Adam Koebel
Articles by Adam Koebel
Breakfast Topic: Punching the Time-Lost Proto-Drake
In nearly 10 years of playing WoW, this was probably the most bizarre thing I've ever come across. I was on the beta leveling realm and I had just used my wormhole generator to get to Northrend so I could check out something in Dalaran (for a WoW Insider post actually). As I was flying there, I spotted something in the corner of my eye I had never seen before. The Time-Lost Proto-Drake. Alive. Its health was going down really slowly. I flew down to investigate and came upon this extraordinary scene. A completely naked, level 91 troll warlock punching the Time-Lost Proto-Drake to death. Being Alliance, I couldn't ask this person what the heck they were doing, so I just watched it play out. I felt like it would be wrong to one-shot the drake and stop his strange ritual. This troll really seemed to be enjoying himself. I like to think he was doing it for payback over all the hours he camped it on live servers, but who knows for sure. I just know I'll probably never see anything like it again. After the deed was done (several minutes of punching later), he mounted up on his prize and waved at me. And that was that. What's the most bizarre thing you've ever happened upon while playing WoW?
How do you prepare for a new expansion?
My Warlords preparations started a couple of weeks before patch 6.0.2 with finishing the level 90 Brawler's Guild achievements. Then I began tidying up some other achievements that have been nagging at me for a while, such as World Explorer (yes, I didn't bother fully exploring the blood elf starting area for the past 7 years) and Mount Parade. When patch 6.0.2 hit I went into toy collecting overdrive. I'm trying to collect as many of the pre-Warlords toys as I can so I don't have to go back for them while working towards The Toymaster. I'm up to 88 so far, with number 88 being one suggested on WoW Insider the other day My typical ritual in the days leading up to an expansion involves making my bags and bank as clean as possible. However, this time around the toy box and extra void storage took care of that for me. Then there's gold making, my weakness. I try to make as much of it as possible to help me get a head start, but that's easier said than done. Especially when you decide to drop 15k on something so it will increase your toy count by 1. With Warlords, I've even been swapping out some professions in preparation -- also not cheap! It seems I'm failing miserably on the gold making part of my plan. It's a good thing garrisons look like they'll be able to make me fairly self-sufficient, especially if I can get an alt or two into a fully leveled garrison quickly. How do you prepare for a new expansion?
Patch 6.0.2 hotfixes for October 20
Round four of patch 6.0.2 hotfixes came in last night with a heap of new fixes for the stat squish and old bosses. These plus all of the previous hotfixes which required realm restarts should be active after today's maintenance. The extremely cool Exquisite Costume Set: "The Lich King" is now actually obtainable (prepare to do a lot of trick or treating). Here are some of the highlights: Exquisite Costume Set: "The Lich King" no longer has a Hallow's End requirement and costs 500 Tricky Treats to obtain (down from 1000). The tooltip on the vendor still displays only 1 charge, but it will correctly have 50 charges once you buy it. Each charge lasts 20 minutes. Azuremyst Isle has been temporarily removed from cross-realm zoning. Legendary Cloak Quest Line: The Thunder Forge. Sha Beast's Dark Bite ability should no longer deal an excessive amount of damage. Many old world stat squish fixes for bosses, e.g. The Lich King's Ice Pulse ability should no longer deal an excessive amount of damage. Ai-Li's Skymirror can no longer be used on players that with the Tree Disguise Kit transformation. Characters that have obtained the Gladiator: Season 15 achievement should now receive a Prideful Gladiator's Cloud Serpent in the mail. The full list of hotfixes is after the break.
Breakfast Topic: Abilities missed and unmissed
Well, you've had almost a week to play around with the new version of your favorite class. Now that it's had a bit of time to settle in, have you come to terms with your less crowded action bars? As a hunter, the ability I miss most is probably Scatter Shot. It was one of the most iconic hunter abilities and it just feels weird not to have it anymore. I've had several instances lately where I wanted to press it only to be reminded again that it's gone. Second place would be Kill Shot for the survival specialization. I realize all specs had to be trimmed down somewhat, but I personally think they took it one step too far with with survival hunters. The ability I miss least is probably Serpent Sting. In most cases I would cast it at the beginning of a fight and never bother with it again, which I think made it a prime candidate for pruning. The ability still exists in passive form for survival hunters, but I'm glad it's gone in its old form. Second to that would be Aspect of the Hawk. Remembering to have an arbitrary button toggled on for 20% more damage wasn't exactly compelling gameplay. What about your class? What do you miss? What don't you miss?
