agility
Latest
Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot is now a gymnast
The latest footage from Boston Dynamics is, unsurprisingly, both impressive and terrifying. Over the past few years we've seen Atlas navigate uneven terrain and even jump around a parkour course. This is on another level, though. The bipedal robot does a handstand, rolls around and even does a few jumping twists -- all without losing its balance.
Warlords of Draenor: Attack and Spell power changes
One of the changes the Warlords of Draenor alpha patch notes mentions is a pretty large change to how our primary stats work and interact with critical strike and attack or spell power (depending on which you care about). It can be broken down as follows - first, agility and intellect no longer increase physical and spell critical strike chances respectively. In addition, there no longer is any such thing as spell critical strike chance, ranged chance, or melee chance, merely critical strike chance that applies to all three. Since this is no longer affected by primary stats, it's set at a base 5% chance before gear. (Among other things this removes the last tiny vestiges of any use for agility for strength classes.) Next, agility based class gain a new passive ability called Critical Strikes which increases base critical strike chance by 10%, likely to compensate for all the crit they lose from agility. Those of us who never got crit from our primary stat (strength DPS) are left wondering where our free 10% crit is. Next, how primary stats react with attack or spell power has also been changed. Attack power from Agility or Strength has been halved - each point of Agi or Str only gives 1 AP, down from the 2 it gains currently. In addition, weapon damage has been reduced by 20% across the board. This is because Attack Power now contributes more significantly to weapon damage - 1 DPS per 3.5 AP, which is a pretty significant increase from the current 1 DPS per 14 AP. Finally, weapon damage and attack and/or spell power now contributes to the entire throughput of player spells - if you're a healer, your weapon damage and spell power will much more directly contribute to the strength of your heals, and casters will see a similar benefit from their weapons. Weapons have just become far more important for many players, if not all. To read this section of the patch notes in their entirety, just click on through to the other side.
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.
Lichborne: What to do with your new level 85 death knight in patch 4.2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. So you've dinged level 85 on your death knight. Now what? Patch 4.2 bought a lot of new things for level 85s of almost any PVE playstyle to do, so you have options to choose from. This week, we'll take a look at some of the best things you can do to get yourself geared up and ready to hit the next level of PVE play once you hit level 85.
Lichborne: More blood tanking questions answered
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. With the new patch 4.1 Call to Arms feature likely to be stuck near permanently on tanking, death knights are going to find themselves with a pretty nice little incentive to stay in their blood spec a bit more often. With that in mind, it's pretty lucky that we just finished going over the basics of blood tanking and gear tweaks for blood tanks. Considering that's still the hot topic, though, and that we're likely to see a surge in death knight tanks looking for that Call to Arms bonus in patch 4.1, I want to take one more week to keep on this whole tank thing and answer some of the questions I've seen floating around, both here and elsewhere.
Agility Saietta electric sports bike eyes-on
We came, we saw, we took pictures. A London-based startup by the name of Agility today unveiled its first and only product, the Saietta electric sports bike, and we just had to pop out to the MCN Motorcycle Show in its hometown to peep it for ourselves. Well, what is there to say that the pictures don't already? We should probably start off with that massive hump you see up front. At first glance it makes the bike look extremely front-heavy, but it is in actual fact mostly a shell -- made of a lightweight composite material whose ingredients we were not allowed to know -- which channels air into the areas that need cooling and, more importantly, optimizes the hell out of this two-wheeler's aerodynamics. There's an exposed double wishbone suspension system, just some of the eye candy on this extremely reflective racer, and the weight balance is, contrary to our first impression, almost perfectly even. This is due to the battery packs being stashed in the center, just in front of a brushed DC motor with 90+ percent efficiency (Agility tells us the whole roaring machine has an 83 percent throughput efficiency). %Gallery-115665% There will be a choice of body panels, we saw a highly reflective chrome one, but a tamer red version is also available. Speaking of colors, the tiny speedometer lights up in a snazzy blue for night riding. We were looking at only the company's third production prototype, but pre-orders are already being taken -- at prices of just under £10,000 for the S model with a 50-mile range and just under £14,000 for the R variant that has a twin battery pack and, correspondingly, can stretch out to 100 miles -- for an April delivery. US pricing is said to feature a "slight" premium, but Agility hopes it may be able to build some of these Saietta bikes over on the West Coast, potentially cutting into the expense of selling them in North America. The only thing our pictures don't reveal is how a bike with instant torque and a four-second 0-60 acceleration (on the lighter S model, the R does it in five) feels like, but if we're really good over the next few weeks, we might just get a chance to ride one and find out for ourselves.
