Come and receive your blessing - blog of the week

Blessing of Kings is a blog kept regularly up to date by level 80 Palladin player, Coriel. It's a mixture of commentary on WoW and Palladin discussions on official and non-official WoW sites, and opinions and observations from the blogger's actual experience. Like this one:

"Crowd Control--by which I mean effects that cause a player to temporarily lose control of her character--is an important part of PvP. It adds a second layer of strategy over just inflicting and healing damage. To make an analogy, Crowd Control is like executing a pin in chess. You prevent a piece from being used, without actually needing to capture it."

Rohan goes on to suggest what the true role of Crowd Control should be in WoW PvP. Other posts, as I mentioned, continue with discussions started on other sites. It's pretty clear this blogger does a lot of reading as well as playing.

Patch this week!

Oooh. It's official, we're getting a 3am maintenance tonight (in normal weeks it's 5am). Some realms are undergoing extended maintenance for hardware upgrades. It looks real good for patch 3.2!

and a blue post on http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=10222136019&sid=1 confirms it!

"The PTR is now offline. All EU PTR realms are no longer available. Thank you again for your great efforts in helping us test."

Class Q&A out now

Now although my Rogue (Stabyanuts) has never got past level 12, it's great to see that Blizzard have finally come forth and answered all your questions. Ever wondered if the Ravenholdt quest-line would be expanded?

"The problem with class-specific quests is that you’re cutting off 90% (give or take depending on class popularity) of players from seeing the content. Put another way, you can offer 100 class-specific quests per class, or 1000 quests that almost everyone can see. We don’t have any announcements of new content in that quest line at this time."

Bummer. I'm not going to quote more because the questions are as long as the answers! Rogues sure do talk a lot for a stealth class!

Class Q&A finally out

Was it worth the wait? Yeah, you bet ya! There are some really long and detailed answers in this Q&A about the future of the Priest class. Each question in the Q&A discusses very specific topics, aside from the first one about the general future of the class.

"Overall, we feel the priest is one of the most versatile classes in the game, and can be the most enjoyable of the healer classes in the game because of its feature of having two different unique talent specs providing two different types of play styles. And for players who enjoy the dps aspect, you always have the option of going to the dark side as Shadow to either melt faces in PvP or help take down foes in PvE. As for moving forward, in a nutshell we’d like to improve the Holy tree’s PvP niche and polish the Shadow tree a bit more for both aspects of the game." - Ghostcrawler.

Other questions cover specifics like is it too easy to dispel DoTs, are the developers happy with the functionality of Dispersion, increasing the range of Mind Flay, what makes Discipline and Holy priests effective in a raid environment versus a PvP environment and much more. Check it out here.

WoW guild bank ninga gets owned!

This is a post that was made recently in the customer support forums. We've all been victims of hackers at some stage or another, or at least had a friend or guild member fall victim. It's great to see Blizzard taking a stand in not letting these guys get away with it. Even simple things, like ripping off a guild bank, which isn't necessarily hacking but abusing privileges given in game, should be dealt with. People who do this type of thing spoil the gaming experience which is WoW. I got a giggle out of reading this reply from Blizzard to this unhappy camper who ripped off his old guild:

_______________________________________________________

From the CUSTOMER SERVICE FORUM on www.worldofwarcraft.com

Q u o t e: Wakeandbaké the Ninja:
Ok i bought my epic flying but i cant use it for sum reason i have the achivment and sum mount in my bank but i cant use any of em and i'm exalted with netherwing as well witch requirs a epic flyer cant use it ither what should i do

Auryk
Blizzard Poster
Part 1:
I’m sorry for confusion, however my records show that you currently have Expert Riding (Skill 225), Wakeandbaké, but do not currently have Artisan Riding (Skill 300). If you desire to ride an epic mount, you are going to need to purchase epic flying to do so.

Q u o t e:Wakeandbaké the Ninja:
like no error pops up it njust wont let me buy epic flyers and i cant use the ones in my bank not my carpet or drake or gryphon as u can see on my armory i got exalted reps that requir it and i dont have it when i go tot he vendor it says i gtta buy it i dont understand why


Part 2
Wakeandbaké , do you remember the guild you were previously in by any chance? It was roughly a month ago, and appears you went by a different name in those days. Well, according to my records you were found guilty of looting a substantial amount of their Guild Bank and taking off. This was then reported, and the situation looked into.

The findings of that investigation were that you were to repay the items due to your previous guild – unfortunately for you, the sum of the amount taken was no longer in your possession, so we were left to find another way for reclamation. In the e-mail that was sent to you on 6-26 you should see that 2,500 Gold, Cold Weather Flying and Riding 300 (Epic Flying) were stripped from your character. This was found to be the exact sum equal to that which was taken from your previous guild.

All in all, you are going to need to get in touch with our Account Administration department, Wakeandbaké. They can be reached by way of e-mail at wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com or by filling out their webform, which can be found here: (http://us.blizzard.com/support/webform.xml?locale=en_US).

_________________________________________________________

It's good to see this brought out in the open. It brings me great joy to watch people like this get owned. Stealing from a guild bank that you were entrusted to have access to is the lowest of lows.

