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Stats 101: Your character's resources and attributes
If you've been around the game for a while, you know World of Warcraft's system of resources and attributes so well that it seems like it needs no explanation. However, for players diving into their first MMO or even just switching classes, the basics of WoW's resources and stats -- otherwise known as the jumble of numbers listed on your character sheet (just hit "c" to see what we're talking about) -- may as well be a foreign language. So if you're trying to get started and you're a little lost as to what all of these numbers mean, how they affect your game, and the kind of gear you should equip to play your best, this guide is for you. Read on and we'll walk you through the numbers in plain English.
The Summoner's Guidebook: When to buy LoL's Tear of the Goddess (or not)
One of the things I see a lot of in normal and ARAM games is far too many Archangel Staves. It's my personal opinion that Archangels are one of the most overrated items in League of Legends, but it wouldn't be good to just talk about them. It'd be the shortest issue of the Guidebook ever: "Basically just don't buy Archangel's Staff ever." Instead we're going to look at its primary component item, Tear of the Goddess. Tear is a more useful item to look at because it has some easy comparisons for other items buyable in the same price range. I think that when people buy a Tear, they don't realize how much they're giving to their opponent.
Mists of Pandaria: Priests get an optional Shadowfiend upgrade, Zoidberg approves
Getting tired of your Shadowfiend, priests? After having served us faithfully over multiple expansions, your Shadowfiend will be able to be talented into an upgraded Shadowfiend. Enter the Mindbender! The Mindbender is a floating, squid-like creature that'll leech mana off opponents just like the original Shadowfiend --not just that, but the Mindbender hits harder and you get more mana back. Mindbender can be talented into at level 45. (That spot used to be blank before.) At level 87, my little minion was doing around 12,000 damage with possible crits up to 30,000 against the raider training dummies while I was in a healing spec. Pretty cool facelift for the little guy! It'll be an interesting choice between Mindbender, Archangel, and From Darkness, Comes Light. Too bad we can't give these pets names. I'd name mine Zoidberg. It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Arcane Brilliance: What the MoP beta means for arcane mages
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This column is usually brought to you by archmage and former Hogwarts headmaster Christian Belt, but rumor has it he's still stuck in an alternate dimension where playing World of Warcraft is state-mandated but only offers you 10 different classes of warlocks to play. Senior Understudy and Last Surviving Student Josh Myers is covering his class this week. Arm your spitballs. Throughout Cataclysm, the arcane spec has been a strange beast. At the beginning of the expansion, it was solidly the worst mage spec due to the absurdly high cost of Arcane Blast. After some quick patch 4.1 fixes, it became our top-performing spec, especially if we had access to Shard of Woe. From that point on, arcane was a source of potent damage. While fire has become the vogue spec for Dragon Soul, arcane still is a very viable and desirable spec. Going forward into Mists of Pandaria, that all could change ... or the spec could be made even better. Part of the source of arcane's potency this expansion has been due to how incredibly well the spec scales with intellect. While intellect provides the same spellpower to arcane mages that it does to every other caster, arcane mages' Mana Adept mastery makes the mana increase from intellect critical. Arcane Blast, the pivotal spell in arcane's rotation, has a static mana cost that is only based on mage base mana and not their mana after gear. Because of this, the more intellect you have means the more Arcane Blasts you can fit in at higher mana levels, meaning more damage through mastery.
Raid Rx: A new balance for intellect and spirit in Mists of Pandaria
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poohbah of World of Matticus and a founder of Plus Heal, a discussion community for healers of all experience levels and interests. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading, the Matticast. One of the proposed revamps coming in Mists of Pandaria is the way intellect and spirit interact with each other in regards to healers. For the new healer, understanding the current formula for mana regen can be a little daunting. To make it really easy, let's just say that it plays off both your spirit and your intellect. However, your intellect has a gradually increasing impact on how much mana you gain back in combat situations as your gear improves. It appears that will no longer be the case heading into the next expansion. Ghostcrawler (lead systems designer) helped shed some light on the issue in a blue post earlier in the week. The highlights? Intellect becomes a sheer throughput stat Spirit controls the rate of mana regen Mana pools will remain fixed
Is it time to kill mana?
