Adam Koebel
Articles by Adam Koebel
Garrisons and Alts: How can it be improved?
I sometimes find myself wishing that garrisons were designed to be account-wide from the beginning. It may sound silly, but I'd love to see my alts hanging out in my single account-wide garrison when I'm logged on another character. This is obviously not in the cards, but maybe there could be some changes to make managing multiple garrisons a little bit easier. You can tell yourself that they are "optional" as much as you want, but you'd be missing out a large portion of this expansion if you simply ignored them, even on alts. Thankfully, Blizzard is listening to feedback and plans on making adjustments in the future. Takralus We're looking into ways to make Garrisons a bit more friendly in future patches for those of you who enjoy alts. We see that Garrisons are a bit too much for you guys right now. source Good to hear. I have a few ideas on how things might be improved, some more realistic than others. 1. BoA follower armor and weapon upgrades As it stands, having a Dwarven Bunker/War Mill and Salvage Yard are essentially requirements if you want to partake in the most worthwhile follower missions. Wouldn't it be nice if after your first or second garrison this was no longer the case? I've put a significant amount of time and resources into my main's followers, and I'm at the point where most of them are maxed out in item level. However, I still have a ton of items like War Ravaged Weaponry which I can no longer use on this character. My alts could put them to good use.
WoW 10th anniversary ending early, Blizzard working on a fix [Updated]
WoW's 10th anniversary event was scheduled to run from Friday, November 21 to Tuesday, January 6, 2015 at 10 a.m. PST. Unfortunately, it is currently set to end 1 day earlier than originally announced. Molten Core or Southshore vs. Tarren Mill cannot be queued for on most realms at this time. Blizzard is aware of the problem and working on a fix. We'll update this post when we hear anything new. Hopefully you'll still get a chance to run these later today if you haven't yet (or wanted one last shot at the pet or enchanting illusion). Update: Blizzard is extending the event for an additional week starting tomorrow. Molten Core LFR and the Southshore vs. Tarren Mill battleground will be available again from January 6 at 10:00 a.m. PST until January 13 at 10:00 a.m. PST.
How to send your followers on raid missions
With the right followers, it's possible to get yourself a piece of genuine Highmaul raid loot without ever setting foot inside the raid. Before you endeavor to do this, you should know that the Dwarven Bunker/War Mill and Salvage Yard are basically required to do this in any sane amount of time. You need both buildings to get enough follower armor and weapon upgrades, as these missions require a roster of ilvl 645+ followers to complete. Raid mission basics Your first raid mission will unlock when you have 3 followers at 645 or higher item level. The mission should stick around for at least a couple days if you want to spend some time getting other followers ready. After completing a raid mission, your next one will unlock 2 weeks later. Any piece of loot from the raid appropriate to your loot specialization can drop, with the exception of weapons. Just like normal drops, these can be warforged, socketed, or have tertiary stats. The quality of loot is based on your current progression in the raid itself: Normal caches (ilvl 655 loot) are rewarded if you've killed 0-14 bosses in normal mode. Heroic caches (ilvl 670 loot) are rewarded if you've killed 15+ bosses in normal mode. Mythic caches (ilvl 685 loot) are rewarded if you've killed 15+ bosses in heroic mode. Mythic caches plus a bonus of 1000 gold are rewarded if you've killed 15+ bosses in mythic mode.
World of Warcraft in the new year
Blizzard has just released a preview of some exciting new things we can expect from WoW in 2015. Let's get right down to the highlights: In patch 6.1, the legendary quest will be rewarding you with a legendary follower. They will be testing the ability to send tweets (with screenshots) from inside the game. Better flight paths, with more direct routing. New incentives to invite friends into your garrison with daily tasks (complete with rewards and achievements). New ways to spend Garrison Resources, new follower missions and rewards, new follower modification items, and a new tier of difficulty for garrison invasions. The ability to purchase game time tokens (with real money) that can be traded with other players in game for gold. Account-wide heirloom system, with the ability to upgrade heirlooms to level 100. New blood elf models and tweaks for existing models. Improving Ashran faction balance. Blackrock Foundry will begin opening in February 2015. Check out the full blue post after the break.
Patch 6.0.3 hotfixes for December 16
If you were wondering what happened to that hotfix to reduce the number of Inn quests needed for the level 3 blueprint, it has finally been implemented. I personally recommend doing most of the quests anyway. At least the quests that reward toys and pets. The one reward is the closest you'll get to flying in Draenor in the foreseeable future. Here are some of the highlights: A hotfix in testing from December 11 for the Inn has been implemented. The achievement, Stay Awhile and Listen now only requires the character to complete 10 of the 20 Inn quests (down from all 20). Tectus' health has been reduced by about 15% when the raid is scaled to 10 players on Raid Finder, Normal, and Heroic difficulties. As the raid scales up to a maximum of 30 players, Tectus' health for 30 players remains roughly unchanged from before this hotfix. Resolved an issue where having a player join the Dungeon Finder or Raid Finder group just as another player was leaving could cause the button to queue up for additional players to remain greyed out for the rest of the group. Today is pretty light on the hotfixes. See the rest after the break.
