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The Rift loot guide part three lists Minstrel, Lore-master goodies
Ten Ton Hammer has been giving us the lowdown on all the shiny new gear LotRO players can acquire in The Rift of Nûrz Ghâshu, the new raid instance Turbine added to the game in the Book 11 update. First they listed the coin rewards. Second, it was the gem rewards for Guardians and Champions. They've just launched part three and this time they're covering all the sweetness Minstrels and Lore-masters can acquire with the elusive gems that drop in the instance.Lore-masters can get a new armor set awesomely and appropriately called "The Elder Days," which gives mad stat boosts as well as some shadow damage mitigation. Minstrels can gather up the pieces of a suit of armor called the "Armour of the Wandering Bard," which provides similarly sweet stat bonuses and tactical critical modifiers. There are new weapons for both classes as well.It's excellent gear, and all this on top of all the other lovin' Minstrels and Lore-masters got in Book 11. We'll let you know when part four of the guide hits the streets.
Part 2 of LotRO 'The Rift' loot guide
The second part of TenTonHammer's Lord of the Rings Online loot guide has been posted. Part one had a look at rift-coins and the rewards associated with them, but now we're getting to the really good stuff -- gems. Gems can be handed in for class-specific items, both armor and weapons. However, as each gem will be required by every class, expect to be raiding a while before you've finished your set.This chapter of the guide details the loot that Guardians and Champions can look forward to. The guide shows the stats on each piece, and lists the set bonuses gained by wearing more of the pieces at once. There is also a table that shows which bosses drop which gems, and noted here is the fact that one of the bosses (as of the writing of the guide) is not giving up his gem.The bugged encounter should yield a Dazzling Emerald, and the fact that he isn't translates into the shoulder pieces from each set currently being unavailable. No doubt, as reports are being sent in about the issue, it will be fixed soon enough. Click the related story to get a list of the item sets for Guardians and Champions, and we will keep an eye out for the next installment, which will cover another handful of classes.
Don't forget your gems!
Since it's the first of the month (or close enough), those of you with Consortium rep (which would be roughly anyone over level 60) should remember to fly out to Aeris Landing in Nagrand and visit Gehze for your monthly lot of free gems. The better your rep, the more gems you get, and the more likely they are to be blue-quality. Both of my high-level characters are merely honored, so I got a couple of Unmarked Sacks of Gems, each containing three or four uncut green-quality gems. Not huge, but hey, a few extra gold never hurt, and it's certainly enough to be worth flying out for every month. Blizzard originally had plans to have the gems come in the mail, but that was buggy and they ultimately scrapped it in favor of a monthly quest.The different rewards, depending on your Consortium reputation, are: Friendly: Gem Stuffed Envelope Honored: Unmarked Sack of Gems Revered: Bulging Sack of Gems Exalted: Bag of Premium Gems Maybe it's time to start grinding Consortium rep...any tips on that? Also, jewelcrafters, do you see a spike in your business around the beginning of the month? Just curious.
Amanna's Gem Research Center
Amanna over at the Adventures in Azeroth blog has put together a useful "gem research center" for finding gems to fill those slots. Basically, she's just created some filters on Wowhead for you, so that if you need to find all the purple gems, all the Epic rated gems, or even something as specific as all of the Resto epic gems, the info's just a click away.Don't forget as well that gems aren't necessarily permanent-- while putting a gem in a slot uses that gem up for good, you can still place another, better gem in that same slot. So since this guide is here, now might be a good time to go back and look at gear you picked up and slotted a while ago, and see if there are any easy upgrades to find now. Amanna also has a list of BoP gems, so even if you're not a JC or don't have one available, there are places you can go to get your own shiny rocks.Definitely worth a bookmark. Amanna is also planning on putting something like this (a list of Wowhead filters, I believe) together for gear, so we'll keep an eye out for that as well.
