Monthly Archives: September 2008

The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Itemization in Wrath part one When I said I’d talk about itemization for warriors in Wrath, I did so fully knowing that it is at present incomplete. New gear comes in with every beta patch, so even if you take every single item currently present into account it doesn’t necessarily provide you with an accurate picture of the way it will all shake out once you actually set foot in Northrend. So keeping in mind that not only can this all change tomorrow but that we’re talking about gearing the most gear dependent class in the entire game, let’s start looking at what gear we’re going to require at 80. The defense cap at level 80, for instance, is going to be 540 defense requiring 689 defense rating. For a fury TG build, you’re looking to overcome 15% hit penalty on specials, meaning that you’ll be stacking roughly 500 hit rating at level 80 (based on this forum post which seems like a pretty good test bed to me) not to mention all the crit and AP you’ll need to be effective. Frankly, I think the defense gear will be easier to assemble than the hit gear. For arms, of course, you won’t need nearly as much hit, making an Arms DPS build substantially easier to gear for. (To be

The state of Inscription One thing I know is this: the 8962 beta patch which downloaded last night is not going to be the last beta patch we see. How do I know this? Because there are still no Warrior, Death Knight, or minor glyphs available to train yet. Yes, I know what some websites are reporting about Death Knight glyphs, but I assure that these glyphs are not at the trainers. The lack of clear information on the topic is making it interesting to be a scribe on the beta servers. (And by “interesting” I mean “lame.”) While I’m standing in front of the trainer looking at the list of available glyphs, people on the Trade channel are calling me an idiot because I have no DK glyphs because they read about them. (Lolwut?) But my graphic for this post is my proof. They’re not available yet, people! I’ve leveled up to Expert on Inscription and I’m an oink away from Artisan. I have been selling my glyphs for measly sums merely to cover the cost of materials. Who are these people trying to sell a stack of Peacebloom for 500G?? Do they not understand that (a) you can’t buy anything useful with your beta money anyway and (b) you can’t keep your money when Wrath goes live? Can they back off their greed

Where does Havoc go from here? Well, in a sense we’ve been victims of our own success. We’ve tried several times to down Kalecgos, getting as close as an excruciating 1%, but ultimately we’ve not been able to move forward yet. There are several reasons for this, the most obvious being that SWP is not linear progression-wise like the other dungeons are. It was designed for players who’d been farming BT/Hyjal for months. Even now, probably at most half the raid group has four-piece T6, and probably only 2/3 have their two-piece. In addition, we lost members due to school, and some people lost interest after Illidan died. This is no surprise, since it’s hard to replace that adrenaline rush once you come out on top and things start to slow down. We received several excellent transfer applications once the server became open to transfers in late August. However, we have decided for the moment Havoc will become a casual guild, farming ZA bear mounts while we still can and continuing to gear up members, but not placing a hardcore focus on SWP. We decided as a whole that our goals were met, and we did not want to burn ourselves out on raiding before WotLK. Speaking of WotLK, though, we fully intend to pick up the hardcore schedule

Warlock changes in Beta build 8926   The nerf bat swung low and hard. Did it hit Warlocks? Well… yes and no. This is the stage in Beta where things are tuned downwards — notoriously labeled the nerf patch — and Warlocks are big, fat nerf targets. On the other hand, some spells got buffs and others were reworked. This is just Beta, so don’t panic. Classes are buffed and nerfed throughout the testing process until everything is finely tuned. Without further ado: they nerfed Death’s Embrace to grant 9% crit to all Shadow Spells when an opponent is at 20% or below health, down from 15% crit. Eradication can no longer be a permanent buff now as it now notes that, “This effect cannot occur more often than once every 30 sec”. On the other hand, Death’s Embrace and Eradication got cool new icons. Dark Pact, which I raved about when I talked about the Felhunter, has been nerfed back to its current form of granting 100% of the mana drained from pet (down from 200% in previous builds). Curse of Exhaustion was nerfed to a 30% movement speed reduction, down from 50%. It’s now back to the live realm’s value but without the benefit of Amplify Curse, which was reworked in Beta. Fel Armor’s mana regeneration

