legendaries
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Hearthstone: Rating the legendary cards
In between Hearthstone matches, I've been busy furiously writing tips and pointers for you to check out. The other day we looked at the top neutral rares that were available to players. If you're going to buy rares, those were the ones you should get as they offer the best bang for the buck and can be included in more than one deck type. Today, we look at the more glamorous cards. We're going to look at the big guns in Hearthstone: Legendaries. Style key Bold: Craft it. Italics: Nice to have, not a necessity. Unformatted: Walk away. Al'Akir the Windlord - Okay for shaman decks. I feel that he's a little weak in the punch area, but has incredible staying power with the divine shield. The ability to strike twice with windfury means that he can't take down most mid-sized minions effectively. Alexstrasza - Can be used offensively or defensively on any player. It's not a damage dealer but she does set the life. Warriors that are armored up should still have their armor active. A warrior with 5 life and 10 armor with Alexstrasza on them will have 15 life and 10 armor (This was fixed in the recent patch).
Officers' Quarters: Revisiting my Mists wish list
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. In January 2012, I wrote up a wish list of improvements to the guild experience that I wanted in Mists of Pandaria. We're at the point now in the expansion's life cycle where all major features have been revealed. The next big additions to WoW will come in patch 6.0. So let's look back at what we got in Mists and what we're still waiting for. Wish 1: Treat legendary items as guild rewards, not player rewards. Status: Granted, in a way In my original list, I wrote about the drama that legendaries created in guilds and wished for a way to reduce that drama. I suggested that a legendary item should be bound to the guild that helped a player to earn it, rather than the player. Instead, Blizzard took legendaries in a direction that no one expected: they created a quest line that anyone could complete. In doing so, they took away the drama factor. They released officers from the burden of deciding who would receive a legendary and who wouldn't. For most guilds, this has been a welcome change.
The Queue: What a wonderful kind of day
Welcome back to The Queue, the 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. I dare you to find a better theme song than the one used in the Arthur cartoon. I hereby outlaw the Wishbone theme as a rebuttal, because it would be the correct one. arkainjel001 asked: Do you think there is any chance of implementing a level scaling system for legendary items, similar to heirlooms? I'm not talking about them being best in slot forever, just a decent weapon to use until it can be replaced at max level. Using this expansion as an example, Sulfuras could be used until level 90, where it would have stats similar to a 463 weapon, and then upgraded to better weapons from there. I just don't like the idea of a "legendary" weapon being completely obsolete and collecting dust in the bank.
Should green fire be prestigious?
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill wishes the mages would stop sending out the bad voodoo vibes to everything she owns so she can buy new fun things for her birthday instead of old replacements. There's plenty to look for through the datamining, but the question on everyone's mind is, "How do I start the questline?" Trust me, when someone finds out, I'm sure the internet will explode about it. It'll probably be on a Monday, during my other job's hours, and right after this column posts, knowing my luck. But before I get into an all-out walkthrough of the questline, I want to discuss one thing: does green fire have to be exclusive? Is exclusivity required for meaningfulness?
Flameseeker Chronicles: Forging your Guild Wars 2 legend(ary weapon)
The ArenaNet developers weren't messing around when they plotted out the process of obtaining the most prestigious weapons in Guild Wars 2. Legendary weapons require a considerable expenditure of in-game time, items, and gold. A month and a half after launch, legendaries are starting to pop up here and there, but they're by no means common. We haven't even seen all of them unlocked yet as far as I know. My playstyle (concurrently leveling multiple characters, frequently re-doing content with friends, and generally hopping about from interest to interest) and play time (there's not as much as I'd like, ever) don't make me optimistic of getting a legendary any time soon. Maybe you've got significantly more willpower (extraordinarily likely) and time than I do. Let's take a look at acquiring a legendary of your very own.