In your heart, you always knew we were coming here. Mana is one of WoW's biggest sacred cows. Paladins, shaman, druids, mages, warlocks, priests all make use of it, and hunters were once also on the mana teat, as it were. Every healer uses it, and when the monk class is introduced, they'll heal with mana as well. Every ranged caster uses it. It's the resource system the majority of WoW players are most familiar with, a pool that starts at full and empties as you use it. Over the course of its existence, stats like spirit and MP5 have filled it back up during combat, keeping those classes that rely on it supplied. Since it's the lifeblood for all healers, it effectively is the same for all tanks, even though only one tanking class actually tanks with it. Two classes use it to melee DPS, both hybrids, and these two classes effectively ignore the regeneration of the mana pool via talents and class abilities that make mana regeneration a non-issue. Mana is fairly easy to understand. You have it, you use it. There are various systems built in to make regenerating it easier. With the addition of runes and runic power for death knights and holy power for paladins, secondary resource systems (similar to the combo point system of rogues) have also been introduced to the game. Holy p-ower in particular is interesting to this discussion because it is a secondary resource added to a mana class and one that works for healing, tanking and melee DPS. (Everyone has their own opinion of how well it does so.) This leads us to the subject of this post. Do we need mana at all? As my intrepid coworker Michael Gray pointed out to me when discussing this article, mana serves many uses. It's not just that it's a resource for healing and DPSing, but the finite nature of the mana system serves to limit encounters in both PvP and PvE. Doing away with mana could have as many negative effects as positive ones.
The Light and How to Swing It: Patch 4.2 looms heavy for holy
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, and catch me weekly on the Matticast! Patch 4.2 is hot on the heels of patch 4.1 -- it's already on the PTR. We can look forward to the upcoming Firelands quest hub and raid coming out soon. As with any patch, there are plenty of class changes and balance adjustments. If there's one thing that I've learned over the years, it's that no news is good news when it comes to holy paladins and patch notes. Unfortunately, there is news. Rebuke, Divine Protection, and Divine Shield all scored new icons in the patch, which you can check out in this article's title image. Divine Protection also received a new spell effect, which is also featured above (I call it the Divine Beach Ball). Our Speed of Light talent was also modified to reduce Holy Radiance's cooldown by an extra 10 seconds (giving it an effective cooldown of 20 seconds), and the speed boost was tied to Divine Protection. Neither of these changes is actually live on the PTR, so you'll have to hold your breath for now. Also, holy paladins are slated to receive the biggest nerf any spec in this expansion.
Raid Rx: Throughput, regeneration and secondary stats
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading on the Matticast. This ends up being the same question that new players keep asking that has spanned multiple expansions. The war between throughput and regeneration continues to be debated. Really, though, there isn't much to discuss because you can't really compare the two on the same scale. Throughput refers to the strength and impact your spells make. Intellect, critical strike rating, mastery and haste affect that to some degree, depending on your class. Regeneration is largely about your mana pool and the rate at which you gain mana back. Without mana, no spells can be cast. Intellect and spirit are the main stats here. They both affect different parts of your game, and I hesitate whenever I'm asked to pit the two against each other.
Raid Rx: How to determine healing spell priorities
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. Following up from last week's piece on when to wipe, I want to take a closer look at healing priority in Cataclysm. Last year, I wrote an article discussing the different factors to consider when choosing your healing targets. I guess the question to ask is: Have things changed since then? Here are all the factors to consider: Inbound heals Cooldowns used Imminent damage Key players Accessibility There are bound to be others, but that's the main idea. Target priority hasn't changed much in Cataclysm. The question I continue to receive is what a player should actually do in terms of spell use. Let's do some healing analysis, and I'll walk you through what I do. Just do keep in mind that healing can have multiple right answers. Figure out what works for you and is effective for your raid group.
