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Guide to Brewfest 2014 achievements
Brewfest is back, as is Coren Direbrew, his cronies, and some of the easiest trinkets you'll ever farm for from the holiday boss. Now, you can get better gear for yourself and approximately 37,000 alts off the Timeless Isle if you've a mind to grind, but killing Coren can get you some quick and easy ilvl 470 trinkets without having to suffer endless "Is Huolon up?" spam in general chat. That might be worth it. It's up to you. Anyway, right now there's no indication that Blizzard has changed the holiday in any substantive manner, and although some new items have been found on the PTR and beta, they are not on live servers, which means the run of achievements is pretty much the same. This year, Brewfest runs from Saturday, Sept. 20 to Monday, Oct. 6. As always, check your in-game calendar for your server's exact start and end times, as they'll differ slightly by time zone. The Brewfest meta Brewmaster is required for the year-long What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been, so you'll want to get this done if you're working toward a Violet Proto-Drake.
Guide to Brewfest 2013 achievements
I suspect quite a few players will be seeing the level 90 version of the Brewfest holiday boss, Coren Direbrew, for the first time this week. Last year's Brewfest arrived so soon after Mists of Pandaria launched that you had to level somewhat quickly to be able to queue for Coren at all. Fortunately, that's no longer the case, so now you've got a choice. You can get better gear for yourself and approximately 37,000 alts off the Timeless Isle if you've a mind to grind, but killing Coren can get you some ilevel 470 trinkets without having to suffer endless "Is Huolon up?" spam in general chat. That might be worth it. It's up to you. Anyway, right now there's no indication that Blizzard has changed the holiday in any substantive manner, and [the developers said very recently at Gamescom](http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/1345) that there aren't any plans to overhaul holidays in the near future. This year, Brewfest runs from Friday, Sept. 20 to Sunday, Oct. 6. As always, check your in-game calendar for your server's exact start and end times, as they'll differ slightly by time zone. The Brewfest meta Brewmaster is required for the year-long What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been, so you'll want to get this done if you're working toward a Violet Proto-Drake. If you're leveling a monk who plans to tank, the Brewmaster title is basically mandatory. And yes, the Orgrimmar Brewfest area is smack in the middle of what's canonically a war zone at present, but when has free booze not trumped violence?
An early look at patch 5.2 for monks, part 2
Interested in trying out the new monk class, but can't tell your Tiger Strikes from your Tiger Palms? Written by Chase Hasbrouck of World of Monkcraft, WoW Insider's new monk coverage will get you kicking in no time! In my last column, I explored how monks (well, windwalkers and mistweavers) are dramatically changing in terms of PvP. This week, we'll take a spec-by-spec look at what you can expect to change for PvE content, and draw some tentative conclusions as to what abilities and stats you'll be using and not using. Keep in mind that this is still PTR content, so things change on a day-by-day basis; a hotfix tomorrow might invalidate every conclusion I make today. Changes for all specs When you first log in for patch 5.2, take a look at your healing talents. All of them have been redesigned from the "uses chi and no-cooldown" model to "free with cooldown" model, so the only cost to using your self-heals now is one global cooldown. The actual strength of the heals are still being tweaked, but given this new model, I expect Brewmasters to continue to go for Chi Wave; Chi Burst to be decent for Mistweavers needing to raid heal; and Windwalkers to go "meh," since they'll want the GCD's for damaging abilities. Zen Sphere is interesting, but it took a massive nerf (62%) which makes it not very desirable at first glance.
WoW Brewmaster: Uncorking Ziebart Stout
Welcome back to WoW Brewmaster, in which we talk about the fine Mists of Pandaria art of brewing beer. Take those critical skills you learn in-game and apply it to the real world! What's better than that? But first, a reader question: How much space does it take to brew beer? A few commenters answered the question, but I want to reiterate: it takes about as much room as it takes to store 6 cases of beer. Most of your supplies get tucked away in storage when not in active use. The bulkiest supplies are the two 5-gallon buckets and whatever bottles you use for you beer. If you have multiple batches going at once, then I guess you should double that. You'll have a big pot (probably 3 gallons) for the actual cooking, and the rest is just tubes and such that easily fits in the buckets. So you'll need room for 2 5-gallon buckets and 6 cases of beer. That's the answer. I will caution though: it's possible to have a beersplosion take place. Rather than rampant alementals, though, a beersplosion takes place when your fermenting beer is producing extra gases. If those cases can't escape through an airlock, your bucket pops open, spewing foamy beer everywhere. While hilarious, it does cause a mess. I've never actually had it happen, though, since I'm a stickler for airlocks. Any beer kit you buy will have it included.
