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Warrior tanking shields in Wrath
Many people are wondering how long their Aldori Legacy Defender or Bulwark of Azzinoth will be lasting them in WotLK. While there will be no definitive answer until the official release of Wrath when items are more or less finalized, we can take a look at the various shield options now and at least get a feel for when they'll be replaced.We'll compare shields by selecting a few key statistics: armor, block value, defense, and stamina. There might be other statistical factors in each shield, however these four values are the major stats that define a shield's power. We also show the strength on the shields which are coming in Wrath, since that attribute will be playing a larger role for the Protection Warrior post patch 3.0.2.Read on after the break for a statistical break down of shield options for the Warrior tank, and why the iconic Bulwark of Azzinoth won't be replaced until at least level 77, if not level 80.
Why Blizzard needs to put AH data on the Armory
There is a certain party, a regular emailer to us among our readers, who believes that we here at WoW Insider take a little too long at the start of our posts to get to the actual point of each story, so in this one, I'll just get right down to it: Blizzard needs to put Auction House information on the Armory.I've been on the grind to the 5000g for my epic flying mount lately, and I've been playing the Auction House like a demon: calculating, buying, selling, and crafting my way to as much gold as I can throw together. And while Auctioneer has definitely helped, the best way I've found to track prices and make sure I get the most for my time in the AH is just to see the prices themselves -- no average price calculated by Auctioneer is worth enough as seeing the real thing. And that's where Blizzard comes in -- while there are a few sites that attempt to track prices with various methods, they have actual, constant access to the prices on every server. And they have a great place to put them: on the Armory.The item pages on the Armory right now are practically empty -- besides some vendor and reagent information, there's almost nothing there (especially compared to, say, Wowhead). Giving player access to AH information would pull them into the game even when they couldn't play, not to mention let some of Blizzard's most talented web programmers -- their fans -- at data that they could do tons of great stuff with. Want a text alert when your favorite mats drop in price, or when there's room on the AH to finally sell off those Elixirs of Agility you've got? By passing out AH info to the Armory, Blizzard could give fans access to the data needed to make their own great tools, not only leaving Blizzard free to work on actual development, but giving us Auction House haunters all the access we need to track prices and have that much more fun playing the AH.
Phat Loot Phriday: Perpetual Purple Firework
For the Fourth, we're going with the obvious choice: a hot little infinite fireworks trinket that isn't all that easy to get.Name: Perpetual Purple Firework (Wowhead, Thottbot, TCGLoot)Type: Epic (sometimes Uncommon) TrinketDamage/Speed: N/AAbilities: Use: Shoots a purple fireworks display into the air that explodes into a rain of sparkles. It has infinite uses (hence the "perpetual"), and a 30 second cooldown. The whole display itself lasts about 4 seconds, but it does like pretty purty. No level requirements, so anyone can use it -- provided you can get it. How to Get It: Yes, it's a TCG item, but not one of the normal ones, where you just buy a booster and hope you pick it up. Nope, this fireworks trinket is part of Upper Deck's "points" program, in which points is just a fancy word for "spend more money!" Every booster pack you buy has a certain number of points in it, and when you've collected enough points cards, you can spend them on UDE's website for ingame items like this one. There's about 100 points per booster pack, and this item currently costs 3,000 points (it used to cost 10,000!), so you'd have to buy 30 booster packs (MSRP around $5, though you can find them cheaper and more expensive in different places, so about $150 total) to get enough points for the trinket.Fortunately, we have eBay, where people are selling and buying the UDE points for as cheap as $15. Still not really a great way to get an ingame item (spending real money for virtual stuff, woo!), but if you really want to get your hands on this trinket, there you go. Otherwise, just do a few runs of Scarlet Monastery's Armory, and you'll have all the fireworks you need.Getting Rid of It: You can't! Vendors won't take it, and it'll never run out of charges, so the only way to get rid of it would be to destroy it. And that would be like throwing money down the drain, which is something that TCG buyers would never ever do, right? Right?