Insider Trader: A diamond is forever -- a consumer's guide to gems
Insider Trader is your weekly inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products. Got empty slots sitting wide open on your gear, simply because researching gem possibilities is so infuriatingly time-consuming and confusing? Get ready to get socketing! Our handy consumer's guide to gems will steer you to savvy selections in no time. While jewelcrafting can sound confusing as all get-out, we've rounded up some convenient tools and handy reference lists that simplify the process of figuring how to slot your gear with gems that work for you.In The Burning Crusade, Blizzard introduced jewelcrafting and the ability to augment items with gems. Many higher-end items feature sockets designed to be slotted with player-cut gems. A jewelcrafter can cut these gems, which grant your gear additional stat and effect bonuses. What color? What cut? What stats? What about meta gems? You need to figure out what's available, what works best for your gear and how to get your hands on what you need. Let's get to work ...
Auction House Updates in 2.1
I love the Auction house. I've got a mule parked there just specifically so I can log over periodically, scan, and then snap up any bargains and either stash them for tradeskills, send them to an alt, or resell them if it's an item that has been severely under priced. (I can't tell you how many copies of the Savory Deviate Delight recipe I've bought from the AH for 40s that I resold for at least 5g.) But I have to admit, I've never thought that the search interface was too terribly good. Then I saw a blue reply to a forum request for changes to the auction house that made me a happy panda. According to Eyonix:...We're also working to improve our user-interface, which includes the auction house. Below are some of the changes slated to be implemented for the next patch. The Auction House now has a reset button that will reset all fields you have entered to allow you to quickly try a different search. When items are being put up for sale on the Auction House, if the item you are putting up for bid is the same item and quantity as the previous item you put up for bid, it will automatically fill in the price and buyout for you with your previous price. Gems are now searchable in the Auction House under the heading of Gem with the gems then broken up by color so you can search for all gems of a specific color. I just wonder if the end version of automatic fill they implement will remember prices from when you were logged in before like Auctioneer does? Or will the auction house "forget" things as soon as I log out -- or perhaps even as soon as I close the auction house interface? It's not enough of a change to replace Auctioneer for me, but it's a step in the right direction at least. And I lest I forget -- Hooray searchable gems by color in case you missed it in the previous patch notes![via the General forum]
Two online tools for jewelcrafting
If you're a jewelcrafter (or just want to find some good gems to stick in your armor-- and who doesn't?), you'll probably find these two little online jewelcrafting applications invaluable.First off, Xornot's Gem Finder by Xornot of Gorefiend is an awesome little application that lets you browse through all the gems in the game (so far-- I'm not a jewelcrafter, so I don't know if it's completely up-to-date) according to socket color, stat bonuses, crafting or vendoring, and even by name. All of the gems are color coded, and because Xornot is apparently a l33t web coder, everything is Ajaxy smooth. Very cool tool for finding just the right gem for that shiny new epic you just picked up.Jesta has also created a jewelcrafting tool that may not look quite as shiny as the first one, but in fact goes a little farther-- not only can you browse all the gems in the game (by base gem, color, or class appropriateness), but it looks like eventually, jewelcrafters will be able to log in, list the gems they can make, and even list prices for prospective buyers on the server. It's kind of like a custom online auction house listing for jewelcrafting. Unfortunately, there's no date listed for functionality, and it seems like Jesta is a little too busy working on all kinds of other things to get it up and running, but we'll throw a hug his way and thank him for the great online app.The 2.1 changes will bring a little more order to the auction house in terms of gems, but until then (and even afterwards), these tools look really useful for both prospectors and their customers.[ via WoW LJ ]
Blue Notes: Cleaves and Soulbound Gems
This isn't exactly news per se, since we knew that some cleaves were in for a change, but now we know more about the precise implementation, thanks to Tigole:The following changes to cleave have been made for the 2.1.0 patch. --Cleaves will only hit people in front of the creature. --Cleaves will have a chain length equal to the combat reach of the creature. We still don't have an exact estimate on when this patch will be ready but development is wrapping up and the test phase should begin relatively soon. As a reminder, the patch undergoes internal testing before public, PTR testing.I'm not really sure what "chain length" means. Does it mean radius, i.e. only people within combat reach of the creature will get hit? If so, I thought that was going on already. At any rate, my Rogue is now somewhat happier in dungeons, although it wouldn't have saved me in Blood Furnace last night (who knew "come here" means "go away or you're going to die in a fire?"). And from the "questions that you never thought of but which are still valid" department, we get an answer to what happens when you put a BoP gem (like the epic ones you can get off Heroic dungeons) in a BoE item, from Aeus:I just asked a friendly GM to test this: Socketing a BoP gem into a BoE item should not make it soulbound, just VERY expensive ;)Epic gems are the new designer labels. (<Made by Prada>, anyone? It happened on my realm, anyway.)
