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Officers' Quarters: Leveling as a guild in Cataclysm, part 2
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press. Last week, a reader wrote in to ask about some dos and don'ts as a guild leader during the character leveling process of an expansion. Obviously, we're focusing on Cataclysm here, but many of these tips will be relevant for any expansion with a raised level cap. Part 1 provided four tips: Have a plan. Organize group activities. Don't rush anyone. Set a date for the endgame. This week I've got five more.
The Light and How to Swing It: Hot talents and glyphs for holy paladins
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered. The holy paladin talent tree has historically had issues with its filler talents. While many of the talents and abilities were spec-defining, there were other talents that literally had no purpose and were never taken. I'm talking about Sacred Cleansing, which actually didn't work at all throughout most of Wrath. How could we forget Purifying Power, whose usefulness was completely negated by the Glyph of Holy Wrath, which itself was only used to exploit a difficult encounter? Even with all of these junk talents in the tree, we also had a distinct lack of DPS talents, leaving holy paladins nearly helpless when left to fend for themselves. Cataclysm's new truncated talent trees resolve many of the issues our previous talent tree had, as well as providing several DPS talents to give us some flexibility when we need to up our damage output. Exorcism has finally become the spammable attack we can use from range to nuke our targets, and Crusader Strike gives us some DPS presence while we're in melee range as well. The core focus of the holy paladin will always be healing, but it's nice to see that Blizzard created talents and glyphs to support both the healing paladin and the pseudo-shockadin that's emerging in Cataclysm.
The Queue: Pop
Welcome back to The Queue, our daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. Speaking of pop, Bejeweled 2 is free on PopCap.com today until 10 p.m. PST! Go get it! Liam asked: What is the difference between major and prime glyphs? I thought a tier of glyphs was supposed to be more fun and cosmetic now, but they seem the same to me, just changes to our spells. Prime glyphs are no-brainer DPS/effectiveness increases. Major glyphs offer new utility or changes in your rotation that are hard to "math out." Minor glyphs give fun or cosmetic changes.
The Queue: Legendary heavy glow
Welcome back to The Queue, our daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. I saw Gorillaz last night at Madison Square Garden. 'Nuff said. Masalar asked: Do the profession changes, such as multiple skill ups for making a blue item, come into play with 4.0.1? Because my hunter is waiting for that change to become an engineer ... Yes, those count as system changes, so they should be in with 4.0.1.
Totem Talk: Enhancement's path to victory in patch 4.0.1
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shamans. Rich Maloy lives and breathes enhancement -- his main spec is enhance, his off-spec is enhance. He blogs about the life and times of enhance, and leads the guild Big Crits (Season 2 Ep 03 now out!)as the enhancement shaman Stoneybaby. Are you ready? Charge up your Maelstrom Weapons and dust off your Searing Totems -- Patch 4.0.1 is nearly upon us! Not sure what to do on your enhancement shaman? The quick-hit guide to enhancement in the cataclysmic world is below. What's not changing Let's start with some things that are not changing. Slow/slow is the way to go (for your weapons, I mean). Your weapons shouldn't be faster than 2.00 and ideally should be between 2.50 to 2.70 speed. Be wary of any weapon with a speed below 2.00; most likely it's been touched by a rogue and still has some residual poison on it meant to cripple your Windfuries and Flametongues. We're also staying with the same imbues: Windfury on the main hand and Flametongue on the off hand. With this patch (as with every patch, it seems), there was a little bit of banter about going full spellpower, with fast/fast and a caster weapon main hand along with FT/FT, reforging spirit, and otherwise doing crazy things like looking for the next Torch of Holy Fire. Don't do it. Stay slow/slow, with WF/FT. We're meant to be melee doing primarily melee damage.
Cataclysm: Guild cap revised, now 1,000 members
After a very vocal community outpouring and harsh response to Blizzard's announcement that guilds would be hard-capped at 600 members, the policy has been re-evaluated and the cap has been raised to 1,000 members per guild in patch 4.0.1. While there are not a huge amount of guilds that go over the 1,000-player limit, those multitudes of players came out in anger over Blizzard's decision to set a hard cap. Now, with that cap raised, these guilds may potentially fall under the new rules, keeping their organizations intact. Hit the jump for the full announcement.