The European connection in 9Dragons
Acclaim's martial arts MMORPG 9Dragons is about to gain some more European fans, with the launch of Bardo Euro -- their new European server. Bardo Euro promises to offer the European playerbase an improved game experience with better connections all around.Apparently the players have been calling for a European 9Dragons server for some time; Acclaim is delivering on their promises to improve the game and is holding a number of special events to celebrate the launch: 30% off sale: All items in the 9Dragons Item Mall will be 30% off for 3 days only. June 6-8. Bonus exp rate events: Earn 2 times experience points by playing on the Bardo server. June 3-9. Monster spawn event: High level monsters will invade Bardo. June 3-5, 6, 8-9. VGM/GM PvP event: Test your martial arts skills battling against Acclaim VGM and GM staff. June 3-6, 8-9. Fireworks in Bardo: To celebrate the official launch of the European server, fireworks will light up the sky at random times from May 30 to June 8 on the Bardo server. If you're in Europe, why not give 9Dragons a shot? Roll yourself a Shaolin or Wu-Tang badass and see if you can take down a GM or two in martial arts combat. Via Warcry
The gear you'll never delete
We all have pieces of gear that we don't want to do away with. For me, it's mainly my Quel'Serrar sword – thousands of gold spent on it pre-bc makes it (adjusted for inflation) the most expensive item I've ever purchased. I'm never going to be getting rid of it. I know that others have the same sentiments. For instance pictured above is the hat of one of my good friends in game. She's had those moose antlers for about 2 ½ years from Onyxia. I know that she'll never get rid of them, and if she did... well, our guild would probably have to gdisband.There's something nostalgic about keeping around old gear. It provides a memory of "the good old days" when hitting 60 actually meant something. Those old pieces of gear meant that you had accomplished something epic when epics weren't free. Our old epic pieces of gear are a testament to a time when the game was still new and the wilds of Azeroth were really wild.
A warrior and his spirit gear
For some reason on my home server, Eldre'Thalas, when folks see a tank standing around in Shattrath without anything to do, they immediately start sending tells asking if I want to go tank such-and-such an instance for them. I don't mind it when my friends or guild mates do it, but it does get a little annoying when complete strangers do it constantly.So I've come up with a solution: spirit and intellect armor. Whenever I'm doing anything other than fighting, I'm wearing bright yellow spirit and intellect armor that I got off the AH. I spent about a hundred gold on this dastardly set. It looks awful, it smells awful, and it's a great repellent for annoying unsolicited LFG tells.I got the idea from looking at people's gear who are apping to my guild. Some of it was just plain nuts – spirit gear on Warriors, "of stamina" gear on Priests, things like that. Of course, they might have just been logged out in that gear the same way I'm logged out in mine right now. But when you're apping to a guild and one of the requirements is to log out in PvE gear for the next week, well, too bad so sad for them.
Phat Loot Phriday: Winterfall Firewater
This is probably old news to a lot of you, but just in case you happened to join us after Burning Crusade dropped, you might not know about this magical liquid available only in the snowy wastes of Winterfall. Here's something fun that almost anyone after 55 can get.Name: Winterfall Firewater (Wowhead, Thottbot, Wowdigger)Type: ConsumableDamage/Speed: N/AAbilities: Increases your attack power by 35 for 20 minutes. This counts as a Battle Elixir -- you can only use one Battle Elixir and one Guardian Elixir at a time. But the best part of this nowadays (since 35 attack power ain't that much, especially when you scale up to 70) is that it makes you grow in size, which lets you do funny things like the picture above. There are a couple of other ways to grow in size -- the most common is the Shaman spell Bloodlust. Stack a few of these together with the Firewater, and you can see some pretty crazy stuff. You can put your own "huge player" experiences in the comments below. Finally, "firewater" is also a slang term for alcohol, and is also offensively used to refer to the problem of alcoholism among Native Americans. In the quest mentioned below, you find out that the Furblog (a bear-like people with tribal similarities to Native Americans) is being corrupted by this "firewater," and one of your tasks is to attack the Furblog leader and cure them of that corruption. A very interesting social background to the whole idea of the Furbolg in Azeroth. How to Get It: This is a drop only from Furbolg in Winterspring, and though most of the percentages out there say it drops only about 4-6%, experience tells us that it drops pretty regularly. Anyone who's ever grinded those bears for Timbermaw Hold rep will tell you that they've seen tons of these. And for that reason, they're also pretty readily available on the AH as well, for as cheap as a gold or two.Still, it's always fun to have a few around, just in case things get a little boring during a raid, and you feel the need to, y'know, be big.Getting Rid of It: AH it, because vendors won't buy it. Or just drink it, specifically during raids when Bloodlust gets dropped. Always fun.