Agility Saietta unveiled, the decidedly unconventional electric sports bike
A new player has entered the electric motorcycle game, joining the likes of Brammo's Empulse but doing it with rather more... unconventional styling. It's the Agility Global Saietta, an all-electric sports bike that will come in two flavors: the 50 mile range Saietta S and the 100 mile Saietta R. The former of the two will be quicker than the first, getting to 60 in under four seconds, whereas R riders will have to wait another tick of the stopwatch due to extra battery weight. Naturally that extra range and speed will cost you: £9,975 for the S and £13,975 for the R, figures that equate to roughly $16,200 and $22,650. Hefty sums, both, but nobody said being on the cutting edge of the humpbacked sport bike trend was going to be cheap. We weren't given any specific horsepower or weight figures, but we're told the power to weight ratio is 675hp per ton. You can make your own guesses about weight to try and get a firm power figure, but it certainly should be peppy enough. At this point we don't know much about the bikes themselves beyond what you can see in the photos, which show a trellis frame cradling a sizeable battery pack. The swingarm is a combination of machined parts and pipes, rear suspension elevated to make room for the electric motor sitting just above the pivot point. Front suspension also shows an unconventional design, offset steering linkage and a single damper eschewing the traditional fork design found on your average (non-BMW) motorcycle. These images are, of course, just renders, but the bike has just made its word debut at the MCN London Motorcycle Show and we'll be bringing you some actual pictures as soon as we get them. As to when those who order the bikes will get theirs, we're told shipments begin in April. Update: We have some pictures from the Saietta launch at MCN. Real, honest to gosh photos, these. Update 2: We're told it's actually the lighter S that's quicker to 60, not the R, despite what the PR says below. %Gallery-115545% %Gallery-115642%
Gold Capped: The effect of mega-blogs on your business
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house, and Insider Trader, which is all about professions. For Gold Capped's inside line on making money in game, check in here every Thursday, and email Basil (new address is basil@wowinsider.com; old one no longer works) with your comments, questions or hate mail! I've been called a lot of things by a lot of people. The reality is that every time I write about a specific business or tip for making gold, hundreds of people will end up trying it out, and if I write something about one of your favorite (or most profitable) businesses, you may find some of these people competing with you. The number of people participating in any specific market is going to fluctuate over time naturally, but as I've said before, the people who have the most success are the ones who hang in for the long run. That said, these people tend to have a strange relationship with each other. They're competitors and will undercut vigorously, but they tend to spend less effort on their tenacious competition than one would expect.
OCZ's Agility 2 SSD reviewed: despite limits, SandForce SF-1200 drive performs well
Contrary to popular belief, one solid state drive isn't the same as another solid state drive necessarily. OCZ's new Agility 2 is proof of that, boasting the final (v3.0.5) version of SandForce's SF-1200 firmware. The issue here is that Corsair's recently released Force series of SSDs are shipping (and continue to ship) with v3.0.1 installed, which -- according to SandForce -- will never be viewed as the final version ready for mass consumption. As the story goes, v3.0.1 may experience a reliability issue with a power management state, but v3.0.5 caps small file random write performance as to better separate the SF-1200 drives from the pricier SF-1500 drives. Our compadres over at AnandTech were able to put the (factory limited) Agility 2 SSD through its paces, and for the most part, it came out looking pretty decent. Critics found 5- to 10-percent performance gains when compared to Intel / Indilinx offerings, but unless you have to have the absolute best, paying extra for that bump may not be the most intelligent move. The other point here is that while the Agility 2 may be capped with the v3.0.5 firmware, at least its upgrade path is a lot clearer than the aforementioned Force; if you ever take v3.0.1 away from that unit, you can kiss that extra performance goodbye. Hit the source link for the full, drama-filled look.
OCZ bids for solid state throne with new Vertex 2 and Agility 2 SSDs
For the past nine months, Intel's X25-M G2 has been the solid state drive to beat, and manufacture as it might, rival OCZ hasn't been able to mass produce a SSD capable of matching its fantastic all-around performance. The original Vertex 2 Pro might have done the trick, but the company scrapped it after the speedy SandForce SF-1500 controller was found wanting, and only 5,000 of the 270MB / sec, 15,000 IOPS drives were ever produced. But now, OCZ's back with SandForce's cheaper SF-1200 chip, and surprise of surprises, the drives it power are even faster -- at least on paper -- than before. The new Vertex 2 and Agility 2 SSDs boast maximum sequential read speeds of 285MB / sec and 275MB / sec writes, and can perform those all-important 4K random writes at up to 50,000 IOPS on a Vertex, or a very respectable 10,000 IOPS for the budget Agility line. The company expects both drives to ship in the next few weeks in usable capacities of 50GB, 100GB and 200GB (provisioning an extra 14GB of overhead for each 50GB of storage) with 400GB SSDs planned further down the road. Now then, OCZ, how about that price tag? Update: Though we believe Intel's X25-M G2 is still considered the front-runner in the consumer space, it is worth noting that OCZ's new SSDs still have catching up to do in order to match the superb numbers generated by the more expensive enthusiast drive, the Crucial RealSSD C300. We'll have to see which incumbent OCZ is actually competing with (if not both) when it announces price points. [Thanks, SSD!]