Hyperspace Beacon: Gameplay mechanics -- twisted and evil
As I'm writing this, it's Sunday, and I've just finished talking to Gary Gannon and Mike B of Gamebreaker.tv. Although I had planned to talk about character creation in this week's Hyperspace Beacon because it's been such a hot topic for other games, I realized that I may have been wrong in a couple of my statements regarding the originality of Star Wars: The Old Republic's mechanics. In comments on Mos Eisley Radio, I've said that combat mechanics in SWTOR are very similar to what you'd find in most MMOs. I believe I am going to have to take those statements back, if slightly. During the conversation with Gamebreaker, it occurred to me that even though the mechanics are familiar to most MMO players, they aren't exactly structured the way most MMOs build them. This prompted me to take a closer look at other mechanics we have been told about that differ from those in other MMOs. Is crafting different? How about other combat systems? I agree that there is an air of familiarity to all these mechanics. Why do they feel familiar? How are they different? Follow me after the break to explore these questions.
Lost Pages of Taborea: A peek behind the fountain rune
Runes of Magic's fountain rune is one of many slottable runes that fall outside the standard attribute boosters. Its job is simple: It increases the rate at which you regenerate mana points. It doesn't fill up one of the six statistic slots that are burned onto an item. It gets plugged into one of up to four slots that are found randomly or drilled on accessories. It's also a great eater of time and resources to tier it in the arcane transmutor. I've been testing a tier 4 fountain rune on two of my characters that are different levels in order to see the difference in output. If you look on the Runes of Magic Database, you'll see it says a fountain 4 adds +22 MP recovery rate. Those who use the addon StatRating will see the same figure. Now I know that the numbers that equipment and runes show are not indicative of what you actually get. I also know that StatRating is there to tell you the actual numbers you get for any stat, but 22 for a tier 4 rune sounded like a lot. It doesn't really tell you how that number is applied, but I think of mana regen in terms of ticks. If a tier 4 fountain gave +22 mana per tick, and we can upgrade it to tier 10, and we can stack different tiers on five different accessories... there's just no way that number can mean that, can it? This week I found my own answers to what the fountain rune gives you. I also share some thoughts on using -- or not using -- the fountain rune.
Lost Pages of Taborea: Spam heal is the enemy of strategy
Last week, I spoke a bit about whether Runes of Magic was too easy or not. In that article I harken back to the mana strike that players held to remove part of a patch that added a percentage-to-cost modifier on all spells for all classes. This week I wanted to flit around the same subjects, but from the viewpoint of healing and strategy. I want my readers to be well-versed in RoM 101. Just like I set out to do with my community guide for new and old players, I want to educate players today on the fine art of button-mashing. Let's start by covering what spam healing -- or spamming any skill -- is, and why it's not always fun. I'll put this into the context of dungeon-running, cover some fun strategy that results from not being able to spam heal, and give my opinion on how well (or not-so-well) all this works in RoM.
Spiritual Guidance: Has mana regen become collateral damage in patch 4.0.1?
Spiritual Guidance's shadow-specced Wednesday correspondant Fox Van Allen recently got his performance evaluation here at WoW Insider, and it wasn't pretty. While his ability to recall distant pop culture references and melt faces has been deemed "adequate," his people skills "need improvement." Action item: "Stop ganking Dawn Moore in the hallways." Salary action taken: "Convert salary from U.S. dollars to old America Online CDs." If you're a regular reader of WoW Insider, you may have noticed an interesting trend about patch 4.0.1 and the upcoming class changes it brings: Almost everyone's freaking out. It's bad enough that almost every other class columnist on here is telling it's readers not to panic. It's as if we're running some kind of Douglas Adams convention around here. You won't hear all that from me, though. And it's not just because I'm too cool for books. It's because shadow priests aren't panicking, for the most part. There are disappointments here and there -- mostly regarding the mastery mechanic and the (currently) low value of the mastery stat -- but otherwise, things are pretty decent in this neck of the woods. So decent, in fact, that there's someone complaining on the beta forums that shadow priests are probably so overpowered because Blizzard reps all play shadow priests. (I LOLed.) But that's not to say we don't have our concerns. My latest concern is mana regen. While our damage has actually been buffed in some of the latest beta patches (most recently, Dark Archangel has been buffed from 3 percent per stack up to 4 percent), our mana regen continues to get hit with nerfs. Granted, Blizzard is really trying to aim for healers, but with most holy and disc nerfs to regen affecting our abilities too, are shadow priests becoming collateral damage?