Patch 6.0.3 hotfixes for December 15
Today we have a little more class numbers tuning, along with a bunch of quality of life changes and other miscellaneous bug fixes. Those of you with Barns are going to be very happy. Here are some highlights: Beast mastery and survival hunters, as well as all rogue specs have received buffs. Alliance Tier 3 Garrison: Dungeoneer's Training Dummy for healing and damage have swapped places so melee classes are less likely to trigger the tanking dummy by accident. Barn: Captured beasts can now stack to 20 (up from not being stackable). Dwarven Bunker/War Mill: Armor transmogrification items obtained from the Dwarven Bunker/War Mill are now truly account-bound and can be sent to other characters on the same Battle.net account. Poundfist now has 40% more health and increased the upper limit on the number of players his health can scale to. Raid Finder difficulty Highmaul should now be creating raid groups comprised of 2 tanks, 5 healers, and 18 damage dealers (instead of forming raid groups with 6 healers). Tome of the Clear Mind now stacks to 200 (up from 20). See the full list of fixes after the break.
Upcoming changes to garrison outposts
If you've regretted any of your garrison outpost decisions, it's now going to sting just a little bit less. Instead of costing 10,000 gold to switch outposts, it will soon be reduced to 5,000 gold. The exception is Nagrand where it will only cost 500 gold to switch between the siege tank and mounted combat. Blizzard is also going to allow you to recruit followers from the other outpost (previously this was not possible, even if you switched). These changes won't happen until the next maintenance. Looks like I have yet another reason to get a level 3 Barracks. Lore We're planning to make some changes to the Garrison Zone Outposts, to reduce the costs necessary to change out the building you initially chose while questing through the zone, and also allow you to earn the unique follower associated with alternate building choices. Specifically, these changes will be: The cost to change your Garrison Outpost building in Gorgrond, Talador, and Spires of Arak reduced to 5,000 gold The cost to change your Garrison Outpost building in Nagrand reduced to 500 gold Changing your Garrison Outpost building in a zone will also grant access to the building-specific questline for that zone, including the building-specific follower Note that you will still be unable to change your Garrison Outpost building until you've reached level 100 and earned your current building's zone achievement, at which point the building can be changed by speaking with the outpost's foreman NPC (who varies from building to building). These changes are currently not planned to go live until the next maintenance period for each region, but we wanted to give as much advance notice as possible that they're on their way. source
Patch 6.0.3 hotfixes for December 10
Citizens of Dalaran! Re-enable your sound and listen! Rhonin has finally lost his yelling voice after the millionth hero saved the world from certain destruction. Cold logic deemed your ears not worth saving. Cold logic, however, does not account for the power of hotfixes! Rhonin, Leader of the Kirin Tor, should now be reciting their spoken lines to characters within a much smaller radius in the streets of the city of Dalaran. Players defeating the final boss that pushes their invasion score to over 1000 should now correctly be able to receive credit for obtaining a gold rating. The world bosses Drov the Ruiner and Tarlna the Ageless in Gorgrond now share a single loot eligibility lockout. Both Drov the Ruiner and Tarlna the Ageless should no longer be available at the same time. Raid buffs to Mastery no longer counts for food that provides a well fed buff to the highest secondary stat. Check after the break for the rest of today's hotfixes.
Upcoming alchemy and jewelcrafting changes
Rygarius has just announced some upcoming changes to the alchemy and jewelcrafting professions. Based on player feedback, alchemy recipes will now require more herbs (and no meat or fish) and jewelcrafting recipes will require less herbs (and more ore). Rygarius We're giving a heads up on adjustments being made based on player feedback over the amount of herbs used in recipes by Alchemy and Jewelcrafting. The adjustment will increase the amount of herbs an Alchemist needs and decrease the herb costs for Jewelcrafters. Overview of Changes: Alchemy Combat potion recipes no longer requires Crescent Oil and meat/fish, and will require herbs instead. Flask recipes will use more herbs, increasing the number of herbs needed from one type of herb to two. Jewelcrafting Tier 1 gem recipes will require more ore and less herbs. Tier 2 gem recipes will no longer require herbs and instead require a tier 1 gem. In summary, these changes are not active yet. But once the change is active, Alchemists will need more herbs, and Jewelcrafting will need less. source
Patch 6.0.3 hotfixes for December 9
Do you have a Barn, Dwarven Bunker / War Mill, or Trading Post? If so, you're going to enjoy today's round of hotfixes. Alchemists can also rejoice now that Crystal Vials exist outside of a single vendor in Draenor. Here are some of the highlights: Barn: Increased the drop rates for Savage Blood from work orders. Dwarven Bunker / War Mill: Work orders now award more Iron Horde Scraps and increased the drop rates for Follower Enhancements. Trading Post: The Savage Friends achievement now only requires the character to become Exalted with 1 Draenor reputation (down from 3). Salvage Yard: Salvage recovered from a Garrison Mission should now always contain an item. General goods vendors across Draenor now offer Crystal Vials and Enchanting Vellums for sale. Check out the full list of hotfixes after the break.