Wowhead adds new item links
My favorite database site has recently added a new feature to their item listings. When you look an item up on Wowhead.com, you'll notice a new link to the right of the item's name which says "Get in-game item link". When you click on it, a new window will pop open with some highlighted text. Simply copy the text into your in-game chat window and hit enter. You'll be given an in-game item link for the equipment you looked up on Wowhead, so you can check yourself out in the dressing room or pass the info on to another player.This is certainly a cool feature and one I'll probably play around with quite a bit. This may allow me to do away with some of the item database addons I currently use in-game. I'm already alt-tabbing out to read Wowhead all the time, so it won't be much hassle at all to copy their links into the game when necessary.Will you be using this feature at all? What do you think about it?
Wowhead adds rating conversions
My personal favorite database site has recently updated their item listings with a new feature. While not currently listed on their under development page, Wowhead has started listing the items in their database with the combat ratings converted into percentages, much like another one of my favorites, the RatingBuster addon. You can take a look at the picture above to get an idea of what I'm talking about. In this case, the Veteran's Band of Triumph has +22 critical strike rating which converts to a +1%critical strike chance at level 70, while its +22 resilience rating converts to -0.56% critical damage taken (among other things).Undoubtedly this relatively small change will make the site even more useful. Rating conversions are especially helpful when comparing gear choices and attempting to decide if a particular item is an upgrade or not. I know I'll be utilizing this new feature when doing just that.
Phat Loot Phriday: Speedy Racer Goggles
Today's PLP is actually a request. Reader Pol sent a request for this one (a while ago, actually-- sorry, I've been busy), and wanted to know the story behind these one easy-to-obtain and now very rare goggles.Name: Speedy Racer GogglesType: Uncommon Cloth HeadArmor: 53 ArmorAbilities: +14 Intellect Pre 2.3, they've also got +14 Agility on them, but post 2.3, they've got +16 to healing and damage. Also, they're notable for being the only goggles in the game (I'm pretty sure-- someone speak up in the comments if this isn't true) that don't have an Engineering requirement to wear. If you have two professions that aren't Engineering, and you want to wear some shades, these are them. And as goggles in Azeroth go, they don't really look too bad. But there's a problem... How to Get It: Erm, while these things were once super easy to come by, they're gone now. They used to be a reward for the Gahz'rilla quest that had you killing the big lizard in Zul'Farrak, but the other option from this quest was the famous mountspeed increaser Carrot on a Stick, so these goggles got neglected by most players coming through. Eventually, Blizzard decided that if no one wanted them, no one would have them, and the goggles got removed from the quest rewards, and are currently unavailable ingame.But here's the thing. Blizzard, as you might know, recently did an upgrade of lowbie items, including lowbie quest items like these goggles. And these goggles, as you see above, did get upgraded. If anyone had them sitting in their bags, they'll see the +spell damage on the item, not the old Agility buff.Does this mean Blizzard is bringing them back. Not necessarily likely-- instead of just tweaking each item separately, odds are that Blizzard just tweaked the recipes for the items, and thus this item got tweaked automatically. It may be coming back as part of the upgrades to Engineering (wouldn't it be great if Engineers could sell goggles like these?), but that's pure speculation at this point.Still, this is a nice item. It's kind of a shame it got pushed out by Carrot on a Stick. Maybe we'll see the Speedy Racer Goggles again somewhere else in Azeroth in the future.Getting Rid of It: Sells for 67s 45c to vendors, but if you got em, might as well hold on to them. They're as antique as items get in Azeroth.Update: Commenter rockatansky points out that they are not the only non-Engie goggles. But I'd hazard a guess that they are the only vanilla WoW non-Engie goggles.