Lost Pages of Taborea: Mana strike
When In the Depths of the Forest went live in Runes of Magic there were cheers heard across Taborea, but players soon protested. Along with all of the new content, Runkewaker also added a nerf in the form of increased mana costs for many of the skills in RoM. On top of the existing base mana costs for skills, a percentage modifier was added that significantly increased the cost to use skills as you leveled up. Many players were unhappy with the skills being balanced in this way and went as far as staging cross-server in-game strikes in Varanas' Central Plaza until something was done. Only a few days after the patch went live, a new hotfix was applied to RoM which removed the balancing act completely. Tony Tang, the Vice President of Business Development at Runewaker, issued a statement to announce the removal of the balance, but he also clarified that the company was confident a change would need to be made to address the issue of the game becoming less challenging. In this week's article I want to take a closer look at why many players were upset and point out why I think the balance may be for the better.
Spiritual Guidance: Let's talk about mana, baby
While Mr. Van Allen is getting his waistcoat pressed, Dawn Moore presents her weekly book club Spiritual Guidance, a healing guide for priests. Here you can expect some optimism, some cynicism and absolutely no Regency period clothing. So, supposedly mana is going to be an issue for healers in Cataclysm. It's the word on the street, ya know? Everyone is talking about how we're not going to be able to spam this or that, and that we'll need to make better decisions with our spell selection. "Triage" is this year's vocabulary word. That old, busted spam style of healing is out, and the new "do damage, get mana" mechanic is supposed to be the new hotness. Of course, we priests are bound to be the superstars* of the next expansion; it's all pretty exciting, don't you think? Well, maybe not everyone feels that way, but that's why we have cake and counseling. Dawn motions to the door behind her. So, in the short time I've written for WoW.com, I've noticed that the mana question is one that continually comes up. Is mana a problem? Is it not a problem? It seems like there isn't a single satisfactory answer I can give to everyone, but knowing mana might be a hurdle in the future for all of us, I figured now would be a good time to look back and ahead. So, let's talk about mana.
Encrypted Text: The energy resource system
Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the rogue class. This week, I'm talking about my experiences in as a beta tester. I love energy. Of the three different resources in WoW at level 60, energy was definitely the best around. While death knights may argue that runes are more fun, they suffer from up to 10-second lockouts on some abilities once a particular rune is used up. Some hunters in the Cataclysm beta have claimed that focus is the best thing to happen to their class since pets. That's fine, but energy doesn't require us to play the regeneration minigame to ensure that we're producing enough. Energy is simple to model and even simpler to use; no ability is more than 6 seconds away. The system has seen constant upgrades since its humble origins, though its core functionality has remained unaltered. It's become a crucial part of our mindset, and it defines the experience of playing a rogue. I had an old friend that used to say that all true rogues set their watches to only tick every 2 seconds. What is about energy that keeps it marching on so reliably?
Dawntide releases latest beta patch notes
Dawntide, the ambitious sandbox title from Working as Intended, has released the patch notes for version 3.0.5, which also happens to be the very latest build of the world of Cieve. The title is currently in extended beta testing, and the client is being updated fairly frequently, as evidenced by a mere six days elapsing between the last two patches. This week's changes include a major reworking of resource locations throughout the game world, various boat bug fixes including physics and dropped passenger issues, and changes to hit points, mana, and endurance. "[We've] rebalanced hit points, mana, and endurance. All attributes now contribute towards at least one of the these, and you will always have a minimum of 20 of each, even if your attributes are reduced to zero," writes WAI's Wiz on the game's official website. Check out the full patch notes here.