The Soapbox: Diablo III's endgame is fundamentally flawed
Diablo III was arguably the biggest online game release of the year, but its predecessor's decade of consistent popularity left some pretty big shoes to fill. Despite being the most pre-ordered PC game in history and selling more than 6.3 million units in its first week, Diablo III has started to seriously wane in popularity. I've seen over a dozen friends stop playing completely in the last few months, and Xfire's usage stats for D3 have dropped by around 90% since June. Guild Wars 2's timely release accounts for some of the drop, but there's a lot more going on than just competition. The Diablo III beta showed only the first few levels and part of the game's highly polished first act, and soon after release it became obvious that parts of the game weren't exactly finished. PvP was cut from release, the Auction House was a mess, and Inferno difficulty was a poor excuse for an endgame. Poor itemisation made the carrot on the end of the stick taste sour, and the runaway inflation on top-end items is crying out for some kind of ladder reset mechanic. But there is hope for improvement, with new legendary items, the Paragon level system, and the upcoming Uber boss mechanic taking a few steps in the right direction. In this opinion piece, I look at some of the fundamental flaws in Diablo III's endgame and suggest a few improvements that would make a world of difference.
Blizzard releases details for Diablo 3's big 1.0.4 patch
Blizzard has been promising for a while that Diablo III's patch 1.0.4 would be a Capital B D Big Deal for the game, and a blog post from developer Wyatt Cheng seems to reinforce that notion. What's missing from this particular post is specifics about the sweeping class changes the devs have been talking about, but apparently that's going to be a whole 'nother blog, so fear not. Some major features of the patch are below, with the whole blog after the cut. Magic find and gold find will no longer be averaged in multiplayer games. Monster health will now be a flat increase of 75% health (per player), regardless of the game's difficulty level. No more Out Of Time enrage timers on elites or healing to full after you die a few times. Normal monster HP is increasing by a slight amount, but the chance of finding rare items on normal monsters is being increased by a factor of four. To close the gap between normals and elites, elite HP will be reduced slightly. Weapons of ilvl 61 and 62 can now roll weapon damage that extends to numbers currently reserved for ilvl 63+. Use of two-handed weapons will be encouraged by new sets of affixes. Repair costs of high-end items will be reduced by about 25%. Problem affixes like Fire Chains and Shielding are being adjusted, and Invulnerable Minions is gone, baby, gone. A tentative release date of the fourth week in August.
The Queue: The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Commemorative Shaving Mug
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mathew McCurley (@gomatgo) will be your host today. If you know me a tiny bit or follow my Twitter, you know that I'm sort of a nerd when it comes to shaving. Not content with the Mach 3 quad-blade whatever and desperate to save cash, I decided to search for something better. Like most young men of the internet age, I found mantic59 by way of a forum post or somesuch that lauded the benefits of traditional wet shaving and fragrant lathering, and my life changed forever. If you're interested, start here, and watch them all. Anyway, I've never considered myself a true shaving fan because the visceral reaction to my fandom was never profound. It was fun for me, sure, but the outward expression of the thing was just not there yet and it was my personal experience. However, when I saw Truefitt and Hill showing off their Jubilee Commemorative Shaving Mug for the Queen of England's Diamond Jubilee in 2012, I wanted it. I want it bad, and I'll do anything to get it. Then it hit me; I'm sure excited about a shaving mug. Could be a whole lot worse. So, men, I implore you. If you shave, shave like a man. I can give you no better, no more sagely, and no more important advice. You'll be better for it. Questions? ancientn00b asked: What happens if we enter a cross realm zone and someone is there with the same name? Will it be like in dungeons where their realm name is after their name? Also will we be able to join with them in a party to quest together?
Officers' Quarters: Tier transition trouble
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. For many guilds, the release of a new raiding tier isn't as cut and dry as simply moving on to the new bosses and leaving the previous tier behind. These days, there are a number of reasons to continue with older content: finishing legendary grinds, completing achievements, and downing unkilled bosses on either difficulty. This week, a guild leader feels conflicted about how to approach the raiding schedule with so much unfinished business in Firelands. Hi Scott: I'm the guild leader for a medium sized guild. The guild is about 9 months old at this point, and we've had our share of raid member turnaround. Through each generation though, we've gotten stronger. Now that the team is pretty solid and showing up on schedule weekly, a problem has reared its ugly head, and its name is Dragon Soul. You see, because of the constant turnaround, we were stuck in tier 11 longer than we should have been, and are only now at the point that going 6/7 in Firelands can be done in a couple of hours. We still don't have a Rag kill under our belts. Compounded with that, our Legendary recipient is only in the second collection phase. But with the new dungeons dropping 378's and Deathwing taunting us, some members of the raid group have voiced in interest in raiding Dragon Soul. One member (who got a Rag kill with another team a couple weeks ago) said he can't wait to kill Rag so we "never have to go to Firelands again." That really REALLY aggravated me, but I kept my cool in Guild Chat.