Class guides updated for Warlords of Draenor and patch 6.0.2
Wondering what's up with your class in Warlords of Draenor and patch 6.0.2? Class guides on both Wowhead and Icy Veins have been updated with all of the class changes you'll find on live servers right now. First up, Icy Veins has updated their popular class guides, including 6.0 transition guides. These are currently aimed at level 90 players, but you should look for them to be updated with level 100 talents and gear in the near future. Next, Wowhead has updated their class guides for Warlords of Draenor at level 100. These guides are aimed at beginners or recently returned players, so if you've just leveled or boosted a new character you should definitely check them out. Each guide also has a section dealing specifically with patch 6.0.2 and any gearing changes you may want to consider at level 90. You might recognize some of the Wowhead guide authors as former WoW Insider class columnists, including yours truly (hunter guide). You can find all of the updated guides right here.
Patch 6.0.2 hotfixes for October 15
The second round of hotfixes for patch 6.0.2 are in, but some of these will require realm restarts to take effect. Some of the highlights include: Resolved an issue where some Iron Horde Incursion quests were awarding items that had a level 100 requirement to equip or not awarding an item correctly. To better account for the changes to player health and ability scaling, we've reduced the health and damage of nearly all non-player creatures and NPCs on a level-by-level basis (larger reductions for lower-level creatures, in general). The damage dealt by several of Ordos's abilities has been reduced. Heart of the Thunder King: Resolved an issue where players were not receiving Lei Shen's heart if they've already defeated them earlier in the week. Garrosh Hellscream now has 15% less health on Mythic difficulty. Resolved an issue where characters that have completed the achievement: Proving Yourself: Endless Damage (Wave 30) (Level 90) were not retaining their titles. Resolved an issue where Battleground queues were not working correctly. The full list of hotfixes is after the break.
Patch 6.0.2: Blasted Lands quests now rewarding gear
If you completed the Iron Horde Incursion quests in Blasted Lands shortly after the patch went live on US servers, the only rewards you received were the Iron Starlette pet and the "of the Iron Vanguard" title. Now it appears these quests are rewarding some gear as well. More specifically, an item level 515 ring, amulet, and cloak plus a item level 520 trinket. As of now, this is not listed in the official hotfixes but I would suspect these were last minute additions since they were never present on the PTR. Level 90 boosted characters start right in the Blasted Lands in patch 6.0.2 and must complete these quests to unlock all of their abilities, so this gear likely aimed at them. The revamped Upper Blackrock Spire dungeon has an item level requirement of 510 and this will help those new characters reach the requirement. As for those of you who need this gear but already completed the quests, there's no word yet if it's going to be possible to reward it retroactively. Update: Blizzard is aware of the problem and working on a fix for those of you who did the quests early and didn't receive any gear rewards, but there is no ETA at this time. Any fix they implement will be global, so there's no need to submit a support ticket.
'Twas the night before patch 6.0.2
I'm excited. Patch 6.0.2 is going live in a matter of hours. My dwarf is going to look handsomer than ever, I'll finally have inventory space, and I'm going to tame the ugly but lovable Chimaeron as my very own pet. If for some reason you were thinking about skipping this patch and waiting until Warlords launch, you should know that the "of the Iron Vanguard" title will be unobtainable after launch. It is rewarded for completing the Blasted Lands series of quests, which should be offered to you when you first log in. In addition, you'll also receive an Iron Starlette battle pet. The official patch notes should be up soon, but in the meantime you can take a look at the latest PTR notes. It's a big patch with lots to download and a lot of data shuffling on your hard drive. Araxom from Blizzard has some tips to make the patching process as smooth as possible. Make sure your launcher is set to automatically download future patch data (you can find this under Settings then Game Install/Update) so that you don't have to wait for the entire download tomorrow. Leave your launcher open overnight or open it before heading to work/school in the morning. The patching process should happen automatically while it's open. Defrag your hard drive. The game is being switched to a new file system called CASC. All you really need to know is that the patch is converting game data to the new system and it can be a time consuming process. A defragged hard drive will finish the conversion faster. Don't bother with this if you have WoW installed on a solid state drive. Blizzard has a patch and installation troubleshooting guide if you run into any problems. And last but not least, don't forget your addons will all be out of date! You may want to get on that and save yourself some time tomorrow.