Is your blog listed?

We have made up some buttons for bloggers to put on their blogs to advertize that their blogs are listed on Gaming Faces. We understand that bloggers can't always post every day, but we also understand that readers want a steady flow of news. Providing a feed of regularly updated blogs not only benefits readers, pointing them in the direction of the latest posts, but it also helps drive traffic to all the bloggers out there, uniting the community to find out all they can about WoW.

If your blog, or a blog you visit, is not listed on Gaming Faces, let us know:

If your blog is already listed on Gaming Faces, let other people know about it by adding a button to your border!

This is the 250x250 one but there is a 125x125 alternative as well.

Death Knight blog of the week

gnome DK is run by Dedbitt and Gillderon and it's dedicated soley to Death Knight tips and news and it's been covering Death Knight stuff since the class first started. That means there's a lot of experience to be gleaned from the blog.

Dedbitt loves to PvP and to share news of his exploits and setup: "This setup gives me a bit more resilience than the arena death knights have, the average health, the low end of the average attack power (not bad for all solo gear), just a bit below average crit (I made it my weakest stat since it is the least valuable), and of course I’m hit capped and have all the spell penetration I need. Playing my last couple of games with this setup I did note my damage was better while my survivability was about the same, even though I had less health and resilience than before."

You can also find info on Ulduar weapons: "There was a request made to go over Ulduar weapons for tanking death knights. Since there still are no two-handed tanking specific weapons I figured no one would mind if I went over Ulduar weapons for tanking and DPS."

Dedbitt seems to post approximately once a week. Watch out for his advice in the blog roll.

The Old Republic - comic update

If you haven't seen this already, on the official SWTOR.com website, they have an online comic book which introduces the TOR story. If you're a comic book fan, or interested in what this world is going to be like, this is a must read. We're now up to issue 12, published late last week. Here's the link to the first page of the first edition.

The game itself is stylized and looks a lot like a comic book, so presenting the story in this fashion is a perfect way to get you into the feel of the world. This is probably one of the mistakes they made over at Star Wars Galaxies. When it first came out, the realistic looking characters were a real buzz to play with, they soon got dated and even updates to shadowing could not save the graphics from looking tired. The stylized universe presented in WoW takes on a different graphical challenge and it has held up to the test of time. Let's hope the graphics in TOR also endure.

Priest class left hanging with patch 3.2 changes?

If you look carefully at the patch 3.2 release notes you'll find a list of small changes, to spells. It seems that healers are getting a bit of the nerfbat, although shadow seems to be getting a bit of a boost. I would love to see shadow priests up there holding their own in DPS. Definitely much needed changes. Here they are:

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.

Let's hope that Blizzard finally release a Q&A for the class, however. Rogue and Priest are still left off the list! Has this got to do with priority, I mean Rogues and priests are the least common players in my guild!? I'd love to see more players in these classes though. Mmmmm ... stam buff.

Getting ready for patch 3.2

Blizzard have put together a great post, summarizing all the information you need to know about patch 3.2. The question is, how close is the patch release? The fact that they've summarized it now and that the patch on the PTR servers is classified as "retail" indicates that we may see it as soon as this week. Let's have a look at some of the juicy stuff you'll need to know:

Call of Crusade Q&A

Here you'll find a Q&A with Blizzard about details on the Isle of Conquest and Crusader's Colliseum.

If you've got any questions about how the classes will be affected by the patch, check out the Q&A series about the classes.

Unlike previous patches, the raid achievements for the Epic mount reward are not being removed with this patch. Glory of the Ulduar will still be available after patch 3.2 Here's the confirmation.

Instance locks are also set to change with the patch, "to allow players to progress through content at a pace more of their choosing". With four different styles of raids to choose from, ten man, ten man heroic, 25 man and 25 man heroic, one of the biggest problems we've found with our guild is that although we've got some members who would like to do the hard mode with some bosses, there are too many others that need loot from bosses deeper into the raid. The change will mean that you'll be able to farm easy modes of the instance and still go back and challenge yourself to the hard modes without affecting the easy modes. This is one of my favorite changes coming with the patch.

We warned you a couple of weeks back to stock up on badges. The Emblem system is changing and for all the details from Blizzard feast your eyes here.

There are more minor changes, like the Druid changes which we talked about on Druid Gaming Faces already. Get ready for some sexy cats!

For links to the official Blizzard word on these changes and others with patch 3.2, head on over to the main page of Worldofwarcraft.com today.

As a guild and raid leader, it's now my job to tweak our EPGP system and study the boss strategies before we make our first attempts in coming weeks. This is perfect timing for us, being a casual guild, as we've just got to the stage of farming Ulduar and sharding a lot of loot. It's going to be awesome to get into some new gear.

Q&A: Crusaders’ Coliseum and Isle of Conquest. A blue post at MMO Champ

"Q: What are the planned item levels for the gear that drops in each of the new Coliseum instances and how will the gear differentiate from one instance to another?

