The Queue: Dye job
By admin | February 26, 2009

So the Patch 3.1 PTR has dropped and all the madness associated with it has started. I always find it interesting to watch how some ideas and changes morph from “AMG! Imma gonna stop paying MY $15 A MONTH right now and you’re gonna be out of a job because Titan’s Grip didn’t need to be nerfed!” to “WoW! These new Warrior changes make the Titan’s Grip nerf pointless! I am so uber again!” I /facepalm at that sort of thought progression, as I suspect many of you do as well.
Cielago asked:
“How how long do I have to get title and mount rewards for the achievements associated with Wrath raids and heroics? Is it until patch 3.1 when Ulduar gear will make them easier? Until the next expansion? Some time in between?”
There has been no official information. However we can look to the past to predict the future. Blizzard removed the ability to get the “Hand of A’dal” title in patch 3.0.2, along with the bear mount from Zul’Aman. I would expect them to do the same to all raiding titles and rewards with the 4.0.2 patch that will come about right before the release of the next expansion. I would expect you’ll always be able to get the achievements, however. It’ll just be the rewards that will change.
However with that said, the focus on achievements to delineate hard mode encounters and progression tactics is something new. Blizzard might have a different game plan in store for us, and they might just allow the titles and mounts to be achieved indefinitely. That would be rather cool I think, since plowing through Sarth 3D at level 100 will just make me smile, much like 2-manning Onyxia did back in BC (my resto shaman friend and my prot warrior took 45 minutes to do it, was great fun).
Derick asked…
“Why are there four color sets for T8 armor? 10 man, 25 man, and then what? Are they just re-coloring for PvP sets again?”
The second part of your question first. No, they are not re-coloring armor for PvP sets. Blizzard has said numerous times that one of the “mistakes” of BC was to make the PvP sets look the same as the raiding sets, and that they’ve learned from their mistakes and will make the sets visually different. There is no indication that they’re going back on this.
Now why the different colors? As you said two of them will be for 10-man and 25-man sets, but that leaves two more. There’s a bunch of possible answers, but all of it will be speculation more or less. Elizabeth Harper, our Editor-in-Chief, suggests that this change might be a prelude to armor dyes, something that would be very cool. Alex Ziebart points out that Blizzard has been doing a ton of re-coloring lately on many models, making it easier to add some variety into raid content. I tend to agree with Alex, and think that the re-coloring is just there for NPCs / mobs to have.
Topics: Warth of The Lich King, WoW Battlegrounds, WoW Cheats, WoW Comics, WoW Death Knight, WoW Gold Guides, World of Warcraft | Comments Off
Tier 8 Ulduar weapon models previewed, Val’anyr included
By admin | February 26, 2009

3.1 and Ulduar are coming soon. No doubt a lot of you have been looking forward to seeing what your reward for hacking apart a variety of priceless Titan artifacts and servants of the Old Gods would be. MMO-Champion, as always, has your back! They’ve released a preview for the weapon and accessory models that’ll be in Ulduar, and they look fantastic. The theme of the instance seems to carry through into all of its gear, and I’m going to love just how good my guild and I will look after a bit of time in there.
The image above is a paladin holding one of the Ulduar shields and the much-touted Val’anyr, Gavel of Ancient Kings, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg from MMOC, who promises a video of it in action very soon.
Bear in mind these are still tentative models and the art may change, but even then, what are you waiting for? Santa won’t get mad if you peek. Go go go!
Topics: WoW Cheats, WoW Classes, WoW Hunter, WoW Mage, WoW Private Server, WoW Rogue, World Of Warcraft Database, World of Warcraft | Comments Off
New Ulduar video from Blizzard
By admin | February 26, 2009
Ulduar is here, and Blizzard has released a new video you can watch above. We see new mobs and animations, get a look at Freya and some vehicle combat, and see some absolutely stunning interiors of the new raid zone.