Global cooldown rework in Cataclysm
There's a fascinating thread on the official forums about the way that Blizzard is changing the global cooldown. The long and short of it is that on live, we can spam our next ability to try and increase the number of actions we can get in per minute; however, if we change our minds, we have until the next ability is accepted by the server to decide to change the keys we're spamming. In Cataclysm, there'll be a completely different system. First, let's look at the blue posts, and then we'll talk about the explanation.
The Queue: What's that, Deathwing?
Welcome back to The Queue, our daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. Really? I thought the first thing you'd say when you emerged from Deepholm would be something about unmaking the world, not requesting the next installment of an admittedly daily feature. But who are we to argue with the Aspect of Death? Ilmyrn asked: When will we see the world changes from Cataclysm? 4.0.1? Later? I want to get the Wrathgate done on as many characters as I can before it's gone forever. Game systems change in 4.0.1. The world changes in 4.0.3.
WoW Rookie: Dungeon and world travel tips for Cataclysm lowbies
New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide. Classic WoW might have been pretty revolutionary for its time in terms of ease of leveling, but looking back, it was kind of terrible. It was just a lot better than what we had at the time. Thankfully, Cataclysm has fixed a lot of the original game's leveling issues, and I can say from personal experience that bringing a character from 1 to 60 is more fun than anything I've ever done in WoW before. And that's with no heirlooms, no gold from my main, no auction house, no nothing. Let's talk ways to maximize your fun while leveling in Cataclysm.
Totem Talk: Elemental mana management for Cataclysm
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Get some Fulmination with your Lightning Bolts! Sort the shocks from the flames with Totem Talk: Elemental, brought to you by Sarah Nichol, otherwise known as Pewter from The 'mental Shaman and the Obscurecast, and founding member of TotemSpot. Before I get stuck in this week, I'd like to take a moment to share some sad news -- Zamir has taken the decision to discontinue his elemental DPS spreadsheed, ZAP!, which has been invaluable for many of us for the past year. Zamir has been something of a catalyst for the elemental theorycrafting and blogging community, so please send him some good vibes. You can still find Zamir at his Planet of the Hats blog, and he is also involved in running TotemSpot. We salute you, Zamir! (No need to panic, though, there are several projects in the works to fill the void.) Last time, I discussed what the impending patch 4.0.1 meant for my beloved class. The original plan for this week involved heroics, sims and walls of numbers, but the issues with EU premades have rendered that hope a distant dream. Eleven-day queue, I bite my thumb at thee. As for changes to the class, well, every time I see a changelog, I scan for shaman blue and feel a faint twinge of disappointment. Our totems have had some minor edits, such as a reduced cooldown from 30 seconds to 20 seconds for Stoneclaw Totem and a needed mana cost change from 7 percent base mana to 5 percent base mana for Searing Totem. Does this mean elemental is largely finished, or are we in store for some focused attention in future builds? A lot can change in two months, but with patch 4.0.1 on the horizon, I think our spec is likely to remain static for now. So this week, I'm taking a quick look at mana management, something that many of us have not worried about since Naxxramas.
The OverAchiever: Reputation factions in Cataclysm
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we find ourselves the designated butt-monkey of several new factions. Hello again, fellow achievement-hunters. This week we're going to finish up with a look at the new reputation factions available in Cataclysm and a quick look at new world events. "There aren't any new world events," you point out. That's what makes it so quick. Although this goes without saying in any article discussing new achievements, there are a few spoilers in here discussing how you meet and work with various Cataclysm factions. If you'd rather stay unspoiled about upcoming quests, don't go past the cut. 45 Exalted Reputations This is now the highest reputation-related achievement in the game. Interestingly, there is not a new title associated with it; you'll still receive The Exalted at 40 Exalted Reputations, although it's possible that it's just a placeholder. Then again, if you already have 40 exalted reputations, getting 45 should be very simple during Cataclysm, as there'll be at least six new reputation factions available. I'm not sure a new title's going to be in the cards as a result.