Development Team: Trial of the Champion will drop item level 200 and 213 items in the normal and Heroic modes respectively; Trial of the Crusader (10-player) will drop item level 232 items; Trial of the Grand Crusader (10-player) and Trial of the Crusader (25-player) will drop item level 245 items; Trial of the Grand Crusader (25-player) will drop item level 258 items. For those working through a tribute run, there might also just be a surprise or two in the chest at the end??? if you have what it takes to master this run. "

Other questions that are asked and answered were:

Q: Will there be any kind of reputation and titles associated with the Coliseum and will there be a 310% mount meta-achievement reward?

Q: How will achievements work for Trial of the Crusader and Trial of the Grand Crusader, and will there be four different types of achievements to be completed?

Q: Do we have plans for the Argent Warhorses in Trial of the Champion to scale based on characters’ gear (similar to the Oculus and Ulduar vehicles)?

Q: Given that average match lengths continue to fluctuate on the test realms as adjustments are made to specific mechanics, what do you feel would be a satisfactory length for the average Isle of Conquest battle and why?

It's great stuff and a must read for any end game player! Read it all here: Live from MMO-Champion.

Warlock blog spotlight of the week

Almost Evil, Liquid Silver, is a pretty active blog. Hydra, posts almost every day. I like her writing style. She has a great sense of humor. The blog is not all heavy on stats and advice like a lot of WoW blogs, instead is more like a journal of things she has noticed both in and out of the game, relating to what it's like in general to be a geek and WoW player.

[Husband] I had a nightmare.
[Me] Oh, honey. What about?
[Husband] I was fishing for the four gold coins I was missing and I got three of them.
[Me] … *not seeing the nightmare*
[Husband] Then I woke up and realized I still needed all FOUR. *grumpy face*
[Me] *laughs hysterically* You know I have to blog about this right?
[Husband] Yes.

What a crack up! Her quick wit sure brings some light-hearted fun to our blog feed!

Sick of that chick on the ad

This may be a case of Friday-itis, you know, when it's come to the end of another long week and all you can do is whine and complain, but I am so sick of the ad that gets stuck on so many blogs, including this one, of the hot blond advertising EVONY. "Start your journey now, my Lord". I find it particularly ironic on this site, called Gaming Faces. I mean really, is that chick the face of a gamer? A gamer's fantasy more like it! I've been adding and cataloging blogs for Gaming Faces at night and I've found this ad, from Google, is pretty common and I'm sick of her cleavage popping up at me whenever a page loads!!! Sorry, as I say ... it's Friday. Come on five o'clock!

This is so Technorati can list this blog

x89bu4aegt

Druid blog spotlight of the week

4 Haelz, hosted on blogspot, has two authors, "Bell" Bellwether, a level 80 Druid on Dark Iron and Sannhet, also level 80, a Ret Paladin, Frost DK. The blog is pretty active, with at least one new post a week. Often times the news is about gameplay incidents in the guild or on the server the two authors play on, but there's also good information there for budding Druids. In a recent post titled Grilled and Humbled, Bell gives some insight into applying for the top Alliance guild on your server. The questions were apparently pretty rough! Turns out it was a learning curve for her:

All in all, it was very productive and eye-opening for me, but I feel I came up a bit short in some areas. I've adjusted some keybinds and done some more reading, and all I can hope is that I improve. Applicant status means my full induction into the raid group is shaky, and because of that I have to show constant improvement.

This is why these sort of blogs can be so useful to read: you can get great tips and learn from other people's mistakes and challenges. Keep it coming Bell!

Unreleased game footage!

It's great to see guild promos coming out for TOR already. This is the latest from tormentgaming.com and it uses game footage I haven't seen online before! Bad Sith, bad! The dark side is driving us to post this! Click on the read more link to see the video!

Torment SWTOR Teaser #1 from The Darkside on Vimeo.

Welcome SWTOR to Gaming Faces

Well, I thought I'd give you a little bit of a run-down about who I am. I'm an old Star Wars fan. I grew up with the toys. I married the love of my life, who I met at a Star Wars fan club. I have named two of my children after Star Wars characters (Mara and Teneniel). And I have the Rebel logo tatooed on my right arm. Yes, I am a Star Wars nut. I'm also an MMO addict. This addiction started because of Star Wars Galaxies.

I had no interest in MMOs prior to that but the lure of the Star Wars universe was too much for this Star Wars nut to resist. I played Star Wars Galaxies for almost five years. My first character was a beast master/bounty hunter who unlocked Jedi in the early days of the game. At the time that I unlocked my Jedi, there were only 21 Jedi on the whole server.

I was loyal. I played through all the changes to the system - the removal of force bars, the changing into the force ranking systems, xp loss from bounty hunter kills, temporary enemy flags from just pulling out your lightsaber - all the way through to the horrifying NGE (new game ehancements). The butchering of the game and universe and my hard work in the game got too much in the end and the lure of WoW proved to be more engaging.

