Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Week 4 in TOC: Twin Val'kyrs

This week in the Trial of the Crusader we will get access to twin bosses, the Twin Val'kyrs. My guild will be tackling them tonight and I've been preparing for it.

"Only by working together will you defeat the final challenge. From the depths of Icecrown come two of the Scourge's most powerful lieutenants -- fierce val'kyr, winged harbingers of the Lich King!" —Tirion Fordring

I've spent quite a bit of time researching the strategy on this fight and at first look, it does look extremely complicated. It's another one of those fights where you need to split your raid into two groups and proper raid deployment is crucial. First of all, let's have a look at each of the two boss's unique abilities.

Edyis Darkbane: Abilities
Empowered Darkness — Increases damage dealt to Light targets by 100% for 20 sec.
Shield of Darkness — A Shield of Darkness that protects the sister from harm absorbing 250000 damage and prevents spell interruption for 15 sec.
Twin's Pact — The Twin's Pact heals for 20% of their total HP. 15 sec. cast. Begins cast after Shield of Darkness has been cast.
Dark Vortex Eydis Darkbane beings to cast a powerful vortex of Dark. Channels for 5 seconds inflicting 5850 to 6150 damage every 1 sec for 5 sec. 8 second cast
Surge of Darkness — Pulsing a Surge of Darkness Inflicting 1500 damage every 2 sec to Light enemies.
Touch of Darkness — The Val'kyr's Dark touch has affected you, inflicting 7313 to 7687 Dark damage to players under the effect of Light Essence every 1 sec. The Touch of Darkness will not harm targets with the same attributes as it.
Unleashed Dark — The Concentrated Darkness releases its energies inflicting 12188 to 12812 Dark damage to enemies within 8 yards.
Twin Spike — The Twin Spike inflicts 100% weapon damage and increases damage taken by 20% for 15 sec or for 10 charges.

Fjola Lightbane: Abilities
Empowered Light — Increases damage dealt to Dark targets by 100% for 20 sec.
Shield of Lights — A shield of light that protects the sister from harm absorbing 250000 damage and prevents spell interruption for 15 sec.
Twin's Pact — The Twin's Pact heals for 20% of their total HP. 15 sec. cast. Begins cast after Shield of Lights has been cast.
Light VortexEydis Darkbane beings to cast a powerful vortex of Light. Channels for 5 seconds inflicting 5850 to 6150 damage every 1 sec for 5 sec. 8 second cast
Surge of Light — Pulsing a Surge of Light Inflicting 1500 damage every 2 sec to Dark enemies.
Touch of Light — The Val'kyr's Light touch has affected you, inflicting 4388 to 4612 Light damage to players under the effect of Dark Essence every 1 sec. The Touch of Light will not harm targets with the same attributes as it.
Unleashed Light — The Light Ball releases its energies inflicting 12188 to 12812 Light damage to enemies within 8 yards.
Twin Spike — The Twin Spike inflicts 100% weapon damage and increases damage taken by 20% for 15 sec or for 10 charges.

I've read strategy guides and watched videos from the PTR and this is my advice to tackling the Twin Val'kyrs.

Raid setup
At the start of this fight light and dark portals will appear. Each player needs to pick either light or dark by clicking on one of the portals. If you pick dark then you can fight Fjola Lightbane and if you pick light then you fight Edyis Darkbane. So before you start, before you even see those portals, have your raid group split into two even groups with everyone knowing what color portal they're going to click on. Dark players do double damage to light enemies and light players do double damage to dark enemies. Players can tell what portal they are aligned with because there is a dark purple sort of aura at the feet of dark players or a white aura around the feet of light players. At almost any stage during the raid, players can and will need to switch colors by clicking on one of the portals of the color they need to change to.

The tanks' roles
There are four portals in the area. There's a dark and light on the left hand side and a dark and light on the right hand side. The light-tank's job is to pull Edyis Darkbane in between the two portals on the left. The dark-tank's job is to do the same for Fjola Lightbane, but between the two portals on the right.

Gas orbs
Through the fight, light and dark gas cloud looking orbs will spawn from the light and dark portals. If you're dark you can and need to intercept the dark gas orbs. The dark orbs won't damage you. When you have intercepted enough dark gas orbs you can unleash a special attack of homing missiles. But if you get too close to a light gas orb you will take damage and a de buff.
The same goes for light players; light players need to intercept the light gas orbs which will do no damage and when you have intercepted enough light gas orbs you can unleash a special attack of homing missiles. But, again, if a light player gets too close to a dark gas orb they will take damage and a de buff.

Twin's Pact
Every now and then one of the Val'kyrs begins a 15 sec Twin's Pact cast and shields himself or the other twin. I am not 100% clear on this yet. From what I can tell, if the light Val'kyr is the one casts the shield then all the dark players need to attack the shield and vice versa.

Vortex
If one of the Val'kyr begins to channel their Vortex, everyone in the raid has to immediately change to the color of the Val'kyr so that they absorb the Vortex damage. After the Vortex has finished channelling, you can switch back.

Here's more info from www.wowwiki.com info but frankly, i found it as confusing as hell!

"Inspiration and strategy

It should be noted that battle mechanic of this boss fight is inspired from arcade game Ikaruga. In that game the player ship and enemies has either white or black polarity (and unlike this boss fight, player can change polarity at will). Only bullets of an opposite polarity can kill the player and the player will absorb enemies' bullets of the same color.
Player's attack deals double damage to enemies with different polarity and when enough bullets of same polarity are absorbed the player can unleash a special attack of homing missiles.
In this fight, Edyis Darkbane is considered black and Fjola Lightbane is considered white and their attacks are respectively white or black. By right-clicking on one of the four portals in the room, you get the respective color of the portal, white or black. You absorb damage of the same color and deals double damage against the boss with the other color. If you are white, you absorb white damage and do double damage to Edyis Darkbane, if you are black then you absorb black damage and do double damage to Fjola Lightbane.
Before the pull everyone gets himself a color. The black-tank pulls Edyis Darkbane between the two left portals, the white-tank does the same for Fjola Lightbane between the two right portals.
Every now and then one of the Val'kyrs begins a 15 sec Twin's Pact cast and shields himself. Every damage dealer has to immediately pick up the casting ones opposite color and burn the shield making the heal interruptable.
If one of the val'kyr begins to channel her Vortex, everyone in the raid has immediately to get that ones color in order to absorb the Vortex damage. After the channel, you can switch back.
During the whole fight its also bullet hell time (the genre of Ikaruga): dodge the other-color balls flying around and catch your colors balls. If your shield absorbs enough damage, you get the Empowered Darkness or Empowered Light buff, giving you a 100% damage-boost against the other color for 20 sec.
With the Twin Val'kyr defeated, everyone is ready to celebrate... when the floor of the coliseum collapses and drops players into the Icy Depths of Azjol-Nerub."

If you want to know what loot drops from these booses, here is a complete loot table: MMO-Champion Loot table

Gaming faces 10 and 25 man Twin Val'krys Video Raid guide

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Blizzcon 2009 wrap-up

As I sit listening to Ozzie go nuts at Blizzcon, I thought I would wrap up what we have had a look at over this weekend.

The big news for us WoW gamers was Cataclysm. It was a bitter sweet announcement for me as very detailed information was leaked onto the net over a week ago. It was like someone told me what all my Christmas presents were in November. I like surprises and the sites that posted the detailed info before the actual announcement, spoiled it for me (that’s why I didn’t link it when it was posted). There’s nothing wrong with leaks but you can leak information without going into as much detail as they did.

Lots of things said at Blizzcon point to an end of year launch for Cataclysm. First, Mike Morhaime (President/CEO Blizzard) said “You will be sick of Goblin rogues by next Blizzcon”, then Ghost crawler said in an interview with direct TV “We will see the new cross server 5 man pugs in the 3.3 patch before Cataclysm.” He then went on to talk about patch 4.1 and 4.2.

So by the sounds of it we will have 1-2 patches max before Cataclysm hits. That would make up 5 to 6 months if we go by the timelines of other patches. My guess is that we will have 3.3 to take us to ice crown, then 3.4 will introduce class changes a month before we get our x-pac, but only time will tell. I just hope Blizzard can live up to their 1 expansion a year they talked about last year.

The changes to guilds and guild tools have stirred a lot of excitement in my guild. I’m the GM of a 60+ account guild with over 100 lvl 80s in it. We pay for all guild repairs and supply very cheap flasks etc. As one of the oldest guilds on our server we have seen a lot of members come and go over the years and the new tools will helps stop or massively reduce the guild hoppers. I have a great group of officers and it’s great to know we are going to be able to reward guild loyalty with tools for levelling, crafting and raiding alike.

As I level new alts, it’s been kinda sad to see once bustling zones turned into ghost towns. For a MMO it just does not have the same feel questing in an empty zone. The move to restructure and then rebuild Azaroth sounds like the prefect move by Blizzard. It will not only ad new content for old players but at the same time provide new and exciting content for new players or even new alts!

A new type of level cap

With this xpac we only get to level to 85 and there has been a lot of “WTF? Only 85?” comments going around the net. The way you need to look at it is that you have level 85+ Path of the Titans skills. It’s just a new spin on the end levels. It’s a way to keep you interested and progressing end game.

I cannot wait to get my hands on Cataclysm and we still haven’t finished WotLK. Driving content at this speed makes it easy to stay interested and excited about a game that is 5 years old, something other MMOs miss the boat on all the time.

We have covered a lot here on Gaming Faces but if you’re looking for more detailed information on a particular class, don’t forget to check out our class news feeds at the top of the site for class specific blogs and news.

Mastery and Path of the Titans

This info comes straight from Blizzard:

"Mastery

This segment of the panel discussed a new and exciting feature called Mastery. With this feature, we want to make class talent trees simple throughout, but we also want to make them a lot more fun. We feel that while talent trees are pretty cool, they’re becoming larger and more complicated. We see this by the talents available, as many talents try to perform three different things and passive bonuses compete against fun or utility talents.

So while we will add some new talents for Cataclysm, we also want to prune passive and mandatory talents so that you have more points available for fun or utility talents. Our goal is to have talent trees that are simpler, less cookie-cutter and more fun. Under the new plan, you’ll get passive bonuses just for spending points in the appropriate tree. Passive bonuses are things that increase stats such as damage, healing, and tanking, as well as stat-like attributes such as haste or crit. We really want to give something unique for your spec -- and the Mastery stat incorporates this.

An example of a passive bonus for Assassination rogues would be increased poison damage the more points they spend in Assassination. Likewise, a rogue specialized in Subtlety will receive an energy cost bonus, Beastmaster hunters would receive bonuses to their pet’s damage output, and Marksmanship hunters would receive focus regeneration bonuses, as well. These are just some examples of how passive bonuses bolster each spec of every class.


Path of the Titans


Path of the Titans is another great new feature we covered that encompasses rewarding progression at max level. This new feature implements a third new type of glyph called “Ancient Glyph,” and as you can see, it is themed after the titans. These special glyphs are not associated with the Inscription tradeskill, and are also not specific to any class. You’re able to unlock a path and progress within that path as you continuously engage in different aspects of the game. As you advance, you will be able to unlock special glyph sockets for your character. You can also respec your path at any time, in case you decide to change your path.
You earn these ancient glyphs by using the new Archaeology secondary profession to recover and trade in titan artifacts. Each path will have 2-3 choices per rank, and again, you can respec if you decide to go down another path.