PTR Notes: New reputation ammo
MMO Champion has reported that new "Specialty Ammunition Vendors" have been discovered on the PTR in patch 2.3. These vendors, Archer Delvinar and Marksman Bova, can be found in once empty structures in the Scryer and Aldor areas, respectively, in Shattrath City. Not only do they sell the best types of normal vendor ammunition outside of Halaa, but they also stock ammunition that has reputation requirements. Instead of running over to the Cenarion Refuge in Zangarmarsh every time you need to stock up on Warden's Arrows, you can now buy the same ammo in Shattrath. The same vendors also carry ammunition that is currently only available from vendors in Honor Hold/Thrallmar and the Caverns of Time. Currently the cost of all the ammunition sold by these vendors appears to be tied to Aldor/Scryer reputation level, but still requires the specified faction requirement to actually purchase and use.Of course, the best news is that these vendors also carry a new type of ammunition. The Mysterious Arrows and Mysterious Shells require revered reputation with the Violet Eye and provide 46.5 additional damage per second. A stack of 200 costs 1 gold without any price reductions from reputation. Clearly these new items are meant to fill the gap between Adamantite and Timeless ammunition and help hunters that are tackling Magtheridon, Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep increase their damage output. With the new Adamantite Stingers also being added 2.3, hunters will have more options than ever before when choosing a type of ammunition.
Phat Loot Phriday: Primal Mooncloth Bag
This is it. If you want to hold your stuff, ain't nothing better than this. The only thing is, the mats might drive you up a wall first.Name: Primal Mooncloth BagType: BagAbilities: It's a whopping 20-slot bag, which is the biggest in the game. There are a few bigger ones out there-- in fact, quite a few. But those are all specialty bags, and this one will hold whatever you want in it. If you want to hold stuff-- a lot of stuff-- this is what you need. How to Get It: And here's the catch (there always is one, isn't there?): even with the mats, it could take you two weeks just to get this thing made. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Taking the production out of itemcrafting
Here's an interesting suggestion from Mystic Worlds: take the production process out of crafting.When I used to play Dark Age of Camelot, the crafting setup was my least favorite part of the game-- it seemed like crafting materials were expensive, the crafting process took way too much time (I having long conversations with others standing around the crafting area), and the stuff you made (at the early levels anyway) just wasn't that great. So WoW's system may not be perfect, but it seemed like a breath of fresh air after that-- materials come from actually playing the game, and putting things together is something you can generally do as an afterthought rather than as, well, a profession. The gathering is the important part.So Mystic Worlds says, why not make the gathering the whole thing? You still go out and get mats from the world, crafters turn those raw mats into usable mats, and then you'd actually take the bolts and gems and tanned leather that crafters made to NPC crafters, who would turn them into items. That way, if you want a Robe of the Void but you aren't a tailor, you just take the mats to an NPC tailor who can hammer one out for you.
Breakfast Topic: Meanwhile, back at the farm...
Whenever I hear the phrase in that title, I think of one of my very favorite children's books.ANYWAY, this Breakfast Topic is entirely selfish. Lately, I've continued to try and build up enough gold to get my epic mount, as well as bring my alchemy skill up, so I've been doing lots and lots of farming lately.And I've come up with a few tips for doing it-- watch a movie while I'm at it, make circles around zones that have exactly what I want (Felwood, Un'goro, and Hellfire Peninsula have been great for Herbalism, but I've never done Mining or farmed for Tailoring items or Motes), and make sure to pick up bags meant for crafting items, so I have enough room to haul what I need.So what tips have you picked up for farming? Some people are crazy about it-- I know my guildleader has done it for hours, getting both mining mats and herbs for our guild-- and surely they know lots of inside stuff that us casual players take a long time to pick up. What would you recommend to someone who heads out into Azeroth and Outland looking for nature's gifts?
GM says "Mailbox piccolo concerts are right out!"