WoW Brewmaster: Brewing our Ziebart Stout
Work warning: We're talking about beer and the making of it herein. That's innately an adult theme. No cursing or such; just good old fashioned beer brewing. We've been fermenting this feature for a while. (Get it? Fermenting?) The debut brew was intended to be a fall-themed Panda Pumpkin Porter, since pumpkin spice everything is awesome. That's the pictured beer above. Using an extract kit, your loyal WoW Brewmaster (that's me) put together a pumpkin-spiced porter. Sadly, it didn't turn out after being racked. The carbonation didn't finish super well, so I didn't want to use that as our debut brew. One generally doesn't share epic failures as a debut beer so I waited for the next round, which I'll call the Ziebart Stout. So what is WoW Brewmaster? Inspired by the Brewmasters of Pandaria, we're branching out into a bit of hobbyist extract brewing and sharing our adventures with you, our beloved readers. I've been brewing for a few years now. I got into it because it's much less expensive than buying retail beer. I mostly do extract kits in the interest of time and ease, though I've done raw materials a few times as well. In general, we'll talk about extract kits in this column. While hardcore brewers prefer raw materials, perhaps even going so far as to grow grains... I think that level of involvement is beyond what we can do in an occasional 1,000 word column. So we'll buy kits and go from there. As a disclosure note, I'm not a professional brewer; we're calling it Brewmaster because that's what it's called in game. The stuff I'm talking about is just an introduction and a bit of fun.
A closer look at the Ascension talent for monks
Interested in trying out the new monk class, but can't tell your Tiger Strikes from your Tiger Palms? Written by Chase Hasbrouck of World of Monkcraft, WoW Insider's new monk coverage will get you kicking in no time! Ascension: Passive talent. Increases your maximum Chi by 1, your maximum mana by 15%, and your energy regen by 15%. In patch 5.1, Blizzard quietly reworked Ascension to make it a more useful talent. (I say quietly, because the change wasn't listed in the official patch notes, which was likely an oversight.) Previously, the talent had only increased maximum chi by 1, which made the talent useless for most players. Sure, in theory, you could use it to save up an extra chi for burst-type situations, but Chi Brew and its instant four chi was a much better choice for those anyway. After finding out about the changes, my initial reaction (after a bit of napkin math) was that the talent was significantly improved to the level where it was a reasonable choice, but probably still not ideal over Power Strikes or Chi Brew. After I posted that in last week's column, a few commenters asked me to take a closer look, so I'll go spec-by-spec and take a closer look at the talent.
Monk changes in patch 5.1
While I've taken a brief hiatus from writing recently, the many, many changes to monks in the 5.1 patch and the immediately following hotfixes have lit the ol' theorycrafter spark. I'll go spec by spec and list the changes, along with some analysis. Spoiler alert: Mistweavers aren't gonna be happy. General changes Stance of the Fierce Tiger now increases the Monk's movement speed by 10% in addition to its other effects. This movement speed increase stacks with other effects. The energy costs of Legacy of the Emperor, and Legacy of the White Tiger have been reduced to 20, down from 50. This is nice, though it's not something that I particularly thought was necessary. With proper use of Roll (and Flying Serpent Kick for windwalkers), movement generally wasn't much of a problem for monks. The energy reduction for the buffs is nice for a quick rebuff after dying.
3 advanced monk tactics you might not be using
Interested in trying out the new monk class, but can't tell your Tiger Strikes from your Tiger Palms? Written by Chase Hasbrouck of World of Monkcraft, WoW Insider's new monk coverage will get you kicking in no time! In the previous weeks, I've covered the basics for brewmasters, mistweavers, and windwalkers. Now that we've had a month to get used to the new specializations, it's time to try some advanced tactics. Stick with me as we roll through one ability for each specialization that'll help propel you to the top of the charts, be they healing, damage, or your healer's Christmas card list. Windwalker: Touch of Karma All damage you take is redirected to the enemy target over 6 sec instead of you. Damage cannot exceed your total health. Lasts for 10 sec. 90 second cooldown. Touch of Karma is amazing. First, this is one of the best defensive skills for a DPS'er in the game, as it essentially gives you a 350k HP shield which works against everything. It won't save you from insta-kill void zones, but for damage you know is coming, it's much better than a druid's Barkskin or a paladin's Divine Protection. In a raid setting, it's worth telling your healers to add Touch of Karma to their raid frames so they don't waste heals on you for the duration.