• Path of Aman’Thul, the High Father
• Path of Eonar, the Lifebinder
• Path of Norgannon, the Dreamweaver
• Path of Khaz’Goroth, the Shaper
• Path of Aggramar, the Avenger
• Path of Golganneth, the Thunderer


You can earn progress down any of these paths by doing things such as questing, raiding, PvP, trade skills, etc., with a possible weekly cap for maximum progress. Over time, you’ll be able to unlock new ancient glyphs that will greatly benefit your character.
This new system will be accessible to all players at max level. Players will eventually be able to reach new ranks for ancient glyphs, encouraging them to further develop their characters. There is also a possibility that we will introduce whole new paths in future content patches."


Guild Advancements and Professions

This info is straight from Blizzard:

"We continued with the presentation discussing exciting new features that will provide guilds with avenues to further advance, both on an individual basis and as a whole that culminates into a more immersive level of guild development. With these upcoming guild advancement features, guilds will be able to acquire talents and provide guild members with leveling benefits, as well as acquire guild achievements, guild professions, and other cool features.

Guild Leveling and Talents

We’ve introduced a new guild feature that will provide options for players to earn guild experience in a variety of ways. Players can earn guild experience through leveling, reputation ranks, boss kills, Battleground and Arena wins, and profession ranks. The top twenty earners from the guild per day will contribute to the guild experience total. With every acquired level, guilds will receive talent points that they can then spend towards their guild talent tree, which affects all guild members in the guild. Additionally, guild experience is converted into guild currency that can be used to purchase a wide variety of rewards, such as guild profession plans and reagents, vanity items, and talent respecs.




Guild Professions

Guilds that use guild currency to purchase profession plans will be able to share any purchased plan with the rest of the guild via a vendor and skill trainer. Guilds are also able to create guild heirlooms; these items bind to the guild so that anyone in the guild will be able to acquire them. Just like the normal heirloom items, guild heirloom items will also scale with level and will support all armor and weapons.




Guild members will also be able to take advantage of being able to create guild-specific versions of items that require fewer or different reagents. The new reagents are purchased from guild vendors via guild currency, and there will be support for all professions.

Looking for Guild

With the Looking for Guild feature, we’re making it easier for players to find a guild. We’re also looking to provide guild leaders more options to make it easier to recruit new members. The new tool will provide filters based on various requirements and will have a simple and easy-to-use interface.

Guild Achievements

Players can earn achievements as a guild, with each requiring a minimum ratio of guild members to complete. We’ve also introduced new achievements that guilds can partake in. One example is becoming Grand Master in all professions.



Features

Guilds will receive a special guild news-feed that will show them updates on happenings within the guild such as achievements, boss kills, etc. Guilds will also have access to profession info for their members and more. In addition to these features, guilds will also be able to acquire a percentage of gold looted on boss kills that will go directly to the guild bank. Additionally, guilds will be able to invite other guilds to events."

Rated Battlegrounds

Straight from Blizzard:
"This section discussed changes being made to Battlegrounds. We realize that players want a bit more out of the Battlegrounds, or don’t necessarily want to actively participate in Arenas to acquire some of the best gear in the game. We’re changing this by providing an alternate method to acquiring Arena rating. We’ve introduced rated Battlegrounds, which will allow players to acquire rating for very powerful gear without setting foot into an Arena, so each player can enjoy whichever PvP activity he or she prefers.

We plan to include featured weekly Battlegrounds for players to enjoy; coupled with the changes made, this will help keeps the gameplay changing from week to week. The way the new rated Battlegrounds work is pretty straightforward. The more games you win, the higher the rating you acquire; however, we do not plan to punish players for losing. We’re looking at setting a cap of six or more battles per week. We want players to enjoy the ability to acquire rating through Battlegrounds, but it shouldn’t become the main source of rating gains.

In order to participate in rated Battlegrounds, players will be required to join battles as full groups. However these groups do not need to be committed teams as in the Arena system; rather, the group simply needs to have the required amount of players for whichever Battleground they’re entering. As an example, one would need to join the queue as a group for Warsong Gulch with any nine additional players to qualify for a rating.




Tol Barad

We're also adding a new zone that combines elements of Wintergrasp with the Isle of Quel'danas. During PvP battles, players will fight to take control points across the island. In between PvP battles, the zone serves as a daily quest hub for both factions, while the winning faction will have access to a raid area."

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Hunters Get Focus

That's right Hunters, gone are our mana days!


"Hunters
Also receiving a massive overall are hunters.The hunter’s need to rely upon mana is completely gone, and instead they will use focus. This means hunters will no longer care at all about Intellect, mana regen or Aspect of the Viper.

Focus will regenerate continually, similar to how rogues or feral druids regenerate energy. For comparison, rogues regenerate approximately 10 energy per second, whereas hunters will regenerate 6 focus per second.However, Steady Shot can also be used to improve focus regen, and bring the rate at which hunters regenerate focus to 12 per second.

The hunter will have a maximum of 100 focus, and shots might cost 30 or 60 focus, with fewer cooldowns on abilities. Another exciting and long-awaited change regards the ammunition system. Ammunition will become an equipable item, and will no longer be consumable.

More details on that later!"

New Race Class Combos


WoW Cataclysm Official HD Trailer on YouTube

If you're having problems downloading the HD WoW Cataclysm trailer, don't worry, we've put it on YouTube for you in HD!

Diablo III monk video online

We just uploaded the monk Diablo video from Blizzcon. Enjoy!

WoW Cataclysm break down from Blizzard

Quote from Blizzard:

Level cap will be 85 because developers wanted to focus on the right things: redoing Azeroth and providing more end-game content.
A new guild advancement system will let you earn guild perks and level a guild through 20 levels with points to spend in a talent tree. You will access abilities such as cheaper repairs, less durability loss on wipes, or mass resurection.
Phasing can now add and remove terrain based on your progress. Coasts will be progressively more flooded depending on how far you are in a storyline for example.

Path of the Titans

Talent trees won't be extended, you will just get 5 more talent points.
The Path of the Titans will let players follow a path (not restricted to classes), this is a new talent system with new skills and passive abilities.
A mastery system is being added as well, a lot of talents will be reworked to be more fun. The point is to get rid of a lot of the talent skills and not make you spend all your points in a talent tree just because it gives you more damage or higher crit chance.

Archeology

Archeology is a new secondary profession, not many details about this one but we'll probably hear more about it in future panels.

Deathwing

Deathwing, the leader of the Black Dragonflight will be the main vilain of the expansion.
Deathwing heard the whispers of the Old Gods after the arrival of the Burning Legion, he eventually grew very powerful and also became very very crazy.
His plan was to catch the Alliance and Horde unaware with something so massive that it would bring up the Elemental Planes.
The Elemental Planes were created by titans to contain the elementals, they weren't happy with this decision and some of them like Ragnaros got really angry.

New races - Worgens

Other races were discussed for the alliance, but the developers really felt that the alliance needed a monstrous race and horde needed something fun and tiny.
Genn Greymane closed the Greymane Wall to block the Scourge's plague. Gilneas got nervous as the Scourge progressed to the south.
Arugal was a patriot, he called the Worgens to battle for Gilneas but eventually was surprised by how dangerous what he called down was.
Worgens are from somewhere else ... or even someWHEN else. They have a wolverine temperament and spent a lot of time trying to contain the beast within.
One of the Worgen racial will be Dark Flight, a short duration sprint

New Races - Goblins

Goblins are a technological race from Kezan, their society is broken up into trade cartels run by trade princes. They are new factions and not the ones you can already see in game.
The Cataclysm hit Kezan really hard and it's possibly destroyed. The goblins are now refugees on the Lost Isles.
As a goblin you start as a neutral cartel and eventually join the horde as you progress through the questlines.
Racial - Rocket Belt will have multiple functionnalities, you can use it to launch yourself forward or launch rockets at targets.

The World

Azeroth is now flyable. Pretty much all the zones will be changed to some extent, some of them like Elwynn Forest won't change too much but others like The Barrens will be sundered in two by Deathwing.
The Wailing Caverns are now a lush and verdant Area.
Desolace now has a lot more waters and a lot of plants can be seen in the screenshots.

The Horde finally conquered Southshore.
Auberdine was destroyed and the night elves have set up a new camp north of it. Garrosh wants to expand the horde and has built a fortified camp at the south of the zone.
Stonetalon has been cleaned by the Goblins, Azshara will be the new Goblin zone, and are using quarries in the mountains of Azshara to build their town.
We all left a little part of ourselves in Northrend and the old world will be much darker than it was to make heroism and brotherhood more meaningful like Warcraft should be.

Every zones will be revamped with new quests, items, and art. The old world will be a brand new experience and you won't have to deal with the annoying agility/spirit quest rewards anymore.
7 new zones will be added : Twilight Highlands, Mount Hyjal, Deepholm, Uldum, Gilneas, The Lost Isles, Sunken City of Vash'jir.
The Worgens and Goblins starting zone level goes from 1 to 15.
Sunken City of Vashj'ir will be an underwater zone and was the home city of Lady Vashj before the original sundering, this is a gateway to the Abyssal Maw. Going through the Abyssal Maw will take you to the Elemental Plane of Water, even if the zone will be underwater you will be walking on the sea floor here, new underwater mounts will be available and should have the same speed as normal flying mounts.

Deepholm will be the new hub of the expansion, you will have portals here to let you teleport to Hyjal, Uldum, etc ... The Twilight's Hammer now serves Deathwing and have brought him back to full health in the Temple of Earth at the center of the map.
Uldum will have at least two dungeons and is heavily inspired from Egypt. The sea at the west of Tanaris was just an illusion created by the Titan and Uldum is actually a brand new zone. It is rumored to hold a super weapon. Uldum is also the home of the Tolvir, a race of stone-like cats created by the titans.
Ragnaros used the cataclysm to come back from the Plane of Fire where we sent him and his now sieging the World Tree in Mount Hyjal to burn it down. Malfurion is back from the Emerald Dream. The whole zone (Hyjal) will make extensive use of phasing.
Twilight Highlands will feature Grim Batol,
Apparently Orgrimmar will be rebuilt and reinforced with steel, it now looks a lot like Garrosh strongholds...
Undercity has been redesigned to be flyable, it now looks much more impressive from the outside.
Deepholm isn't really connected to Azeroth, the connection is where Deathwing
The Twilight Highlands will feature Grim Batol, Deathwing literally broke open Grim Batol as he emerged from the ground. This is the new Twilight's Hammer base in Azeroth and both Horde and Alliance will have a new port town with boats here. The Red Dragonflight is still here but has been pushed back to the west of the zone near the Wetlands.

Dungeons & Raids

The Firelands will be a new raid dungeon, it will let you go to the Elemental Plane of fire and visit Sulfuron's Keep, Ragnaros will be here and he's really pissed.
Uldum will feature two new dungeons, the Lost City of Tol'vir and the Halls of Origination (a titan city)
Grim Batol will have a level-up dungeon and a raid instance.
Skywall (Air Elemental Plane) will have a level-up dungeon and a raid instance.
The Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep will be back in a brand new level 85 heroic version.
Blackrock Caverns will be a new level-up dungeon located in Blackrock Spire. This is an entirely new dungeon, new art, new creatures, new everything.

Player vs. Player

Battle of Gilneas will be a new battleground where the objective is to control the city by controlling as many districts as possible.
Tol'barad will be a new PvP zone and will also be the most important daily quest hub. Just like Wintergrasp a battle will happen every few hours and the winning side will get access to the Tol'barad Prison and extra daily quests, the really profitable ones.
Rated battlegrounds will be added to the game and should get you the same rewards as Arenas.
New arena maps will be added.

WoW Cataclysm news on wow.gamingfaces.net

In case you missed it all, we have posted a lot of news about WoW Cataclysm on wow.gamingfaces.net





WoW Cataclysm official site online!

