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Waging WAR: Chaotic zeal, part two
In this week's installment of Waging WAR, Greg returns to the Chaotic Zeal series and peels back another layer or two of the Zealot career in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. He tells us about his experience through tiers 2 and 3 and talks about what makes the zealot stand out in the chaos crowd. If only we could get him to eat his onions with the same fanaticism... At the end of the first issue of the Chaotic Zeal series, I left off by saying that I was happily looking forward to playing through tiers 2 and 3 and the promise the Zealot would bring. I'll kick off this second article in the series by saying that I wasn't disappointed in the least. The Zealot is an absolute pleasure to play as a PvP healer, despite the settings and circumstances I was presented with. The career's growth is robust and meaningful with a variety of attractive tactics and morale abilities, while the playstyle becomes more and more refined over time. I could fill an entire column with anecdotes and memories of my time with the career through the middle tiers, as the Zealot is a career experience that tends to be quite engaging and memorable. Instead, I'll focus on my impressions of leveling through them. Thus, with my Zealot poised on the precipice of tier 4 at level 30, I'll look back and recall the issues I faced getting there. Follow along after the cut as I discuss the middle tiers with the Zealot career.
The state of Engineering in 3.1
In case you missed the memo, the short list of changes to the Engineering profession that have been posted for patch 3.1 are all you are going to get come patch day, like it or not. Bornakk confirmed that Blizzard feels that the "perks work out" compared to what other professions offer, and that they "have no changes planned at this time."The relevant forum thread has grown to over 1300 replies and more than 50,000 views, suggesting that while Blizz might be satisfied, much of the Engineering community is not. In fact, many are threatening to drop the profession and take up Jewelcrafting, which is something I hear about a lot. Of course, if your profession is really, honestly inferior to all others, then why is everyone trading up to the same one? Pass through the break for a list of the upcoming changes, the major gripes, and a comparison of Engineering to other professions in order to put this all into perspective.
A plea against vehicle combat
Earlier today Blizzard posted a preview of Ulduar, the tier 8 raid coming up in patch 3.1 (which they promise will be on the PTRs "very soon"). Most of it looks really cool - 14 bosses, massive rooms, hard modes. However, there is one topic that Blizzard enthused about that really worries me: vehicle combat. We've already seen some vehicle-based boss fights in Eregos (the final boss of the Oculus) and on the third phase of the Malygos fight. But Ulduar is, apparently, going to take it one step farther: there will be a vehicle-combat gauntlet leading up to the first boss, Flame Leviathan, and that boss itself will also be a vehicle fight, with players picking among three vehicles (Chopper, Demolisher, and Siege Engine) to command.
The Art of War(craft): Strand of the Ancients
This is long overdue, but with the Strand of the Ancients weekend upon us, it's a fine time to take a look at the Battleground introduced to us in Wrath of the Lich King. Strand of the Ancients is presumably located off the Southern coast of Dragonblight, and works differently than any other Battleground before it. It is the first timed Battleground and guarantees that the game will end in about twenty minutes or less. The 15-player Battleground has an attack and defend scenario, where the objective is to capture the Titan Relic housed inside a keep at the southern end of the map. It is very similar to Wintergrasp, and is a fast-paced Battleground where players literally race against time. Attackers, split into two groups, arrive on two boats on the Northeast and Northwest portions of the map. When they land on the beach, four siege vehicles are initially available to attackers, who must break down gates to get to their goal. These siege vehicles are identical to the demolishers found in Wintergrasp, with about 80,000 hp and the same offensive capabilites. Players on foot can pick up Massive Seaforium Charges in Seaforium Barrels throughout the map. These explosives can be placed near gates to deal damage to them. Players on defense, meanwhile, can man cannons that flank each gate. These cannons have 60,000 hp and have very long range.