Now, after three years in WoW, a new opportunity in Star Wars gaming is on the horizon. No one can deny that Knights of the Old Republic (KTOR by BioWare) was a brilliant game. Knowing that I'll be able to take that awesome experience and turn it into a MMO game, is envigorating! BioWare have excelled at everything they've done in previous projects and the videos and previews we're getting from their new venture into the Star Wars MMO field look to live up to and exceed what they've done in the past.

Four years ago I was fortunate to spend some time on the Sony booth at E3. I got the first videos of an up and coming event Sony were planning for Star Wars Galaxies. The same day, I heard a whisper from one of the Lucas Arts employees about a new Star Wars MMO game. There was concern expressed, off the record, about the damage that had been done by the recently released NGE. Those rumors are now reality and we're getting more and more information about this exciting looking new game from BioWare. We're going to try and keep up to date with all the latest breaking news and also provide a portal for any other bloggers wanting to talk about SWTOR.

Star Wars TOR comes to Gaming Faces

You might have noticed some changes on the main page over the last few days. I've been busy setting up a new section of the site specifically for Star Wars The Old Republic, a new MMO game based on the Star Wars universe.

Before my WoW addiction, I was heavily in to Star Wars Galaxies. I spent about three years exploring every aspect of Sony's online Star Wars universe. I was one of the first Jedi on the server I played on (Ahazi) and was one of the last original Jedi to leave.

Sony did an awesome job at the start but managed to butcher it in one fowl swoop with the NGE (new game enhancements). Hopefuly, BioWare do a better job at listening to the community and fans than Sony did. I am definitely looking forward to getting my hands on this game when it hits. If you want to know more about the game, drop in to swtor.gamingfaces.net. All your WoW filtered news is still on Gaming Faces but under the URL of wow.gamingfaces.net.

No patch today

Well, it's another shutdown day ... The message of the day is that a lot of realms will be down for about fifteen minutes. That means we're not getting patched today. There is still a lot of work to be done on the PTR and a lot of testing on the new raid instance bosses.

There has been rumor that we'll see the patch before Blizzcon. Obviously, Blizzard would want other more important things to talk about at Blizzcon and won't want the focus to be on a minor update at such a huge event.

So, it's another week in Ulduar for all you end-game raiding guilds. I've personally been geared-capped for weeks now and I'm dying to see some new content.

Here's the official note about those restarts today:

Star Wars TOR Deceived Cinematic trailer in HD!

BioWare have released the official cinematic trailer for SWTOR. Although it's available on their site, we thought we'd make it available to you here in HD. click on the read more link to see it!

This week's funny from Skippy

Last week I put this on GFhunter but I think I'll move it here, although Skippy is still picking on hunters! Is he having a go at me or longstorm ... hmmm ... ?

This week's funny from Skippy

Last week I put this on GFhunter but I think I'll move it here, although Skippy is still picking on hunters! Is he having a go at me or longstorm ... hmmm ... ?

Sam Raimi to direct first WoW movie!

This news was first leaked on AICN. This is their exclusive confirmed quote " but I do know who is directing the WORLD OF WARCRAFT film and that is Sam Raimi. It will come out in trades later this week or next. But you can take this one to the bank. Sam is going to make a huge budget fantasy bit of unfuckingimaginable coolness - and it will be yanked from the WORLD OF WARCRAFT."

This has now also been confirmed on the official Blizzard website here.

This is one movie I will be at for opening night! Sam Raimi directed Evil Dead, Army of Darkness and the Spider-Man movies. We still know nothing about the story or timeline but we do know it's going to be good!

Sam Raimi to direct first WoW movie!

This news was first leaked on AICN. This is their exclusive confirmed quote " but I do know who is directing the WORLD OF WARCRAFT film and that is Sam Raimi. It will come out in trades later this week or next. But you can take this one to the bank. Sam is going to make a huge budget fantasy bit of unfuckingimaginable coolness - and it will be yanked from the WORLD OF WARCRAFT."

This has now also been confirmed on the official Blizzard website here.

This is one movie I will be at for opening night! Sam Raimi directed Evil Dead, Army of Darkness and the Spider-Man movies. We still know nothing about the story or timeline but we do know it's going to be good!

New Cat and Bear Colors

Now that everyone has had a chance to check out the new art for druid cat and bear forms, we'd like to share with you the current break down of tauren skin tones and night elf hair colors associated with each form color. Please note that, while we have attempted to associate each form color as carefully as possible, this list is subject to change before the next major content patch goes live.