Reminder: Character names being freed up tomorrow
Tomorrow with the release of patch 6.0.2, Blizzard will be freeing up unused and abandoned character names. Any character that has not be logged in since November 13, 2008 will automatically have their name freed up. If you have any characters you've let idle for that long, today is your last chance to log in with that character before someone else can claim the name. Tomorrow will also be an opportunity to try and claim some new names for yourself. I'm sure there's many desirable names out there just waiting to be claimed. If you can't find the name you want listed on the armory, I'd say it's worth a shot. The announcement from Blizzard can be found here.
Guide to hunter pets in Warlords of Draenor
Warlords of Draenor is introducing five new hunter pet families -- hydras, riverbeasts, stags, clefthooves (exotic), and rylaks (exotic). That brings the grand total to 48 pet families. Many pet abilities have also been changed to fit the buff and debuff changes in Warlords. Exotic pets are more differentiated from standard pets in that they all have a total of three special abilities or buffs instead of just one or two. You'll be able to start taming pets from the new families with patch 6.0.2 (except for riverbeasts and rylaks which only exist in Draenor). Perhaps the most exciting hunter pet addition is the new spirit beast, Gara (pictured above). In order to tame Gara, hunters must embark on an epic quest that takes them all over Draenor to reunite Gara with her former master and ultimately save her from the Void. I've written a detailed guide on how to do it, but you'll want to avoid that post if you want to figure it out for yourself. Let's begin with a breakdown of the new families.
Last minute ideas for your justice points
Justice points are going away forever, perhaps as soon as next Tuesday. You can hold onto them and get the gold conversion if you want. They'll net you 47 silver per point, or 1880 gold for a full cap of 4000. It's a decent chunk of change, but there may be a few things you want to purchase with them while you still can. The most obvious one is heirlooms. PvE heirlooms will be unavailable from the justice point vendors in 6.0, and your only option to get those will be to spend Darkmoon Prize Tickets at the Darkmoon Faire or Champion's Seals at the Argent Tournament. These heirlooms will return in another form sometime in the future, just not for 6.0. The one you may have missed is the Reins of the Wooly Mammoth mount sold in Dalaran. If you're trying to pad your mount collection for the collection achievements and you still don't have this one, it's a good way to spend your points. It costs 2175 justice points, or a little over 1,000 gold after the conversion. Once 6.0 hits, this mount is going to cost 8,000 gold instead of justice points. Now is the time to get it. The last thing is useful if you didn't play much at level cap during Wrath of the Lich King. The commendation badges for the various Wrath reputations are being removed completely. They only cost a mere 16 justice points for 520 reputation points and are also sold in Dalaran. There's badges available for Wyrmrest Accord, Sons of Hodir, Kirin Tor, Argent Crusade, and Knights of the Ebon Blade. It's a quick way to get exalted with these factions. Again, there are some mounts you may be interested in from both Wyrmrest Accord and Sons of Hodir which require revered or exalted reputation. It's certainly quicker than grinding out those reputations the old fashioned way. All other items which currently cost justice points should cost gold in 6.0, so you don't have to worry about missing out on any potential transmog opportunities.
Garrisons 101: What are Work Orders?
Most buildings in your garrison are capable of placing work orders. In simplest terms, a work order is exchanging one type of resource (such as ore or herbs) for a more valuable resource used for crafting (such as Gearspring Parts or Truesteel Ingots). Work order basics Work orders take basic materials such as herbs or ore and convert them into high quality crafting materials. To start a work order, you interact with NPCs at your garrison buildings. Work orders take 4 hours to complete each. You can queue up additional work orders so you don't have to babysit your garrison quite so often. Level 1 buildings can queue up to 7 work orders. Level 2 buildings can queue up to 14 work orders. Level 3 buildings can queue up to 21 work orders. The Storehouse building can increase your total queue of work orders by up to 15 more. With a level 3 Storehouse, you could queue up to 6 days of work orders without having to come back and start more. Completed work orders must be picked up at the building they were placed (it will show up as a lootable crate, as seen in the image above). Assigning a follower to a profession building (the follower must have a trait for that particular profession) has a chance to increase the yield of work orders. This follower is then unavailable for missions for the duration.
