Archive for September, 2010
September 24th, 2010
Buff(ing) for BlizzCon is a bi-weekly fitness series written by ShrinkGeek authors Rafe Brox and Michael McGreevy. Join the WoW Insider team in getting in shape for the ultimate WoW geek event: BlizzCon 2010.
BlizzCon is just over a month away, and in a few weeks, we’ll be checking in with the folks here to see how well they managed to conquer their personal health and fitness goals for the big event. Obviously, we aren’t going to be able to do the same for all of you who have been playing along at home, but we certainly hope that you’ve managed to keep focused and have made some changes that have had a positive impact on your life.
But what if you haven’t?
The reality is that it’s very easy to get excited about making positive changes, but it’s another thing entirely to actually tough it out and make those changes permanent. Excitement wanes. Reality is a harsh mistress, and all of that extra energy you found to stop at the gym on the way home from work is harder to come across after the first few weeks. What was once fun can become a chore, and we all know that chores are easy to put aside if you aren’t in the right mindset to do them. While you may have thought our Buffing For BlizzCon challenge was a neat idea at the beginning, it’s quite possible that you have slipped a bit since we initially started the series.
That’s OK. Really. In fact, it’s pretty normal. It does not, however, mean that you are a failure. Far from it.
Continue reading Buff(ing) For BlizzCon: The final countdown!
Filed under: BlizzCon, Guest Posts
Buff(ing) For BlizzCon: The final countdown! originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 23 Sep 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
September 23rd, 2010
Ow. Ow, ow, ow. The pain, oh, the pain of it all. Heroics, my friends, are hard. Trash is hard, the bosses are hard, and my spirit was jostled from its happy Wrath of the Lich King foundations. Images of Shadow Labs darted through my mind. Heroic Mechanar called to me. Remember me, it spoke, remember me and weep the tears of a thousand failed runs. You are mine, it would proclaim. You have returned to the unhappy peninsula of the soul.
No, really, heroics are hard. I expect some tuning, but on the whole, there are challenges ahead for us in Cataclysm. On the one hand, I’m excited. I like challenge! On the other hand, I will never use the dungeon finder tool again. No offense.
Continue reading The Queue: Hard mode is hard
Filed under: The Queue
The Queue: Hard mode is hard originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 23 Sep 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
September 23rd, 2010
Fresh off the heels of Operation: Gnomeregan, Blizzard has published a web reveal of New Tinkertown. High Tinker Mekkatorque and the gnomish forces have seized control of an area on the surface just outside of Gnomeregan and have started efforts in retaking their city. Mekkatorque will ask you to complete new missions like rescuing gnomes and routing troggs, with the main goal of stopping Razlo Crushcog. New Tinkertown is the new level 1-5 leveling zone for gnomes. While the quests and the content have been on beta for a while now, you can read more about the official details after the jump.
Continue reading Cataclysm Beta: Welcome to New Tinkertown
Filed under: News items, Cataclysm
Cataclysm Beta: Welcome to New Tinkertown originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 22 Sep 2010 23:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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September 23rd, 2010
As we speak, fires rage in Orgrimmar, the Alliance leaders have called an emergency meeting, and new enemies have been revealed all across Azeroth. The cataclysm is on our very doorsteps! The pre-expansion events are now live on the public test realms.
So far, here are some cool things we are hearing about:
- New bosses in five-man dungeons, including quests for Grand Ambassador Flamelash in Blackrock Depths, Crown Prince Theradras in Maraudon, Prince Sarasun in the Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj, and Kai’ju Gahz’rilla in Zul’Farrak.
- These instances are much like the holiday bosses — queueing for them takes you to a special version of the instance, where you fight alongside a faction leader. These instance bosses are dropping ilevel 251 necks and rings for brave adventurers.
- Horde and Alliance towns are being attacked by waves and waves of elemental adversaries.
- The Twilight Cultist quest lines are active.
- Orgrimmar is on fire. Like, all of it.
- Magni Bronzebeard has called for an emergency meeting of the Alliance leaders to discuss what he believes is a horrible event that’s about to occur — in his words, dwarves are “close to the ground” and can feel that something’s going to happen. But what can they do? Maybe these tablets Brann found in Ulduar could help…
- And much, much more.
