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6 Achievements for the Warsong Gulch Holiday
In the days since Echoes of Doom went live, I've spent pretty much every minute of my play time in the Battlegrounds. Alright, that's probably not too different from how I used to spend my time pre-patch, but this time it's different. Instead of playing the Battlegrounds intending to earn Honor, I would go in looking to complete Achievements geared towards my end goal. Here are six relatively easy Achievements you can pursue during this Warsong Gulch holiday while playing solo.Capture the FlagEven if you're not a Druid, you have every right to go and grab that flag. This one should be easy enough to do with a little luck and cooperation from your teammates. You know the drill -- grab that flag and bring it home.Quick CapThis one is more difficult than the previous one if you play a class with no special means to move around like Travel Form or Blink. This also requires that you travel virtually unmolested, so any attempt by the opposing team to stop you or possession of your team's flag will likely cut your attempt short. You'll just need a little perseverance here. You should probably travel through the tunnels to try and get both speed buffs and pack some Swiftness Potions for that necessary boost. Keep your fingers crossed.
Arcane Brilliance: Post-patch madness
Each week Arcane Brilliance shows you what happens when Mages stop being polite and start being real. This week, Arcane Barrage gets all up in Living Bomb's face, and fireworks ensue when Hot Streak hooks up with Combustion. Can Netherwind Presence and Missile Barrage learn to live together? Will Arcane Blast come to terms with the fact that it got raped? Will Deep Freeze finally reveal that it has Aids? Find out in this week's Arcane Brilliance.Anyone else's head spinning like that chick in The Exorcist? I'm not saying I need a priest to come and cast patch 3.0.2 out of my body or anything, I'm just saying that holy crap. That was a lot of stuff, all at once. Even though I've been playing the beta, and constantly scanning this site and various others for information to prepare myself for all that was changing when the patch finally went live, it was still overwhelming to log in when my server finally came back up late Tuesday night and see how crazy everything had gotten. To be quite honest, I'm still adjusting.In a ton of ways, what we're logging into today is an entirely different game than the one we logged into five days ago, even though our levels are still the same, we're still doing the same quests, and playing the same end-game content. Our mounts are still there, but in a different place. The bosses we're fighting still look the same, but are now way easier to kill. Many of our talents have the same names, but now do completely different things. Spells that were previously good are now bad, and some that were useless on Monday are perfectly serviceable today.With the information overload we've all been presented with, I have found it best to focus on one or two things at a time, instead of attempting any sort of larger view. I look at each change as I notice it, rather than trying to address them all at once, purely out of fear of my head exploding. If you missed them in all the chaos, Arcane Brilliance did a two-part preview of the major changes, and you can find those here and here. After the jump, I'll go over some of the sparkly newness I've noticed but haven't covered yet in this space, both documented changes that managed to surprise me as well as those that flew a bit more under-the-radar.
Patch 3.0.2 primer for Retribution Paladins
Let's face it. Retribution blows.Blows things up, that is. Out of all the trees -- and I mean all including the other classes -- no tree got more love than Retribution in the Echoes of Doom patch. For many of us, it's been a long time coming. No other class spec has been the butt of more jokes and the target of such derision as Retribution. Not anymore. Not in Patch 3.0.2 and the days leading up to Wrath of the Lich King. Retribution deals so much pain that we've sent the rest of player base running to Ghostcrawler crying for a nerf. And we're getting nerfed. To the ground.Don't panic. The changes are really, mostly aimed at PvP Paladins -- okay, that's me -- but will largely leave Paladin PvE damage output the same. That's excellent news. Because I've grown accustomed to the idea that quite a lot of you guys prefer PvE to PvP, we'll take a look at a PvE Retribution build that will make you the darling of your Heroic runs and more than welcome in raids. Let's bring on the pain after the jump.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: A pile of my enemies' bodies
Welcome back to The Care and Feeding of Warriors. The carnage you see above you is the entire Scarlet Monastery Cathedral (and all the mobs before it, too!) except for the ones who died before we got this far. (I stole this idea shamelessly from a commenter named Brian Arnold.The video he linked is pretty much exactly how it went down for me.) Damage Shield, you complete me. Well, you and Shockwave, and the new limitless target Thunder Clap. This is my build: I skipped over Anticipation because, while an excellent talent, I want to be hit instead of dodged. I'll pick it back up again once we start leveling. A couple of fun screenshots from my character panel: This is my admittedly gimmicky shield block value set. Pretty much every piece on it has block or str, I hover at around 16000 health in it. What I find really fun (and what allowed me to pull the entire Cath as well as both bosses onto myself) was this next trick. Nothing up my sleeve but Shield Block.