The video lasts just under 2 minutes, and is worth your time to take a look. There is also some Blizzard music along with it, so be sure to have your sound turned up a bit. You can download high resolution versions of the video from Blizzard.
Perhaps the coolest thing in the video is around the 1:20 mark where we see a new tram style monorail (cue the Simpson’s song). There are also very interesting stain glass like windows shown at the end.
Ulduar represents the latest in Blizzard’s dungeon making and artistic design, and by the looks of it they’re poised to create one helluva masterpiece.
For more coverage of Patch 3.1 and Ulduar, check out WoW Insider’s Guide to Patch 3.1.
Topics: WoW Addons, WoW Battlegrounds, WoW Classes, WoW Guides, World Of Warcraft Database, World of Warcraft | Comments Off
WoW Insider’s Argent Tournament gallery
By admin | February 26, 2009

The Argent Tournament is part of the new content coming in patch 3.1, and it was sort of a surprise when it was announced the other day, just before the PTR came up. We hadn’t heard anything about it previously, not even any hints at its addition, so it grabbed our interest right away.
We had to check it out, of course. There are a few quests you can do right off the bat, but they’re not particularly exciting. The first two quests you pick up are just some gathering quests. It gets a little more exciting from there, but I was honestly much more interested in the visuals of the event. While there’s obviously a lot of development still happening there (lots of placeholder tags), what is done looks really awesome. When this event goes live, I have no doubt we’ll see a lot of people going back to using their racial mounts once these new skins have been added in.
Just south of the tournament, there also seems to be a failed Frost Wyrm resurrection site, a Death Knight’s blade jutting out of the ice with a wyrm just below the surface. I wish we knew the story behind that!
Screenshots of the new mounts, tabards, banners, and the whole shebang are in the gallery below. Check it out, and if there’s anything you want to see in greater detail, leave a comment to this post and I’ll see what I can do for you.
Topics: WoW Cheats, WoW Classes, WoW Map, WoW Paladin, WoW Wallpapers, WoW Warlock, World Of Warcraft Database, World of Warcraft | Comments Off
Datamined Ulduar boss information, with analysis
By admin | February 26, 2009
Yes, yes, we know you’re curious about what the Ulduar boss encounters will be like, loyal readers. With 14 bosses, 11 hard modes, and an optional heroic boss, we wonder, too! We’ll be able to test some of these encounters on the 3.1 PTR soon, but there are, of course, those of us who just can’t wait to know anything about what’s going on in Ulduar.
Luckily, ever-resourceful players and dataminers have acquired information about spells and abilities related to bosses in Ulduar from the 3.1 PTR files. There’s a lot of of stuff in here — some of it may make it into the live game, some may not, and some may be related to vehicles or other sundries involved with encounters. I’m going to go into detailed analysis of those encounters for which detailed spells exist.
It goes without saying that these will be huge spoilers to anyone who doesn’t want their Ulduar experience to be anything but pure, so don’t read past the jump if you don’t want to know!
The datamined information comes from this thread on the official forums, with links to the appropriate spells on Thottbot.
Yogg-Saron
Dominate Mind - Mind controls a target temporarily and reduces Sanity by 20.
Low Sanity Screen Effect - Just a visual.
Psychosis - 20000 Shadow damage and reduces 20 Sanity.
Sanity - 100 stacked buff, if it reaches 0 you are permanently mind controlled. One Sanity regenerates per 3 seconds.
Touch of Dominion - Subjugates the target to the will of Yogg-Saron, weakening it (-10% HP and damage), yet “conferring a subtle control”. Appears to stack every 180 sec.
Preliminary analysis:
Yogg-Saron’s fight appears to be a sanity-based encounter, and if you’re not already thinking of Eternal Darkness, we’re not friends. There’s a sanity meter, a mind control/reduced effectiveness debuff, even a low sanity visual effect. Your sanity regenerates by one point every three seconds, and it ticks down as you engage him, take damage from him, or are temporarily mind-controlled. If it reaches zero, you’re permanently under the thrall of Ol’ Yoggy.
