of cartoon "Peggle Masters" can be activated on receiving aid the player in this task.

Peggle WoW Edition

The Peggle World of Warcraft Edition uses graphics from popular MMORPG game as its theme, and is a free standalone version of Peggle, playable independent of War of Warcraft, unlike Bejeweled and Peggle previously released add-ons for WoW. Peggle edition of World of Warcraft MMORPG game graphics using popular as its theme, and is a free version of Peggle, independent play of War of Warcraft, unlike the previously released Peggle and Bejeweled add-ons for WoW. Features of Peggle World of Warcraft Edition including: Peggle editing features of World of Warcraft, including:

* Play 10 WoW themed levels with the new backgrounds from Blizzard artists. Play WoW level 10 new items with the background of the artists at Blizzard.
* Compete against a friend or the computer in Duel mode. Compete against a friend or the computer in Duel Mode.
* Quick Play levels anytime you want to hone your Peggle skills. Quick Play levels at any time you want to upgrade their skills Peggle.
* Add to your Peggle Master rank with super-extra-hard challenges. Add to Peggle Master range with super-extra-tough challenges.

The 13.4 MB download contains ten new levels starring World of Warcraft Ragnaros and alumni such as Hogger himself, as well as ten new challenges. 13.4 MB The download contains ten new levels of World of Warcraft featuring alumni as Ragnaros and Hogger himself, as well as ten new challenges. The World of Warcraft edition of Peggle can be downloaded from the following URL: The World of Warcraft edition of Peggle can be downloaded from the following URL:

http://www.popcap.com/promos/pegglewow/ http://www.popcap.com/promos/pegglewow/

Or, directly download the full version World of Warcraft Edition Peggle setup installer: O, directly download the full version of World of Warcraft Peggle edition installer setup: PeggleWoWSetup.exe PeggleWoWSetup.exe

Succeed in the World of Warcraft

2009-07-15T08:06:00.001-07:00

Now days the gaming business is on the top with lots of people spoiling in the world of games. There are mixtures of gaming consoles accessible in the market.

You have to hook yourself on your PC screen to play a multiplayer online role-playing game. The Warcraft World has really a great attributes, it is dangerous, rich and grand game that turn around the kingdom's struggle to launch a position in the result of the War. The guidelines help players, who do not have much experience with WoW or who do not have hands-on knowledge. It will bring in you properly to each part of the game from the characters, story and player's point of view. In this game strategy guide, all the players need to look in to Wow Gold Guide to gather as much gold as possible and money Guide to increase the balance of many in bank. The WoW Strategy Guide also clarifies players how to look their friends in the mode of player v/s player as well as other modes.

The most positive attribute of the game strategy guide is to level-up the character in the game. And, with the help of this guide, you are hop to reveal many secrets of maps and different methods to discover gold. The concerning matter is that in the game so many players who have already pledged to the game and maximum must have x-rayed the wide range of world craft game.

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Advantages of World War Craft Games

2009-07-07T02:18:00.001-07:00

If you are not interested in playing video games and other online games which is available in the net, you can try World Warcraft Game. The World of Warcraft games occurrence has passed the everybody's hopes and become the crucial online role-playing game, as well as the biggest gaming concern of the panorama today. It deemed to be a particularly very hard game in using, let by yourself beat, so that a bona fide World of Warcraft, World of Strats lead could be the very backing you need.

A huge diagram for you is to find out a helpful World of Warcraft gold or hints and tips for character guide featuring to do the best with your Warcraft journeys as like the totally finest WoW gamers around you wish for advice now and again for you to actually get satisfaction from and achieve success in your game. Really, now you have so many things to add when getting a recommended World of Strats Guide for your WOW online gaming experience.

In other way, we can say that WoW games are really a place where every body enjoy their stay and they will never want to get rid of this game.