All options for skin tone (tauren) and hair color (night elves) are listed below followed by the forms that will be associated with each set of tones/colors. Listed in parentheses after each form color is the placement in which you'll find that form in the screen shots found here in our "Updated Druid Forms Coming Soon" preview: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/underdev/druid-forms.html

Tauren Male

Black / Black with White Belly / Black Spots

• Black Bear (top middle), Black Cat (top right)

Dark Grey / Dark Grey with White Belly / Dark Grey Spots

• Grey Bear (bottom left), Black Cat (top right)

Red-Brown / Red-Brown with White Belly / Red-Brown Spots

• Brown Bear (top right), Red Cat (top left)

Yellow-Brown / Yellow-Brown with White Belly / Yellow-Brown Spots

• Yellow Bear (top left), Yellow Cat (top middle)

Steel Grey / Steel Grey with White Belly / Steel Grey Spots

• Grey Bear (bottom left), White Cat (bottom right)

Light Brown-Grey / Light Brown-Grey with White Belly / Light Brown-Grey Spots

• Yellow Bear (top left), Brown Cat (bottom left)

White

• White Bear (bottom right), White Cat (bottom right)

Tauren Female

Black / Black Spots

• Black Bear (top middle), Black Cat (top right)

Dark Grey / Dark Grey Spots

• Grey Bear (bottom left), Black Cat (top right)

Red-Brown / Red-Brown Spots

• Brown Bear (top right), Red Cat (top left)

Light Brown / Light Brown Spots

• Yellow Bear (top left), Yellow Cat (top middle)

Light Brown-Grey / Light Brown-Grey Spots

• Yellow Bear (top left), Brown Cat (bottom left)

White

• White Bear (bottom right), White Cat (bottom right)

Night Elves (Male and Female)

Greens: Yellow-Green / Green / Dark Green

• Violet Bear with Green Mane (bottom left), Blue Cat with Dark Mane (top right)

Light Blues: Teal / Light Blue

• Blue Bear with Dark Mane (top left), Indigo Cat with Light Mane (far left)

White

• White Bear (top middle), White Cat (top left)

Dark Blue

• Black Bear (bottom right), Black Cat (bottom)

Purple

• Red bear with Blue Mane (top right), Purple Cat (middle)

Up and coming costs of tier 9 from the PTR

There is a lot of confusion in my guild at the moment about the up and coming costs of tier 9. So I thought I'd sort it all out with the latest information from the PTR.

First of all, there are three different levels of tier 9: level 232, level 245 and lever 258. They all have different costs. Anybody is going to be able to purchase level 232 items with just Emblem of Triumph badges. You will be able to get Emblem of Triumph badges from daily dungeon quests, both heroic and standard, and the new raid instance in all flavours. The new raid instance, the Crusader's Coliseum, can be done in 10 man standard mode, heroic 10 man mode, standard 25 man mode and in heroic 25 man mode.

Every week, you are able to do the Coliseum in four different lock-outs. Standard 10 man will just drop badges. Heoric 10 man will drop badges and Trophy of the Crusade. 25 man will drop badges and Trophy of the Crusade and heroic 25 man will drop badges and Regalia of the Grand Protector

T 9 costs.

Head

level 258 = 1 x Regalia of the Grand Protector
level 245 = 75 x Emblem of Triumph + 1 Trophy of the Crusade

Level 232 = 50 x Emblem of Triumph

Hands

level 258 = 1 x Regalia of the Grand Protector
level 245 = 45 x Emblem of Triumph + 1 Trophy of the Crusade

Level 232 = 30 x Emblem of Triumph

Chest

level 258 = 1 x Regalia of the Grand Protector
level 245 = 75 x Emblem of Triumph + 1 Trophy of the Crusade

Level 232 = 50 x Emblem of Triumph

Legs

level 258 = 1 x Regalia of the Grand Protector
level 245 = 75 x Emblem of Triumph + 1 Trophy of the Crusade

Level 232 = 50 x Emblem of Triumph

Shoulders

level 258 = 1 x Regalia of the Grand Protector
level 245 = 45 x Emblem of Triumph + 1 Trophy of the Crusade

Level 232 = 30 x Emblem of Triumph

Level 258 vender

Level 245 vender

Level 232 vender

This info is from the PTR and may change!

Up and coming costs of tier 9 from the PTR

There is a lot of confusion in my guild at the moment about the up and coming costs of tier 9. So I thought I'd sort it all out with the latest information from the PTR.

First of all, there are three different levels of tier 9: level 232, level 245 and lever 258. They all have different costs. Anybody is going to be able to purchase level 232 items with just Emblem of Triumph badges. You will be able to get Emblem of Triumph badges from daily dungeon quests, both heroic and standard, and the new raid instance in all flavours. The new raid instance, the Crusader's Coliseum, can be done in 10 man standard mode, heroic 10 man mode, standard 25 man mode and in heroic 25 man mode.

Every week, you are able to do the Coliseum in four different lock-outs. Standard 10 man will just drop badges. Heoric 10 man will drop badges and Trophy of the Crusade. 25 man will drop badges and Trophy of the Crusade and heroic 25 man will drop badges and Regalia of the Grand Protector

T 9 costs.

Head

level 258 = 1 x Regalia of the Grand Protector
level 245 = 75 x Emblem of Triumph + 1 Trophy of the Crusade

Level 232 = 50 x Emblem of Triumph

Hands

level 258 = 1 x Regalia of the Grand Protector
level 245 = 45 x Emblem of Triumph + 1 Trophy of the Crusade

Level 232 = 30 x Emblem of Triumph

Chest

level 258 = 1 x Regalia of the Grand Protector
level 245 = 75 x Emblem of Triumph + 1 Trophy of the Crusade

Level 232 = 50 x Emblem of Triumph

Legs

level 258 = 1 x Regalia of the Grand Protector
level 245 = 75 x Emblem of Triumph + 1 Trophy of the Crusade

Level 232 = 50 x Emblem of Triumph

Shoulders

level 258 = 1 x Regalia of the Grand Protector
level 245 = 45 x Emblem of Triumph + 1 Trophy of the Crusade

Level 232 = 30 x Emblem of Triumph

Level 258 vender

Level 245 vender

Level 232 vender

This info is from the PTR and may change!

