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'Battlecast' turns 'Skylanders' into a collectible card game
Activision Blizzard has seen a ton of success with two franchises in recent years: Skylanders, which kicked off the toys-to-life craze, and Hearthstone, which made collectible card games (CCG) accessible to anyone with an internet connection. Now, it's mashing the two together for Skylanders Battlecast, a CCG aimed at children. Announced last summer, it's finally available across North America and Europe from today. Just like regular Skylanders games, Battlecast is very much focused on you buying real-world items. The game itself will be available on iOS or Android (both Google and Amazon flavours) as a free download. To make the most of it, you'll need to buy cards. There are 24 character cards to collect, along with numerous Spell, Gear and Relic cards that will allow you to attack enemies, change stats or modify the playing field. Think Magic: The Gathering's Equipment, Artifacts and Enchantments and you won't be far off.
Phat Loot Phriday: Battlecast Hood
For a crafted item, this caster hood is pretty darn sweet. It won't be cheap, but you get what you pay (farm?) for.Name: Battlecast HoodType: Epic Cloth HeadpieceArmor: 145Abilities: +43 Stamina, + 28 Intellect (those are what it will be after 2.1 gets put in, anyway), which points towards a warlock, or a mage or shadow priest who wants to stay alive in PvP +43 damage and healing (see next point) Two sockets, one red, one blue, and a socket bonus of +3 spell crit rating. Glowing Nightseye or a Potent Noble Topaz work great (as does almost any good caster jewels), at least until you can find an epic Jewelcrafter to make the even better stuff. Is part of a set with the Battlecast Pants, which grants +5% resist to spell interruption (like Kick) and spell pushback (which is what happens when you take damage while casting a spell). Wear it with another epic tailoring set for much ownage. How to Get It: It's craftable at 375 Tailoring, and since it's BoE, you either need to be a tailor or just know one. The pattern drops off of Warlord Kalithresh, the last boss in the Steam Vaults (in Heroic mode, as well) at at very small .4% drop. The pattern itself is BoP, but there's enough of them floating around that if you need one, some time in any /trade channel will probably get you to a tailor who can make one.And then there's the matter of mats. It's not cheap at all: 12 Imbued Netherweave, 8 Primal Might (eeyow!), and one Primal Nether (actually, that's not too bad). The Might will be the hardest to come by-- you've got to farm 8 of each Primal element and then find an alchemist to transmute them for you (each transmute has a 24 hour cooldown, so you've got 8 days to farm everything at least). The others aren't real hard-- Netherweave requires a Mana Loom, some cloth, and a lot of Arcane Dust, but it's comparably easy. Primal Nether drops from the end bosses of dungeons (a chance in Normal, and guaranteed in Heroic), and the problem with that is that it's BoP, so the tailor has to have one, not you. Get the mats, get the crafter, get them all in one place and boom, you're ready to go Battlecasting. Then again, you could just buy it-- since it's BoE, you'll find it on the AH sometimes, usually for upwards of 1000g (more like 1500-1700).Getting Rid of It: You probably don't want to-- even if you have something better for raiding, this is probably still nice PvP gear. But if you're just that leet and you want to toss it, a vendor will give you 3g 10s 6c for it. Which makes me ask: Why can't crafters dissemble their products to get some of the mats back? Seems like such a waste, considering they already spent all that time and money leveling the profession...