WoW Insider Show goes live on Ustream tomorrow
Yes, it's a time of change for the WoW Insider Show -- just a little over a year ago, we started out as a partnership with WoW Radio, but time has passed, we've grown bigger and bigger, and now it's time to move out on our own. What does this mean for you? Nothing much -- it only means that tomorrow afternoon at 3:30pm Eastern, instead of joining us on WoW Radio, you'll be joining us on our brand new Ustream channel, where you'll be able to listen to our podcast live, chat with everyone else listening to the show (no IRC required), and even try out some fun new features we've baked into the festivities. Other than that, nothing else has changed -- we're still providing news and views on the World of Warcraft, and yes, Turpster is still along for the ride. Tomorrow on the show, we'll ask him why he couldn't find a ship captain to carry him across the ocean to BlizzCon, and we'll welcome WoW Insider blogger Adam Holisky (who was at BlizzCon), and our good friend Patrick Beja, who not only attended nearly every panel at last weekend's BlizzCon, but has actually been inside Blizzard HQ as well. Plus, we don't know if you've heard of a little thing called patch 3.0.2, but we'll take a look at what Echoes of Doom has given us, including achievements, glyphs, and all the strange things you've been discovering this week. And we'll even look at what it hasn't given us quite yet.Oh, and did we mention the giveaways? We'll be giving away not one or two but three different loot card codes to live listeners, which is more than we've ever given out before. Remember, instead of WoW Radio, come visit us at our new Ustream channel, tomorrow afternoon at 3:30pm Eastern, for the revamped WoW Insider Show. Same time, same people, same fun, different URL. See you there.
Scattered Shots: Getting started with talents in 3.0.2 as a Beast Mastery Hunter
Welcome to Scattered Shots, where Daniel Whitcomb is doing a special happy dance over that whole Aspect global cooldown removal thing.Before we get into the meat of this week's column, I have a confession to make. I was tempted to make a very short column that consisted primarily of a recording of me making squealing noises that you would generally only expect to come from a giddy schoolgirl, punctuated by a bit of gibberish that might sound something like "Aspect of the Dragonhawk." But that said, there's a lot of other things I could talk about, and I won't leave you hanging. It's a busy time in WoW, and Hunters have a lot of stuff to do now that 3.0.2 is out. By now, hopefully, your server has calmed down enough for you to get on, play around with learning all your companions and mounts, and start trying to figure out talent specs. Hopefully by now, you've seen some of our articles on the subject, such as Big Red Kitty's Hunter and Pet Talent overviews, and David Bowers' guide to exotic pets currently available in game. They're great resources, so I'm not going to attempt to replicate them here. Instead, I'm gonna focus on a quick and pertinent question: You've finally found some time to play WoW, your server's stable enough to let you play WoW, and you've just logged on your Beastmastery Hunter for the first time since 3.0.2 went live. What do you do?