Phat Loot Phriday: Zod's Repeating Longbow
Reader Matthias C. wrote in with a special request to see this item here, so here you go. Name: Zod's Repeating Longbow (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory) Type: Epic Bow Damage/Speed: 541-887 / 2.80 (255 DPS) Attributes: +34 Agility, +51 Stamina On equip: Your ranged attacks have a 4% chance to cause you to instantly attack with this weapon for 50% weapon damage. This one's interesting -- the tooltip actually says the chance to hit. It's not the first time that's happened, but plenty of tooltips will say "a chance of" proccing rather than mentioning the actual percentage. %Gallery-33600%
Scattered Shots: Picking the right hunter loot, part 1
Welcome back to the Scattered Shots, the weekly hunter class column. This week we begin our series "Picking the right hunter loot." Where we will review what truly makes something qualify as hunter loot, and not just loot hunters can use. We'll also review the drops off of each major raids starting with Naxxrammas and ending with the PTR Patch 3.3 raid, Ice Crown. So join me, Eddie Carrington, aka Brigwyn from The Hunting Lodge, as we explore what loot we should put on our watch lists. Things on the patch 3.3 PTR are getting closer and closer to wrapping up, so I thought it might be a good idea to review hunter stats and how they help you select the right gear for you. In the past we have talked about how to use iLevel to do a gear check. Also, we've talked about how to use the different hunter tools and resources out there to select an upgrade for your hunter. What we really haven't talked about was what makes up good hunter gear, and in each of the different raids in Wrath of The Lich King makes up some good hunter gear. And a recent comment on the Damage Dealing forum from Ghostcrawler got me thinking that it might be a good idea to make sure to first review how stats impact our gear choices, and how they impact both our and our pet's raid performance. Just like the hunter leveling guide, I'd like to set a few discussion guidelines.
The Daily Quest: Yummy
We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. I find it comical that November is known to someone as Peanut Butter Lovers Month. Why? Because peanut butter is obsolete when you have baconnaise at your beck and call. Here's some good things from around the web to read as you enjoy your bacon flavored awesomesauce. OutDPS looks at quick and dirty "rules" for Armor Pen v.s. Agility. Restokin has a great explanation of the patch 3.3 druid changes. Gray Matter has a look at pushback resistance. 4 Healz thinks you need to give Lifebloom some love. Click here to submit a link to TDQ
WoW Rookie: Primary stats for beginners
New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic, and be sure to visit WoW.com's WoW Rookie Guide for links to all our tips, tricks and how-to's. Theorycrafters and experienced players, go away – no really, /shoo! Today's WoW Rookie is for brand new players or players who are embarking on a new alt with absolutely no idea which end is up. The topic: what stats should you look for on gear as you level up? With XP and levels moving so quickly these days, it's not a topic that bears deep reflection or rooting through gear lists online in search of exceptional pieces. Any time you devote to researching and going after specific gear will be rendered moot by equal time spent questing – ding, better gear at your disposal! Still, concentrating on the right set of primary stats gives you a solid foundation for steady, predictable game play and supports experimentation with different spells, specs and tactics. The early levels (and by that, we mean "vanilla" WoW up through level 60) are all about basic stats (also known as "attributes"): agility, intelligence, spirit, stamina and strength. As you level, you may run across the occasional piece of gear that boasts a fancy attribute like spellpower or attack power. Consider it extra flavoring; you'll meet veteran players who swear by the stuff, but it's not mandatory. Equip the piece if the basic stats are also solid, and carry on. Most early pieces that boast more interesting stats were added later in the game's evolution. The basics remain the fuel for your pre-60 leveling fire.
