Monthly Archives: October 2008

They aren’t random, for one. They’re on a timer. There are sounds/visual indicators of when the water will begin to come down in the sewers, and when the fire pits will ignite in Orgrimmar. The water pillar is only supposed to knock you back slightly if you are directly underneath it when it comes out (i.e. you aren’t paying attention to your surroundings). We’re fixing bugs with that. Nagrand’s tornadoes were a different story because those were indeed pretty random, and a lot of times unavoidable. while you are taking a look at the bugs associated with the water in dalaran arena, could you please take a look at the ring of valor arena in regards to the fire damage done by the flames (900 dps seems way too high, i have deep frozen kill targets on the fire and that damage was enough to kill them) as well as the way that the platforms behave after a match starts? I can understand from a design point that the need to have these classified as a transport when the game begins, but afterwords they are still counted as such, making the arena very limited in terms of where i can fight due to lack of being able to blink. i am forced to fight on one of the two far sides or “pretend” that the platforms are lava (we all know

Raids rebalanced for Patch 3.0.2 As of last night’s beta (and PTR) patch, players have been reporting that mob health throughout all of the Burning Crusade raid zones have been reduced by up to 30%. That struck me as really, really odd, so I decided to pop into Sunwell Plateau and Black Temple to take a look. It is, in fact, completely true. Every mob and boss that I could see in both zones (and I could see a lot- Mind Vision hopping through raids for the win) had their HP drastically reduced. My gut instinct was, “Ugh, why are they nerfing everything so badly? That’s ridiculous. Just because it’s the end of the expansion doesn’t mean they need to make it easy mode for us.” Then I actually thought (gasp!) about it for a little bit. Looking at the changes coming in Patch 3.0.2, this was a change they needed to make to let us still raid until Wrath. A lot of encounters probably became impossible to beat as they were with those changes, Sunwell Plateau especially. Sunwell was designed with all of the insanely OP stuff players were doing to win in mind. Stacking Shadow Priests for mana regen, stacking Shaman to chain-cast Heroism/Bloodlust, half the raid going Leatherworking for Drums, yadda yadda. Those are all things they

Drinking The last great skill of any Arena healer is the art of drinking. Although this applies to all casters, it’s critical for a healer because a healer without mana is equal to a dead teammate. Particularly against teams with drain capabilities, drinking is part of the combat experience. You will, invariably, find yourself out of combat several times during a match. Pay attention. Drink. If nobody is dying, drink. Find a pillar, sit down, and drink. Needless to say, always have several stacks of Star’s Tears ready before every match. This is an extremely difficult task, however, against teams with pet classes. Smart players will have their pets constantly on the healers to keep them in combat, preventing drinking. There’s simply nothing you can do against this except to kill the pet or run it across the map as far away from its master to despawn it (I’m not sure this still works). In these situations, call for help. It’s your teammates’ responsibility to peel at least the pet off you in order for you to find a window to drink. When should you drink? Personally I’d say early and often. As long as your teammates are in good shape, drink at every opportunity. This means any window where you get out of combat. If

Frenzyheart Tribe and The Oracles ·         Not a lot of rewards between the two so I combine them: the Wolverine dudes offer you the Giant-Sized Gauntlets (which, while clearly intended for tanking, lack defense so you may end up using them as DPS gear just to get some hit rating somewhere… oh, who am I kidding? You’ll wear leather), the Stolen Vrykul Harpoon and the Frenzyheart Insignia. If you like haste, these are your boys. ·         The Oracles, on the other hand, offer you Gold Star Spaulders which, of course, have no hit and a lot of stamina for DPS, and the Oracle Talisman of Ablution. Hard to say no to that much crit, even if I don’t know what the ‘beneficial resources’ are. Hopefully rage is in there. There’s also the Alliance Vanguard and Warsong Offensive, but they’re not really fully itemized as of the most recent patch. Vanguard weapons (which I assume will get Horde equivalents) that are of interest include the Sawed-Off Hand Cannon (precious, precious hit rating), the Shield of the Lion-Hearted and the Hammer of the Alliance Vanguard. If you add up all the defense rating on the highest available option from these vendors, you’ll be sitting at 389 defense rating. While this

Ask a Beta Tester: Attunements, achievements, more low level quests   Welcome to another edition of Ask a Beta Tester, wherein we all sit around, drink ale, smoke cigars, talk about our awesome hogs and then tear up the road of Dalaran, risking our lives with extreme stunts just for the thrill and the feeling of adrenaline flowing through our veins. …Wait, that’s not what we do at all. Swiss asked… I’m interested in the Low Level Quest Tracker. Does this replace other trackers such as Find Herbs or Find Minerals? Or does it stack with other tracking as well? It does not stack with other tracking, but you generally wouldn’t need both at once. Turn it on in town, grab your quests, turn your other tracking back on when you leave. That’ll be problematic for finding low level quests out in the wilds, but does your level 80 Death Knight need that Peacebloom while you’re off looking for quests? Read on for more of your Wrath of the Lich King Beta questions! Droul asked… What has happened to jewel slots in Wrath? A lot of the gear that has been previewed or leaked has maybe one but most have no slots for gems. Are Jewelcrafters going to be useless in WotLK? Useless? Gosh no. Gear has plenty of gem slots. Maybe not