WoW, Casually: To Beta or not to Beta   Those of us who are playtime-challenged have to make hard decisions about what to do during our WoW game sessions all the time. Do we try to do an instance? Do we work on our dailies? Or do we just parade our vanity pets around Shattrath while chatting with guildies? (OK, maybe just I do that.) For some time now, many of us have had another decision to make: do we check out the Wrath of the Lich King Beta?   On one hand, you’ve got a brand new class to play with. On the other hand, you don’t get to keep him. So is the Beta wasted time? Let’s look at the Pros and Cons after the break.   Pros * Apathy has set in game-wide: It’s hard to get people to do much in WoW right now. * Shiny!:The beta is new! * Same old thing: The old world just isn’t as much fun anymore with new content on the horizon. * Preparation: You can practice with the new content. Cons * Waste of limited time: You don’t get to keep anything you accomplish in the beta. * Ruining the experience: When Wrath comes out, it won’t be as fresh and new because you will have experienced much of it. * Preparation: Now is an excellent time to stock up on mats and cash to accelerate profession progress. * Testing

Shamans and Enchanters: Now in handy scroll form! Moonglow Ink allows you make some really cool stuff. For example, at 35 skill, you can start making Scrolls of Recall, which act like the Shaman spell Astral Recall, allowing you to teleport home every 15 minutes, and all for the price of a vial of Moonglow Ink and a piece of Light Parchment. The scrolls go gray at 75, so you can churn out a lot of them as well. At 50 skill, you can start becoming an enchanter’s best friend. You can make Bleached Parchment, which can be targeted with armor enchantments. Anyone can then use the resulting scroll to enchant their armor. So far, there’s no apparent level limit on these scrolls, so if that remains unchanged, they’ll be good even for the new Wrath enchantments. All of this and all it requires is one Moonglow Ink and some Light Parchment for each scroll. Another 50 skill recipe is a bit of an enigma. The Mysterious Tarot, which uses 2 vials of Moonglow Ink, will produce a random card from the Rogues Deck. When you combine the Ace, 2, 3, 4, and 5 of Rogues, you’ll get a deck you can turn in to the Darkmoon Faire for a magic chestpiece with a random enchantment. The quest text implies that there will even be gypsies in various inns out in the

 On Outland upgrading Yes, you can get upgrades from Outland, even from Hellfire Peninsula. No, you don’t have to take them. If you prefer form over function and plan to blast straight through Outland, you should be able to get away with keeping your blue gear til 70. If you do upgrade before Northrend, you will be in danger of looking like a clown, though, especially since the devs say they have no intention of itemizing for Death Knight specific gear sets before Northrend. Still, if you’re don’t mind looking silly, there’s some good upgrades to be had in Outland. Here’s a few quest upgrades from Hellfire Peninsula, Nagrand, and Zangarmarsh: Battlemaster’s Breastplate: This breastplate out of Hellfire Peninsula is at the end of a long quest line for both Horde and Alliance, but it’s a very nice upgrade from Saronite War Plate, with a good amount of extra AC and strength easily making up for the lost parry rating. It shows a lot of skin on most races though, even the males, so grab a tabard to cover it up. Defender’s Gauntlets or Suntrider’s Gauntlets: Gained by a quest from either Falcon Watch or the Temple of Telhamat, these gauntlets have different names depending on your side, but the same stats.

Arsonite Tinkerboom Salutations! My name is Arsonite Tinkerboom, but I’m more commonly known as Arson, for reasons which will become blazingly clear. I was but a very young and minuscule child, not yet graced with the ability of personal locomotion, when we were forced to flee from Gnomeregan during the invasion. My father, an engineering magician, and my mother, an alchemist magician, had volunteered to help escort a group of refugees to Kharanos. They were always ready and willing to lend their assistance to aid our people, and their help was always readily received. My parents were very skilled in their professions, which brought them much respect and admiration, and they were known all through Gnomeregan. They had an incredible knack for blending their magical, alchemical, and engineering arts into the most fantastic contraptions. One of those grand inventions was called the Baby Gnomester 120, a small enclosed metal basket designed to keep gnome babies toasty warm during long ventures around Dun Morogh. Into this I was placed for safety and warmth as we made the first part of the trek to the safety of Brewnall Village. All was well until we neared the perimeter of Iceflow Lake and the village. A roaming band of Trolls spotted us, and wasted no