Breakfast Topic: Wish me luck
Apparently I need more 645 ilvl followers with Timed Battle and Magic Debuff counters. I don't like going into a raid mission with these odds -- especially since they only show up every 2 weeks -- but I don't have much of a choice. I seem to have greater success with the 70% missions than I do with the 95%+ missions, so I do have that going for me. This week I'll definitely be grabbing one of these followers from the inn, and I'll be crossing my fingers for an epic one. My other shortage is Wild Aggression, so that's next on the list. I have about a dozen followers with the Danger Zone counter. Apparently my followers are good at staying out of the fire but weak on the DPS. Have you completed a 645 ilvl follower mission yet? If so, was it successful?
Patch 6.0.3 hotfixes for December 8
The most recent batch of hotfixes features a host of class tuning adjustments just in time for the opening of mythic Highmaul. Here are some of the highlights: Frost death knights, mages, shamans, and warriors had several abilities buffed. Marksmanship hunters and windwalker monks received some nerfs. Work orders for the following Horde buildings (Mine, Herb Garden, Goblin Workshop, War Mill, and Trading Post) and Alliance buildings (Dwarven Bunker, Gnomish Gearworks, Trading Post) should now correctly contribute credit towards work order achievements. Gladiator's Sanctum: Work orders were awarding much more gold and items than intended. The amount of items and gold awarded has been reduced to be more comparable to other buildings. Ashran has been re-enabled as a potential daily strategic assault choice. Follower Weapon and Armor enhancements can now stack up to 20. Got My Mind On My Draenor Money now only requires looting 2,500 gold in Draenor (down from 10,000). The full list of changes after the break.
Developer interviews on Convert to Raid and Final Boss
This past weekend, Lead Game Designer Ion Hazzikostas and Lead Class Designer Kris Zierhut sat down with both Convert to Raid and Final Boss to discuss raiding, classes, garrisons, and more. Between both interviews, almost all classes are touched on in some form. They mention another round of class tuning is due sometime today before mythic raiding opens up. One interesting tidbit about garrison followers is the confirmation that follower benefits are only calculated when you pick up your work orders. In a future patch, followers will need to be assigned to the building as each work order completes in order to grant the benefit. A change will also be made to allow followers to gain XP while working at a building. The Convert to Raid interview is embedded above, and you can watch the Final Boss show right here.
Changes to Salvage Yard rewards
The Salvage Yard has become my favorite building ever since I upgraded it to level 3. The Big Crates of Salvage can be loot pinatas. I personally have received two ilvl 665 epics, a full class transmog set, and numerous green and blue BoEs that have sold well on the auction house. Then, of course, there's all the follower upgrades. This building was so lucrative that people figured out if you kept a single follower in the 90-94 range, you would have a virtually unlimited supply of 30-45 minute missions to gain salvage. Blizzard wasn't a fan of this somewhat tedious requirement to maximize the building's output, so they made some adjustments. Here's a summary of the Salvage Yard changes that have happened over the last few days: Only successful missions can reward salvage crates (failed missions used to reward them too) Successful level 100 missions always reward a Big Crate of Salvage (or Crate of Salvage if you're level 2) Successful level 95-99 missions have a chance at rewarding a Big Crate of Salvage (or Crate of Salvage if you're level 2) Successful level 90-94 missions have a chance at rewarding a Bag of Salvaged Goods, also known as the junk box. This is regardless of the building level. You can read the post announcing these changes after the break.
Alliance chopper now for sale in Stormwind
The @WarcraftDevs Twitter just let us know that the Champion's Treadblade (the losing bike from Azeroth Choppers) can now be purchased by Alliance players from Paulie in Stormwind. The Alliance Chopper (Champion's Treadblade) can now be purchased from Paulie in the Old Town district of Stormwind. - WarcraftDevs (@WarcraftDevs) December 3, 2014 This mean machine can be all yours for a mere 100,000 gold. As someone who voted for it, I won't be purchasing it yet simply because I've already spent too much gold in Warlords. Are you going to pony up the gold for this chopper?
