patch-24
Latest
Known bugs in patch 2.4.1, 2.4.2 on the way
Patch 2.4.1 was rushed out the week after 2.4 hit, to fix some game-breaking errors, and we already know 2.4.2 is in the works; the hard-working Mac CM Tigerclaw, for instance, has mentioned that certain bugs are fixed in 2.4.2. It's a good thing they have another patch on the way, because 2.4.1 has its share of bugs. Hortus has posted a list of about 150 known bugs in the bug reports forum. Here are a few of my favorites: "The /clap emote is not emitting sound if performed more than once." This is a feature, not a bug. "Cloak of Shadows do not remove the curse Shrink." Ha! Where's your CloS now? You're little! "Whirlwind has a new sound." This is a bug? Is it a bad new sound? "The death emote voice-over for Kael'thas Sunstrider in the Magister's Terrace continues after he has already died." You just can't kill this one. Kill him in the Eye, and he comes back in MrT. Kill him in MrT, and he still keeps talking! Maybe we have to burn him. "Abilities/trinkets that trigger after killing an opponent that gives experience or honor are being activated after killing mobs during bombing quests" True. I've gotten a heck of a lot of mana from my Power Infused Mushroom, not that it makes much of a difference. "Using a Papa Hummel's Old-Fashioned Pet Biscuit does not initiate a global item cooldown." Biscuit spam! For more exciting errors, visit Hortus's post.
Proudmoore gets badge vendor to 100%, chaos ensues
Chaos! That was the scene on Proudmoore as they became the first server to unlock Sunwell Isle's badge vendor. Smith Hauthaa, completely. As you might expect, every Thrall, Jaina and Larry who'd been saving up Heroic Badges descended on the vendor to cash out, and from what we're told by reader Sync, it was madness.Madness? This is the Sunwell! Surely this is just temporary -- as people get those badges turned in, Hauthaa's popularity will drop back down to much more managable levels. But as you can see from the gallery below, everyone and their alt showed up to buy from the vendor, and there was lots of world PvP, low framerates, and even a server shutdown (we hear) to show for it. Whenever your server opens up, whether you're looking for Warlock, Hunter, Druid, or any other Badge Loot gear, you may just want to wait an hour or two until people settle down and realize that they'll have a long time to buy new Professor Plums with badges.%Gallery-19980%
Shattered Sun Offensive exalted reputation pendants make some regret their faction choice
While Blizzard has made some steps to homogenize the playstyle of the Horde and Alliance a bit with the whole Paladin/Shaman swap, they've also done a bit of experimenting in the Burning Crusade with allowing people to make choices about certain paths, namely the Aldor and Scryer factions. While patch 2.4 has bought as an "end" to the Aldor/Scryer rivalry lore-wise, the mechanics remain the same: You cannot enter the other side's tier without being attacked, you can't use the other side's bank, and the item and shoulder enchant vendors will still only sell to those with proper faction. In addition, there's a new twist to the sides from this patch: At exalted reputation with the Shattered Sun Offensive, you can purchase 4 different neckpieces that have seperate bonus that depending on whether you're Scryer or Aldor.
Sunwell griefing runs rampant
Patch 2.4, much like most other things in WoW, has managed to bring the worst out of some people. The mask of anonymity strikes again!No, I don't mean the node-stealing, ninja-tapping, mob-training stupidery(which is a word as of right now) you see all over the Isle of Quel'Danas. I refer to the standing-on-NPCs-while-PvP-flagged griefing. If you're lucky and haven't seen this happen on your server, what most servers are seeing is a bunch of Blood Elf and Draenei players standing directly on top of Shattered Sun Offensive NPCs, so players accidentally, unknowingly, right click on them instead of the quest NPC. This results in inadvertently hitting the player, and then getting destroyed by the SSO guards.