Phat Loot Phriday: Edge of Agony
I finally got my Green Proto-drake today, so I was tempted to do that, but instead today we'll go with the old PLP standby of big scary swords. Alliance, before you go running after this one, make sure to see the note below.Name: Edge of Agony (Wowhead, Thottbot, MMO Champion)Type: Epic Two-Hand SwordDamage/Speed: 651 - 977 / 3.50 (232.6 DPS)Attributes: +112 Agility, +92 Stamina Improves haste by 62, attack power by 183, and armor penetration by 86. Note that these are the stats for the 10-man normal item (Trial of the Crusader drops are pretty confusing actually). The 10-man Heroic version has a better version of this, but with the same name and graphic. %Gallery-33600%
Phat Loot Phriday: Fang of Oblivion
We haven't done a dagger in a while, if my memory serves. Plus, this one is made of stars.Name: Fang of Oblivion (Wowhead, Thottbot, WoWDB)Type: Epic Unique One-hand DaggerDamage/Speed: 271-407 / 1.80 (188.3 DPS)Attributes: +47 Agility, +54 Stamina, and a Yellow Socket, which will probably let you add to crit, hit or haste, depending on what you need more of, with a +4 Agility socket bonus. +1869 Feral attack power, so you can do more damage in your new kitty form. %Gallery-33600%
OCZ intros 2.5-inch Agility SSD line: 120GB for $349.99
OCZ Technology seems to always be toiling away on new solid state drives, but it's rare to find any from the company that are priced for the average Joe / Jane. Rather than aiming specifically for the fat-walleted enthusiast crowd, the Agility series is hoping to make a decent sized splash in the mainstream market. These 2.5-inch SATA II SSDs promise 230MB/sec read and 135MB/sec write speeds, along with 64MB of cache and a two-year warranty. We pinged OCZ for details surrounding pricing and availability, so here's the dirt: the trio of models will be available in a fortnight or so for $129.99 (30GB), $219.99 (60GB) and $349.99 (120GB).
Solving the mathmatical tangles of ArPen
Armor penetration is probably one of the most misunderstood stats in the game, for a number of reasons. First of all, it's only become popular lately -- while it's been in the game since 1.10, it's only started showing up regularly on items in Wrath. And even then it's really only a meta-meta stat: the core abilities like Strength and Agility are easy to understand, the next level of abilities are things like hit rating and crit rating, and then armor penetration, you could argue, goes another level after that: it's a stat that affects a stat affected by a stat. It's for that reason, then, that Xanthan argues we need a more elegant solution.Armor penetration basically allows you to hit an opponent as if they're wearing less armor than they really are. That's not to hard to understand -- if you have a certain amount of armor penetration, then the opponent armor number in the equation that determines damage done is lower (edit: by a percentage, not a number) than it would usually be. But the confusion comes in when you see how armor penetration scales. It actually scales exponentially, not linearly -- if you have no ArP and you increase it by a little bit, you only get a little extra damage increase. But if you have a lot, and you add a little more onto that, then you'll get a bigger damage increase, due to the way the math works (I'm bad at math, but Xanthan has an excellent, clear description of the calculations in the forum thread, and we've posted some explanations before as well). Blizzard recently capped ArP at 100% (so you could never get into a place where you're reducing armor below the amount of armor that's there), but it's still possible to have the amount of armor reduced equal the amount of armor on a target, causing the equation of armor vs. armor penetration to divide by 0, and at that point, things get wacky, and terms like "infinite damage" come into play.
Shifting Perspectives: Tanks, "Wrath," and crushing blows
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting Druids and those who group with them. This week, we examine the roots of the uproar over the proposed Heart of the Wild nerf, and also ask ourselves if it wouldn't just be easier to reroll a Death Knight and have done with it."Why would you title the column this way?" you ask, as you reach for your "Please fire _______ from WoW Insider" form letter. "Crushing blows are out of the game, dipwad." Well, yes. The crushing blow is technically out of the game, but another and worse mechanic has taken its place. In this article I'm going to try to explain the source of "shield tank" frustration over health pools -- and why they are correct to see it as a problem -- and the Druid tank's unhappiness over the nerfing of Heart of the Wild -- and why Druids are also correct to see it as a problem.Why the crushing blow was importantOne of the biggest differences between pre-Wrath and Wrath tanking is the absence of the crushing blow. If you're unfamiliar with the term, then as a very simple explanation: any given raid boss had a 15% chance per melee hit to perform a 150% damage attack, which was also known as the crushing blow. It was typically a big damage spike and could lead to a wipe on progression content, with healers struggling to compensate in the small window of time before the boss' next attack landed. Burst damage is very unwelcome as it's often the greatest contributing factor to tank death. This is why reaching crit immunity is still so important to all tanks, and why the ability to avoid or absorb crushing blows was a fundamental part of pre-Wrath tanking mechanics.
Phat Loot Phriday: Staff of Trickery
Yes, I'm pretty sure this is the second Feral Druid piece we've done in a row (even though last week was technically a combination of PvP gear). We'll do a Warlock piece next week -- or if there's something you're specifically wondering about, speak up in the comments. But look at that staff -- how could we pass this up?Name: Staff of Trickery (Wowhead, Thottbot, Wowdigger)Type: Epic StaffDamage/Speed: 358-537 / 2.40 (186.5 DPS)Abilities: +89 Agility, +133 Stamina Adds 1843 Feral Attack Power Increases attack power by 180