Addon Spotlight: Tillers, Cloud Serpents and Monks
Lately we've been talking a lot about addons for features that have been implemented in Mists, and today is no different. However, we are going to be shying away from re-treading old ground, and moving into some new areas. If you're looking for pet battle addons, there have been three posts about them recently, two from Addon Spotlight, and one other. As we're all grinding out our reputation with each faction, last week's Addon Spotlight took on reputation addons to try to make this experience easier and hopefully less frustrating! This week we're examining some other addons that help with some new features brought in in Mists. As ever, your feedback and addon suggestions are much appreciated, and if you think there's a type of addon I should be featuring, drop me a line! And in exciting news, we can announce that Reader UI of the Week is making a return! Send me your UIs, and we'll get to posting!
Stagger like Jagger: The brewmaster monk 101 guide
Interested in trying out the new monk class, but can't tell your Tiger Strikes from your Tiger Palms? Written by Chase Hasbrouck of World of Monkcraft, WoW Insider's new monk coverage will get you kicking in no time! With Mists of Pandaria nearing release, the monk class is rounding into its final form. While a few things may still be tweaked, the design and abilities have now stabilized enough that I feel comfortable presenting you with a series of guides for each specialization. This week: brewmasters! Brewmaster is the tanking specialization for the monk class. Themed after the classic Drunken Master, your job is to keep the enemies busy trying to hit you while your compatriots take them out. Any race, except for worgen and goblin, can play a monk. Like all monks, they have two resources that must be managed; energy and chi. Energy functions identically to rogues and feral druids, as a 100-point pool that regenerates at a constant rate, in and out of combat. This energy regeneration can be increased with haste, and is used to power your basic attacks. These abilities don't do much on their own, but they build up the brewmaster's second resource: chi. Chi is a static 4-point pool, similar to a rogue's combo points, that decays when out of combat. Once you've built up a few points of chi, it can be used to power stronger abilities that do significant damage, provide self-healing, or make you more resilient.
So you want to play a brewmaster monk?
Interested in trying out the new monk class, but can't tell your Tiger Strikes from your Tiger Palms? Written by Chase Hasbrouck of World of Monkcraft, WoW Insider's new monk coverage will get you kicking in no time! Last week, I covered windwalker monks and how to fly around kicking butt like a kung fu master. This week, I'm delving into the "spirited" version, the brewmaster. One caveat, though: Because this is still beta, things will likely change somewhat between now and live. We'll have a full 101 guide that covers things like enchants, gems, and stats when Mists is released, but this will cover you until then. What is a brewmaster monk? Monks have three role options: damage, tanking, and healing, of which brewmaster is the tanking role. How do brewmaster monks work? Brewmaster monks have two primary resources, energy and chi. Energy replenishes at a constant rate and is used to power your basic moves and abilities. These attacks generate chi, which is then used to buff your survivability. What is this "stagger" thing? Stagger is a new mitigation mechanic that is exclusive to brewmaster tanks. For every physical attack taken, a percentage of the damage is not taken immediately but instead is turned into a damage over time effect that stacks. In and of itself, this does nothing except spread out the damage taken a bit. However, brewmasters also have Purifying Brew, which completely eliminates the Stagger DoT effect. Depending on the fight, you may have enough chi to use PB often, or you may need to let Stagger stack a bit. Many abilities buff Stagger, such as the Shuffle effect from Blackout Kick.