Drama Mamas: Legendary drama
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. We have two letters this week -- both about legendaries. The first letter is below, and the second letter and our responses are after the break. Dear Drama Mamas, I've been thinking a lot about taking a long break from WoW recently since I have almost no interest in playing. The problem is I'm an officer in an active raiding guild and also the only person in the guild close to getting the legendary staff. The only reason I've been playing lately has been to finish the staff for many guild. It'll take me only 2 weeks of doing a full clear to complete it so the guild will get the achievement and pet; however the other officers are too interested in the new 4.3 content to do anything in Firelands, inculding work on the legendary staff. I'd really like to quit wow without burning any bridges or upsetting my long time guild mates, but I feel that if I quit with a 95% complete legenday I will be a considered a big jerk. Thanks for any advice you can give me. Burned Out
Arcane Brilliance: How to be legendary
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. The title of this week's column is a bit misleading. As we all know, mages are, by virtue of their magehood, already legendary. I probably should have called it "How to be more legendary," or "How to be legendarier." Too late now, it's already been typed. Last week, as I neared completion of Arcane Brilliance's mage guide to patch 4.2, I touched upon one of the more exciting aspects of our impending foray into the Firelands: Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest. Dragonwrath will be the new legendary staff available to casters in this patch. It will be difficult, but not by any means impossible, for a good guild to obtain. It will require a long term commitment to the new Firelands raid content. Most guilds will only obtain the staff once, and even the really high-speed guilds will only be able to pick up this staff for a select few of their caster members. It's an incredible piece of statistical candy. Dragonwrath will be the best-in-slot weapon for every variety of DPS caster the moment it becomes available, by a very large margin, and it will likely remain that way for the rest of this expansion and into a good portion of the next one. If you are able to get your hands on it, you won't be letting go of it any time soon. Absolutely every caster class/spec will want it, including hybrids and classes that use spirit. Take a look at your guild. How many level 85 DPS casters do you raid with? Now look at yourself. How many of you are there? No, your mirror images don't count. Those are your odds. So how do you lower those odds? How do you stack the deck a bit in your favor. My mission this week, ladies and gentlemen, is to help you be the chosen one in your guild who gets to wield this spectacular weapon. No, not you, warlock. My mission, this week as every week, is to see you die in a fire.
Breakfast Topic: Are legendaries good for the game?
Sunsmoon on WoW_ladies makes an uncomfortably accurate observation concerning legendaries -- people tend to get a little nuts around them. Anyone doing Tier 6 back in the day doubtless remembers the fistfights over who was going to get a Warglaive, WoW players worldwide were in shock at a rogue getting Thor'idal over two hunters, and the annals of classic WoW are rife with nightmare stories of /gquits over Bindings of the Windseeker and arguments over Sulfuras going to a druid. Nowadays (as someone on my realm remarked in a moment's pique), of the six Val'anyrs that have been assembled on our server, only one remains in its original guild. A reasonable person might be forgiven for thinking that the little orange text accompanying what's usually a decent weapon with a great proc is a lot more trouble than it's worth. A good point is brought up by Amiyuy in the thread -- the process of creating a legendary, or having to keep farming for an extremely uncommon drop, tends to wear people out. A healer on track to build a Val'anyr can't reasonably expect to take any time off for fear of missing one of the inconsistent shards, and my guildmates and I continued to farm Black Temple well past the point that anyone was getting even offspec gear upgrades because we just couldn't get a main-hand Glaive. With another legendary coming out in Icecrown Citadel, guild leaders are facing the headache of figuring out who'll get it, and we've already fielded questions on our tip line on which class gets the most from Shadowmourne and whether Blizzard could have nixed the stamina on it to discourage death knight tanks from picking it up (!). So readers, I ask you -- are legendaries good for the game? If your guild was on a position to get one, did they ultimately help or hurt you more? And is the painful process of getting a Legendary the real source of the trouble, and not the item itself?