Hodir
Flash Freeze - Freezes the target in a block of ice. Other spells mention that a frozen target hit by flash freeze dies instantly, and that it is in fact Hodir’s ability.
Hodir’s Fury - 15000 Frost damage and a 9 second stun to all enemies.
Shatter Chest - Most likely Hodir’s loot mechanic.
Toasty Fire - Likely a player ability. Creates a fire which prevents the effects of Freeze and Biting Cold. Extinguished by “falling ice shards” or “powerful frost magic” - most likely Blizzard and Flash Freeze.
Blizzard - 1.5k (10), 3k (25) frost every 2 sec for 10 sec.
Biting Cold - A la Keristraza, only only “diminished” by movement, not removed.
Winter’s Embrace - Absorbs 185k damage, and while active increases physical damage dealt by 100%.
Preliminary analysis:
Unsurprisingly, the Watcher of Winter encounter appears to be based on cold! In order to survive, you have to light fires to prevent your raid from succumbing to the Biting Cold debuff and freezing. Blizzard and Flash Freeze appear to put the fires out if they contact them. If you do end up getting frozen, Flash Freeze will instantly kill you.
Freya
“Reduces Freya’s Attuned to Nature stacks by 25″ (spells also exist for other amounts)
“The presence of Elder Brightleaf increases magic damage dealt by Freya and her Allies of Nature by 50%”
Freya Summon Chest - it would appear that we do not kill her. There are eight spells of the same name, presumably for various difficulties.
Ironbranch’s Essence - Increases damage dealt by Allies of Nature by 50%.
Lifebinder’s Gift - Summons an “Extraplanar Spore”
Stonebark’s Essence - Increases physical damage dealt by Freya by 50%.
Summon Allies of Nature
Touch of Eonar - Heals Freya for 6000/s (10) or 24000/s (25).
Preliminary analysis:
It looks like Freya’s fight is a straight-up Sartharion-style encounter. There are three Elders — Brightleaf, Stonebark, and Ironbranch — who will grant Freya powers if they’re alive. The existence of 8 summoned chests confirms this, with each chest corresponding to a difficulty level on normal or Heroic. She likely summons in Allies of Nature a la Twilight Whelps, and the Attuned to Nature stack she has likely has to do with how we damage her.
Most of the other encounters only have bits and pieces of their spells so far. For those wondering about this — I was! — it looks like even though you fight him, Thorim might still help you after all.
Topics: Warth of The Lich King, WoW Hunter, WoW Mage, WoW Paladin, WoW Warlock, World Of Warcraft Database, World of Warcraft | Comments Off
Ammo changes MIA in the 3.1 PTR
By admin | February 26, 2009
We posted the patch notes as soon as they dropped, and our new Hunter writer, Jessica (a.k.a. Lassirra) did a great job of breaking down exactly what’s new with Hunters, but you may have noticed, as a few of our tipsters did, that consumable ammunition was still in the game. There was no sign of the upcoming changes in the patch notes at all.
Which isn’t exactly unexpected (in fact, we have already heard that it wouldn’t make the 3.1 PTR), but even the things that were promised to be in the PTR (no need for ammo pouches or quivers, bigger stacks for ammunition) still don’t seem to be there. We still believe that Blizzard has this on the to-do list, but it looks like this change has been put aside for now.
Too bad — that was a pretty exciting adjustment for Hunters. But Blizzard seems hard at work on things like the Argent Dawn Tournament and the Dual Spec system. We’ll get the ammo changes when they get around to them.
Topics: WoW Cheats, WoW Classes, WoW Map, WoW Paladin, World Of Warcraft Database, World of Warcraft | Comments Off
15 Minutes of Fame: The overachiever
By admin | February 26, 2009
15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you’d like to hear more about.