Socketed items still not impressing players
I asked this question when the expansion first hit: do sockets suck? It seemed to me that there were lots of socketed items in game that, even with great gems in them, just didn't match up to the nonsocketed items I was finding.And now, Passion of Anub'Arak posts on the forums with much more concrete evidence of exactly that. Even the epic socketed drops in Karazhan, with great gems in them, don't have the stats of some of the nonsocketed drops from the level 70 5mans. There's no point to wasting all the time, consumables, and gem money to get the higher level items if a run through a 5man instance will net you better gear.Fortuately, Neth replies in the thread, and says that item balance is still ongoing. Unfortunately, she (I'd imagine she did it on purpose, tricksey CMses) goes right down the middle, and says that they'll be looking at items "that may not be living up to what we wanted them to be or are more powerful than originally intended." As for whether that means they'll make the epics dropping in Karazhan even better (yay!) or nerf the 5man drops (boo), your guess is as good as ours.As a final note, I'll just throw out there that this one may not actually be Blizzard's fault. The availability and price of good gems depends on how many players are jewelcrafting, and how often. It could be that everyone tried out jewelcrafting in the beta, and so Blizzard figured that jewels would be better or more plentiful that what's out there right now-- with not enough good jewels to go around, it's no surprise that socketed items are disappointing.
Russia's ISSE makes Nokia 8800s even pricier
Sure, the details vary a little bit from jeweler to jeweler, but the result is always the same: a standard-issue phone that's been taken to excessively opulent extremes thanks to an excess of gems and rare earth elements. This time around, the phone is Nokia's already expensive 8800, and the culprit is ISSE of Russia. The handset is naturally covered in gold or silver, while optional heated enamel can add a shade of color to the phone that takes away any resemblance of precious metal. Tack on a few carats of diamonds, rubies, garnets, or whatever, slap it in a box made of "rare timber," and call it good. In our opinion, any self-respecting individual with too much cash for their own good would seek out the newer Sirocco Edition of the 8800, but that's just us.[Via Unwired View]
The titles you may have missed
Cheap-Ass Gamer made an important observation: the DS just had far too many AAA titles in 2006 for its own good. Amongst the chaos and personal financial destruction of games like New Super Mario Bros, Metroid Prime: Hunters, Final Fantasy III, and Brain Age, it was quite easy to miss some of the gems hidden in the rough. Thus, CAG has made a list of games you might want to go back and visit as the holiday game rush ends (though not really ... Phoenix Wright 2 comes out this month and is certainly your first priority). Check it out, and discover the lost.
Rumored jewelcrafting abilities
I'm not sure whether I can classify this one as a rumor, since it doesn't come with the requisite blurry screenshot. And while there's no verification to any of these gem abilities, they're certainly interesting if true -- providing a wide range of small buffs that will be interesting to see in different combinations on items. Blizzard's own jewelcrafting information suggests that items will have a a varying number of sockets and that some sockets will be specific to certain types of gems (you'll get a bonus ability for socketing them with the appropriate type of gem). Read on for the specific gem abilities.