Go check it out now!

Wallpapers and HD Trailer Download!

World of Warcraft - Cataclysm FACT!!!

Level Cap 85!

Guild Levling System!

New Races:
Goblins for the Horde.

Worgen for the Alliance.

Old Azeroth GONE and flying in New Azeroth!

New Classes/Race combo:

Human Hunter
Orc Mage
Night Elf Mage
Dwarf Mage
Blood Elf Warrior
Dwarf Shaman
Undead Hunter
Tauren Paladin
Tauren Priest
Gnome Priest
Troll Druid

BlizzCon Is ON! Let's start DirectTV with REPEAT stuff!

A little look at what we've got coming up today. To start off with the coverage showed REPEAT stuff we got to see and pay for LAST YEAR!! Thanks Direct DV.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Week 3 in TOC Faction Champions

This week in TOC, raiders will face Faction Champions. The Faction Champions are a lot like the "arena event boss" back in Magister's Terrace.

You face different enemies, each representing one class: a resto druid, a shadow priest, a holy priest, a hunter, a holy paladin, a rogue, a death-knight, a warrior, a warlock and an elemental shaman.

They play quite well, and will use Dispersion when under fire or using Heroism and can't be tanked.

They can be crowd controlled but all spells only have their PVP durations and diminishing returns against them.

WoWwiki Strategy:

"Setting up /target macros for your crowd control classes will give you a good first attempt at the encounter. Like in any PvP BG, you have a choice, either control the healers or burn them. As the crowd control abilities are reduced to that of their PvP counterparts (diminishing returns apply), it is wise to focus on healers first to avoid them breaking their crowd control and healing up nearly dead NPCs. The raid makeup will decide which path to take.
Focus on the healers, pop heroism/bloodlust as the fight begins, and begin to blow it up starting with the Shaman, after the Resto Shaman is dead, move on to the Healing Priest, then to the Holy Paladin, the the Resto Druid finally, because CC is alot easier on a Druid over any other class, and control the most aggressive DPS, that being the warrior and the death knight. Pay attention to the target you are killing, as the other champions do attempt to support them, and you will need to dispel/purge shields/heals when necessary. You also need to assign ranged classes to keep the warlock's and the hunter's pets down, most likely warlocks/mages/hunters because of the high burst DPS, and it barely will affect your rotation, because they will die so quickly. As you progress onto the casters, make use of your interrupts, it slows down their DPS considerably.
The NPCs are near impossible to tank as they drop threat, so you need to slow their DPS to the best of your ability. Due to the melee DPS classes being difficult to control it is in the best interest of the raid to use heroism and bloodlust towards the start of the fight.
It is imperative that mortal strike, poisons and any other heal reduction abilities are kept up on your current targets, as the healers do occasionaly break out and heal.
The fight gets easier as the NPCs go down, so one you get a feel for the start of the fight, you will have this encounter on farm in no time.

Note: Though it is a PvP Arena-styled combat, it is not advised to attempt this encounter with a resilience set, although your PvP trinket will definitely aid you, a human or undead's racial will be fine also."

ClassChampions
AllianceHorde
Death knightTyrius DuskbladeGorgrim Shadowcleave
Druid (Caster)Kavina GrovesongBirana Stormhoof
Druid (Heal)Melador ValestriderErin Misthoof
HunterAlyssia Moonstalker
and her lioness
Ruj'kah
and her lioness
MageNoozle WhizzlestickGinselle Blightslinger
Paladin (Heal)Baelnor LightbearerLiandra Suncaller
Paladin (Retribution)VelanaaMalithas Brightblade
Priest (Heal)Anthar ForgemenderCaiphus the Stern
Priest (Shadow)Brienna NightfellVivienne Blackwhisper
RogueIrieth ShadowstepMaz'dinah
Shaman (Caster)ShaamulThrakgar
Shaman (Melee)ShaabadBroln Stouthorn
WarlockSerissa Grimdabbler
and her felhunter
Harkzog
and his felhunter Zhaagrym
WarriorShocuulNarrhok Steelbreaker


Loot table and Achievements on MMO-Champion.

Video: 25 man

Creative Labs WoW headset


One of the things I do here is watch the news, the WoW news that is, and it was funny as hell to watch sights like MMO-Champian and WoW.com speculate about what the Creative labs ad was about. Both of them posted images of the flash movie off Sound Blaster's Website and their images had the brightness increased, showing a hidden map in the back! OMG, could it be the new map!? After 10 years in this industry I have got to know Creative's "creative" marketing techniques. Great job Creative on fooling some of the big WoW sites out there. :P The mystery product is just a headset with Horde or Alliance logos that glow on your ear!

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Creative teaser: to be continued



Creative Labs have a teaser on their Sound Blaster page which pictures a glowing Horde logo in a metal looking ring. The background music is taken out of Lament of the Highbourne. More specifically, it's from the Black Temple. So this is BC content background music. So I severely doubt that Creative are doing this in relation to anything new coming from Blizzard. To me, it looks like Creative are about to release some new sexy WoW themed speakers and this is not a teaser for any new Blizzard game. There is no way that Blizzard would re-hash this old music to promote new content is there?

Felicia Day music video

Felicia Day, the hot red head from the epic web series The Guild has just launched her first single "Do You Wanna Date My Avatar". The pop song is a sexy and corny taunt at all of us MMO gamers, using funny lyrics that may only be picked up by MMO gamers. It's bound for stardom in the geek realm! Felicia Day first appeared as a potential Slayer in the 7th season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and has since become a cult icon to MMO gamers in The Guild.


Thursday, August 13, 2009

Game world vs real world: or should they merge?

Haddock over at the Core Worlds blog has been wondering about what sort of social networking SWTOR will have? Xbox has done a great job integrating Windows Live. He ends his short discussion with the comment:

"Would you like to see a meta-system integration so you can join friends, earn achievements and get information about the game world from the real one?"

Mmmmm ... interesting. At the moment in the MMO world there is a haphazard collection of ways to interact outside the game. There are blogs, with comments; forums; and a few sort of community portals. Some bloggers use Twitter and some guilds make use of Facebook. But there's no smooth way of interacting with your ingame concerns in the cyberspace social networking world. I'd argue that the question is do we want the information about the game connected with the other online world, not the real world!! Although, so many of us live in the online world so much these days that it's certainly "real" enough. Some day a game company will have a smooth integration with social networking and the game. Will SWTOR be that game?

Ripping a Hunters heart out

Finding a Spirit beast can be real hard. With Loque’nahak I spent over 40 in game hours looking for it and I must say that finding it was the best thing ingame I have ever got. Better than any Epic loot mount, etc.

Last night I got a report from a guild member that npc scan went off for Skoll on his way to TOC. I was not far behind and then it happend: I got the message too! It was him! He was there! I had him targeted 45m away and then he goes gray... I get to him and a Blood Elf Pally is on him. I drop a trap and used Distracting shot but the Pally hits him again and... kills him! It ripped my heart out. I was shaking but there was nothing I could do. I was 2 or 3 seconds too late and the BE Pally gave me some awlful greif ...

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

About 14 months until SWTOR?

The rumor mill is rife with reports that a Lucas Arts insider told a French website that they're aiming for an October 2010 release for SWTOR. Who knows how true this is. There would be at least six months of beta testing before release and we're aiming on being on that list and reporting on the testing. [Source: Starwarsmmo.net]

Crusaders' Coliseum week two: Lord Jaraxxus

Week two in patch 3.2 brings us our 2nd fight in the Crusaders' Coliseum. If you missed our video of the first fight, Northrend Beasts, you can see it on YouTube here. There is a full guide to the fight in the Info tab on YouTube.

Lord Jaraxxus is summoned by Grand Warlock Wilfred Fizzlebang when the gnome attempts to summon a doomguard for the next challenge.

From WoW-Wiki: "Lord Jaraxxus is a fight with relatively simple mechanics, but a lot of damage. Jaraxxus himself should be tanked in the center of the room, and dps should spread out as if for Kel'Thuzad. This is to avoid the chain lightning as much as possible, as this will hit for as much as 15k and arc to 3 people on 10 man regular. Jaraxxus will also periodically cast fireball on the tank, which will hit for 15k, and tick for 6k every second for the next 5 seconds, so this should be dispelled as quickly as possible.

Jaraxxus will periodically spawn portals and volcanoes. Portals will spawn a Mistress of Pain, which must be tanked and burned down as fast as possible, as she will choose a random raid member, apply a Spinning Pain Spike debuff, pick them up and do 10 to 15k physical damage.

Volcanoes will spawn 3-4 infernals, which should be tanked away from Jaraxxus. The infernals have an interruptable AoE which will hit everyone in about a 5 yard radius for 5k. The infernals will also sometimes turn into a floating orb, hover over to a random raid member, and exploding dealing aoe damage in a small radius. Tanks need to pick the infernal up again quickly, or it will start killing raid-members.
Jaraxxus also has a number of debuffs. The most important is Incinerate Flesh, which will be put on a random raid member (possibly an offtank) and which will absorb all healing on that target, till a certain amount of healing has been done, 70k on 10 man regular. This is not too much of a problem, as long as healers react quickly. If the debuff wears off without being healed through, the target will explode, dealing damage in a very large aoe, much like Vezax's flames.

The next debuff is Legion Flames, which will continuously spawn flames under it's target. There are two strategies for dealing with this, either the target can use damage reduction cooldowns and remain stationary, or they can run directly outwards. The idea with not moving is to not spawn as many flames all over the room.

A fire resist aura should be used at all times during Juraxxus, and any amount of passive healing or damage reduction that dps can provide will make the fight go much smoother."

You can look at the Loot Table Abilities and Achievements on MMo Champion.

And here's a video of from the PTR. It's in Germna. I haven't found an English one yet.


Thursday, August 6, 2009

Patch not quite all there

Well as we all know by now, patch 3.2.0 went live. Blizzard had no choice but to get the patch out now, one reason being Blizzcon is coming up in two weeks time. If the patch wasn't out at Blizzcon, it would have interfered with what they wanted to talk about. The last thing they would want in their panels would have been questions about a patch. Instead they want to talk about what's coming up next year, not next week. So what they had to do to release the patch this week was to remove features that were on the test server.

One of these features was the in-game quest helper type thing which provided map logos which indicated where quest objectives were, as you can see from the below image.



The new raid instance also only has the first boss available at the moment. There will be five in the long run.

I went out and played around with all the new dailies. I then got roped into a couple of runs in the new 5 man, Trial of the Champion. The two different flavors of Trial of the Champion, heroic and normal, provide epic loot for all drops. The normal mode drops 200 level loot and the heroic mode drops 219 level loot. This is going to provide a brilliant way for characters to geer up. I will be attempting to run these instances on my alt as often as possible.

After some guild activities last night we also took the guild into the Vault of Archavon. We were all excited about seeing the new boss. Unfortunately, the new boss was out of town! Although the new section of the dungeon is there, it's completely empty! Apparently this guy will not be made available until season 7 of Arena ends.

We then headed off to face the first challenge in Trial of the Crusader. After three attempts, the Northrend beasts went down. We then went on to do the same thing in ten man mode and now we're left with the hard versions of both 10 and 25 man.

Add-ons and patch clashes

Since I started playing WoW, it's always been the same ... every time there's a patch the days following are filled with people complaining about this not working, or that not working. Blizzard and/or other companies do make sure that everything they produce is working as planned before a patch is released. Where the problem lies is in add-ons that may or may not improve the gaming experience for the player.