An avowed non-PvPer can't get enough of Lake Wintergrasp
I've never been a fan of PvP. I have neither the twitch skills nor the patience to put up with being repeatedly ganked. I tried Battlegrounds and Arena, even some Burning Crusade world PvP, but the result is always the same: after getting a free ticket back to the graveyard courtesy of some Rogue that comes out of nowhere or a Warlock with their mez/fear/dot triple whammy I was done. Then came Lake Wintergrasp.I admit that what first drew me there was greed. I heard that it was the richest source of mining nodes for the faction that controls it (as well as Eternal drops.) I was only level 73 when I first zoned in and knew I was going to get pwned by all the level 80s running amok, but to my surprise there turns out to be a feature that levels the playing field: siege vehicles. Hoping into a catapult or manning a tower cannon eliminates the level difference between you and your opponent. In no time, I was laying waste to the enemy and racking up the Honor Points. I was suddenly having so much fun that I forgot to look for mining nodes (which is good, since the roaming mobs in the zone are level 80.)Now, when I log on, the first thing I do is check how long until the next Wintergrasp battle starts (two and a half hours after the last one ends). For those who haven't tried any kind of WoW PvP I recommend trying your hand at piloting a Demolisher in Wintergrasp at least once. You may find yourself enjoying the game in a whole new way. Whether or not you're a fan of PvP, we think you'll enjoy Wintergrasp. Blizzard's latest and greatest attempt at World PvP is one of the most fun aspects of Wrath of the Lich King, and the more people play it, the crazier it gets! Learn all about Wintergrasp in WoW Insider's complete guide.
The Art of War(craft): Wintergrasp
Now that you've familiarized yourselves with the zone and Wintergrasp gameplay, it's time to look at the strategies used in order to win. As you can probably guess, the strategies for offense and defense are somewhat different. Playing defense, you must play for the full 40 minutes in order to win while playing offense, you want to finish the game as quickly as possible. If the timer hits ten minutes and offense hasn't broken down the doors to the inner sanctum, it's in trouble.Just like other Battlegrounds, organization goes a long way. Unlike other Battlegrounds, however, you won't automatically be grouped into a raid, so a lot of the time players will be looking to join a group when the battles start. As long as you know what you're supposed to do, you should be fine, though. The good thing about the zone is that the map will show you where battles are and where vehicle movement is taking place, so even if you're going solo, you'll have an idea of where to head for some action. %Gallery-39429%
Wrath 101: The battle for Wintergrasp
Now that you've taken a look at the zone, it's time to understand how to play the game. The battle for Lake Wintergrasp is one of the most fun parts of the game today -- it's certainly my favorite thing, such that I sometimes only log in whenever I know there's a battle. The great thing about Wintergrasp is that there are numerous battles throughout the day. It's the game's best mini-game, and I'm looking forward to seeing it get even more awesome as more and more players reach Level 80 and Blizzard makes improvements to the zone. Pre-game An hour before each battle, an NPC in Dalaran -- Arcanist Braedin for the Alliance and Magister Surdiel for the Horde -- will yell that a battle will soon begin. He will repeat this battle cry again at thirty, fifteen, ten, and five minutes in order to alert the inhabitants of Dalaran to hopefully drive players into going to the zone. To make it easy, portals to Wintergrasp appear at the Silver Enclave and Sunreaver's Sanctuary. Generally, a portal to Wintergrasp appears in Dalaran for the controlling faction and observably disappears about an hour before battles begin. This usually means that defenders must make their way through flying mounts into the zone before the battle begins or wait until the game ensues whereupon their faction's respective Wintergrasp Battle-Mages will open a portal to allow reinforcements. Defenders will port directly in front of Wintergrap Keep, where the Titan Relic is housed, while players on offense will port into their respective landing camps -- the Horde on the West side, and the Alliance on the East. %Gallery-39429%%Gallery-39251%
The Queue: Can't get enough sockets
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.Just a few questions today, because slow weekends are slow. Who wants to ask questions when you can be playing? Certainly not me. I will still answer questions, however. Let's jump right in with ender's question... What, in your own opinion, is the easiest faction to start to grind on for rep as a new level 80? I know there is the "championing" but with dailies etc, what seems to be the easiest?