Elemental Shaman talent builds for Patch 3.0.2
So you logged in on Tuesday and all your talent points were gone. (Let's hope you noticed this fact before you went out to attack someone or something.) If you're looking at the new Elemental tree and wondering what talents to pick, here's a little help for you from someone who's been speccing and respeccing almost pure Elemental on the beta servers for several months now. (That would be me.) The first thing you should do is go read what our resident shaman expert, Matt Rossi, says about the overall changes to our class in Echoes of Doom, just to make sure you still want to stay Elemental (Part 1 and Part 2). For my part, I leveled to 70 as Elemental and saw no reason to switch as I worked my way up the new Wrath talent tree. Since we've already been over the new spells, the point of this post is to simply recommend a build for you. So let's get a-buildin'!Tier 1Both the PvE and the PvP specs start the same way. Take all 10 talents on the first row of the Elemental tree (Convection and Concussion) and put 5 points in Improved Healing Wave on the Resto tree. This is probably no different than your spec before Echoes of Doom.Tier 2PvE and PvP are the same here too. Max out both Call of Flame and Elemental Warding, which will improve both your DPS and your ability to survive. (That's right, elemental shamans are all about FIRE now.) Raiding shamans, on this tier you should also put 3 points into Ancestral Healing so that when you off-heal, your targets can reap this potential armor-increasing benefit.Tier 3 On the third level, both PvE and PvP should take Elemental Focus and all 5 points in Elemental Fury, which are both talents you probably had before the patch. PvE can take all 5 points in Reverberation, but PvP should save 3 of these points for later.Tier 4Both play styles should max out the points in this tier for Eye of the Storm (familiar talent) and the new Improved Fire Nova Totem. Now some of you will say that PvE shouldn't be using Fire Nova totem and I'll partially agree with you. No, you shouldn't be using it in raids or instances. However, you can use it carefully in PvE and questing (which I've done) and it can be extremely useful because of its slowing effect if you get mobbed.
Totem Talk: Echoes of Doom Enhancement review
Hi. Welcome to Echoes of Doom. I'll be your host, gibbering over in the corner that I suddenly have an extra 300 AP. I'll have even more once I re-gem for agility. My crit rate did drop. Hunter mail, let's never fight again.I'm still playing with specs and what my stats are now, so I'm not sure what advice if any to give on that score: despite having been in the beta for a while now, coming up with a level 70 spec that has everything I need is harder than coming up with a level 70 spec that's good enough to get me those extra 10 talent points for some reason. I ended up going with this build for pure PvE, as I don't PvP very much, but I'm seriously considering getting the Enhancing Totems and full Improved Windfury even if it costs me my elemental points. I guess it depends on if I want to buff the raid or my own personal DPS more. So far I've only really played with enhancement: not only is it the tree I like best, it's the one that we happened to need the most when I logged my draenei on. My orc is fullbore resto and will be taking that spec out for a spin soon to see how much no more downranking affects my healing in raids, but that's still in the future. After that, it will be elemental's turn, probably on the same shaman as he has the best caster gear in the new scheme of things.
Patch 3.0.2 guide to the new Gathering Profession Abilities
The new gathering profession abilities were undocumented in the patch notes, but they are definitely live in Patch 3.0.2. I was very pleased to discover that my Herbalist Druid has a new self heal and that my Skinner Rogue and Miner Paladin also had some unexpected goodies. Over the summer, Blizzard experimented with some abilities for all of the professions, but all that are live in the patch are the ones for the gathering professions. At least Mixology is trainable, and other ones may be available, though undocumented in the patch notes. This will be covered in a later post.Each ability can be found in your Spellbook under the General Skills tab. They have 6 ranks, with 5 being the maximum you are able to achieve before Wrath of the Lich King. The first rank is acquired with Journeyman or the skill of 75 and scales with your profession's rank. So, for example, a Master Herbalist will have Rank 5 of Lifeblood. Details for each ability are after the break.