WoW is plagued with add-ons, some of them good, some of them just outright silly. I personally use three or four add-ons. I try to keep it to a minimum as I've experienced many issues, especially around the time of a patch, anything from extremely poor game performance, to constant errors popping up.

The other major issue from add-ons is how to get them ... safely. There is a marketing war on out there about how add-ons should be supplied to customers. wowmatrix is an add-on tool that automatically scans your add-ons, checks their versions and downloads the latest one directly for you. Sites that were providing the downloads got upset with this and started blocking wowmatrix, forcing customers to go to their site.

Now, I wouldn't have a problem with going to sites of other add-ons, if it wasn't for the risk of key-loggers. If I had one gold for every time I heard reports about cursed.com, a popular add-on supplier, having key-loggers on their site, I'd be gold-capped. There are all sorts of warnings popping up on blogs even today, about not going there and advice about how to get around the key-loggers. I'm not too sure whether it's the site itself that has the key-loggers or is it the advertising banners? Unlike a lot of other sites they don't have the security of Google advertising but a lot of their advertising does look legit. But you seriously cannot ignore all the reports.
I still try and use wowmatrix where ever possible. Unfortunately there are one or two add-ons which are blocked.

Should it be the responsibility of the game manufacturer to provide a secure path for add-ons to be downloaded to the community? Blizzard can take any one of these add-ons at any time and turn it into something that is built into their game. In-game calendar for instance was around for a long time before Blizzard implemented it. Needless to say, I would highly advise keeping your add-ons to a minimum and I would also advise extreme caution, no matter where you're downloading your add-ons from.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.2.0 is Live!


Here are the official patch notes for Call of the Crusade! :


- World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.2.0


Call of the Crusade

- Since the opening of the Argent Tournament in northeastern Icecrown,
adventurers have journeyed from across Azeroth and beyond to prove
their worth in the heart of the Lich King's domain. Under thundering
skies the tournament's participants hone the arts of war and face
off in bone-shattering jousting matches to earn the right to be
called champions. Yet these heroes have yet to face the greatest
challenge of all: the Crusaders' Coliseum. Formidable Horde and
Alliance champions, ferocious beasts, and Scourge lieutenants are
just some of the opponents awaiting adventurers in this gladiatorial
arena. Few will survive the coliseum's perils, but the Argent
Crusade is confident that the worthy heroes who do emerge victorious
will be ready to join the offensive against Icecrown Citadel and end
the Lich King's reign of terror.

Isle of Conquest

- Off the coast of Northrend, Horde and Alliance forces are locked in
an epic struggle for a tiny island rich in resources. Known as the
Isle of Conquest, this rocky battleground's proximity to Icecrown
makes it a highly prized base in the war against the Lich King. Both
factions have deployed devastating weapons to drive each other from
this strategic location. Day and night the ground trembles under
lumbering siege vehicles while monstrous airships pummel enemy
positions with fiery cannons. The bloody conflict spreads to every
corner of the island as new heroes arrive to aid their factions. It
remains to be seen whose banner will wave triumphantly over the Isle
of Conquest and at what cost victory will be achieved.

General

- Construction of the Crusaders’ Coliseum is complete. New raid normal
and Heroic modes for the Crusaders’ Coliseum can be toggled using
the Dungeon Difficulty setting. This applies to 10 and 25-player
versions. 10-player (normal), 25-player (normal), 10-player (Heroic)
and 25-player (Heroic) all share separate raid lockout timers.
- Trial of the Champion
5-player (normal and Heroic mode) dungeon.
Daily quest added to the Heroic daily dungeon quest giver.
- Trial of the Crusader
10 and 25-player (normal mode) raid dungeon.
- Trial of the Grand Crusader
10 and 25-player (Heroic mode) raid dungeon.
Crusaders’ Tribute: Active on Heroic difficulty only, the tribute
system will limit players on the number of attempts the raid is
allotted each week. Additional rewards can be earned depending on
the number of attempts left in the tribute run each week when the
final boss is defeated.
- Head to the new 40 vs. 40-player siege-style Battleground, the Isle
of Conquest, to vie for control of a strategic location with a host
of resources sought by the Horde and Alliance.
- Two level brackets are available: 71-79 and 80.
- Defend the walls of your keep and protect your general by killing
enemy players and destroying their siege vehicles.
- Capture the Docks, Gunship Hangar, or Siege Workshop for access to
destructive siege vehicles or strategic attacks on your enemy’s
base.
- Capture the Refinery or Quarry for their resources to garner
reinforcements, a steady flow of bonus honor and a 15% increase to
siege vehicle damage for each of these capture points your team
controls.
- To claim victory, bust through the enemy’s keep walls (or find other
ways to get inside) and kill their general, or obliterate your
opponents until their reinforcements are depleted.
- The Argent Tournament Expands
- All new Argent Crusader daily quests and rewards have been added for
players with the Crusader title. Rewards include a new Argent
Crusader banner and tabard (which can port players to the tournament
grounds), a mounted squire (can periodically run bank, mail or
vendor errands for the player), a paladin-exclusive Argent Crusader
Charger mount and new heirloom items.
- All new Silver Covenant and Sunreaver daily quests and rewards have
been added for players exalted with these factions. Rewards include
tabards, new ground and flying mounts and a new pet.
- Just when you thought you had seen the last of the Black Knight, he
makes his astonishing return to the tournament. Wait, didn’t you
kill him?
- New Dungeon Loot Feature
Players will now be able to trade soulbound items with other raid or
group members that were eligible for the loot. This system will work
like the Item Buy Back system and allow 2 hours for players to trade
an item after it has been looted. Players who choose to enchant or
add gems to the item will get one last confirmation before losing
the ability to trade the item.
- New druid art for Cat Form and Bear Form has been added. There are
now five unique color schemes for each form and faction. Changing
hair color (night elves) or skin tone (tauren) via the barbershop
will change the look of one’s cat and bear forms.

PvP

- Arenas
- Beginning with season 7, players will no longer have access to the
newest season’s weapons or shoulder armor and will not qualify for
the Gladiator title/rewards with ratings from the 2v2 bracket alone.
Ratings obtained through 3v3 and 5v5 game play will be required for
these rewards, while the rest of the newest season’s items will
remain available to players in all brackets (standard rating
restrictions still apply).
- Dalaran Sewers
The entire Arena has increased in size by 25%.
Mounts can now be used in this Arena.
The position and collision of the crates on the central platform has
been modified.
- Ring of Valor
The flame wall has been removed.
- Ruins of Lordaeron
Alcoves have been removed from the starting chambers.
The collision around the central tomb has been smoothed out to
prevent players from becoming stuck on the terrain as often.
- Battlegrounds
- Battleground experience has arrived!
Players will now be awarded experience for completing objectives and
actions that yield honor in Battlegrounds (honorable kills not
included).
Players who do not wish to gain experience through PvP can visit
Behsten in Stormwind or Slahtz in Orgrimmar – both located near the
Battlemasters in either city – and turn off all experience
accumulation for the cost of 10 gold.
Disabling experience gains will prevent a player from gaining
experience through any means available in the game.
Players with experience gains turned off who compete in
Battlegrounds will face off only against other players with
experience gains turned off.
Behsten and Slahtz can reinstate experience gains for players, for a
10 gold fee of course. Any experience that would’ve been accumulated
if experience gains were enabled cannot be recovered.
- Battlemasters in major cities affiliated with specific Battlegrounds
have been replaced with a Battlemaster for each faction that will
allow players to queue for any Battleground. Battlemasters for
specific Battlegrounds will still be seen around the cities during
corresponding Battleground holiday weekends.
- When standing at a capture point that you control, you will gain a
buff called Honorable Defender. This buff grants +50% honor gained
from kills. This currently affects Arathi Basin, Eye of the Storm
and Isle of Conquest.
- Arathi Basin
The time it requires to capture a base has been reduced to 8
seconds, down from 10 seconds.
The game now ends when one team reaches 1600 victory points, down
from 2000.
- Eye of the Storm
The time it requires to capture the center flag has been reduced to
8 seconds, down from 10 seconds
The game now ends when one team reaches 1600 victory points, down
from 2000.
- Strand of the Ancients
The faction starting on attack/defense will now be randomized at the
start of each match.
- Warsong Gulch
There is a now a 20-minute timer on this Battleground. After that
time, the team with the most flag captures wins. If this would
result in a tie, the team that captured the first flag wins. If
neither side has captured a flag, then the game ends in a tie.
- Wintergrasp
- Against the Odds: This achievement has been removed and converted to
a Feat of Strength.
- Industrial Warfare: This achievement has been removed.
- To provide players with a more transparent notification of when
Wintergrasp battles occur, as well as better control zone population
and stability, several changes have been made.
Players now have the option to queue for Wintergrasp from a
Wintergrasp Battlemaster in any capital city or by simply entering
the Wintergrasp zone.
Queuing will begin 15 minutes before each battle. If chosen, you
will automatically be teleported to the zone. Any players in the
zone who have not been chosen from the queue will be teleported out
when the battle begins.
The queue system remains active for the entire battle. As soon as a
player leaves, a new one will be chosen from the queue.
Trying to enter Wintergrasp during an active battle for which you
have not been chosen will teleport you out. Please note that, as you
are now able to fly over Wintergrasp, you will only be teleported
out if you try to land and join the battle.
Level 80 players get higher priority in the queue than lower level
players. In addition, a random selection of queued players will be
taken from both the Battlemasters and the zone itself.
The queue will accept up to 120 players from each faction, resulting
in a maximum battle of 240 players at a time.
- Wintergrasp factories can no longer be damaged or destroyed.

Dungeons and Raids

- Dungeon and Raid ID Extensions
In order to allow for parties and raids to progress through
instances at their own pace, players can now extend an instance ID
on an individual basis.
Existing or recently expired IDs can be extended via the Social tab
under Raid by clicking on Raid Info.
The ID of any instance to which a player is saved can be extended.
Doing so will extend the instance lock period by the same amount of
time as the original lock (i.e. extending an Ulduar instance ID will
add 7 days, a Heroic: Halls of Lightning instance ID will add 24
hours, and a ZulGurub instance ID will add 3 days to the instance
lock time).
An ID can be extended more than once.
An extension can be reversed on an individual basis provided the
player does not do anything in the instance during the extended
instance lock period that would save that player to the instance.
- Emblem System Changes
Both the 10 and 25-player instances of the Crusaders’ Coliseum drop
a new Emblem of Triumph.
Any dungeons that previously dropped Emblems of Heroism or Valor,
such as Naxxramas or Heroic Halls of Stone, will now drop Emblems of
Conquest instead. Emblems of Conquest can still be converted to
Valor or Heroism.
The Heroic dungeon daily quest will now reward 2 Emblems of Triumph
and the normal daily dungeon quest will reward 1 Emblem of Conquest.
New achievements have been added to collect various amounts of any
combination of emblems.
- 25-player raids will no longer be referred to as Heroic versions of
a raid, as there is a new distinction between normal and Heroic
modes for both 10 and 25 player versions of the Crusaders’ Coliseum.
- The Nexus: The Oculus & The Eye of Eternity
Drakes used by players in these instances will now scale in health
and damage according to the rider's average item level.
- Ulduar
Players can now use Blink, Shadowstep, and Demonic Teleport while
participating in the illusion events in the Yogg-Saron encounter.
- Ominous Clouds in the Yogg-Saron encounter are now more vocal about
touching players and should no longer sometimes appear to be in the
wrong place for certain players.
- An Immortal Guardian targeted for Empowering Shadows in the
Yogg-Saron encounter will now become a 'Marked Immortal Guardian'
while targeted.
- Crusher Tentacles in the Yogg-Saron encounter spawn a little slower
in 25-player mode allowing a bit more time for players to clear out
the Illusion room.
- Empowering Shadows in the Yogg-Saron encounter now targets a maximum
of three Immortal Guardians in 25-player mode.
- Yogg-Saron's health has been reduced by 20% in the final stage of
his 25-player mode.
- Winter Jormungars will no longer put everyone in the zone in combat
when they emerge from a Snow Mound. Additionally, Snow Mounds will
now disappear when all their jormungars have emerged.
Races: General

- Axe Specialization (Orc): The weapon bonus from this effect now
applies to fist weapons in addition to axes.
- Tauren now have the option of changing skin tone by visiting the
barber shop.