Goblins and Worgens are the new races of the Expansion!

From MMO-Champ: "In the last PTR build 4 new textures of Halloween masks have been added.

•2 of them are for Goblins masks - Helm_Mask_Halloween_GoF and Helm_Mask_Halloween_GoM

•2 of them are for Worgens masks - Helm_Mask_Halloween_WoF and Helm_Mask_Halloween_WoM”.

It’s a big call by MMO champ but they are saying: “Goblins and Worgens are the new races of the Expansion” ... and I think they're right! The only other masks ingame are of playable races and the Worgen masks look to be new skins. I hope they are right and I hope Alliance get Worgens as the new race! Goblins remind me of Ferengi from Star Trek, and Horde like ugly things, right?

With Blizzcon just weeks away we will find out real soon. We might find out some clever dev put them in just to throw us all off! MMO champ also spotted changes to the old Emerald Dream maps. Hmm, interesting!

Just to throw a spanner in the works, both these races might end up being Horde and the blood elfs might actually change faction! This might be the reason behind the whole faction change being implemented into the game. But really, we don't want the blood elfs on the Alliance side! But it could be a very interesting twist.

Goblins and Worgens are the new races of the Expansion!

From MMO-Champ: "In the last PTR build 4 new textures of Halloween masks have been added.

•2 of them are for Goblins masks - Helm_Mask_Halloween_GoF and Helm_Mask_Halloween_GoM

•2 of them are for Worgens masks - Helm_Mask_Halloween_WoF and Helm_Mask_Halloween_WoM”.

It’s a big call by MMO champ but they are saying: “Goblins and Worgens are the new races of the Expansion” ... and I think they're right! The only other masks ingame are of playable races and the Worgen masks look to be new skins. I hope they are right and I hope Alliance get Worgens as the new race! Goblins remind me of Ferengi from Star Trek, and Horde like ugly things, right?

With Blizzcon just weeks away we will find out real soon. We might find out some clever dev put them in just to throw us all off! MMO champ also spotted changes to the old Emerald Dream maps. Hmm, interesting!

Just to throw a spanner in the works, both these races might end up being Horde and the blood elfs might actually change faction! This might be the reason behind the whole faction change being implemented into the game. But really, we don't want the blood elfs on the Alliance side! But it could be a very interesting twist.

WoW armory on the iPhone!

The official Blizzard armory app is out on the iPhone. I've had other armory apps in the past but all of them have now been taken off iTunes. The ones I have still work nice but it looks like Blizzard might have struck a deal to stop the others being made available now. There is no doubt the new Blizzard app is far superior to the others. The coolest thing is the live ingame calendar that you can reply to on your iPhone! It even gives you notices of raids and events on your phone ... nice! I bet you all can't wait to show off your armory profile to your work colleagues :P

Check out the official video now!

WoW armory on the iPhone!

The official Blizzard armory app is out on the iPhone. I've had other armory apps in the past but all of them have now been taken off iTunes. The ones I have still work nice but it looks like Blizzard might have struck a deal to stop the others being made available now. There is no doubt the new Blizzard app is far superior to the others. The coolest thing is the live ingame calendar that you can reply to on your iPhone! It even gives you notices of raids and events on your phone ... nice! I bet you all can't wait to show off your armory profile to your work colleagues :P

Check out the official video now!

Are you ready for some jousting?

I finally got a chance to check out the new five man dungeon coming with patch 3.2. Just like the new raid instances, the new five man takes place in the arena. The first boss fight in this five man takes place on the back of horses using your pikes. So if you haven't had any jousting experience, now's the time to get some practice in.

On normal mode, this instance drops epics for all its loot. On hrd mode, it drops 213 level epics. It's going to be a great way for new level 80s to get some fast leet gear.

Another bonus with this five man is it's fast. You're going to be able to knock this baby over in twenty minutes with ease.

Are you ready for some jousting?

I finally got a chance to check out the new five man dungeon coming with patch 3.2. Just like the new raid instances, the new five man takes place in the arena. The first boss fight in this five man takes place on the back of horses using your pikes. So if you haven't had any jousting experience, now's the time to get some practice in.

On normal mode, this instance drops epics for all its loot. On hrd mode, it drops 213 level epics. It's going to be a great way for new level 80s to get some fast leet gear.

Another bonus with this five man is it's fast. You're going to be able to knock this baby over in twenty minutes with ease.