Update your action bar mods or miss out on the fun
If you've been having a lot of problems completing quests in Northrend that require you to control a siege vehicle (or something similar to a vehicle) you may consider turning off some of your mods. I know, that sounds like a canned GM response to a ticket, right? Well, it's true, and something you may actually want to try. While questing in Northrend, I started to notice a lot of my friends, guildmates, and random people in various channels were complaining about broken quests that I had finished no more than thirty minutes before. How could they all be broken? I just did them! It took awhile, but we eventually figured out it was their mods. Specifically, their mods that modify how your action bars look or work.In Wrath, Blizzard implemented a new UI and system for their vehicles, and some bar mods haven't been updated to reflect these additions. Or they have, and players haven't updated on their end. As far as mod updates go, this is one of those things that counts as a big deal. If your bar mod is suppressing the vehicle UI or preventing your action bar from switching over to the vehicle's abilities, you're not going to be able to complete a lot of quests, and those ones tend to be the most fun and unique. Naturally, some quests are buggy, but a vast majority of them aren't. If you're consistently running into issues with vehicle combat, please, check your mods for your sake. A lot of the quests are way fun, so before writing them off, check things on your end first.If you absolutely must have a bar mod and yours isn't Wrath compatible yet, you might want to check out Dominos. There are other updated bar mods, absolutely, but this one seems the most popular recently. If you'd rather stick with something else, just hit Curse or whatever and check for updates. You'll be glad you did.
Ask a Beta Tester: Shaman, Engineers, and Feral Druids
Welcome back to Ask a Beta Tester, where for one glorious day, we don't have any passenger mount questions! But I know, deep down, there are a thousand more on the horizon.Elmo asked...How are Enhancement Shamans shaping up? I heard silly things like Elemental gear is great for them or 2x fast weapons with Flametongue. Are we really gonna make that much of a turn around? In other words, is my hard earned gear all worthless? Not just the epic gems and Strength enchants.Enhancement Shaman did hit a weird point where that was true, but I don't think it was ever intended that the 'final product' would look that way. There were some Windfury bugs and wonky unfinished tuning that caused that, but as another reader mentioned, the devs are working on getting everything fixed and proper. Things will be a little different from Burning Crusade, but not so much so that Enhancement Shaman are wearing Elemental gear to melee.
Vehicle controls in Wrath
WoW Insider tipster Dinnerbone sent in some interesting findings about the siege vehicles in Beta while spelunking through the LUA files. He notes that these are all viewable -- if you get those lines of code, at least -- in the current Wrath build. Here are a few tidbits about vehicles and how they might work in the expansion: Right-clicking character portraits have the option to "Leave vehicle," just like when players are in a party. This suggests that vehicles aren't buff-type spells like mounts but actual, physical vehicles you can enter and exit. Vehicles need fuel. There're no clear details on how vehicles can be refueled or what happens when it runs out of fuel. Vehicles have an "ammo slot"; Dinnerbone isn't quite sure whether this means siege vehicles will run out of ammo or if it simply means they fire different projectiles. Pets and vehicles don't mix. Vehicles apparently replace Hunter or Warlock pets and have their own set of controls or abilities. New ability buttons or bars will appear when inside a vehicle. There might be an entirely new UI frame for vehicles, with sliders and other new interface mechanics. The sliders "power" and "angle" range from 0 to 100 and can be seen in the LUA files. A developer note on one of files says, "Placeholder for eventual vehicle controls, currently just two sliders," so there may be more controls. I'm imagine a third person Worms with the power and angle controls. Blizzard has stated that vehicles can carry passengers, and Dinnerbone seems to think it, too, although he can't seem to find indications of it in the code just yet. If you're experienced with LUA files, you can poke your head in through the current build and see if you can find out anything new about the siege vehicles. We're always excited to see what's up with the Beta.
Flying mounts and ruined PvP
Have flying mounts killed off world PvP in Outland? I'm on a PvE server, so I don't see it much anyway, but folks on a PvP server are complaining that whenever they find a good target and get close, the person just hops on their "carebear cloud" and flies away. Of course, "xxxx ruined PvP" is one of the most common types of QQ (although "xxxxx class is broken!" probably beats it), but is Blizzard protecting folks on flying mounts by letting them escape a fight too fast?Neth says no, of course -- she says that flying away from (or into) a fight is just another method PvPers have in their arsenal. And a few commenters in the thread make the point that I would: odds are that if someone is running away from you, it's not really a fair fight -- flying mounts may have ruined ganking, but they haven't ruined actual PvP.Of course, what people really want here is a way to attack someone in the sky, and fortunately, with Wrath of the Lich King, your prayers will be answered -- not only have we seen flying vehicles fighting in the air, but Blizzard has confirmed anti-air capabilities. If you're just looking for a gank, and are angry when that level 64 runs away from your kitted-out 70 Rogue, you're probably still going to be unhappy. But if you're looking for the fight to go up in the air when your opponent does, Northrend probably has what you need.