BlizzCon 2014 map and schedule revealed
Blizzard just posted the schedule and map for BlizzCon 2014. Of particular note for WoW is the Warcraft Movie panel on Friday afternoon. Could we finally be getting our first glimpse of actual movie footage? I'm not holding my breath. There's also a curiously empty 2-hour period after the opening ceremony. Hmm, I wonder what's going to be happening on the main stage then? Here's all the WoW panels: Warcraft Movie Presentation: Friday at 2:15 - 3:15 PM PT WoW Items, Class Changes, and More: Friday at 4:45 - 5:45 PM PT WoW Live Raid: Saturday at 10 - 11 AM PT Warlords of Draenor Cinematic Panel: Saturday at 2:15 - 3:15 PM PT WoW Q&A: Saturday at 3:30 - 4:30 PM PT You can view the full Friday and Saturday schedules as well as the floor plan on the official BlizzCon site. BlizzCon 2014 is being held on Friday, November 7 and Saturday, November 8. Only one month away!
Guide to new mounts in Warlords of Draenor
As expected with the exclusion of flying in Draenor, the vast majority of new mounts being added in Warlords of Draenor are ground-only mounts. There are over 40 new mounts being added which should help you with tackling the new 250-mount achievement, Mountacular. Rare Spawns There are several rare spawns in Draenor which have a 100% chance to drop a mount. I know what you're thinking, but don't worry! Farming these mounts is much more forgiving than trying to farm something like Time-Lost Proto-Drake or Aeonaxx. .@Dolsonwow @tanjon @Thaedris MUCH nicer this time, 100% drop chance, everyone gets loot, some long and some less long respawn times - Jeremy Feasel (@Muffinus) August 28, 2014 Everyone who participates in the kill receives a mount, even if they aren't partied or on the same faction. I have to say I'm looking forward to camping for some of these with other players. It's always nice to have company, especially when we don't have to fight over the tag. Swift Breezestrider (talbuk) -- Drops from Pathrunner in Shadowmoon Valley Great Greytusk (boar) -- Drops from Gorok the Cleaver in Frostfire Ridge Mottled Meadowstomper (elekk)-- Drops from Luk'hok in Nagrand Bloodhoof Bull (clefthoof) -- Drops from Nakk the Thunderer in Nagrand Sapphire Riverbeast (riverbeast) -- Drops from Silthide in Talador Sunhide Gronnling (gronn) -- Drops from Poundfist in Gorgrond The one exception is the Garn Nightowl which drops from Nok-Karosh in Frostfire Ridge. That mount must be rolled for.
Garrisons 101: What are Strategic Assaults?
Strategic assaults are max level daily quests found within your garrison's Town Hall/Great Hall. You get to choose between one of two options every day -- a solo quest, group quest, or PvP quest. It appears that a solo quest will always be one of the two options. These quests are your primary means of obtaining Apexis Crystals -- 800 for the solo quests and 1000 for the group/PvP quests. Apexis Crystals are primarily used to purchase and upgrade armor but can also be used to purchase pets and mounts from certain reputation vendors. Each zone in Draenor has level 100 areas to facilitate these quests. The quests involve going to the designated area and filling up a progress bar by killing mobs and interacting with objects. They are fairly time consuming, but the advantage is only having to do one large quest instead of many smaller quests. Don't worry, completing a single strategic assault is nowhere near the time commitment of patch 5.0 dailies. This will be a 20-30 minute venture for the average player.
Breakfast Topic: Have you planned out your garrison yet?
