direbrew-hops
Latest
Brewfest tip for casters: Get both spell trinkets
If you're like me, you've been madly farming the elusive Great Brewfest Kodo since Brewfest began. Even when I was having a bit of hand trouble, my little dwarf found his way into Blackrock Depths to do beer-laden battle with the big, bad, belligerent brewmaster. But there's an important tip that you should remember while Brewfest continues. The two spell trinkets are both useful to all spell casters (who don't out gear them) after the content patch unifies spell damage and spell healing into Spell Power. Right now, the Dark Iron Smoking Pipe is a spell damage trinket, and the Direbrew Hops is a healing trinket. But in the content patch, both will be turned to spell power -- the Pipe has 43 spell power and 155 on use, the Hops have 44 spell power, 153 on use. Of course, this begs the question about how the Pipe and Hops will compare to other trinkets when the patch hits. Timbal's Focusing Crystal from Heroic Magister's packs 44 spell power. You'll have to decide whether you want an on-use bonus 154ish spell power from the brewfest trinkets, or Timbal's on-use proc for 285 to 475 extra damage. The Hex Shrunken Head from Zul'Aman is a clear upgrade from the Hops and Pipe, since it has more constant spell power and high on-use spell power. Coren's dropped trinkets are equivalent to the 41-Badge trinkets purchaseable from G'eras. The Essence of the Martyr and Icon of the Silver Crescent are both slightly better than either Hops or Pipe since they have 44 spell power, and 158 spell power on use. But for 41 badges each, I'm probably not going to lose any sleep over 5 spell power every 2 minutes. [Thanks Rikitiki for the tip!]
Planning for the Brewmaster title in advance
A lot of people are understandably upset that the Brewfest mounts are now boss drops instead of buyable items. I've heard from no small number of folks who saved their Brewfest tickets from last year's event in order to purchase the mount with less hassle this year, only to discover that -- oops -- that wasn't in the cards. One particularly irate guildie logged off to go enjoy a mini-Brewfest of her own courtesy of the fridge after discovering that the ingame version wasn't going to cough up a ram.The new boss, Coren Direbrew, is pretty cool and I'm happy to see older content being made relevant again (especially when it's an instance as cool as BRD), but as far as I can tell from the forums and various data sites, the drop rate on the mounts is...less than spectacular. I'm seeing estimates that range from as little as 1% to as much as 15%. Blue poster Kisirani pops up to say it's "much, much easier" to get a Brewfest mount drop than it was to get the Sinister Squashling off the Headless Horseman. Wowhead lists the Squashling as a 2% drop, so maybe the 15% figure for the Brewfest mounts is more accurate.The mount might be a crapshoot, but you can cover the other bases on an upcoming Achievement and title by planning ahead:
Meet Coren Direbrew, dispenser of awesome trinkets and brewmaidens
The Brewfest is currently live for testing on the PTR, and one of the biggest changes is the addition of yet another holiday specific boss, Coren Direbrew. Coren himself isn't completely new. He was also present in the Grim Guzzler last year, when he would give you a quest to deliver brew to the Brewfest and get an offhand tankard in return. This year, however, it appears he's a bit more surly. Instead of simply completing a quest, this time you need to fight him. Luckily, the loot he drops is more than worth the hassle. Most of it is clones of the trinkets available for badges from G'eras, but there's also a couple other drops that look like a lot of fun. Overall, the loot should draw a lot of people out to Blackrock Depths to beat him up. A list of his loot is coming up after the break.
