enchantment
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Addon Spotlight: Gear levels at a glance with iLvLr
Each week, WoW Insider's Mathew McCurley brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. One of the best ways for addon developers or fans of addon developers to get their addon some attention is to have it featured here on Addon Spotlight. If you're a developer who wants to see your addon in the spotlight or you're a friend of a developer looking to do your buddy a solid because of that thing you did in Cabo three years ago with the guy's on-again, off-again love interest, send me an email at mat@wowinsider.com and tell me to feature the addon. I try to read all my email, and you'll most likely have the experience JerichoHM did. Some time ago, I covered Skill Helper, an addon that was sent to me by its creator, JerichoHM, that made missing a skill point because of forgetting to train a thing of the past. Now, Jericho sends me another email discussing his newest addon called iLvLr, which adds new information about an item's ilevel and durability percentage to the character pane. Addons that add to the already existing user interface are some of my favorites, since I don't have to clutter up the screen with new pictures, boxes, and other crud.
Arcane Brilliance: A poor mage's guide to enchants
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week, we're discussing enchants and the mages who love them. Which would, of course, be all of us. So you've got all kinds of awesome gear now. Your guild is raiding, you've been farming heroics for the better part of the month, and you're exalted with everybody up to and including my mom, a fact which you're more than happy to declare in the trade channel to anyone who hasn't already put you on ignore. Your DPS is what the kids call "phat," or at least they would have called it that if it was still 1998. Oh yes, your gear is fancy. You're the envy of all. Small children look up to you, women swoon in your presence, and warlocks whisper your name fearfully in the dark of night, from the closets where they hide, cutting themselves and adding extra zippers to their clothing so they can look more like a villain from Kingdom Hearts. And now it's time to make that gear even fancier. You flag down your friendly neighborhood enchanter and begin perusing his wares. It's then that you begin to notice something. Maelstrom Crystals are expensive. I'm not even kidding. It's pretty ridiculous right now. Yesterday I traded the title to my car, a dozen years of indentured servitude, and my firstborn child for a weapon enchant, and I still feel like I got a pretty sweet deal. My weapon's all glowy. I'm psyched. So unless your guild is on the bleeding edge of the current raiding scene, or maybe if you have so much extra cash lying around that you sleep in a bed made of money, the majority of us simply can't afford to put the absolute top-end enchants on every upgrade that drops in whatever heroic the dungeon finder chose to give us today (Stonecore). The good news is that we here at Arcane Brilliance understand. We're going to talk enchants today, yes. But instead of simply listing the best enchant for each slot, wherever possible we're also going to include, at no additional charge, an alternative enchant for the more budget-conscious among us.
Lichborne: Pre-heroic Cataclysm gear for DPS death knights
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. Join World of Warcraft's first hero class as we head into a new expansion and shed the new kid on the block label. Now that Cataclysm's been out for around a week, a lot of us have managed to hit level 85, with more dinging every day. Now that you're 85, though, what do you do? If this were Wrath, you'd grab a few reputation or BoE blues, hit the minimum ilevel for heroics, and start queueing. In theory, you could do that for Cataclysm -- but to be honest, you'd probably fail hard. Dungeons are tough, and you won't have dudes in tier gear to drag you through. Almost everyone's going to be just about the same for the next few months: complete newbies who are still trying to get raid groups together and still trying to learn new rotations and stat weights for level 85. With that in mind, there is one thing you can do to give yourself an edge in heroics: Gear up. This week, we're going to look at various dungeon, quest, and reputation drops to find the stuff that'll do the best job at getting you ready for heroic dungeon runs. I've put the better stuff near the top of the list, though sometimes the second or third choice may be better for you based on your stat needs or spec. I have mentioned justice point items in these lists with the understanding that a lot of us stockpiled 4,000 justice points at the end of Wrath, and you can earn justice points for normal dungeons in the random dungeon finder. That said, don't feel like you need to stay in normal dungeons until you grab all the justice point gear. Just pick up some of the second or third choices and get to heroics, where you'll earn those points a bit faster.
Bluehole Studio details new TERA itemization tweaks
It's been awhile since we've heard any newsworthy tidbits from TERA's Korean testing phase, and TERAfans has come to the rescue with a new article translation detailing itemization and fusion enchantment tweaks. Mr. Blue, community manager for Bluehole Studio details a plethora of loot item additions, as well as a new equipment rank system (normal, rare, or legendary). In addition to providing players with a quick way to gauge the worth of a loot drop, the new system also adds extra stats to the more desirable pieces (one, two, and three extra stats for each successive rank). The article also touches on fusion enchantment, crafting tweaks, and visual equipment variation. Check out all the details, including renders and screen captures from the Korean client, at TERAfans.