Patch 3.0.2 primer for Holy Paladins
This was supposed to go up before the servers did, but as you probably already know, Patch 3.0.2 wasn't quite what we all expected. Now that servers are starting to go back up online, I can better write up this handy guide for the brave new world. Let's try to get as much of this right as possible. If you were as excited as I am -- and you should be -- you probably logged on as soon as your Realm went up, picked out all those cool talents you've been drooling over these past months, and went off reveling in your newfound power.Good for you. Even though Patch 3.0.2 had a few hiccups, most of the important class changes made it through. I had to delete a lot of my macros and change a few. For one thing, Judgement and a Seal can no longer be cast within the same macro. This is because Seals aren't consumed by Judgements anymore, so they now share the same GCD. If you have macros for your Blessings of Freedom, Protection, and Sacrifice, you should edit them to cast Hands instead of Blessings. Lots of little things. I'll probably talk about that in The Light and How to Swing It. For now, we'll take a look at the talent trees and how we'll settle into the 3.0.2 world.
What does WoW's Patch 3.0.2 mean for the casual player?
For many Massively readers, playing multiple MMOs is a way of life. With so many exciting and new games to choose from lately, it's really difficult to stick with just one. Chances are you've at least played World of Warcraft, although it may not be your primary game. With the introduction of the newest patch yesterday, a more 'casual' player may be a bit overwhelmed at the enormous scope of changes included in Patch 3.0.2.That's where our sister site WoW Insider has saved the day with their latest WoW, Casually column. In it, we get a brief description of the latest changes in Patch 3.0.2, including the removal of pets and mounts from your inventory space, the new Achievements system, the introduction of the Inscription craft and much more. Check out the complete article, and more on WoW Insider's complete coverage of this newest patch entitled Echoes of Doom.
Breakfast Topic: Unexpected Changes in Patch 3.0.2
There's a mailbox missing in Silvermoon! I know, I know. There are a lot of mailboxes in Silvermoon City, but I really liked this one near the bank in The Bazaar area. I must have missed this in the patch notes. And why would they get rid of it anyway? If anything, I think they should add more mailboxes to the old world cities. But I'm lazy. Running on mountless/travelformless alts is a chore. On a good note, I seemed to have totally missed that Marks of Honor were going to be on the Currency tab in the character screen instead of taking up precious bag space until i actually logged in yesterday. Yay more bag space!My favorite surprise in Echoes of Doom, however, was discovering that my Herbalist now has a new self-heal over time spell: Lifeblood. It's instant cast and has a 3 minute cooldown. There it was just sitting in my General Skills. A guildie had to point it out to me. I should probably take a closer look at the patch notes.What changes did you not expect to find in Patch 3.0.2?
Patch 3.0.2: Primed and ready
For the last few days, the WoW Insider staff members have been writing up a storm to help prepare you all for patch 3.0.2 and the changes it is bringing this afternoon. Unfortunately, the patch was not ready at the time we were originally given, and we're looking at roughly another hour (4:30 pm PST) before the realms come up.Despite an earlier announcement made by Ghostcrawler that not all of the changes we anticipated will make it into the patch, most of the information you will find in the class primers will be live as of today. Druids: Eliah has prepared an excellent primer for Feral Druids. John P. has explained and started a discussion about the missing armor for bears. A comprehensive look at Restoration druids has been written by Allison and is split up into part one, part two and part three. Mages: Christian has written a guide to help you prepare your mage for 3.0.2. Hunters: Big Red Kitty takes an in-depth look at both the Hunter talent trees and those of their pets. Warlocks: We have primers ready for all warlocks, whether they be Affliction spec, Demonology spec, or Destruction spec. Zach also prepared a separate analysis for the Demonology Tree and the Destruction Tree in order to help you choose your talents. Priests: Matt Low has written an excellent review of the spells and abilities for both Holy and Discipline Priests, as well as delving in and taking a look at their respective talent trees. Paladins: Zach has covered some of the highlights of the paladin changes. Warriors: Matthew Rossi wrote up a guide for warriors. Check out part one and part two. Rogues: Chase Christian has been covering all things Rogue. Shamans: On Totem Talk, Matthew Rossi talks about Shamans and patch 3.0.2, and finishes the discussion in a follow-up post. For more on today's patch, dubbed "Echoes of Doom," check out our round-up page. If you're planning to raid before Wrath comes out, then you might want to check out Jennie's guide!