The Queue: BlizzCon or bust
I'm really excited about BlizzCon because this is my first. Every other year, I've been unable to attend for one reason or another, mostly because the 3,000-mile trek always fell during work or school. Well, now, I'm going to make it to BlizzCon 2010. It's BlizzCon or bust for me! Speaking of amazing things going on around the same time, are you going to the big WoW Insider meetup this year? You should. You totally should. I've got official confirmation from the people in charge that it's going to be awesome! Let's answer some questions.
Encrypted Text: Fresh rogue rotations in Cataclysm
Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the rogue class. This week, we discuss the new rotations that rogues will be using. After Blizzard's latest press release, we know that Cataclysm will be released in early December. We already know that there will be at least one patch that precedes the expansion. The period of time between patch 4.0.1 and the expansion's actual launch is a time of transition, and it's rapidly approaching. The transition phases of The Burning Crusade and Wrath were rocky to say the least; it's safe to say that that we're looking forward to exciting times. Many classes are hurting pretty badly on the PTR for patch 4.0.1 right now. Blizzard had the great idea of temporarily granting rogues Cloak of Shadows as our 31-point subtlety talent back in patch 2.0 to help us deal with the souped-up casters of that era. A similar change could be used to give retribution paladins access to Inquisition (at the cost of Zealotry) to bolster their damage until Cataclysm. Luckily for rogues, we were on the receiving end of the latest "damage pass." Several of our core abilities were granted significant damage and scaling bonuses to keep us competitive in a pre-Cataclysm world.
Spiritual Guidance: Shadow priest glyph shopping for 4.0.1 and Cataclysm
Welcome to the Wednesday edition of Spiritual Guidance, your one-stop source for all the information on shadow priesting you want and need for your on-the-go lifestyle. Your host Fox Van Allen brings information on your spec of choice on a silver platter, helping you stretch your World of Warcraft knowledge to infinity and beyond. Sit back, relax and prepare to be "wowed"! I have a confession to make: I've never really found glyphs to be that sexy. I don't know why. Maybe part of it was the hassle of having to travel halfway across Stormwind to find a Lexicon of Power just to add a glyph to my character. Maybe it was the frustration of learning later that I didn't need to find a Lexicon of Power to add a glyph, and the shame that came with knowing I had wasted about 30 or 40 trips along the canals over the last year and a half. Still, sexy or not, glyphs are powerful as all hell. They provide useful benefits by increasing our DPS, eliminating the need for reagents or reducing cooldowns. There's no reason not to like these damn things. And if you already like them on the live Wrath servers, you're going to love what's coming for glyphs in Cataclysm. We're about to have even more choices to make than ever before. That may seem a bit daunting, at least at first, but don't fear -- we're going to be better shadow priests for the experience. More slots, better choices and added convenience: It's all coming in patch 4.0.1, and it's all here in today's Spiritual Guidance, just after the break.
The Queue: BlizzCon expectations
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Today's edition of The Queue is brought to you by our old friend Hawaiian pizza -- or at least, it would have been if I hadn't been half asleep while ordering my pizza and ended up accidentally clicking "add bacon" instead of the topping(s) I wanted. Now my pizza is just covered in poorly cooked bacon bits. Woe is me. Woe. adalon asked: Is it just my imagination or has the Cataclysm release date not had the same amount of buzz that previous expansions had?
Shifting Perspectives: Predictions for Cataclysm druids
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting feral/restoration druids and those who group with them. This week, Allison hauls out the crystal ball again. I enjoy the business of prognostication. Nobody remembers the crap you'll get wrong -- and if you get anything even vaguely right, you'll be considered a visionary, thanks to a wonderful little thing called confirmation bias. Personally, I've had it up to here with beta dungeon groups. I'm sick of idiots who start to AoE off the pull while I'm tanking and tanks who say, "Give me 10 minutes to fix my bars" while I'm healing. I've had quite enough of titchy little numbers that insist on changing from patch to patch. It's time to return the Tuesday portion of this column to form -- hog-wild speculation and completely baseless conjecture!