Items: General

- Agility: The amount of agility required per percentage of dodge has
been increased by 15%. This change required recalibrating the amount
of dodge a player has with 0 agility by a slight amount as well, so
all players will see their dodge percentage vary a small amount.
- Block Value: The amount of bonus block value on all items has been
doubled. This does not affect the base block value on shields or
block value derived from strength.
- On-Use Block Value Items: All items and set bonuses that trigger
temporary increases to block value have been modified. Instead of
increasing their block value amount by 100% like other items, they
have all had their effect durations doubled. This applies to Glyph
of Deflection, Gnomeregan Autoblocker, Coren’s Lucky Coin,
Lavanthor’s Talisman, Libram of Obstruction, Tome of the
Lightbringer, Libram of the Sacred Shield, the tier-8 paladin Shield
of Righteousness bonus, the tier-5 paladin Holy Shield bonus, and
the tier-5 warrior Shield Block bonus.
- Dodge Rating: The amount of dodge rating required per percentage of
dodge has been increased by 15%. This is before diminishing returns.
Combined with other changes, this makes dodge rating and parry
rating equally potent before diminishing returns apply.
- Item Buy Back Feature Revised
The Item Buy Back time will now expire if the player enchants or
sockets an item. Players will see a confirmation dialog box now when
they attempt to enchant or add gems to an item giving them a last
chance to reconsider.
- Items with Triggered Effects: These items generally have cooldowns
on how often they can be triggered. Those cooldowns are now
triggered each time the item is equipped (example: A trinket has a
45-second cooldown on an effect triggered by player attacks; when a
player equips that item, the effect will be unable to be triggered
for the first 45 seconds it is worn).
- Mounts
The cast time for summoning any ground mount is now 1.5 seconds,
down from 3 seconds.
Apprentice Riding (Skill 75): Can now be learned at level 20 for 4
gold. Mail will be sent to players who reach level 20 directing them
to the riding trainer.
Journeyman Riding (Skill 150): Can now be learned at level 40 for 50
gold. Mail will be sent to players who reach level 40 directing them
back to the riding trainer.
Expert Riding (Skill 225): Can now be learned at level 60 for 600
gold from trainers in Honor Hold or Thrallmar. Faction discounts now
apply (Honor Hold for Alliance; Thrallmar for Horde). Flight speed
at this skill level has been increased to 150% of run speed, up from
60%.
Artisan Riding (Skill 300): Faction discounts now apply (Honor Hold
or Valiance Expedition for Alliance; Thrallmar or Warsong Offensive
for Horde).
In order to further equalize the number of purchasable mounts
available to each race, a new 60% speed ground mount has been added
for night elves, and a new 100% speed ground mount has been added
for the undead.
Flying over Dalaran and Wintergrasp is now possible so long as
players keep a healthy distance above the ground.
- Mana Regeneration: All items that provide “X mana per five seconds”
have had the amount of mana they regenerate increased by
approximately 25%.
- Parry Rating: The amount of parry rating required per percentage of
parry has been reduced by 8%. This is before diminishing returns.
Combined with other changes, this makes dodge rating and parry
rating equally potent before diminishing returns apply. Parry still
diminishes more quickly than dodge.
- Resilience: No longer reduces the amount of damage done by
damage-over-time spells, but instead reduces the amount of all
damage done by players by the same proportion. In addition, the
amount of resilience needed to reduce critical strike chance,
critical strike damage and overall damage has been increased by 15%.
Classes: General

- All pets now receive 40% of their master’s resilience and 100% of
their master’s spell penetration. In addition, if a player is at
their appropriate spell hit chance or hit chance maximum, their pet
will be at the maximum for spell hit chance, hit chance, and
expertise. If they are below the maximum, their pet will be
proportionately below those maximums.
- Replenishment: This buff now grants 1% of the target’s maximum mana
over 5 seconds instead of 0.25% per second. This applies to all 5
sources of Replenishment (Vampiric Touch, Judgements of the Wise,
Hunting Party, Enduring Winter Frostbolts and Soul Leech).
- Silence, Strangulate, Silencing Shot, and Arcane Torrent: These
abilities will also apply a 3-second Interrupt effect against
non-player controlled targets, making them more versatile against
creatures immune to silencing effects.

Death Knights

- Due to significant talent changes, all death knight talents will be
reset for players.
- Blood Plague: Damage done increased by 15%.
- Chains of Ice: Now reduces movement by 95% instead of 100%. The main
effect of this change will be that targets of Chains of Ice will not
have to re-issue a movement command to continue moving.
- Frost Fever: Damage done increased by 15%.
- Frost Presence: 10% bonus health reduced to 6% bonus stamina.
- Frost Strike: This ability can now be dodged, parried, or blocked.
Weapon damage bonus reduced to 55%, down from 60%.
- Icebound Fortitude: Cooldown increased to 2 minutes.
- Talents
- Blood
Bloody Strikes: This talent now provides 5/10/15% increased damage
to Blood Strike instead of 15/30/45%.
Dancing Rune Weapon: This ability now has a fixed duration of 12
seconds (which can still be modified by its glyph) and a fixed cost
of 60 runic power.
- Veteran of the Third War: Stamina bonus reduced to 1/2/3%.
- Frost
Blood of the North: Reduced to a 3-point talent. Increases Blood
Strike and Frost Strike damage by 3/6/10%. There is now a
33/66/100% chance whenever you hit with Blood Strike or Pestilence
that the Blood Rune will become a Death Rune when it activates.
Lichborne: Duration reduced to 10 seconds, and cooldown reduced to
2 minutes.
Threat of Thassarian: New 3-point talent. When dual-wielding, your
Death Strikes, Obliterates, Plague Strikes, Blood Strikes and Frost
Strikes have a 30/60/100% chance to also deal damage with your
off-hand weapon. Off-hand strikes are roughly one half the effect of
the original strike.
Toughness: This talent now grants 2/4/6/8/10% armor instead of
3/6/9/12/15%, placing it in line with similar abilities of other
classes.
- Unholy
Desecration: This talent has been reduced to 2 points for 25/50%
snare and no longer increases damage done by the death knight. It
has also been moved one tier earlier in the tree and its spell
effect has been made more transparent.
Desolation: New talent. This talent is in the position formerly
occupied by Desecration. It causes Blood Strikes to increase all
damage the death knight deals by 1/2/3/4/5% for 12 seconds.
Scourge Strike: Weapon damage bonus reduced to 40%, down from 45%.
Damage increased by 10% per disease on the target, down from 11%.
Summon Gargoyle: The gargoyle now flies lower to the ground, making
it susceptible to melee attacks. This ability now has a fixed
duration of 30 seconds and a fixed cost of 60 runic power.
Unholy Blight: This talent has been redesigned. It no longer deals
damage to nearby targets. Instead, when you deal damage with Death
Coil, the target will take periodic damage for 10 seconds equal to
20% of the damage done by Death Coil. This damage accumulates in the
same way as Ignite and Deep Wounds.

Druids

- Enrage: This Bear Form ability now generates 20 rage initially, and
10 rage over the next 10 seconds. The armor penalty is unchanged.
- Flight Form: Can now be learned at level 60. Flight speed increased
to 150%.
- Flight Form and Swift Flight Form: Now benefit from a paladin’s
Crusader Aura.
- Innervate: Duration reduced to 10 seconds, and cooldown reduced to 3
minutes. This means each use of Innervate will give half as much
mana as before, but it will be available twice as often.
- Lifebloom: The final heal that occurs when this spell blooms has
been reduced by 20% on the base and on the spell power coefficient.
- Mangle: Ranks 4 and 5 base points reduced by about 11%. Scaling from
attack power unchanged.
- Rake: Ranks 6 and 7 base points on initial and periodic damage
reduced by about 7%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
- Rip: Ranks 8 and 9 base points and points per combo point reduced by
about 6%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
- Savage Defense: The animation for gaining this buff will no longer
make the bear stand upright.
- Shred: Ranks 8 and 9 base points reduced by about 10%. Scaling from
attack power unchanged.
- Swift Flight Form: Druids who have acquired a mount able to go 310%
flight speed will now also go that speed while in this form.
- Swipe (Cat): Percent of weapon damage done reduced from 260% to
250%.
- Travel Form: Can now be learned at level 16.
- Talents
- Balance
Balance of Power: Now reduces all spell damage taken by 3/6%, rather
than reducing the chance to be hit by spells by 2/4%.
Eclipse: The Starfire and Wrath buffs from this talent are now on
separate 30-second cooldowns. In addition, it is not possible to
have both buffs active simultaneously.
Owlkin Frenzy: Now also restores 2% base mana every 2 seconds for
the duration (10 seconds) in addition to its current effects.
- Feral Combat
King of the Jungle: This talent now reduces the mana cost of Bear
Form, Cat Form, and Dire Bear Form by 20/40/60%.
Primal Tenacity: This talent no longer reduces the mana cost of Bear
Form, Cat Form, and Dire Bear Form.
- Restoration
Empowered Touch: Now also increases the amount of bonus healing
effects for Nourish by 10/20%.
Improved Barkskin: No longer provides dispel resistance to all
effects on the druid, but now reduces the chance your Barkskin is
dispelled by an additional 35/70%.

Hunters

- Aspect of the Cheetah: Can now be learned at level 16.
- Deterrence: This ability now allows the hunter to parry spells and
attacks from behind as well as in front. Now has a new visual spell
effect.
- Frost Trap: Will no longer “fizzle” on targets immune to snare
effects, however Lock and Load will not succeed when using Frost
Trap if the target is immune to snare effects.
- Snake Trap: The Mind-numbing Poison effect has been reduced to a 30%
increase in casting time, down from 50% to match similar effects.
- The time that traps will exist in the world after being put down has
been reduced to 30 seconds, down from 1 minute.
- Traps now have separate 30-second cooldown categories: Fire
(Immolation Trap, Explosive Trap and Black Arrow), Frost (Freezing
Trap, Frost Trap) and Nature (Snake Trap). A hunter can have one
trap of each category placed at one time.
- Talents
- Beast Mastery
Catlike Reflexes now also reduces the cooldown of your Kill Command
ability by 10/20/30 seconds.
- Survival
Entrapment: This talent no longer works with Immolation Trap or
Explosive Trap.
Lock and Load: Now has a 22-second cooldown. The Lock and Load
effect cannot be obtained on targets immune to snare effects when
Frost Trap is used.
- Pets
Roar of Sacrifice: Redesigned. This ability can now be used on any
friendly target to make that target immune to critical strikes, but
the hunter pet takes 20% of all damage taken by that friendly
target. Cooldown is now 1 minute, up from 30 seconds.