I have to admit, I'm having a tough time deciding how I'm going to lay out my first garrison. I was pretty set on having the Inn and Trading Post as my two medium buildings. At first glance, the Barn seemed kind of lackluster to me until I learned that it's the only way to get Savage Blood, which is used to upgrade crafted gear to higher item levels. I want to upgrade my engineering goggles and gun without spending a ton of gold so I decided I'm probably going to use the Barn, at least at the beginning. Now if I'm set on the Barn, what other medium building do I get rid of? I'm a big collector so I really like those daily quests in the Inn (plus the extra followers), but I also like the sound of the Trading Post. Decisions, decisions. I'm the kind of player who likes to go full tilt at the beginning of an expansion. I'll min-max anything I can to get a head start. In my opinion, garrisons can definitely be min-maxed when it comes to things like making gold or getting epic gear as fast as possible. Then there's buildings which are purely for fun or convenience. Any time I come up with a garrison build, I always seem to want a Stables in there. If you want to start planning out your garrison and you don't have the beta to play around with, there's also the Wowhead Garrison Calculator. Will you just pick whatever buildings sound fun, or are you researching your options beforehand?
Want the character creation armor? Build a Salvage Yard
The character creation screen class armor sets were originally added in Mists of Pandaria to preview what a class may look like once it was leveled up. The problem is that they were never actually made available in the game. This is finally changing in Warlords of Draenor. If you build a Salvage Yard in your garrison and upgrade it to level 3, the salvage crates you receive from missions have a chance to contain this armor. The crates can also contain some new weapon transmogs. @Gurzog @mumper It is. :) They've rescued it from less... fortunate adventurers. - Owen Landgren (@olandgren) October 2, 2014 Simply load up WoW and create a new character to preview what the armor looks like, or check out the sets in the Wowhead model viewer. The monk and hunter shoulders are invisible, but it looks like those specific pieces will not be eligible for transmog. You can only loot armor for your own class. The Salvage Yard takes up one of 3 small building plots in your garrison. Salvage crates can also contain upgraded gear for your followers, herbs, ore, and other items.
Have you received a gift in the mail from Blizzard?
There's been scattered reports on places like Reddit and Twitter of players getting random gifts in the mail from "The WoW Dev Team." @Skarn_ on Twitter reported getting a Flawless Aquatic Battle-Stone along with instructions on how to use it. The poster on Reddit received 4 Warforged Seals. I've checked the mail of my max level characters and found no gifts waiting for me. There's been some speculation on what the criteria is for getting a gift. The person who received the Warforged Seals identifies themselves as a PvP player who has only used Warforged Seals a couple of times in the past. One recipient of the Battle-Stone claims they've barely done any pet battles, another says they've been active in the past but not as of late. Perhaps it's something to entice inactive players back into the game? Or try an element of the game they otherwise would have not? Or maybe it's just random. Have you received any unexpected gifts in the mail lately?
How to play a boosted level 90 hunter
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing how to get started with the hunter class. Do you still need convincing on why you should boost a hunter to 90? Go check out my 10 reasons why from last week. So you've got a fresh level 90 hunter in front of you -- what now? What are all these abilities? How do pets work? We've got answers for all that. Without the benefit of having abilities and mechanics slowly introduced while leveling, you might be a little confused when you first log in. Don't fret, you'll be turning monsters into pin cushions and taming an army of pets in no time. You can check out my previous getting started with hunters article for help in choosing a race and specialization for your hunter. Once you're past that step, we can dive into the meaty bits. We'll start with the absolute basics. What to do the moment you log in with a fresh 90 hunter. First, I want you to take a peek in your spellbook. Don't panic, we'll sort out what's important here.
Scattered Shots: 10 reasons to use your level 90 boost on a hunter
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing the reasons why you should be playing a hunter. As you may have heard, Warlords of Draenor will be available for pre-order soon, and with each purchase comes one free level 90 boost. Still wondering which class you should use your boost on? I'm here to make your decision a whole lot easier. Here are 10 reasons why you should use your level 90 boost on a hunter. 1. Feign death Hunters only die if we choose to die. Feign Death makes a hunter's repair bill is a mere fraction of what it would normally be. It's not just about repair bills though, it's about being able to avoid fighting things you don't want to fight. It's about avoiding corpse runs. And you would be surprised how often it fools people in PvP. Other classes are jealous of Feign Death, but they put up with it because we can mass resurrect to save them a corpse run. I put this at number one because it is, without a doubt, my favorite hunter ability. On second thought, it's probably tied with number three on the list. It's really hard to choose.