Why are the servers down and other questions
For many of us, realms excitedly went up for a few minutes but quickly came crashing down. Reader Venorize was kind enough to send us a link to an F.A.Q answering all the pertinent questions about our realms... and why they're currently borked. Important questions like why our loading screens take forever to load (answer -- thousands and thousands of other people are logging in at the same time) and why our screen is cluttered with all sorts of incomprehensible gibberish and weird images (hint -- turn off your AddOns first).If you're having trouble logging in, experiencing difficulty in playing the game, or simply can't access of play World of Warcraft post Patch 3.0.2, head over to the F.A.Q., there are a lot of good answers to important questions. Even those not answered by our very own F.A.Q. assembled by Eliah. If you've got a question that isn't addressed here at WoW Insider or there, that's probably when you can head on over to the forums and bug Blizzard. Or... you can try and see if your realm's back on. A little patience goes a long way.
WoW, Casually: What Patch 3.0.2 means to the casual player [Updated]
Robin Torres writes WoW, Casually for the player who has limited playtime.Patch 3.0.2: Echoes of Doom is live today, preparing us for Wrath of the Lich King -- which is now less than a month away. The changes are vast and will affect your character in many ways. In fact, there are so many all at once that I find it a bit overwhelming, so here is a breakdown of what I think particularly applies to those of us with limited playtime.But before we jump in to the list, allow me to be sentimental for a moment. In preparation for the patch, I organized most of my pets and mounts in one bag and took a picture for posterity. After the patch, and a little bit of double clicking, this bag will be empty. Why and more are after the break.
Blizzard omits some class changes from WoW 'Echoes of Doom' patch
Shortly after our earlier post on the release of World of Warcraft patch 3.0.2 "Echoes of Doom" went up, we started receiving tips that the patch notes we linked to were inaccurate. Turns out they are ... because, as our friends at WoW Insider report, Blizzard yanked a number of major class changes prior to its release.In the run-up to next month's Wrath of the Lich King launch, Blizzard is evidently making changes to the game's balance on what seems to be a second-by-second basis, with the developer stating that patch 3.0.2 was balanced at level 80 with all of the intended changes but ... not so much at 70. Rather than make things messier, it went with what worked.Blizzard says that all players should get the (for now) shelved changes by the time WotLK launches on Nov. 13. It also expects there to be numerous hot fixes at that point, asking its fans to hold strong during this (hopefully brief) period of hectic pre-launch scuttering about.[Via WoW Insider]
Patch 3.0.2 primer for Warlocks part II
DemonologyLet's now take a look at the Demonology tree. Out of all the trees, Demonology has always been about utility. Obviously the most pet-centric spec, Patch 3.0.2 brings interesting synergies with the pet and Warlock that also brings significant gains in DPS. It's also still a great PvP spec, although Warlocks who choose to pursue SL/SL take a hit from the survivability nerfs in Demonology and miss out on some cool 51-point toys.On the first tier, we already discussed the nerf to Demonic Embrace, which now only grants 10% total Stamina instead of 15%. The Spirit penalty was removed, however, and it actually matters because we actually get spell power gains from Spirit through Fel Armor. Five points here is mandatory. There's also Improved Imp, which we'll skip because we won't be using the Imp much as a Demonologist, anyway. And then there's Improved Healthstone, which I highly recommend whether you raid or PvP. It's notable that when I tested it in Beta, players are no longer allowed to possess more than one Healthstone, regardless of rank. Because of this change, you might as well have the best one. Your raid or team will thank you for it.On the second tier we'll find Improved Health Funnel, which was buffed to grant a mitigation mechanic while our pet is under the effect of Health Funnel. I'd normally say take it, but we'll have our hands full with other talents later on. If you use your pet to tank a lot, this talent helps. Otherwise, you can