Mages

- Arcane Blast: Mana cost reduced by 12%.
- Frost Bolt, Cone of Cold, Frost Ward, Ice Armor, Frost Armor, Frost
Nova, Ice Lance, and Ice Barrier: The mana cost on these spells has
been reduced by approximately 15%.
- Invisibility: Can no longer be interrupted by a hostile action or
damage done during the 3-second Fade time, however an invisible mage
is still vulnerable to Stun and Silence effects.
- Mirror Image: Images will no longer trigger the death sound when
their time expires.
- Talents
- Fire
Empowered Fire: In addition to its existing effects, this talent now
also grants a 33/67/100% chance to regain 2% of base mana each time
the Ignite talent deals damage.
- Frost
Empowered Frostbolt: Instead of increasing critical strike chance by
2/4%, this talent now reduces the cast time of Frostbolt by 0.1/0.2
seconds.
Permafrost: In addition to its existing effects, this talent now
also causes the mage’s Chill effects to reduce healing received by
the victim by 7/13/20%.

Paladins

- Blessing of Sanctuary: This blessing now also increases stamina by
10%. This effect is not cumulative with Blessing of Kings.
- Charger: Can now be learned at level 40.
- Crusader Aura: This ability now also grants its flying speed
increase to a druid’s Flight Form and Swift Flight Form.
- Exorcism: Now has a 1.5 second cast time, but can once again be used
on players.
- Hand of Reckoning: Redesigned. Now does damage only when the target
does not currently have the caster targeted, but damage done
increased to 50% of attack power, occurring after the taunt effect
is applied.
- Judgements: Some of these attacks were considered ranged and some
melee. They are all now considered melee attacks that can’t be
dodged, parried or blocked.
- Judgement of Light: Now heals for 2% of the attacker’s maximum
health instead of a variable amount based on the spell power and
attack power of the judging paladin.
- Lay on Hands: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical
damage taken by the target by 10/20% instead of increasing the
target’s armor.
- Righteous Fury: No longer has a duration, remaining until cancelled
or death. Also cancelled when a Paladin activates a different talent
specialization.
- Sacred Shield: When a paladin casts Flash of Light on a target with
this buff, they also now place a heal-over-time effect on the
target, healing that target for 100% of the Flash of Light amount
over 12 seconds.
- Seal of Blood: This ability has been removed.
- Seal of the Martyr: This ability has been removed.
- Seal of Vengeance and Seal of Corruption: These seals have been
redesigned to deal substantially more damage. Now, once a paladin
has 5 copies of the debuff from these seals on his or her target, on
each swing the paladin will deal 33% weapon damage as Holy, with
critical strikes dealing double damage. In addition, the
damage-over-time effect is now considered a melee attack instead of
a spell attack and the effects from these seals can only be
triggered by auto-attacks and Hammer of the Righteous.
- Shield of Righteousness: Now deals 100% of shield block value as
damage instead of 130%. In addition, the benefit from additional
block value this ability gains is now subject to diminishing
returns. Diminishing returns occur once block value exceeds 30 times
the player’s level and caps the maximum damage benefit from shield
block value at 34.5 times the player’s level.
- Warhorse: Can now be learned at level 20.
- Talents
- Holy
Beacon of Light: The healing amount on the Beacon of Light target is
now based on the total healing done (including over-healing) instead
of the effective healing done. Radius increased to 60 yards.
Multiple Paladins can now have this active on the same target. Buff
indicating a player is within range of the Beacon target is no
longer displayed.
Divine Intellect: This talent now gives 2/4/6/8/10% increased
intellect instead of 3/6/9/12/15%.
Illumination: This talent now returns 30% of the mana cost of the
spell instead of 60%.
- Protection
Ardent Defender: Redesigned. Any damage that takes the paladin below
35% health is reduced. This reduction applies only to the portion
that pushes the paladin below 35% health (example: a paladin at 50%
health takes a 40% hit; the first 15% hits as normal while the next
25% is reduced). In addition, once every 2 minutes an attack that
would have killed the paladin will fail to kill, and instead heal
the paladin for up to 10/20/30% of maximum health depending on the
paladin’s defense rating (example: a paladin with defense equal to
only 5 times his or her level will receive no healing from the
talent, while a paladin who is immune to critical strikes from boss
creatures through defense will receive the maximum amount).
- Guarded by the Light: This talent will no longer cause Divine Plea’s
duration to be refreshed by using Judgement of Wisdom, Judgement of
Justice, or Judgement of Light.
- Retribution
Art of War: Now only applies to melee critical hits, but will make
your next Flash of Light or Exorcism instant. In addition, this
talent now provides notification in the floating combat text when it
activates.
Crusader Strike: Damage reduced to 75% weapon damage to match the
new 4-second cooldown. Mana cost reduced to 5% of base mana.
Seal of Command: Redesigned. This seal now deals 36% weapon damage
on every swing, and deals substantially less judgement damage.
Vindication: Redesigned. Now lowers target attack power, is
consistent and does not stack with Demoralizing Shout.

Priests

- Prayer of Healing: The percentage of spell power this spell gains in
healing (per target) has been reduced from 80.7% to 52.6%.
- Psychic Horror: This spell no longer has an invisible missile, so
there is no travel time before the spell takes effect.
- Talents
- Discipline
Penance: Cooldown increased to 12 seconds, up from 10 seconds.
- Holy
Inspiration: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical
damage taken by the target by 3/7/10% instead of increasing the
target’s armor.
- Shadow
Dispersion: Cooldown reduced to 2 minutes, down from 3 minutes.
Improved Mind Blast: Redesigned. Now, in addition to reducing the
cooldown of your Mind Blast spell by .5/1/1.5/2/2.5 seconds, while
in Shadowform your Mind Blast also has a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to
reduce all healing done to the target by 20% for 10 seconds.
Vampiric Touch: The amount of damage done when this spell is
dispelled has been doubled.

Rogues

- After much quiet contemplation, rogues now possess the ability to
learn how to use one-handed axes.
- Talents
- Combat
Sword Specialization: This talent is now called Hack and Slash and
applies to axes as well as swords.
- Subtlety
Shadow Dance: Cooldown reduced to 1 minute. Now lasts 6 seconds,
down from 10 seconds.

Shamans

- A customizable totem bar will now be available for shamans allowing
the storing of 4 different totems. These totems can be placed on the
ground at once in one global cooldown for the combined mana cost of
all 4 totems.
- All Shocks now have a default range of 25 yards, up from 20 yards.
- Base health increased by approximately 7% to correct for shamans
having lower health than other classes.
- Chain Heal: Jump distance increased by 25% to 12.5 yards. In
addition, the amount of healing now decreases by 40% as it jumps to
each new target, instead of 50%.
- Earth Shock: Redesigned. This spell no longer interrupts spell
casting, but rather reduces melee attack speed by 10% for 8 seconds
(exclusive with similar effects such as Thunder Clap).
- Ghost Wolf: Can now be learned at level 16. While in this form,
snaring effects may not bring the shaman below base normal run
speed.
- Wind Shock: Has been renamed Wind Shear and no longer shares a
cooldown with Flame, Frost or Earth Shock.
- Talents
- Enhancement
Maelstrom Weapon: Now also has a chance to reduce the cast time of
Hex.
Shamanistic Rage: Cooldown is now 1 minute, down from 2 minutes.
Successful melee attacks now have a chance to generate mana equal to
15% of the shaman’s attack power, down from 30%.
- Restoration
Cure Poison and Cure Disease: Combined into a single spell, Cure
Toxins.
Earth Shield: Dispel effects will now remove charges of Earth Shield
rather than the entire aura.
Ancestral Healing: The buff from this ability now reduces the
physical damage taken by the target by 3/7/10% instead ofincreasing
the target’s armor.
Healing Way: Redesigned. Rather than providing a chance of
increasing Healing Wave spells on a friendly target, this talent now
innately increases the effectiveness of the shaman’s Healing Wave by
8/16/25%.
Mana Tide Totem: Totem health now equal to 10% of the shaman’s
health.
Nature’s Guardian: Redesigned. Now has a fixed 100% proc rate, has a
30-second internal cooldown and increases the shaman’s maximum
health by 3/6/9/12/15% for 10 seconds.
Nature’s Swiftness: Cooldown is now 2 minutes, down from 3 minutes.
Tidal Waves: No longer reduces the cast time of Lesser Healing Wave
by 30%. It instead now provides +25% critical strike chance to
Lesser Healing Wave, along with the previous 30% cast time benefit
to Healing Wave.
Improved Water Shield: This talent now has a 10/20/30% chance to be
triggered by Chain Heal, and the charges of Water Shield are no\
longer consumed by this talent.

Warlocks

- Banish: Effect will now be cancelled if Banish is recast on a
banished target.
- Dreadsteed: Can now be learned at level 40.
- Felsteed: Can now be learned at level 20.
- Shadowflame: The angle of the cone effect on this ability was
inadvertently very small, making it difficult to use. Its cone is
now the same size as similar spells, such as Cone of Cold.
- Soulshatter cooldown reduced to 3 minutes, down from 5 minutes
- Talents
- Affliction
Pandemic: Now also increases the critical damage bonus of Haunt by
100%.
- Demonology
Fel Domination cooldown reduced to 3 minutes, down from 15 minutes.
- Destruction
Empowered Imp: The warlock’s critical hit chance is increased to
100%, up from 20% for the next spell cast after the Imp critically
hits a target.
Fire and Brimstone: Reduced to 2/4/6/8/10% increased damage from
Incinerate and Chaos Bolt on targets afflicted with Immolate, down
from 3/6/9/12/15%.

Warriors

- Battle Shout: Radius increased to 30 yards.
- Bloodrage: This ability now generates 20 rage initially, and 10 rage
over the next 10 seconds. The health cost is unchanged.
- Commanding Shout: Radius increased to 30 yards.
- Execute: This ability now never costs more than a total of 30 rage.
The tooltip for Sudden Death has been revised to remove reference to
that maximum, since the ability now behaves that way even when
untalented.
- Shield Slam: The benefit from additional block value this ability
gains is now subject to diminishing returns. Diminishing returns
occur once block value exceeds 30 times the player’s level and caps
the maximum damage benefit from shield block value at 34.5 times the
player’s level.
- Talents
- Fury
Armored to the Teeth: This talent now provides 1/2/3 attack power
per 108 armor, up from per 180 armor.
Bloodsurge: Notification that Slam has become instant now appears in
floating combat text.
- Protection
Devastate: Weapon damage and bonus per Sunder Armor on the target
increased by 100%. This ability now requires a shield to be
equipped.
Shield Specialization: Now provides 5 rage on a block, dodge or
parry instead of 2 rage on a block.

User Interface

- The quest log is now double-paned for more easily viewing quest
information. The list of all quests a player has will show in one
pane, while the quest details of any highlighted quest will display
in the next.
- Character name auto-completion for the chat frame, pop-ups, and mail
interface is now active.
- Character names can now be colorized according to class in the chat
frame. This feature can be enabled through the chat settings by
right-clicking on a chat window.
- Casting bars under the target frame, focus frame and nameplates will
now display as shielded if the cast cannot be interrupted.
- Druids will now be able to see their mana bars when shape-shifted.
- Item Comparisons: Holding the shift key while hovering over an item
will now display the stat differences with the item currently
equipped in the relevant slot.
- Item Level: A new option has been added under Display in the
Interface Options to show the item level on item tooltips.
- Macros and scripts will no longer be able to target totems by name.
- New Feature Icons: Options recently added to any of the options
menus will now display a yellow exclamation point next to them to
indicate that they are new features.
- Vendor prices will now be listed on items whether or not players are
at a vendor.
- For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI &
Macros Forum:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?sid=1&forumId=11114

Graphics

- The frame rate for those with Shadow Effects enabled under the Ultra
Video settings has been improved.