Achievements just the ticket for a player with time to spare. The concept fits like a glove for Helcyon of Draka-US (H), who currently stands at 6,430 Achievement points and counting. (That’s 593 out of a possible 749 Achievements, in case you wondered.) If you’ve ever pined for more free time to tick off Achievements (or if you’ve avoided purposely going after Achievements at all, like me, in the interest of not getting sucked into something you don’t have time for), Helcyon’s story will leave you green with envy.
You see, Helcyon’s no obsessive-compulsive basement dweller, checklist and mouse in hand. Retiring young has left him with plenty of time to indulge in gaming, and he exercises complete freedom in dipping into and out of the Achievement pool. “I really like to complete things, but at my own pace — which varies … a lot,” he admits. “When patch 3.0 hit, I hit the Achievement path pretty quickly. I was up over 3,000 points within a few days of release. Achievements took a back seat as I leveled a couple characters to 80; however, I am now back on track earning my 10 points here and there!”
Main character Helcyon
Guild and server GM of Sanctuary (H) of Draka-US
Gaming and WoW background Previously played EverQuest. Started WoW in 2005 as Alliance on Icecrown; rerolled Horde on Draka in 2006. XPed most of levels 10-60 in Battlegrounds, becoming Draka’s first High Warlord. Has seen most PvE content except KJ in Sunwell and the original Naxxramas.
15 Minutes of Fame: Everyone knows that Achievements are time-gobblers. Where do you find your play time?
Helcyon: Lucky me, I am retired at 33. I play basketball, ultimate Frisbee and mountain bike and hike when I am not playing WoW. Outside of sports, my girlfriend and I like to eat out, since both of us are average cooks at best. If you are ever in Hawaii, I can tell you the best spots to dine and drink at, anything from the affordable to the hurt-your-bank-account meals.
As far as playing time goes, it varies depending on the week, I suppose. Two weeks ago, I played maybe seven to eight hours total. Some days, I just log in to check my auctions (because, well, all those WotLK mounts were expensive — and yes, I have every single one that could be purchased from a vendor, including the Hog!). On the current raid days, I am on at least six hours that day, minimum (about four for the raid and a bit before and after). If I get into any sort of Achievement or honor grind, I can spend three to four hours online very easily. When my girlfriend is free, I am … well … not allowed to play, unless she is in the mood to level her little Hunter (at which point we generally will spend 30 minutes to one hour playing together).
Of course, like any gaming freak, I do have my hot streaks of playing. Last year I broke my toe and was without sports for five months. The first few months of that I was online like a maniac. I am pretty sure I have clocked like 10 hours in a day before (lots of AFKs … but still …), and I have nights like last night where I can’t sleep, so I popped in a movie and then fished in Dalaran for four hours until I was tired enough to sleep.
I usually take my laptop with me when I travel, so I can WoW on the road as well. I think I have left behind my laptop only three times since I have started playing WoW. I usually take four to five trips a year, and a couple of those are just usually to an outer island.
You call your guild “casual,” yet you’ve covered almost all the content in the entire game. What does “casual” mean to you?
I guess the word casual is easy to toss around with the current content. I am pretty sure most guilds can clear all content in under 4.5 hours, for non-speed runs. Right now we have five or six days off a week from raiding 25-man content. We have always been a come-and-go guild, meaning we have never in the past enforced a kind of you need to make (random_01) amount of raids or be ( random_02) spec. We raided with what we had and adjusted to the fights accordingly. We raided an average of two to three days in TBC, and so far in WotLK it is about 4.5 hours of raiding per week, once we got the learning curve down.
So I guess “casual” to me is just being able to come and go as we please, not worrying about having to make our raids to force progression. I am confident that we will see most things, and though being a server first is always an awesome feeling, it is not something I am going to nerd rage over.
What is your guild currently working on?