We will continue to update the site with more information as it becomes available. Also, check out our write-up of the Tablets of Fire quest line, and the Twilight Cultist event gallery below. Get excited, folks. The reckoning is almost upon us.
Gallery: Pre-Cataclysm Twilight Cultist Event
Filed under: News items, Cataclysm
Pre-Cataclysm world events live on the PTR originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 22 Sep 2010 19:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
September 22nd, 2010
Choose the adventures of our bloggers as we level our characters in <It came from the Blog> on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H).
Note: The stream is of the Cataclysm beta. It and the chat below are full of spoilers. You have been warned.
Hello and welcome to the live version of Choose My Adventure (beta edition). The winner of the polls was Robinemia the Forsaken huntress, so I will be continuing her adventures today. Join me while I narrate, read quests and take requests from the chat room after the break. The show will run for at least an hour and be viewable on video, if you weren’t able to watch it live.
The schedule for all of our adventurers can be found on Monday’s post, and the polls for this week are after the break.
Continue reading Cataclysm beta live stream and Choose My Adventure polls
Filed under: Choose My Adventure
Cataclysm beta live stream and Choose My Adventure polls originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 22 Sep 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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September 22nd, 2010
Ghostcrawler hit the official forums earlier today to give a very in-depth look at the intricacies behind Cataclysm’s hit rating philosophy, the nature of characters getting “more powerful,” and the way boss levels actually work. All in all, it’s a very interesting read.
Essentially, bosses will get more powerful as the raid tiers grow in number, requiring players to attain new hit levels to stay hit capped. The bosses are, in essence, getting stronger as you also grow in strength, which makes perfect sense. It’s also very nice to see Ghostcrawler having a really excellent discussion about this subject with players, considering hit is a really weird and convoluted stat to begin with. Hopefully, with Cataclysm‘s new tooltip features and hit rating helpers, the mysteries behind hit rating will be less challenging for most players. Check out Ghostcrawler’s posts behind the jump.
Continue reading Ghostcrawler explains hit scaling in Cataclysm
Filed under: Cataclysm
Ghostcrawler explains hit scaling in Cataclysm originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 21 Sep 2010 23:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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September 21st, 2010
Wrocas (European community manager) announced on the WoW forums moments ago that a guild chat feature will be added to the Mobile Armory that’s available on both the iPhone and Android. Players have been asking for this type of feature ever since the armory was introduced. This feature piggybacks off the same service that the remote auction house uses, which requires an additional monthly fee on top of your normal World of Warcraft subscription. One fee to rule them all (and by “all,” I mean both the mobile auction house and the guild chat feature).
This allows access to guild chat, officer chat (presuming you had access to start with) and whispers. It appears the whispers will only be allowed to and from guild members, at the moment. There is also no news about being able to chat with your Real ID friends. If you don’t have a device that the Mobile Armory runs on, Blizzard will soon be adding this feature to the normal armory as well.
The full announcement is behind the break.
Continue reading Guild chat coming to the Mobile Armory app
Filed under: Blizzard, News items
Guild chat coming to the Mobile Armory app originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 21 Sep 2010 13:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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September 21st, 2010
A blue post earlier this evening announced that the beginnings of the pre-Cataclysm events are currently being tested on the PTR.
Daeleht – Pre-Cataclysm World Event ThreadThe early stages of the pre-Cataclysm events have begun on the PTR’s.
If you’re encountering any problems with the events themselves or have any feedback please post them in this thread.
Enjoy!
The first of the pre-Cataclysm events started earlier this month with Operation: Gnomeregan and Zalazane’s Fall, which are still available on live realms right now. We’ll get you more information what is happening on the PTR as soon as possible.
Filed under: News items, Cataclysm
Pre-Cataclysm event testing on PTR originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 21 Sep 2010 01:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
September 20th, 2010
If you’re a Plants vs. Zombies fan, you are quite familiar with Laura Shigihara, the composer for the PopCap Games plant-a-thon. She is also the voice behind the Plants vs. Zombies theme song.
On her blog today, Shigihara confirmed that her voice will be used for the companion pet, the Singing Sunflower, which players receive after completing the Peacebloom versus Ghouls minigame in Hillsbrad. How awesome is that?