The Future of Block from Ghostcrawler

From The tanking forums

"I feel like we've been pretty candid about its future. You can probably find my previous comments relatively easily. We think block needs to mitigate much more incoming damage per hit, but to make that change we would also need to lower tank avoidance across the board and prevent every hit from being blocked (especially in situations with more than one target beating on you). To make Prot tanking more interesting, we have allowed block to become too much of a dps stat. In retrospect, we'd rather it remained a mitigation stat and that Strength was pushed up as the big warrior and paladin dps stat.

You shouldn't overly worry about outscaling content. We said from the beginning that there would be three major patches to Wrath of the Lich King. We aren't setting up a system that is going to remain on autopilot for 10 more tiers of content without our intervention. It's totally valid for players to worry about scaling, and all things considered, we'd rather have mechanics that scale well. But if those scaling problems aren't going to manifest themselves until you have item level 500 items, then you're worried prematurely.

We would like to get Prot warriors into PvP in a legitimate way, but our first priority is making sure every class has at least one viable PvP spec first. By "legitimate" I do NOT mean that you sometimes can do a 19K Shield Slam when all the stars align. That's not acceptable even if it is rare. Also consider that tanks do have a legit role acting like actual tanks when running flags or tanking AV-style NPCs. That may not be enough of a role, but I did want to point out that emphasizing BGs more and Arenas less also helps to carve out a niche for PvP tanks.

I know there are plenty of Prot warriors out there who couldn't care less about PvP. Sorry. We have to. :(

We want Prot warriors to do decent damage in PvE. We don't want them to do as good damage as actual dps specs -- there needs to be a trade-off for such high survivability. This means we need threat multipliers or you won't be able to actually hold aggro. It's okay if Shield Slam can make big (yet not absurd) numbers, since you don't Shield Slam all that much. That's fun. As I said above though, it would probably work better if Shield Slam hit hard because your Strength was high, not because you built a gimmicky set.

[ Post edited by Ghostcrawler ]

---

Ghostcrawler
Lead Systems Designer "

Some help for LTLJohnny

My level 60 Death Knight, LTLJohnny, has literally cruised his way into Outlands. I must say, apart from being quite entertaining playing a gnome Death Knight, I am finding Death Knight to be a alot of fun.

Being a Guild and raid leader, we've really had a hit and miss with Death Knights. I've seen some great DPS and taking abilities from some players. I've also seen some of the worst DPS and worst tanks come out of the same class. I suppose this comes from a class which is still really in its infancy.

I've played my hunter for almost three years. I learnt his skills while levelling over months. I had time to get to know every skill. Death Knights is almost as bad as getting a power leveled character off the Internet. Unlike other classes which have an abundance of time to get to know their skills, Death Knights are thrown in the thick of things and it can be quite daunting.

Typhoon Andrew's blog has a link to a podcast where DK player/blogger Runeforge Gossip has been interviewed by podcast and answers a lot of questions about Death Knights.

So whether you're a level 60 gnome named stabyournuts or a level 80 Death Knight tanking Ulder, check out the blog and get some questions answered.

Stock up on badges NOW!

With patch 3.2 just weeks away now is as good a time as any to stock up on Emblem of Heroism badges! Why? New epic gems is why. I know I'll need at least 6 for my hunter and 6 to 8 for my druid. You will get the new gems off Arcanist Ivrenne if you're Alliance or Magistrix Lambriesse for Hord.




At this time Cardinal Ruby, Majestic Zircon and King's Amber gems are 20 Emblem of Heroism badges. Ametrine Dreadstone and Eye of Zul are 10 Emblem of Heroism badges.

So if you're bored ingame and looking for something to do, stocking up on heroism badges is not going to be a waste of time, especially if you want to make some quick gold from people frantically re-geming all their gear with epic gems.

Stock up on badges NOW!

With patch 3.2 just weeks away now is as good a time as any to stock up on Emblem of Heroism badges! Why? New epic gems is why. I know I'll need at least 6 for my hunter and 6 to 8 for my druid. You will get the new gems off Arcanist Ivrenne if you're Alliance or Magistrix Lambriesse for Hord.




At this time Cardinal Ruby, Majestic Zircon and King's Amber gems are 20 Emblem of Heroism badges. Ametrine Dreadstone and Eye of Zul are 10 Emblem of Heroism badges.

So if you're bored ingame and looking for something to do, stocking up on heroism badges is not going to be a waste of time, especially if you want to make some quick gold from people frantically re-geming all their gear with epic gems.

PTR testing in action

Players were allowed to check out the first bosses in the new raid and dungeon instances on the PTR today. Players prepare for the onslaught of Ice Crown, and the potential to defeat Arthus. The colloseum is going to offer a variety of different Hord and Alliance volunteers to help train the troops.

Today, players got to test their skills against the twin valkyrs, Fjola Lightbane and Eydis Darkbane, and they also got to face Lord Jaraxxus (Prince's twin brother?!). Check out the Test Realm forums for what players thought of it all.

PTR testing in action

Players were allowed to check out the first bosses in the new raid and dungeon instances on the PTR today. Players prepare for the onslaught of Ice Crown, and the potential to defeat Arthus. The colloseum is going to offer a variety of different Hord and Alliance volunteers to help train the troops.