Our guild is currently working on Sartharion + 3. We have come close; unfortunately, the last month we have been hit hard with our geared raiders being on vacation, exams in school, overworked or just having life changes at the moment. We are hoping for a good showing this upcoming week. It shouldn’t be an issue if we get the right folks online.
Are you and/or your guild doing much PvP now?
As far as PvP, our guild still does a good deal of it. In fact, we have a handful of players that only PvP. We had a few very high-ranked guild Arena teams this past season and even had a Gladiator. We do a few pre-made WSG groups weekly as a guild. I have not really tested the Arena system since the second season, as I was turned off by it. I have just about collected the needed gear to start my level 80 Arena campaign.
Honestly, I miss playing against guys on my own server. It was special. We had epic ABs and WSG matches against Alliance pre-mades during classic WoW days. I once had a 12-page jerk thread on the Draka forums because I wouldn’t allow anyone into my pre-made battles. A few of the HWLs that took rank after me (all Sanctuary) also had some jerk threads for similar reasons … never as long as mine, though! A lot of our old-school guys like to talk about the old-day PvP when it was all honor-based and still server only. Wintergrasp battles bring back some good memories, especially when I see an old rival, but it is not the same.
It sounds like you were a completist before the Achievement system ever came along. Had you already covered a lot of ground for the Achievements by your own oddball interests?
As I said previously, I had been working on my own oddball things prior to the Achievement system being put in place. I believed I was Exalted with most vanilla WoW factions like all Horde cities, Thorium Brotherhood, Timbermaw, etc.
What’s been the most difficult Achievement for you to earn so far?
The most difficult Achievement for me thus far has been Loremaster questing. It is not that it is difficult to complete, but I would prefer to be in WSG or AB Mind Blasting a Gnome.
Do your guildmates work toward most of these achievements with you, or is this pretty much a personal endeavor?
For the most part I have worked on Achievements alone. However, a group of us ran the Naxx-10 instance a few times to get all but the Spore Loser Achievement there. I was also for the most part able to keep the same group to complete all the heroic dungeon quests for my Red Proto-Drake.
We have a couple people with over 6,000 Achievement points in our guild. A few of us instance together when we can, but for the most part, we are off doing our own Achievements like professions or general or what-nots. I know I currently do not posses the most points on our server — but after taking the time leveling a couple of my alternate characters to 80, I feel I am catching up rather quickly.
Which of your titles do you typically choose to display over your head? Why?
The title I wear most often is High Warlord. You just can’t get it anymore and I was the server’s first, so it is special for me. I will occasionally wear other titles to goof around.
What Achievement did you most enjoy working toward? What was the most enjoyable process?
The Achievement I had the most fun getting was The Undying. I am pretty sure we were a server first there. The longer we would go on in Naxx without dying, the more intense each boss fight got. It made each fight that much more fun. I think when we made it to Kel’thuzad without anyone dying, I said I would guild kick the person that lost The Undying title for us. I was kidding of course … maybe … Luckily, we didn’t need to find out!
What achievement are you most proud of and why?
At this particular moment I am pretty proud of my Seeker Achievement (3,000 quests), but that is because quests and I don’t always get along. (My feelings about this Achievement) will probably change soon, though; I really never have felt that any particular achievement was that much more special than another.
What achievements are you actively working toward right now?
The Acheivement I just started pushing for is the 100,000 honorable kills. I am hoping to get it sometime in late March or early April. If I become blessed with a crazy amount of PvP time, I could get it as early as mid-March.
Is there an achievement you’re most interested in getting?
The Achievement I am most interested in getting is The Immortal from Heroic Naxx, just because I would like the title Helcyon the Immortal. We got through three wings before someone died recently. That was kind of a bummer. I thought we would have had it that particular evening.
Think you’ll get all the Achievements out there?
I don’t know if I will get every single Achievement out there. I do know that as long as I am playing WoW, I will be trying!