Lichborne: Glyphs, gems and enchants for the blood tank
Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly peek into the latest news, tips and strategies for the death knight class. Last week, we went into the basic outlines of what makes a blood tank: your talent choices, your gearing choices, your threat rotations and things such as that. Once you've got all that down, though, the next thing you can do to take your tanking to the next level is to get some decent gems, glyphs and enchantments. They'll separate an adequate 5-man tank from a tank who's ready to step on and start taking on the game in earnest.
Lichborne: A death knight primer for tanking 5-man dungeons
Welcome to Lichborne, the weekly death knight column. This week, your host is in a bit of a tanking mood. Those Emblems of Frost don't earn themselves! So when the Dungeon Finder came out, it was pretty cool even for DPS. A 10 minute wait for a DPS slot for a 5-man dungeon is pretty insanely awesome. If nothing else, it was certainly faster than the old way of sitting in Dalaran for 2 hours picking your nose and watching the LFG channel. Now that the dungeon finder has been around for a while though, things are getting a bit stickier for DPS. My server averages around 15-20 minutes for a level 80, and I've heard some battlegroups are up to 30-45 minutes, even at prime time. To make matters worse, tanks and healers can continue to boast instant or near-instant queues almost everywhere, leaving the poor DPS green with envy. Now technically, this is how it's almost always worked. Tanks and Healers get groups pretty quick, DPS has to wait around. And all told, the dungeon finder system is still pretty cool, and you still get a group faster than the old way. That said, now that we've had a taste of true power, I'm sure we're all loathe to lose it. Luckily, death knights have an out: We can go tank. Whether you're a DPS DK considering going tank for shorter queue times, or a 5-man DK tank newbie looking to up their game, this column's for you.
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be an Enchanter
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the thirty-first in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class (or profession!) well, without embarrassing yourself. Enchanting cries out to be roleplayed. It could be a kind of magician's engineering, or a more refined cousin of alchemy. Although you could certainly play an enchanter as another sort of magical mad-scientist, the profession actually lends itself well to a more gentlemanly (and sane) approach, where experiments are not so much about creating some sort of autonomous monster or mind-controling love potion of serene bliss, but rather altering the nature of things to do what they never would have done previously.Enchantments have a huge role in mythology and literature. Cinderella's fairy godmother turned a pumpkin into a stage-coach with an enchantment, Hogwarts School's "Sorting Hat" famously talks to students who wear it, and the One Ring even contains the soul of Middle Earth's lord of evil personified. All these are enchantments in which ordinary items are magically enhanced so as to reflect some aspect of character development or plot in the story, and a roleplayer at the keys of an enchanter character can work similar magic in telling his own story.
Enchanted in Northrend
Being the only non-gathering primary profession that has, thus far, been implemented in the Wrath beta, enchanters should feel special. No word yet on the long-rumored ability to sell enchants on the AH, but we do at least have some interesting new enchants to look forward to. Here are some of my favorites: Enchant Cloak: Haste Enchant Cloak: Spirit Enchant Boots: Icewalker Enchant Cloak: Shadow Armor Enchant Gloves: Armsman Enchant Bracer: Expertise Enchant Weapon: Lifeward Enchant Gloves: Gatherer
More Runeforging weapon enchantments unveiled
We've already shown you screenshots of some of the new Runeforging abilities for Death Knights. Now, we have them all via MMO-Champion. As expected, they should let you customize your weapon for whatever role you expect to play, whether it be tanking or DPS, and what type of enemy you expect to go up again, be they undead, spellcasters, or melee. It looks to be an exciting system. Read on for a full list of the Runeforging Enchantments.
Making money from Season 3
Tomorrow morning Arena Season 3 is scheduled to start up and, among other things, this will bring a lot of new loot into the game. I'm sure many of you are like myself and have been hoarding up honor and arena points in order to buy the new gear as soon as it appears on the vendors. This season, due largely to the new rating requirements placed on some of the new items, I've decided to actually put forth effort to be competitive in the arena. With that in mind, picking up the new PvP gear becomes a priority, and I imagine other people are going to be in a similar position. Gone are the days of dying in the arena week after week in order to finally pick up that amazing weapon. Of course, for many players, there's a much more important aspect to preparing for Season 3: making money on the auction house.
Enchantment Issues?
Logging on to WoW this afternoon (a US server, at least - the EU realms may not share this issue), I received the following in-game message: We are aware players are experiencing an issue with the display of recent enchantments to items. We are working to resolve the issue and recommend players refrain from placing enchantments on items.Now, I can't yet find anything about this on the forums or the website, but with such an vague yet ominous message (and as expensive as enchants can be), how can one help but listen?Update: Still not much detail on what the intial problem was, but this was hotfixed later in the evening.