Patch 3.3 PTR: Shadowmourne spell details
Everyone's favorite* dataminer, Boubouille of MMO-Champion, brings us more details on the upcoming legendary axe Shadowmourne this evening. I'm going to keep this intro brief, because I know many of you don't want to be spoiled at all regarding the stats of this item or the means of acquisition (that link is a spoiler, FYI). If you do want to know what the effects of this new legendary might be, read on behind the cut. If you don't? Skip the rest of this post.
The Queue: Left 4 Cheesehead
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.I was horrified to find endless amounts of Wisconsin hate in the comments of yesterday's edition of The Queue. Come on, Wisconsin rules! Well, no, the few bubbles of real civilization in Wisconsin rule. Milwaukee, Madison, and maybe (maybe) the Green Bay area. Everything in between those points are like something out of a horror movie. In transit from Milwaukee to Madison, all of the passengers in the car keep their eyes squeezed shut while the driver breaks out in a cold sweat. Packers fans fling themselves at your vehicle like the undead, crying out for your blood and pounding their fists on your windows. The only thing that you can do, the only thing you want to do, is keep driving.Milwaukee, though? Totally rules.aw232 asked..."I'm starting to think that there won't be a raid included in 3.2. I've heard about a new battleground, an expansion of the argent tournament but nothing about a new raid. Is there any confirmation or denial on if there will be a new raid before Icecrown?"
Death Knight gets Thunderfury
Here's a world first I never thought I'd see via Deathknight.info: The first Death Knight with a Thunderfury! Night Elf Death Knight Dragoth of Frostmane-EU grabbed the legendary sword a couple weeks back, and has the achievement to prove it (It's under the Feats of Strength category). Certainly, this was no small task in and of itself. Sure, you can probably do most of the questline with four or five people now, but you'll still find yourself in Molten Core begging for the bindings to drop for at least a few weeks, and that doesn't even count the elementium.
Legendary Weapons: Drops vs. questing
A Discussion of the newly dropped Thori'dal bought up a lively discussion on Legendary weapons in my guild chat the other day, which has in turn set my own mental wheels turning. Looking at the difference between the pre-Burning Crusade Legendaries and the Burning Crusade Legendaries, there's one big difference that stands out (beyond the level difference): The pre-BC Legendaries were quested, while the BC Legendaries have been drops. The clear-cut off seems to suggest that at some point, Blizzard decided that creating long, involved quests in order to obtain Legendary weapons just wasn't the way to go, and they'd rather let the RNG take care of distributing Legendaries. But the question is, did they make the right choice? There's good arguments for both sides.
Legendary bow Thori'dal, the Star's Fury "nerfed" on live servers
World of Raids has discovered something that might give Hunters a momentary attack of Angina: Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury has been found in the current game files, and while it still looks pretty tasty, it's also look weaker than the last known stats from the Pre-PTR leak. Namely, it's lost about 10 base DPS, having dropped from 148.7 DPS to 138.8 DPS. Now, it's hard to call this a "nerf," perse, since the bow hasn't actually appeared on any live or test server yet as an actual item. It's possible that the pre-PTR leak was a hoax (not likely though, since it got the other stats spot on), or that Blizzard's internal testing made them think they needed to tone back the damage a bit. It's a bit of a blow to think what might have been with the old damage anyway, of course. That said, Kil'jaedan isn't even killable yet on live realms, so the stats could change again before it drops. Even if they don't, it's still an awesome bow that will make the Black Bow of the Betrayer look like a peashooter for damage, and comes with the added bonus of a free bag slot, so I'm sure there will be plenty of Hunters aiming for it, and good luck to them. My Hunter is still going to be holding out for a Legendary Gun out of Thor Modan.
Legendary Caster Staff Stats
While I haven't seen any details on how this is acquired, it's safe to assume (since this information was most likely data-mined from the patch 1.11 files we currently have access to) that it's going to involve Naxxramas. I must say, these staves - different for different classes - look perfectly delightful and I would be happy to have one - though I can't say I look forward to the no doubt extensive efforts required to get it.