Highmaul and the first world boss opens on December 2
After tomorrow's scheduled maintenance, the normal and heroic versions of Highmaul will be available for raiding on US realms (with EU opening on December 3). The LFR and mythic versions of Highmaul will begin to open the following week. In addition, the first world boss will start spawning in Gorgrond -- either Drov the Ruiner or Tarlna the Ageless, which will alternate every week. Both world bosses drop similar ilvl 650 loot. Normal and heroic are both flexible between 10-30 players and don't share lockouts. You'll find the entrance to Highmaul in western Nagrand (remember, there's no queuing like there used to be for SoO flexible raids). Don't forget your bonus rolls! Head over to Fate-Twister Tiklal (Warspear) or Fate-Twister Seress (Stormshield) to purchase your first set of 3 Seals of Tempered Fate. They can be purchased with gold, Apexis Crystals, Garrison Resources, or Honor Points. You can mix and match or buy all 3 with one type of currency, but the more you buy with the same type of currency the more expensive it gets. You can also get one of these free from a level 3 Dwarven Bunker/War Mill in your garrison, or from a rare follower mission. You are limited to 3 per week across all sources. Check after the break for the full Highmaul raid unlock schedule. Blackrock Foundry is due to open several weeks later.
Breakfast Topic: Have you camped for Poundfist yet?
As a fan of large and obnoxious mounts, I simply couldn't say no to this guy. The Sunhide Gronnling drops off a rare mob called Poundfist in Gorgrond. This isn't your ordinary rare. This one actually lives up to its name. Poundfist has a 48-96 hour respawn timer, and on top of that this timer is reset back to zero whenever the server is reset (including maintenance). This kept Poundfist from spawning at all until the 10th day of Warlords of Draenor. All of the unscheduled maintenance and rolling restarts kept him from ever appearing. When he did start spawning about a week ago, people gathered by the hundreds at his spawn points. The one upside to Poundfist is that everyone who tags him will get the mount, regardless of group or faction. Unfortunately, he has 5 different spawn points. They are spread out enough that it's possible you'll miss him if he spawns at another one. He's only level 95 and his health doesn't scale up nearly enough to handle all of the people attacking him. On top of that, the phasing that was introduced to help server loads means that you could be in a different phase than the one he spawns in. Most frightening of all, these separate phases of Gorgond share the general chat channel. Getting this mount is half dedication and half luck.
Molten Core LFR may test your patience, but look at this mount
WoW's 10th anniversary celebration started today, and with it came what is now my favorite mount in the game. This Core Hound one of those mounts you have to see to believe. There's something incredibly cool about stomping around on one of these bad boys, especially with my matching hunter pet and battle pet in tow. I also snagged a ilvl 640 epic helm out of it. Everyone who kills Ragnaros will be guaranteed the helm and the mount. The rest of the bosses simply drop gold for everyone (around 25g each) which should hopefully pay for the repair bill you will rack up doing this right now. In order to queue for Molten Core LFR you must have an item level of at least 615. If you're not level 100 yet, don't fret. This event is ongoing until January 5, 2015 and I suspect many will continue to farm it for chances at Hatespark the Tiny and Flames of Ragnaros, both of which are not guaranteed drops. I'll admit that when I first went in, I expected this to be a complete pushover. However, I forgot how hard it is to organize a group of 40 people. Almost everyone inside is just barely making the ilvl 615 requirement to boot. People are used to soloing this for transmog gear and it can result in many wipes. It took my group nearly 2 hours to clear the whole raid. My first group didn't even make it past the first boss.
Random dungeons back to personal loot, guaranteed drops
Blizzard has decided to bring back personal loot to random dungeon groups, after a very short hiatus where they set the default to need before greed. The community was pretty outspoken about this change. They liked the drama-free nature of personal loot, but many agreed that it felt bad on the rare occasion when no one received loot for the entire dungeon. To fix this, Blizzard is changing it so that everyone gets a guaranteed drop off the last boss of a dungeon. Those who create full pre-made groups may set the loot to need before greed if desired, and doing so will guarantee that the last boss of each dungeon drops 3 items instead of 2. Check out the full blue post after the break.
Garrison Campaign quests unlocked
Blizzard has recently unlocked Garrison Campaign quests, so if you're level 100 you should be on the lookout for a new quest somewhere in your garrison. What are Garrison Campaigns? They're weekly quest chains that give you some cool rewards. There will also be a bonus objective you can complete while you're doing the quest for 800 Apexis Crystals (in addition to 800 from the regular daily). What quest you get appears to be entirely random. For example, this week I had Garrison Campaign: The Ring of Blood and my warrior friend, Mr. Rossi had Garrison Campaign: Seismic Matters. My reward for completing the Ring of Blood campaign quest was a new title, "Blood Champion." The final reward from the latter quest is a mole machine outside your garrison that will transport you instantly to your outpost in Gorgrond. Other quest rewards include things like Pile of Blackfuse Shredder Scrap or Sargerei Disguise. There's also an achievement tied into completing all of them, which looks like it will take 3 months assuming you complete one of them every week.