Chi: World of Warcraft's new resource for monks
Secondary resource systems are all the rage in World of Warcraft these days. Gone are the days of simply energy, rage, or mana. Now, the majority of classes in the game have an additional resource that must be managed in order to do their role well. From the traditional (combo points for feral druids and rogues, or runes for death knights) to the new (Burning Embers for warlocks, or Shadow Orbs for shadow priests), it's clear secondary resources are here to stay. Chi is the secondary resource common to all three monk specializations in Mists of Pandaria. It is conceptually most similar to paladins' holy power, as a stored 4-point pool. Through his level 30 talents, a monk can choose to buff chi generation in one of three ways, either increasing the maximum pool size via Ascendance, increasing the rate of generation via Power Strikes, or enabling an ability that can periodically completely refill chi (Chi Brew). For all monk specializations, chi is required in order to use the majority of abilities. Before I move on, let's make one thing clear: Chi and combo points (CPs) are very different systems. CPs are stored on a single target; if a rogue or feral switches targets and uses a CP-generating ability, any CPs stored on the previous target are lost. Chi, in comparison, is stored on the monk, making target switches much simpler. Second, most abilities that consume CP scale with the number of CPs used; for example, a 5-CP Ferocious Bite hits much harder than a 1-CP Ferocious Bite. All of the monk's chi-consuming abilities have a fixed cost, though this may change later in the beta.
Shifting Perspectives: In which Allison makes a stupid prediction
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This Tuesday, we take a risk. Well, I'm bushed. Post-BlizzCon, I reached that dreamy level of fatigue allowing me to hallucinate that I am on a Thai beach being served fizzy drinks by men in loincloths, and that was lovely while it lasted. But just as I had recovered from the delusion that this was ever going to happen, a freak snowstorm hit the American northeast and killed every tree and power line in sight. Folks, I spent a week without power or internet, and I am mad at the world. Let's see. What did I have on the docket for this week? Responsibly and rationally evaluating what we learned at BlizzCon 2011? The hell with that. Let's start off by completely ignoring the new talents announced, and then getting into a quite possibly asinine prediction that I will try to pretend never happened if it doesn't come true.
Ghostcrawler introduces you to the Pandaren monk
Mists of Pandaria is bringing us the new monk class as well as the new Pandaren race, finally making its way to World of Warcraft after years of speculation and wondering. Blizzard Insider, Blizzard's own internal look at the wheelings, dealings, and development processes of the company, pulled Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street aside and asked him a bunch of questions about the Pandaren, monks, and the newest expansion. Ghostcrawler discusses the motivations behind the Pandaren and how they differ from the other races of Azeroth, how the monk class came about and was decided upon, and what monk players outside the Pandaren race will have in store for them when they travel the world. One of the more interesting pieces of information is how player character monks who choose to start as a race other than Pandaren will still have a heavy Pandaria-inspired kit and experience, since it is the Pandaren that bring the monk class to both the Horde and the Alliance. Of course, we have extra confirmation that DPS and tank monks will be sporting agility leather gear, and the healer archetype will don intellect-based leather gear. I don't believe that I am alone in this observation, but Blizzard has been out and about like crazy talking about the Pandaren and the monk class nonstop. Personally, I'm loving it. The more, the better. Over the years, Blizzard has gone from a very secretive company to pulling back many of the curtains for players and fans alike, with peeks into the development process and getting out ahead of the speculation machine. It's learned a lot from The Burning Crusade and Wrath days. Hit the jump for the full interview with Greg Street.
5 reasons you should love Mists of Pandaria
BlizzCon's over, so let's recap. We get playable Pandaren, neutral characters that can choose either Alliance or Horde at the end of the starting experience. On top of that, we get the monk class that plenty of people have been excited about seeing implemented in game. And then we get entirely revamped talent trees that aren't trees at all -- they are a completely gutted and entirely new system for people to play with. Plus, we get something to do with all those pets we've collected over the last several years. Yet a lot of what I've been reading here and there has been a general reaction of "That's it?" rather than excitement, and it seems a little odd to me. After trying to puzzle out why exactly it was odd to me that people would feel this way, I decided it really didn't have anything to do with them; it had plenty to do with me. Out of all the posts I write, you guys seem to love the tinfoil hat theories the best -- and the way I create those posts is due to the way that I look at stories and situations. That said, there is a reason you guys should be excited about this expansion. Actually, there are several of them, but I'm only going to hit five of them. And I'm going to blow your mind with what is the biggest reason you should absolutely love what's coming up in World of Warcraft.