Report Card: Phase 3 quests
Phase 3 is now in full swing on many servers, including mine, and this time, we're working on taking the Sun's Reach Harbor as well as opening up the long awaited badge loot vendor. How do the quests stack up this time around? Does the near flawless run for great dailies from Quel'danas continue? I've had a few days to try out the runs, and I have to say that there's a few rough spots, but you can continue to grow your list of dailies with confidence as the new phases come on.
The trinkets of Magisters' Terrace
The release of patch 2.4 was epic by anyone's standards. New content accessible to every level 70, new items, new high end raids, and a new instance. Magisters' Terrace is the newest addition to the WoW 5 man instance family, and has a lot of great goodies in it for the intrepid traveler.Heroic mode Magisters' Terrace can be a thing of beauty or a real pain. I find that while it's challenging and requires a lot of good social communication amongst participants, it can be a bit ridiculous at times. Especially the 9 mob pull right before you face Kael'Thas.However with that said, one of the best rewards in any five man instance comes out of heroic Magisters' Terrace's Priestess Delrissa: the trinkets. The tanking trinket in particular makes me cry it's so great. Five hundred seventy more HP and an amazing live saving dodge increase. The DPS trinkets, casting trinkets, and healing trinkets are equally great. Let's take a closer look at them.
Arcane Brilliance: Cast fast and hit hard
Every week, Arcane Brilliance strives to make us all a bit Mage-ier. This week, we shine our spotlight on two stats every Mage should have, but far too few of us know enough about: Spell hit rating and spell haste rating. Last week we saw that patch 2.4 has made these two ratings a bit easier to obtain on gear, and this week we'll find out why that should make the Mage nation a happy place.When I wrote up the list of shiny new Mage gear the patch delivered to us last week, I couldn't help but notice a strange preponderance of two stats I was relatively unfamiliar with. Currently, I have a whopping 53 spell hit rating on my Mage, from the Scryer's Bloodgem and the Gladiator's War Staff. None of my current gear gives a single point of spell haste rating. When I saw those stats reflected on so much of the new 2.4 gear, I became very curious. Why is Blizzard pushing these two ratings? Where's my spell crit and spell damage?I broke out my most scholarly looking pair of glasses, perched them upon the end of my nose so that I could squint down through them at my computer screen, and did some research. I may have scribbled some complex formulae upon a chalkboard, and it's entirely possible that I muttered the occasional "astonishing!" or "brilliant!" under my breath in a faux English accent as I conducted this study.What did I learn? Well, two things really: first, both of these ratings are important to Mages, and in PvE you can make the argument that spell hit is the single most important end-game stat for a Mage to have. And secondly, I fricking hate researching things. I mean seriously, my mind pretty much shuts off when I see a decimal point. After the break, I'll try to save you the trouble of doing what I did this week, and break down what these two ratings mean in layman's terms. Don't worry, math nerds, I'll link you to the crazy numbers articles too, so you can go make out with your calculators or whatever.
Wishing for weather in Outland
Prancing around Quel'Danas for my daily quests day in and day out has reminded me of something I've very dearly missed. Weather! It rains very frequently in Quel'Danas, and combined with all of the action going on around the island, it has a very strong feel of being alive.Zangarmarsh has rain as well, but I can't think of any other zone in Outland that has weather effects that come and go. Sure, some zones have Infernal rains and such inside and outside of them, but that isn't really the same. It's a constant, it's static. When you go to that zone, it will be there 100% of the time. Azeroth's weather wasn't like that. After it was added, of course. It might be raining in Stranglethorn, it might be sunshine from horizon to horizon. When it was raining, the zone had an entirely different feel. You were doing the same things, but it just felt different.I brought this up with some friends of mine a few times before, and we tried to think it through with logic at first. You know, the atmosphere is different, so maybe other zones in Outland can't rain. It's an alien world, so who knows? Even if you play the 'alien world = no rain' card, I think there are some awesome weather-related things you can do. Read on for my thoughts on the matter!