Besides being fun and kind of novel if you’re into PvZ, you get a pretty cool reward for finishing the quest: a “singing sunflower” pet! I actually had no idea this information was public until Hashimoto linked me to TotalHalibut’s video earlier tonight… incidentally, I was right in the middle of recording the sunflower’s voice when I watched it. ^_^ I am so excited about voicing a WoW-pet because what can I say … I’m a big nerd.
Peacebloom versus Ghouls is a minigame/quest in Hillsbrad that puts the player in charge of Brazie the Botanist’s garden of ghoul-destroying plants. If you’ve played Plants vs. Zombies, you’ll feel right at home. Defeat wave after wave of ghouls and you will claim your very own Singing Sunflower companion.
These new facts continue to illustrate the intimate and awesome relationship between Blizzard and PopCap, bringing good tidings to gamers who are fans of both excellent companies. Hopefully, more collaborations like this are in store for the future.
Filed under: News items, Cataclysm
Singing Sunflower companion pet voiced by Laura Shigihara originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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September 20th, 2010
I copied Coriel over to the PTR this weekend and tried some heroics. Some thoughts:
1. I don’t think the mana requirements are in at 80.
Now maybe the mana requirements drastically increase from 81-85, but at level 80 they’re negligible. The only way to run dry would be to spam Divine Light (the big heal) or Flash of Light (now an expensive, fast heal).
2. Holy Shock and Word of Glory are the go-to heals.
They’re fast, cheap and heal for a decent amount. I was using Holy Shock on cooldown, tossing WoG when I hit 3 Holy Power, and filling in with Holy Light on non-tanks and Divine Light on the tanks.
3. Beacon of Light is now dirt-cheap.
It’s so cheap that Beacon is a no-brainer now. Just put Beacon on the tank and heal as if Beacon did not exist. It only transfers 50%. If you heal a non-tank, the tank gets a little heal as a side-effect. If you heal the tank, you get a boost of Holy Power.
4. Flash of Light is obsolete.
Holy Shock is instant, costs 25% of the mana, and heals for something like 66% of FoL. WoG heals for 66% and is free. Plus, after a HS, HL or DL are sped up, so they can land very quickly. And you can proc Daybreak to get double HS and then chain into Word of Glory for very quick heals. I’m not really sure I see what situation FoL would fit in now.
5. One-click buffing is awesome.
One button press, and everyone gets Kings. Heaven.
6. Light of Dawn is … interesting.
I don’t really know about this spell. The thing is that in the two heroics I ran, the only time everyone took damage was when the DPS pulled aggro. More often than not, they were running around like monkeys so it was really hard to get all of the them in the cone.
As well, it’s a good heal, but it won’t keep a group up when mobs are beating on them. It seems fine for splash damage, but not when people pull aggro. Plus it’s on a fairly long cooldown, long enough that it often falls out of mind.
7. The Healing Mastery is okay.
The healing mastery puts a temporary shield on your heal target for 8 seconds. The shield is for about 8% of heals. It’s okay, but the only problem is that the shield doesn’t increase with subsequent heals unless it expires. This is especially problematic as Holy Shock tends to hit quickly after the last heal, before the shield can expire. So you often end up losing some of your mastery if you heal the same target twice in a row.
This could be a bug, so we’ll see if Blizzard fixes it.
Conclusions
So is the new healing model better?
Well, it’s certainly better than spamming Holy Light all the time. But I’m not sure about the actual triage involved. The thing is that you want to use HS all the time, because it’s cheap, fast, heals for a decent amount, and is the primary generator of Holy Power, which gives you your Word of Glories. So really, I found I was following a strict priority of WoG-3, HS, then Holy Light. The only exception was if the tank dropped to 50-60%, at which point I used Divine Light to bring them back.
The problem I see with making mana more important is that if Holy Shock gets more expensive, then a paladin will be less likely to use it. But that will mean less Word of Glories, so you’re kind of just left with Holy Light.
It could work, but it does feel as if HS and WoG are too tightly bound to really allow one to truly triage and conserve mana. But I don’t know. I’d really have to try first-hand the later levels when mana restrictions actually kick in.