skip it. On the other hand, you have to put three points in Fel Vitality, which rolls Fel Intellect and Stamina together. This one is a no-brainer. Demonic Brutality is a tougher choice. This is the buffed Improved Voidwalker which also increases the DPS of our Felguard. This is about as close as we'll get to an Improved Felguard for now, so it just might be worth investing in. Improved Succubus in tier three has been reworked to a more usable form by making Seduction instant cast, which is awesome. It's not like we ever used her for Lash of Pain or Soothing Kiss, anyway. If you really want pure utility, pick this up as it will also situationally be handy in PvP. Despite the improvement, though, I'd much rather spend three points in Demonic Aegis on the same tier for the spell power bonus to Fel Armor. Two key talents are also on the third tier -- the weaker but more accessible Soul Link and life-saving Fel Domination. Take them. Speaking of key talents, max out all the talents in tier four. Unholy Power opens up three different talents and Master Summoner is necessary to make Fel Domination absolutely worth it.The good news is that Demonic Sacrifice is now completely optional. If you're a fan of demon-less raiding, which I admittedly am not, then pick this up to go along with a hybrid Destruction spec. Otherwise you can skip this talent and Master Conjuror, both on the fifth tier. It's important to note, however, that Firestones and Spellstones have been reworked to be weapon buffs like Mana Oils. They no longer need to be equipped but instead are a 5-charge consumable item that grants significant bonuses to direct damage spells or DoTs.Mana Feed on the sixth tier is a good investment, particularly because Felguards eat through their mana extremely fast. Master Demonologist is another vital talent not only for the passive benefits but because it's required for Demonic Empowerment. That's about eight talents spent on this tier, so it's good that we can skip the underwhelming Improved Enslave Demon completely.Tier seven is a mixed bag. If you're heavy into PvP, you should probably max out Demonic Reslience, specially with the weaker Soul Link. Otherwise, you can skip it and invest in the more DPS-oriented Demonic Knowledge, which should do wonders for you in PvE. Also on this tier is the utility spell Demonic Empowerment, which I've enthused about. I like it. I have it hotkeyed. I hope you like it, too.Past the seventh tier we will be foregoing hybridization and should be committing to full Demonology. It's also where all these master and demon synergies start falling into place. Demonic Tactics on tier nine is a flat out DPS boost that should be maxed out. We'll also need it for another cool talent on the next tier. If we plan on sending our pet into the fray -- which we should, really -- Fel Synergy will help keep it alive. The more damage we deal, the more our demons stay up. How cool is that?Improved Demonic Tactics is on the ninth tier and gives our demons that necessary punch for Demonic Empathy. The DPS boost is moderate at 3%, but is virtually guaranteed to be up for either the Warlock or her pet at all times. It's pretty weak for something so deep in the tree, however, so I recommend skipping it. What we're not skipping, however, is Summon Felguard. No, really.Improved Demonic Tactics will come in handy for Demonic Pact, which grants a raidwide buff whenever our pet crits. If you're a raider, you'll want this. It won't stack with Shaman totems, though, so it's only good if you have considerable spell power. If you mostly PvP, you can skip it.Finally, we have Metamorphosis. I wanted to do a Skill Mastery on this talent because it really needs to be discussed. First of all, I honestly don't think it's a finished spell. At its best, it's a 30 second DPS boost every three minutes and a perfect panic button for PvP. It boosts a Demonology Warlock's survivability to the stratosphere because of the 600% armor bonus and snare and stun duration reductions. It's very nearly a Warlock's version of The Beast Within.Be warned, however, that the associated abilities in demon form are situational and even downright silly. Shadow Cleave gives you a low-damage melee strike... that also hits allies. I mean, if you have 30 seconds in this godly, er, demonic form, why would you waste your GCD on a silly melee strike? Then there's Challenging Howl, an AoE taunt for those Warlocks who've always