World Environment

- Wolvar and Gorloc orphans have arrived in Dalaran and need your
help! Players can find out more by visiting the Eventide District
(completing the quests being offered for this event will not count
toward any Children’s Week achievements). Players have a limited
amount of time to care for these orphans before they take their
leave. They will then return again for the regularly-scheduled
Children’s Week next year.
- Portal areas in all major cities now offer a portal to the Blasted
Lands near the Dark Portal.
- Once crossing through the Dark Portal, players can access a flight
path directly from the Stair of Destiny to Shattrath.
- A new zeppelin docking ramp has been added to Thunder Bluff allowing
Horde players easier transport to and from Orgrimmar.
- The local Postal Service has grown tired of walking so far each day
to collect mail and has decided to install a large number of new
mailboxes in Stormwind, Undercity, Darnassus and Orgrimmar.
- Mathiel in Darnassus has finally earned himself enough money from
your repair bills that he was able to buy himself an anvil.

Quests

- The ravasaur trainer Mor’vek has returned to Un’Goro and will offer
to help Horde players raise and train a Venomhide Ravasaur as a
mount… if they can survive the creature’s deadly poison.

Achievements

- A Brew-FAST Mount: A new Feat of Strength achievement for acquiring
any epic Brewfest mount.
- Have Keg, Will Travel: Now requires either a Brewfest mount or using
Brewfest Hops to transform yours into one.

Professions

- Alchemy
- All stackable potions now stack to 20.
- Added a new pattern for Flask of the North, usable by players with a
high alchemy skill. The recipe is purchased from Northrend trainers.
- Flask of the North increases your spell power, attack power or
strength for 1 hour and is usable in Arenas. It is not consumed when
used.
- Endless Healing Potion and Endless Mana Potion no longer usable in
arenas. Amount of health and mana has been increased, and the
cooldown reduced.
- Five new epic gem transmute recipes are available from the Northrend
trainer. The recipe for transmuting a Cardinal Ruby can be learned
from a quest, given by Linzy Blackbolt in Dalaran.
- The Mixology benefits from Northrend elixirs and flasks have been
increased.
- Rage potions can now be used by druids.
- Cooking
- Chef’s Hat is now superior quality and allows the chef to cook
faster.
- Blackened Dragonfin Recipe: Now only requires 1 Dragonfin Angelfish.
- Increased the drop rate for recipes from the Outland Daily Cooking
quests.
- Increased the chance to get a bonus Dalaran Cooking Token from the
Spice Bag.
- The recipe for Captain Rumsey's Lager can now be randomly found in
the quest reward Crate, Barrel, or Spice Bag from the cooking
dailies.
- Enchanting
- Values on Northrend ring enchants increased.
- Engineering
- Added a new Mind Amplification Dish attachment for helmets, allowing
engineers to control other humanoid targets. Some restrictions
apply: does not work in Arenas, dish sometimes reverses targets,
unable to stack with other stat-improving head enchantments and
makes your helmet look... stylish? This attachment provides a
passive bonus of 45 stamina.
- Added a schematic for a Goblin Welding Beam that can heal friendly
mechanical or vehicle units.
- Alarm-o-Bot functionality changed. Materials required reduced.
- Box of Bombs no longer requires an anvil.
- The Cobalt Frag Bomb now incapacitates enemies within a 3-yard
radius. A short cast time was added, but they are usable while
moving. This change applies to any Cobalt Frag Bombs already
created. The existing recipe now makes 3 at a time.
- Engineers can now learn to create a portable Wormhole Generator for
Northrend. The Wormhole allows them to travel to different locations
in Northrend, although the locations are sometimes in dangerous
places.
- Flying Machine: The level requirement needed to learn how to build
and use this machine has been reduced to level 60, down from level
70, and the engineering skill level reduced to 300, down from 350.
Material costs reduced.
- Gnomish Engineers and Goblin Engineers can now switch profession
specializations for a fee.
- Increased benefits from Hyperspeed Accelerators, Hand-Mounted Pyro
Rocket and Reticulated Armor Webbing glove modifications.
- Increased the passive bonuses provided by Springy Arachnoweave,
Flexweave Underlay and Nitro Boosts.
- Mote Extractor now has innate tracking for gas clouds while it is in
your inventory. Tracking of gas clouds has been removed from
goggles.
- A new repair bot has been added, and his name is Jeeves. He is the
ultimate gentleman robot butler, able to perform all the mundane
tasks of repairing, selling and buying junk for your entire raid.
Additionally, he can open bank boxes for skilled engineers (350+).
Jeeves is not destroyed when used, but due to pressing engagements,
can only be summoned once an hour. The schematic for this handsome
robot was said to be hidden within the parts of another robot –
hoping to be found by an engineer one day.
- Nitro Boosts: Now have a 5-second duration.
- Potion Injectors now increase the amount gained by 25% when used by
engineers. Quantity produced by recipes for Runic Healing and Mana
Injectors has been increased.
- Reduced the materials needed to create all engineering Dragonlings,
and reduced their cooldowns, although they still cannot be used in
Arenas.
- Significantly reduced the cooldown on MOLL-E.
- The Spynocular belt attachment has been changed to a Frag Belt. The
Frag Belt periodically produces a Cobalt Frag Bomb that can be used
from the belt every 6 minutes (never runs out!).
- A Steam-Powered Auctioneer has been added to the Dalaran Like
Clockwork engineering shop, allowing access to one's faction Auction
House. The Steam-Powered Auctioneer was programmed with a
superiority chip, and will only interact with Grand Master
engineers.
- Transporter devices are no longer classified as trinkets and can be
used directly from your inventory.
- The Ultrasafe Bullet Machine and Saronite Arrow Maker schematics
have been simplified to create a full stack of the appropriate
ammunition. No longer requires an anvil. Reduced the materials
required to make this ammunition.
- World Enlarger: Cooldown reduced to 15 minutes, down from 1 hour.
- Fishing
- Players with 300 or higher cooking have a chance to find a
Waterlogged Recipe in the Bag of Fishing Treasures awarded by the
Northrend fishing dailies. This item can be traded to other players
and rewards several Dalaran Cooking Rewards when turned in.
- Herbalism
- Increased healing from Lifeblood (Rank 6).
- Lifeblood now scales slightly with maximum health. No longer
affected by global cooldown.
- Inscription
- Added a new Glyph of Claw for young feral druids who haven't yet
obtained Mangle. Scribes can learn this glyph from the trainer.
- Master's Inscriptions increased.
- Jewelcrafting
- Dragon's Eye gems stat bonuses increased. In addition, these gems
are no longer prismatic and must be matched to the appropriate
colored socket to activate an item's socket bonus.
- New recipes have been added for cutting epic gems and can be
purchased using Dalaran Jewelcrafter’s tokens.
- Icy Prism now has a chance of yielding an epic gem.
- Raw epic gems can be obtained via the following means:
Prospecting Titanium Ore
Alchemy transmutations
Purchased with honor
Purchased with Emblems of Heroism
- Leatherworking
- Added recipe for Heavy Knothide Leather to leatherworking trainers
(rather than a vendor recipe). Changed several recipes to use Heavy
Knothide Leather instead of regular Leather.
- Fur Lining values increased.
- Mining
- Toughness (Rank 6) provides more stamina.
- Skinning
- Master of Anatomy (Rank 6) provides more critical strike rating.
- Tailoring
- Embroideries improved.

Items

- Feral Druid PvP Gloves (seasons 3 and 4): Maim bonus changed from
the Interrupt bonus used in The Burning Crusade Arena seasons to the
cost reduction used in Wrath of the Lich King Arena seasons.
- Glyphs
- Death Knights
Glyph of Unholy Blight: Changed to increase damage done by the
updated Unholy Blight talent by 40%.
- Druids
Glyph of Innervate: Duration reduced to 10 seconds.
- Paladins
Glyph of Righteous Defense: Now also increases the chance for Hand
of Reckoning to hit.
Glyph of Seal of Command: Redesigned to cause the Paladin to gain 8%
of base mana each time the paladin judges Command.
Glyph of Seal of Blood: Changed to Glyph of Holy Wrath, which
reduces its cooldown by 15 seconds.
- Rogues
Glyph of Shadow Dance: Now increases the duration of Shadow Dance by
2 seconds, down from 4 seconds.
Glyph of Tricks of the Trade: Now increases the duration of the
damage bonus effect instead of increasing the damage bonus.
- Shamans
Glyph of Healing Wave: The amount of healing the shaman receives is
now based on the entire healing amount, including over-healing.
- Warlocks
Glyph of Lifetap: Duration of the buff from this glyph increased to
40 seconds.
- Idol of the Corruptor: The agility buff from this idol is now
exclusive with the agility buff from Idol of Terror.
- Mage Tier-7 2-Piece Bonus: Now grants 25% additional mana from mana
gems, down from 40%.
- Non-Combat Pets: 8 new pets have been added (not including Argent
Tournament rewards). Raptor Hatchlings can be found on rare and
elite raptors throughout the game world. In addition, an Obsidian
Raptor Hatchling can be purchased from Breanni in Dalaran.
- Tome of Cold Weather Flight: New heirloom item. Players who have
reached level 80 can now purchase this book for 1,000 gold from Hira
Snowdawn, the Cold Weather Flying Trainer in Dalaran. Similar to
other heirloom items, this item can be mailed to other characters of
the same realm, account and faction. The book is consumed when read
training the character in Cold Weather Flying. Requires level 68.
- Val’anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings: This item’s stats and level have
been increased to match the power level of healer weapons coming
from the Coliseum 25-person normal difficulty instance. In addition,
each time Val’anyr is equipped, Blessing of Ancient Kings will be
placed on a 45-second cooldown before it can occur.