A forum thread about a player and a GM talking about the Piccolo of the Flaming Fire popped up yesterday. As usual it was deleted, but the image was saved by Neuroxin on the WoW LJ community -- where I saw this. While GM threads are nothing new, the reason that this player was contacted by a GM is a new one on me. Were you aware that using the Piccolo of the Flaming Fire when you are AFK on top of a mailbox can get you in trouble with the GMs?While I totally appreciate that the piccolo can be annoying over a long period of time, does it truly interrupt the ability to play? Is it on the same level as ganking someone over and over as someone suggested? I'll admit that I totally hate that item, but not because it makes me dance. I hate it because a small flute should not sound like a harp. (and yes, that's nitpicky of me)
More item tweaking going down on the PTRs
If you thought the item stats tweaking was over, think again. When players were amazed that the new Tankatronic Goggles saw a nice buff (that could actually compete with Tier 6), Kalgan showed up with a firebomb: the current build on the PTRs only has about a third of the item changes coming down. He says "nearly every level 70 epic item in the game is in the process of being updated."Curse has a few of the changes already-- blacksmithing weapons and armor have been boosted, arena weapons saw a buff, and (most exciting for me, since I'm not a blacksmith or a good PvPer), the Badge of Justice stuff has been improved a bit. So expect a lot of changes (for the better, so far) whenever the patch does come out. In fact, with all these buffs, I'm wondering if something is going to give. Hopefully, the devs decided to buff the high end stuff, rather than nerf the more obscure items.Oh, and the look of the Mongoose enchant has changed yet again. I'm glad that whoever's job it is to design that enchant is really taking the time to make sure it's exactly right.
Samwise Didier, Warcraft icon
Kaelaiden was mining around Outland, he posts on the forums, when suddenly, in an Adamantite node, this thing on the right pops up. Instead of the normal Adamantite icon, there's some weird guy's face grinning like a fool.If you've been around Warcraft a while, you might recognize it. The icon itself is basically WoW's default icon-- whenever there's a spell or an item that doesn't have an icon associated with it, that guy's face gets put in its place. Usually, it's the icon for spells that players never actually cast themselves, such as quest spells or special item abilities. In this case, it's likely that Kael's client software harmlessly glitched and showed the wrong icon.But who's face is it, exactly? That icon is actually a man who's created a lot of iconic artwork himself-- it's Samwise Didier, Blizzard's longtime art director. He's tons and tons of artwork for Warcraft throughout the years-- a look at his art gallery reveals lots of amazing work from all over Azeroth. He's even done a little voicework, in both WoW and WCIII. He has a thing for pandas-- he actually created the Pandaren-- and there's lots of "SD" and "Sam" in-jokes throughout the games he's worked on.Oh, and he's also the frontman of Level 60 Elite Tauren Chieftain, the band of Blizzard employees that played at Blizzcon (that explains Drysc's mysterious "L60ETC rocks!" comment in the thread Kael posted). Basically, he's a WoW icon in every sense of the word.
Re-evaluating item stat values
Blizzard is looking at the value of sockets on items (currently, the value per socket is slightly higher on higher quality items) and standardizing it throughout the game in an upcoming (but unspecified) content patch. In addition to this, they're also going to reviewing the expansion armor sets -- Drysc says it's not the intent for higher tier sets to be poorer quality or side-grades to previous sets, and that some sets may see changes in the future.While Drysc seems to be talking about future changes, some re-evaluation of item values seems to have already happened in patch 2.0.10, however. This list of undocumented patch changes, compiled by Ramiel, contains numerous item tweaks -- some good and some not so good.
Forum Post of the Day: Name an item...
Can you name an item you have now that you're planning on keeping at level 70? Of course there are the obvious trinket toys (there are multiple mentions of WoW Insider favorite Dartol's Rod of Transformation), non-combat pets, and fancy clothes -- but think about it, is there any actual gear you plan on holding on to by the time you hit 70? For my part, I imagine my priest will be holding on to the Blue Dragon Darkmoon Faire card, as it has a unique effect that I doubt I'll see duplicated elsewhere. But for ordinary gear -- even epic gear that's taken hour upon hour upon hour of learning encounters and attending raids -- it may smooth the trip to 70 a bit, but I don't see any of it being irreplaceable.
Virtua Fighter 5 only for PS3 next spring
There was a time when Virtua Fighter 5 was considered a strong candidate for an arcade port to the Xbox 360, but that multiplatform hope's been dashed with the official announcement that VF5 will appear only on PS3 in the spring of 2007. Sega's technical fighter is a Sony exclusive once more.While home-console online play remains doubtful at this point, next-gen PlayStation owners can now securely look forward to facing off as El Blaze and Eileen (the new luchador and monkey kung-fu artist, respectively) along with the other 15 fighters, decked out in all sorts of items purchased in the in-game store with prize money earned through in-game matches.VF5 will support up to 720p HD resolution and will be featured in game footage in the SEGA booth at E3 (South Hall, Booth #946) later this week.[Thanks, Matt; also via Joystiq]