Lichborne: Heroic Cataclysm dungeon-delving for death knights
Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly source for news, guides, tips and opinions on the death knight class. OK, I'm not usually one to use tired old catchphrases, but forgive me, I'm going to use one right now: You are not prepared. That pretty much sums up Cataclysm heroics, especially as they are now on beta. Chances are, you've grown used to the easy stuff we have in Wrath. Not only are Wrath heroics a little underbalanced, and not only have patches specifically made them easier and faster to run, but at this point, we're running things in tier 9 and 10 gear that were made for people in pre-tier 7 gear, and we're steamrolling them. All this ends with Cataclysm heroics. I cannot stress this enough. You see that picture up there, at the top of this article? You'll be seeing that a lot. Cataclysm heroics are hard. They are hard enough that the random dungeon finder may end up being something you want to avoid in favor of creating your own group so that you can work together and get the proper balance of crowd control and skill. While some of the difficulty comes because we'll all be in dungeon blues, some of it is because the dungeons are genuinely set up to be harder, with harder-hitting mobs and bosses with mechanics that require you to use utility moves to have a chance of beating them. With this in mind, I have a few tips for you on getting ready for the new heroics. Trust me, you'll need them, if you don't want to spend all day wiping to the first trash pack in your first random heroic.
Cataclysm: New 600-member hard cap imposed on guilds
Large guilds face a certain number of unique challenges. Beyond the usual demands of leading large numbers of players, guilds with memberships greater than 500 have an unfortunate tendency to break the guild interface. Up until now, this has been more of a nuisance than anything else -- Blizzard has never imposed a hard cap on guild membership. (WoW Insider's very own guild, <It Came from the Blog>, stands at 1,100 members, for example.) Blizzard was keenly aware of the problems that these large guilds suffered, promising earlier in the summer to address them for Cataclysm. Well, not-so-great news, members of giant mega guilds: Blizzard is effectively throwing in the towel on large guilds and imposing a hard cap of 600 members effective the moment patch 4.0.1 goes live. While the official blue post by Mumper says this will have no effect on 99.9 percent of guilds, this move could effectively devastate the remaining 0.1 percent. The full text is available after the break.
Officers' Quarters: Leveling as a guild in Cataclysm
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available this spring from No Starch Press. The weeks after an expansion goes live are a strange time for guilds. After months of working as a team toward a common goal, most members go off on their own to level up through solo quests. Since raiding at the cap is impossible and raiding old content isn't nearly as interesting as questing in the new zones, your guild can find itself strangely fractured during this time. This week, one guild leader wonders how to keep a guild from falling apart during the leveling process. Scott, I was a member of a "raiding" guild in The Burning Crusade (they didn't do too much raiding), but I hit level cap a week before Wrath of the Lich King came out. The guild basically came apart at the seams before anyone hit level cap. Then they tried to reform again a little before ToC and nothing really worked out. Now I'm running my own little raiding guild and don't want to repeat the mistakes of the past. What keeps a raiding guild together through the leveling process? I was thinking about putting in incentives in our loot policy for people getting to cap, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea. What are some things I should be doing, and what are some things I shouldn't be doing? Thisius Hells Vanguard Sisters of Elune (US)
The Queue: Launch day
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Today we tackle, among other things, a couple of questions about Cataclysm's upcoming release. Oh man, it's getting close, people! Get excited! ... Did you hear me? I said, "Get excited!" You. You. In the back. Yes, you. You're not excited, are you? If you don't leap for joy right now we are going to have problems, mister. Or ma'am. I can't tell from here. bdew asked: With the new Battle.net system and the ability to buy games from there directly, did Blizzard say anything official about being able to buy Cataclysm digitally on Day 0?