Know Your Lore: The Pandaren
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Brewfest is still ongoing in game until Wednesday, Oct. 6, and while the Alliance has their dwarven brewers and beer lovers behind the festival, there is a race of creatures that are not included in the festivities at all -- well, not directly. I'm speaking, of course, about the mysterious pandaren -- a race of humanoid pandas that is about as elusive as they come. Pandaren have shown up in references here and there in World of Warcraft, but for the most part, they seem to be nothing more than vague Easter eggs. However, the World of Warcraft RPG covered the pandaren extensively and provided some background into the nature-loving race. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the pandaren is the origins of the race. Of all the races in Azeroth, the pandaren are the least well known but one of the most beloved of many players of the original Warcraft games. The pandaren first showed up in Warcraft III, and from there, the loveable race of humanoid pandas grew exponentially in popularity. Though the original Warcraft and all subsequent games were carefully planned out, the enigmatic panderan began with an April Fools joke that spread like wildfire.
Pandaren Brewmaster Figure now on sale
The @warcraft twitter account has been posting a few carefully taken pictures of something the past couple days, and today it's been reveled what the object is -- a Pandaren Brewmaster Figure that you can buy from the Blizzard store. The little guy is "on sale" for $50, and there are limited quantities available. Everything is first come, first serve, so if you want one I suggest getting getting it quickly. The figure is of Chen Stormstout, who left his Pandaren home world to find better ingredients to make his brew with. These figures are usually of pretty high quality, and by the looks of it this one is exceptionally detailed. It's also not a small figure. It's over 8 inches tall and 4 pounds in weight, which makes it quite a nice desk statue. Should be a good collectable for this who want it!
Pandaren in the World of Warcraft
In among all of the "omg fake pets for real money" drama from this week's announcement, we may have missed something big: the Pandaren are now live in the World of Warcraft. The Pandaren are my favorite Azerothian race, even though they're essentially a joke -- Samwise Didier just loves pandas, and he made art for an April Fool's joke that Chris Metzen loved so much they decided to include the bears as real characters in Warcraft III. Since then, they've become fan favorites (not least of all, especially for me, because alcohol and ale are a big part of their culture), but we've only seen hints of them in World of Warcraft. There was a rumor going around a while back that they would never appear in the game because China didn't allow depictions of violence against the bears, but that was just a rumor. Still, the Pandaren have existed in WoW only as a Blizzard in-joke. We assume they're out there somewhere, but until now, no one has ever seen one. Of course we say "until now" because there are now little Pandaren monk noncombat pets running around, bowing, and doing magical kung-fu. Does this mean that the future Emerald Dream expansion will have us all playing as Brewmasters? While yes that would be awesome, not so fast again: Diablo and the Zergling from Starcraft are both in the game as noncombat pets, and they don't mean anything at all (although they were both included in the game before the announcements of Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 -- maybe Blizzard is working on a Pandaren-based puzzle game? Conspiracy theorists, assemble!). And just because we all have Grunty doesn't mean murlocs are suddenly going to take to spaceships with battle rifles in the official lore. But it's cool to see Pandaren actually in the game, even in pet form, and who knows, maybe we will one day find the legendary realm of Pandaria in our own version of Azeroth.
Breakfast Topic: Did you meet your Brewfest goals?
Brewfest was over. It was fun. It was extended. But now it's gone. I was able to get my Brewmaster title this year and caught it on video. I also enjoyed a couple of events with the It came from the Blog guild. Because we had Achievements this year, I find that the event was more fun than previously. But now I must admit that I'm Brewfested out.Were you able to accomplish all of your Brewfest goals? Did Coren give you the gear you wanted? Answer our poll below and then tell us your goals and challenges in the comments.%Poll-35135%
Reminder: Today is the last day of Brewfest
If you haven't quite finished your Brewfest activities, today is the last day. Not only will you not be able to earn (and spend) tokens after today, but there are a few Achievements that can only be earned during the event. For example, even though you don't have to be wearing or drinking anything Brewfesty, you can only get the Drunken Stupor Achievement during the holiday. So go get virtually smashed and jump off a virtual bridge today, if you haven't already.Many of you will not be able to get Brewmaster before midnight if you haven't been diligent with your daily token earning. I highly recommend, however, that you get as much done as you can this year so you have less to do next time around. Check out our Brewfest Guide for any Achievements you might have missed.Warning: Tokens will not carry over into next year, so spend what you have today.Good luck ...hic!