Today, players got to test their skills against the twin valkyrs, Fjola Lightbane and Eydis Darkbane, and they also got to face Lord Jaraxxus (Prince's twin brother?!). Check out the Test Realm forums for what players thought of it all.

But I want a red dress!

With the unveiling of the artwork for the tier nine armor sets, scheduled for release with patch 3.2, concern has been expressed right across the forums about the lack of variety in armor between classes. This time around, Blizzard have gone for color variations only between the three different armor categories.

Late last week, Blizzard unveiled three cloth sets for Alliane and two male sets for Horde. The cloth sets are identical in every way except color. So unless you know your colors, all warlocks, mages and priests are going to look like each other. On the other hand, Horde and Alliance will look different.

I'm still not too sure whether this is going to be a good thing. I for one am not too keen on looking like a sharman. God forbid they put hunters in dresses!

Win a trip to Blizzcon 2009

Blizzard have just announced, on their front page, a competition for an all expenses paid trip to Blizzcon 2009. This is great ... er ... if you live in the US or Canada. If not, stiff bickies!!

The competition is sponsored by BradyGames, Jinx, SwagDog & Upper Deck and SteelSeries.

There are also 15 runner up prizes of 2000 gold, oops, I mean dollars, worth of WoW related loot like gift certificates, trading cards, t-shirts, etc. Unfortunately, again, it's only for the US and Canada.

I cannot believe they'd invite Canadians not us Aussies!! :) Check it all out here.

Tier 9 Preview!

Alliance Warlock T9

Alliance Priest T9

Horde Shaman T9

Horde hunter

Alliance Mage T9

From the official Wow website " In patch 3.2, Call of the Crusade, players will be able to work toward the all-new tier-9 class sets by competing in the Crusaders' Coliseum. To keep with the themes of the Argent Tournament, players will notice this time around that the Horde and Alliance have unique looks to distinguish them apart."

Gaming Faces Hunter Live

The first of our class pages is online Gaming Faces Hunter covers all of our hunter and hunter pet news, its still a work in progress and any help we get will be appreciated. Please post a comment if we are not following any hunter blogs we need to be!

Cataclysm the 3rd WoW expansion

HUDSON'S HIDEOUT was the first WOW bloger to spot it,
Blizzard trademarks "Cataclysm" this is all the legal mombo jumbo (thanks to the guys over at MMO-champion.com)

---------------------------------------------
LAST APPLICANT(S)/OWNER(S) OF RECORD
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.
16215 Alton Parkway
Irvine, CA 92618
United States
GOODS AND/OR SERVICES

Class Status: Active

Computer game software and related instruction manuals and guides sold together as a unit; downloadable computer game software; interactive multimedia computer game program; mousepads
2009-06-30 - New Application Office Supplied Data Entered In Tram
2009-06-30 - New Application Entered In Tram
---------------------------------------------
Will we be taken back to the time of the Great Sundering? or will we get to see the Isle of Kezan? And will the new city be the goblin city of Undermine?Kazan is the only missing landmass on the map that was left after the Great Sundering I guess we will all see at blizzcon!

Its all Class

All the first lot of Blog links are in ! OMG that was boring as hell to do, but it had to be done If I'm missing any that you know of please let me know!

Blizz Tracker US added

I just added Blizz Tracker to the Blog scroll so we can all keep up to date with the latest form Blizzard.

Druid and Death Knights blog links

I'v added all the DK and druid blogs I could find now working on hunter. This is just phase 1 of the site we will have unique feeds for ever class, Its all coming soon :)

Gaming Faces - The Saga

Why Gaming Faces?

One of the hardest things to do is to find the information you want about any MMO. With over 20 million players, not only are there a lot of readers searching for info, there are a lot of bloggers giving info too. What Gaming Faces hopes to acheive is to make it easy for MMO gamers to find the information they want, for the class they want and also add a portal for new bloggers to get their news out to more of the MMO community.

Gaming Faces includes a feed of general MMO news and official news. All this content is directly fed into the site and updated about every hour.

About the creator

I've been an MMO addict for eight plus years - ever since Sony enticed me with Star Wars Galaxies. Too bad they pretty much so screwed that game up really quickly. On the good side, it got me involved in WoW.

I've played every Blizzard franchise that's ever been released, right back to Warcraft 1 when it first came out. I managed to drive my wife completely crazy with the music from Warcraft 2 in our tiny apartment just after we'd had our first child.

When I started playing WoW, I promised her I would never be a guild leader. Sorry love. I run a guild on an oceanic server with about 80 members and 30 active raiders. We're in the top ten guild on our server and most of all, we have fun. In our high end content I play my hunter which is one of the best geared hunters on the server and/or world. For the lower end stuff, I take my druid tank in. He's really just an alt. I've never really had any passion for the character. Out of curiosity I just recently started a death knight gnome named LTLJohnny. I am a big fan of the lore and the game.

Contact me

If you want your blog added to the list or you have an idea you think I might like, email me at: johnpgatt@gmail.com

... or leave a comment below

gaming faces is coming

Well for the last 2 years I have been trying to work out how to make this thing a reality and we are almost there!