dreamed of being Tankadins. Of course, the only thing vaguely tank-ish about a Warlock in demon form is the armor, and it's not even that high. Oh, and once 30 seconds are up, you're quite certain to die.Immolation Aura is great, though. It scales very well with spell damage and is there to teach those big, bad Warriors a lesson for picking on us. It lasts 15 seconds, so if you can't get out of melee range within that span of time, at least you're dealing some hurt. It's pretty much the best demon form ability, although you'll rarely use it while raiding. There's also Demon Charge, which is like a Warrior's Intercept. The trouble is, it works from a minimum of 8 yards, meaning you'll actually have to get close to someone you're already far away from to begin with. [CLARIFICATION: That statement was supposed to mean "you're already 8 yards away, why the hell would I charge to my opponent?"]I don't know about you, but I was fairly certain that our strategy was to kite things, not to tank things. Pretty much everything about Metamorphosis is counter-intuitive. That said, the ability does have its uses, and can be considered a boost to DPS when raiding. Hopefully it'll still get fixed at some point and, for the love of demons, it should get a female form. Even if you go deep into Demonology, you're completely excused if you skip Metamorphosis. << BACK NEXT >> Zach helps guide you through the changes in 3.0.2, so you can be enthralled in all the demonic love Blizzard's thrown together. Check out other 3.0.2 Talent Guides, too, as well as everything about the so-called Echoes of Doom.
WoW's pre-Wrath patch goes live
This isn't just a few technical tweaks to prepare the way for the second expansion to the monster MMO that is World of Warcraft. The list of changes is extensive and though it doesn't include Death Knights, Northrend or Arthas, it does contain: The new Inscription profession New Arenas The in-game Calendar feature New Raid buff system Barbershops Stormwind Harbor and of course, new Talents, Spells and Abilities too numerous to mention. For an overview of all the major changes coming to the game with Patch 3.0.2, check out WoW Insider's Guide to the "Echoes of Doom."
World of Warcraft 'Echoes of Doom' patch out today
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/World_of_Warcraft_Patch_3_0_2'; Today, Blizzard will be releasing World of Warcraft patch 3.0.2, also known as "Echoes of Doom," the first major update since March's "Fury of the Sunwell" patch. "Echoes" marks the introduction of the Achievements System, sure to push the game into an even higher echelon of addiction. Expect also new locations, arenas, spells, talents, abilities, a barbershop, an in-game calendar and a new profession, Inscription.Our MMO-obsessed (or "MMObsessed") friends at WoW Insider have the full patch notes and an archive of extensive coverage. The "Echoes of Doom" patch should be returning your calls around 2:00PM PT (or 5:00PM ET). In case you missed it (and then, of course, we must ask how?), check out Joystiq and WoW Insider's coverage of this past weekend's BlizzCon.
Tuesday Morning Post: Patch day 3.0.2 edition
Happy Tuesday Morning, everyone. Unfortunately, I have a couple pieces of bad news to start off with: First, BlizzCon's over. Secondly, We have a 12 hour downtime this morning, from 2 AM PDT to 2 PM PDT. But there's good news too: We're getting Patch 3.0.2 today, and we'll have a few BlizzCon wrapups and tons of 3.0.2 guides coming out for you throughout the next few days, so be sure to keep watching the site. In the meantime, you might also want to check out what we've already posted: Getting started in Patch 3.0.2: Want to start downloading 3.0.2 addons now? Check our handy list! Now that the PTR's closed, you might want to free up some hard drive space and delete those files. Need a Patch Mirror? We have links to those too. Blizzard's offering some extra help for this patch too. Be sure to check Skill Mastery for quick and dirty guides on some of the new spells that will be showing up on your trainers and in your spellbooks as early as tomorrow. New this week are entries such as Bloodsurge. Looking to get the Hallow's End Title? Let our guide help you plan your attack. Remember: Mounts and Vanity Pets will be getting their own new interface. Keep your eye on the 3.0.2 Echoes of Doom permapage for links to the latest articles on the patch, Including class information roundups.