Bug Fixes

- Death Knights
- Anti-Magic Shell: The tooltip for this ability will now reflect
modifications from the Magic Suppression talent.
- Blood-Caked Blade: The damage from this talent is no longer
normalized to weapon speed.
- Chilblains: Icy Clutch can no longer miss when Frost Fever hits,
however, when Frost Fever is dispelled Icy Clutch will also be
dispelled.
- Dancing Rune Weapon: The rune weapon will no longer cast Corpse
Explosion.
- Desecration: No longer causes unnecessary combat logging.
- Horn of Winter: Learning rank 2 of this ability caused players to
unlearn rank 1, such that it no longer appears in their spellbook.
It is now possible to relearn that rank, and death knights will no
longer “forget” rank 1 when they learn rank 2.
- Lichborne: The buff from this ability can now be cancelled.
- Raise Ally: Using the Gnaw ability while under the effects of this
spell will now initiate auto-attack. In addition, the damage done
has been changed from a flat value to a percentage of weapon damage.
- Raise Dead: This spell will no longer give two errors when the
casting player lacks the reagent to cast it.
- Rune of Razorice: Each death knight can now have his or her own copy
of this debuff on the target.
- Rune of Spellbreaking: Tooltip now indicates the effect from this
enchantment does not stack with other effects which reduce the
duration of Silence effects (including not stacking with a second
copy of this enchantment). In addition, now reduces damage from Holy
spells.
- Rune of Spellshattering: Now reduces damage from Holy spells.
- Summon Gargoyle: Corrected the inaccurate tooltip which claimed a
Gargoyle could last up to 40 seconds, when in fact 30 seconds has
always been the maximum.
- Rune of Razorice: Corrected a bug where this applied to frost damage
done by others.
- Druids
- Bash: Tooltip now specifies that the Interrupt effect only occurs on
non-player targets.
- Bear Form, Cat Form, and Dire Bear Form: Mana energizes that occur
while in these forms will now appear in the combat log and floating
combat text.
- Cyclone: Victims of Cyclone can no longer receive healing from
health drain effects such as Devouring Plague while they are
affected by Cyclone.
- Dash: Druids who have not learned Track Humanoids will now retain
the benefit of Dash while shifting out of and back into Cat Form.
- Druids should no longer be removed from a form after using any
engineered bombs.
- Maim: Tooltip now specifies that the Interrupt effect only occurs on
non-player targets.
- Natural Perfection: Now properly triggered by periodic critical
strikes.
- Nature’s Grasp: This talent will no longer be triggered spuriously
by some ranged abilities such as Heroic Throw.
- Hunters
- All ranks of Sonic Blast now properly have an 80 Focus cost.
- Black Arrow Ranks 5 and 6 training costs have been lowered
significantly.
- Furious Howl: Ranks 1-5 will no longer give slightly more attack
power than is listed in their tooltips.
- Lock and Load: The tooltip for this talent has been updated to
indicate that it also works with Explosive Trap.
- Roar of Sacrifice: Damage transferred to pet is now considered
Nature damage.
- The tooltip for Improved Tracking has been slightly re-written to
indicate that it only works on the hunter, and works on melee damage
as well.
- T.N.T. (Rank 3): Now indicates that the talent works with Black
Arrow.
- Mages
- Arcane Instability: Tooltip reworded to clarify design intent.
- Burning Determination: Some Silence and Interrupt effects that did
not trigger this talent will now trigger it properly, including
Shield of the Templar, Garrote and Gag Order.
- Combustion: Fire spell misses will no longer trigger this talent.
- Conjure Refreshment: Rank 1 food will no longer overwrite the drink
buff from rank 2 food.
- Fireball: Periodic damage from this spell can no longer trigger
Combustion.
- Living Bomb: Periodic critical strikes from this ability can now
trigger Ignite and Hot Streak.
- Mirror Image: The mirror images will no longer complete casts of
Frostbolt on targets which are Polymorphed at the time their
Frostbolt channel finishes.
- Molten Armor: Critical strikes from the effect on this armor will
no longer trigger Ignite.
- Paladins
- Auras: Any paladin aura active at the time of the paladin’s death
now automatically reactivates when the paladin returns to life.
- Beacon of Light: Multiple paladins can now have this buff active on
the same target. In addition, the beacon target will no longer lose
the buff while under the effects of Cyclone or Banish.
- Blessing of Sanctuary: This talent and Vigilance will now both be
able to be cast on the same target without sometimes overwriting
each other.
- Exorcism: Now properly has a 100% chance to be a critical strike
when cast on death knights using Lichborne.
- Eye for an Eye: Now properly triggered by periodic critical strikes.
In addition, the tooltip incorrectly stated that 20% damage is
reflected, when it is actually 10%. Tooltip fixed.
- Hammer of Justice: Tooltip now specifies that the Interrupt effect
only occurs on non-player targets.
- Hand of Sacrifice: Casting this spell on a target with Divine
Sacrifice active will now generate an error message instead of
wasting the cooldown.
- Heart of the Crusader: The effect from this talent will no longer be
removed if a paladin without this talent overwrites the judgement
placed by a paladin who does have the talent.
- Holy Shield: It is no longer possible to have two ranks of this
ability active at the same time.
- Judgements: All paladin judgements are now properly considered as
melee attacks that cannot be dodged, blocked or parried. Previously
Seal of Light, Seal of Wisdom, Seal of Justice and Seal of
Righteousness would cause the judgement to be considered a ranged attack.
- Judgement of the Just: The effect from this talent will no longer be
removed if a paladin without this talent overwrites the judgement
placed by a paladin who does have the talent.
- Judgement of Vengeance: Inaccurate combat log tooltip corrected.
- Judgement of Corruption: Inaccurate combat log tooltip corrected.
- Pursuit of Justice: This talent will no longer sometimes be
deactivated when leaving a battleground.
- Sacred Shield: This buff will no longer have any effect if the
target is another player engaged in a duel. In addition, the heal
from this buff will no longer cause the paladin to stand, and it is
no longer possible for two paladins to both have the spell active on
one target.
- Priests
- Blessed Resilience: Now properly triggered by periodic critical
strikes.
- Divine Aegis: This talent will now work properly if the priest moves
out of range of his or her target as the effect is resolving.
- Divine Hymn: This spell now works correctly with the trinket
Illustration of the Dragon Soul. Mana Burn: Fixed a bug where Mana
Burn did not cause fear effects to break when the fear victim had an
absorb shield on.
- Mass Dispel: This spell now triggers some types of trinkets it did
not trigger before (such as Flow of Knowledge).
- Pain Suppression: No longer can be cast while under the effects of
Incapacitate or Cyclone.
- Rogues
- Honor Among Thieves: Periodic critical strikes now grant combo
points for rogues with this talent.
- Killing Spree: Error message when no targets are in range has been
changed to “Out of Range”.
- Master of Subtlety: Being under the effects of Cyclone when the buff
from this talent is about to expire will no longer make it last
indefinitely.
- Overkill: Being under the effects of Cyclone when the buff from this
talent is about to expire will no longer make it last indefinitely.
- Shiv: Deadly Poison will now apply properly when Shiv is the attack
used to break a Gouge.
- Tricks of the Trade: Using this ability on a target affected by
Cyclone or Banish will no longer place the ability on permanent
cooldown and will instead give an error message.
- Turn the Tables: Rank 2 of this talent will now work properly with
raid members, and not just party members.
- Shamans
- Elemental Devastation: Tooltip revised to indicate it does not work
with critical strikes from periodic damage.
- Elemental Focus: Tooltip revised to indicate it does not work with
critical strikes from periodic damage.
- Elemental Oath: Tooltip revised to indicate it does not work with
critical strikes from periodic damage.
- Flametongue Weapon: Fixed tooltip error.
- Frostbrand Weapon: Fixed a bug where rank 9 was not scaling properly
with a shaman’s spell power.
- Warlocks
- Demonic Circle: The visual for this spell should now despawn when
the warlock dies or when the warlock otherwise loses the aura that
allows transport to the circle.
- Immolate and Unstable Affliction: All ranks of these two spells will
now overwrite each other.
- Improved Imp: Each time an Imp is summoned it will recast Blood Pact
(if autocast is on), forcing it to benefit from this talent, even if
the Imp was not summoned at the time the talent was learned.
- Improved Shadow Bolt: Redesigned slightly. Instead of a 100% chance
to apply a 1/2/3/4/5% critical strike increase on the target, it now
has a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to apply a 5% critical strike
increase.
- Warriors
- Berserker Rage: Tooltip clarified to indicate this ability breaks
existing Fear, Sap, and Incapacitate effects.
- Bladestorm: Now properly removes the Snare effect of Desecration in
all cases.
- Blood Craze: Now properly triggered by periodic critical strikes.
- Execute: Focused Rage and the Dreadnaught Battlegear set bonus will
now properly reduce the cost of Execute.
- Slam: The combat log tooltip will no longer list which rank of Slam
was used. Previously it incorrectly listed rank 8 for all ranks of
Slam.
- Vigilance: This talent and Blessing of Sanctuary will now both be
able to be cast on the same target without sometimes overwriting
each other.
- Items
- Adamantite Scope: Attaching this scope to an item will now cause it
to become soulbound as intended.
- Badge of the Swarmguard: Will no longer cause a weapon swing
animation when it triggers.
- Cenarion Set: No longer reduces the (nonexistent) cooldown on
Hurricane. Instead, the set bonus increases the damage done by
Hurricane by 15%.
- Commendation of Bravery: No longer useable when player is already at
the maximum honor allowed.
- Deadly Gladiator’s Dreadplate: The set bonus will now trigger
properly from Crippling Poison.
- Death Knight PvP Glove Bonus: The runic power gain no longer appears
in the combat log.
- Death Knight Tier-7 Set: Fingers of the Damned now has a detailed
combat log tooltip.
- Frostweave Net: Using this item no longer causes the user to break
shapeshifts.
- Glyphs
Glyph of Beacon of Light: This glyph will no longer grant its
duration increase twice when Beacon of Light is cast on self.
Glyph of Corpse Explosion: This glyph will no longer cause the model
on target dummies to change.
Glyph of Death Strike: Tooltip typo corrected.
Glyph of Disease: Blood Plague will now last its correct full
duration when refreshed by this glyph.
Glyph of Freezing Trap: The effect from this glyph will now log
properly.
Glyph of Healing Wave: The heal from this glyph will no longer
benefit twice from the Purification talent.
Glyph of Overpower: Fixed a bug where sometimes parries would not
trigger the glyph. In addition, this glyph will now only make
Overpower available for 6 seconds after a parry, instead of
indefinitely.
Glyph of Power Word: Shield: The heal from this glyph can now cause
Divine Aegis.
Glyph of Shadow: This glyph can now be triggered by critical strikes
from periodic damage.
Glyph of Shocking: Fixed tooltip error on Macintosh game client.
Glyph of Shadowflame: The effect from this glyph will now work
properly when multiple Warlocks use Shadowflame on the target.
- Gnomish Mind Control Cap: Paladins who break the harmful effect from
this item by using Divine Shield will now properly gain the
Forbearance debuff.
- Goblin Dragon Gun: This item will no longer spam the combat log with
cast messages.
- Heavy Netherweave Net: Using this item no longer causes the user to
break shapeshifts.
- Major Arcane Protection Potion: Vendor price lowered to match other
similar potions.
- Nightsong Battlegear: The 2-piece set bonus will no longer sometimes
be triggered by other periodic damage other than those listed in the
tooltip.
- Pandora’s Plea: Corrected a tooltip issue.
- Randomly generated uncommon (green) and rare (blue) quality items in
Wrath of the Lich King had stat values that were lower than
intended. All Wrath of the Lich King uncommon and rare items with
random suffixes (“of the Bear”) have had their stat values increased
significantly.
- Reins of the Icemaw Matriarch: This vehicle will now leave bear
footprints instead of barefoot footprints.
- Reticulated Armor Webbing: Tooltip corrected to no longer claim that
this item only works on plate items.
- Saronite Bomb: This item will no longer cause threat against nearby
targets just outside the targeting circle.
- Scrolls: Scrolls which grant agility, intellect, spirit, strength,
or stamina will now report an error message and no longer consume
and waste the scroll when the target has a more powerful buff to
that stat.
- Sif’s Remembrance: Sound and animation added to trinket effect.
- Sigil of Arthritic Binding: The bonus damage from this relic is now
added after diseases have increased damage by a percentage, instead
of before.
- Trinkets: Various trinkets which did not work properly with
channeled area-of-effect spells will now work with those spells.
This includes (but is not limited to) Illustration of the Dragon
Soul, Darkmoon Card: Greatness, and Egg of Mortal Essence.
- Warrior PvP Glove Bonus: Tooltip reworded slightly.
- Wintergrasp Commendation: No longer useable when player is already
at the maximum honor allowed.
- Professions
- Enchant Weapon – Black Magic: This enchantment can now be triggered
by some spells it did not previously work with, including Curse of
Agony, Blizzard, and Typhoon.
- Guardian Gloves: Now correctly marked as uncommon quality.
- Events
- Hallow’s End: Putting out fires for this event will no longer
trigger effects from items, talents and set bonuses.
- Noblegarden: Loot windows will no longer periodically close while
the looting player is transformed into a rabbit.
- Technical
- There is a known UI rendering issue with the Intel 965 Mobile
Express chipset drivers on Windows Vista prior to version
7.15.10.1559 (December 2008). Please contact your laptop
manufacturer for an updated driver if you are experiencing
difficulties. In case of continued problems, add the following
lines to the Config.wtf file as a workaround: SET fixedFunction "1".