Topics: Warth of The Lich King, WoW Articles, WoW Battlegrounds, WoW Hunter, WoW Mage, World Of Warcraft Database, World of Warcraft | Comments Off
A real-life tabard for the Keepers of Stromgarde
By admin | February 26, 2009

This is very cool — Jellis of Keepers of Stromgarde on the Venture Company server (the guild is an RP-PVP guild that has taken root in Stromgarde and claimed it as their own) put together this real-life version of their tabard, and it looks great. It’s a little different from the “official” Stromgarde tabard, but I think this is probably the best they could do with the guild interface. She’s even offered to make copies for everyone in the guild (we’re told there’s 75 members), which is pretty darn incredible. Plus, if you’re willing to wear a tabard around in public, clearly you’re dedicated to your guild.
This reminded me of the Scarlet Crusade t-shirt we saw made a while back — you can check that one out in the gallery below. I’ll admit it: I’m jealous. Maybe my guild needs to recruit some crafty people so we can start getting some cool real-life stuff of our own, too.
Topics: Warth of The Lich King, WoW Articles, WoW Battlegrounds, WoW Map, WoW Paladin, WoW Warlock, World Of Warcraft Database, World of Warcraft | Comments Off
Human Females trade faces on the PTR
By admin | February 26, 2009

One of the more mysterious bugs currently on the PTR is the fact that Human Females (maybe others, but none I’ve noticed) transferred over to the PTR are having their faces swapped around. In the picture above, you can see that my Paladin has two different faces. The one on the left is from Live servers, the one on the Right is from the patch 3.1 test realm. It isn’t happening to all characters, oddly. Just some of them. My Priest, who is also a Human Female, transferred just fine and has the same face she always does. Which happens to be the face my Paladin has on the PTR now. Funky.
It’s a known issue, and I’m sure it’ll go away long before this patch ever hits live realms, but it’s a very curious bug. It was likely caused by something quite mundane, but it makes me wonder if they were working on something that caused faces to shift out of the numerical order they had before. Adding new skins, perhaps? Updating old ones? Maybe, maybe not.
Topics: Warth of The Lich King, WoW Account, WoW Arena, WoW Armory, WoW Guides, WoW Hacks, World Of Warcraft Database | Comments Off
Ghostcrawler defends Death Knight Howling Blast nerf
By admin | February 26, 2009
Ghostcrawler is on the forums today getting feedback on all of the patch 3.1 notes we saw yesterday, and the conversation has turned to the Death Knight’s Howling Blast nerf, which some players are complaining has “dismantled” the DK’s dual wield chances. Our own Daniel Whitcomb agrees — he says that the 0/32/39 build will pretty much be out with 3.1 on the live realms.
But Ghostcrawler responds with an insight that all classes might benefit from hearing: Players will find a way. First, he says that if Blizzard didn’t want Death Knights to dual wield, they wouldn’t be able to. He says that the damage needed to be nerfed, if only so other classes didn’t think they were going to start being able to do that kind of DPS. And then had adds that just because one build is being quashed, it doesn’t mean other builds won’t eventually appear — Blizzard predicts what players might do with their talents, but GC says they’re almost always surprised by what players come up with, and that he expects Death Knights will come up with another way (some already known by Blizzard) to make two weapons more than viable.
Which some players don’t appreciate (they accuse GC of designing by breaking first and letting player fix later), but I kind of like that idea. As Ghostcrawler says in his followup, if there was just one way to play a class, everyone would play it that way. It’s Blizzard’s (and his team’s) job to put the challenge not just in the dragons we fight, but in the tough choices in the talent trees. Everyone knew DKs were getting nerfed (and GC even says that players always say “but I didn’t know they were getting nerfed that much!”), and it’s interesting that Blizzard is already looking forward to Death Knight players re-finding their grooves, even with the nerfs.
Topics: WoW Account, WoW Death Knight, WoW Druid, WoW Hunter, WoW Mage, WoW Shaman, WoW TCG, World Of Warcraft Database | Comments Off
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