Spiritual Guidance: Triage
Every Sunday, Spiritual Guidance shares all the insight on wielding the light as a discipline or holy priest. Priestess Dawn Moore does her best to guide innocent priests away from the shadowy influences of Fox Van Allen, propagator of gateway specs. She stands vigilantly, fighting to ensure that priests do not get lost in the dark world of demon pacts and mage hate. Remember: mages are our friends. Last week, I began my weekly column by annoying you all with information about my GearScore. This week I will be repeating this needlessly pretentious practice by telling you my other GearScore. My other GearScore, you ask? Why yes, dear readers, surely you know that elite players such as myself have multiple gear sets for all of our PvE whims. So without further ado: I have a 3390 GearScore. CUT TO: INT. BEDROOM - DAY Dawn is seen pecking away a laptop keyboard. An over-the-shoulder shot shows her computer screen just as she finishes highlighting the text "My other GearScore ..." We then see the cursor mouse over to a font styles menu where the following options are listed: Bold, Italic and Sarcasm. Dawn selects the last option. Film school flashbacks aside, this week we are going to talk about triage. If you didn't already know, triage is the act of making a priority list for who to help first in a situation where several individuals require medical attention. Triage was referenced earlier this month in a forum post where Ghostcrawler answered some scrutiny to Blizzard's suggested healing philosophy for Cataclysm. Let's look at that post and talk about what it will mean for priests. I will also explain where I was going in my GearScore sequel from above.
Cataclysm: Stat and system changes for spirit and MP5
One of the challenges for many novice level healing druids and priests is figuring out what provided more mana: X MP5 (which stands for mana per 5 seconds) or Y spirit. However, in Eyonix's post about Cataclysm stat changes, MP5 will be completely removed from the game. Healing paladins and shamans normally relied on slight amounts of MP5 on their gear. Instead, their gear will now pack spirit which will affect their mana gains. Say again? Yes, you heard right. MP5 is being removed. It will be gone. Fist pumps and high fives all around! In any case, when the next expansion comes around, everyone will need to relearn the entire mana regeneration mechanic. Thankfully, it should be much easier this time around. Spirit is the main stat which will contribute to mana regeneration since intellect provides spell \power. It is too early to provide any advice or guides since we can't actually see the changes in action just yet, but the basic idea is that healers will be stacking a combination of intellect and spirit to increase healing throughput as well as mana regeneration. Lastly, for the druids and shamans: Eyonix If you are a Balance druid or Elemental shaman: You will still share gear with Restoration druids and shaman. Your gear will have Spirit on it. It won't have Hit on it. You will have a talent that converts Spirit to Hit. We will adjust talents accordingly so that you want about as much Spirit as, say, a warlock wants Hit. Hit on rings and other such gear will still benefit you. Raid buffs will no longer boost Spirit, so you shouldn't find yourself unexpectedly over the Hit cap because of buffs. source I wonder if this means Prayer of Spirit will be removed. All in all, I'm very excited about the regeneration changes. It'll make things much easier for players to understand (like me)! Anyway, the line of thinking here regarding the removal of raid spirit buffs is this: Since spirit will be providing elemental shamans and Balance druids with hit due to a talent conversion, any raid buffs which boost spirit will presumable bump their hit and put them over the hit cap which isn't a good thing since any surplus points will be considered wasted. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it. Nothing will be the same. In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion. From Goblins and Worgens to Mastery and Guild changes, it's all there for your cataclysmic enjoyment.
Yahtzee and others to open Australian video game bar
Rather than make a four-to-six minute video decrying the lack of gaming-themed bars in his current country of residence, The Escapist's Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw has partnered with three other gentlemen to open Mana Bar. According to the press release, the Brisbane-based bar will open in February and targets "a wider casual market, while still catering to the hardcore gamer crowd." There is no charge for entry or to play games (from "the latest video game systems"), and the presser details plans for tournaments and game release parties (among other things). The bar even has a Twitter and Facebook page up already with plenty of extra details and photos should you choose to follow along with the renovation process. Unfortunately, the only mention of refreshments is the "unique selection of drinks and custom cocktails" available, as well as the picture you see above. We are anxiously awaiting the presumably lengthy beer list.
