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NASA captures red sprite, puts it in a jar
Lightning doesn't always shoot downwards. Just occasionally, a thunderstorm will be accompanied by a red sprite: a huge, momentary electrical explosion that occurs around 50 miles high and fires thin tendrils many miles further up into the atmosphere. Sprites have been caught on camera before, but a fresh photo taken by arty astronauts on the ISS helps to show off their true scale. Captured accidentally during a timelapse recording, it reveals the bright lights of Myanmar and Malaysia down below, with a white flash of lightning inside a storm cloud and, directly above that, the six mile-wide crimson streak of the rare beast itself. Such a thing would never consent to being bottled up and examined, but somehow observers at the University of Alaska did manage to film one close-up at 1000 frames per second back in 1999 -- for now, their handiwork embedded after the break is as intimate as we can get.
Totem Talk: Loot to maximize your elemental shaman's mastery
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shaman. Once just the expert on enhancement shaman, Josh Myers has spent most of Dragon Soul as elemental, and he's not quite sure how he got there. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Mastery is my favorite stat in World of Warcraft because it's the only stat that actually changes function from class to class. Haste might speed up rune regeneration for death knights, or fire mages might view a huge critical strike chance more happily than an affliction warlock, but those stats do largely the same thing across classes. On the other hand, the mastery of an elemental shaman is incredibly different than a holy paladin, which is a big change from a protection warrior. Lucky for me, this patch gave rise to mastery as elemental's key secondary stat after hitting the spell hit cap. It's been a good stat all expansion but sat solidly behind haste through all of Firelands and much of tier 11. With Dragon Soul out and most ele shaman who have been playing the past few months now wearing their tier 13 sets, it's mastery's turn to shine. The reason for mastery's newfound glory is the Spiritwalker's Regalia four-piece bonus, which gives you 250 haste rating every time your Elemental Overload procs, stacking up to three times and lasting four seconds. At a full stack, this is effectively 750 free haste rating that you get just for gearing for mastery. However, this stack falls off quickly, and chances are you'll only get one or two spellcasts off before it drops. As a result, you want a lot of mastery, to give the two casts you do get a fair chance at keeping the buff up.
Behind the Mask: Scarlet Weather Rhapsody
Champions Online released two powersets recently, and I finally got time to sit down and crunch numbers on the new Wind powers. Wind has been live for a few weeks now, and the Squall archetype uses its powers to push enemies around the battlefield and rock the damage charts. Wind has been one of the most frequently requested powersets since Heavy Weapons hit the game, and I was excited to play around with the set. Does the Wind powerset meet the expectations players had for it? This week on Behind the Mask, I set out to find the answer to that question.
AMD strikes CES with brand new APUs and Lightning Bolt
AMD decided to steer clear of the show floor this year, instead choosing to stick to a briefing room upstairs, where they gave us a quick tour of their current offerings as well as a sneak peek at some upcoming projects. There were two big stars, though, the first of which is the upcoming Trinity APUs, based on its Piledriver core. There will be three different versions: desktop, laptop and "thin and light." The latter of which is clearly aimed at Ultrabook-like form factors and draws just 17W, while promising similar performance to current generation 35W chips. To show off just how powerful its next-gen architecture is AMD demoed a machine playing DiRT 3 (at low quality mind you) on one display, transcoding video on another and playing a clip of a kata on third. Oh, and that third display was attached to the laptop that was driving the whole thing without stuttering. The other big news, though we sadly don't have accompanying visuals, was a backroom demo of Lightning Bolt -- AMD's answer to Thunderbolt. The protocol is capable of driving up to four displays and several USB 3.0 ports while providing power. It can only drive two at 1080p and it won't reach the full speed of USB 3.0, but AMD did say it will be faster than 2.0. Supposedly the tech will be incredibly cheap in integrate into a PC, and a single cord running from a DisplayPort to a hub was able to handle playing back a Blu-ray and transferring files from a thumb drive while pushing two 1366 x 768 monitors -- not bad for an early prototype. Check the gallery above for a few shots of the latest AMD APUs and, for more technical details, hit the more coverage links.
Patch 4.3 PTR Video: New spell effects for shaman, warlocks, druids
Lightning Bolt, Shadow Bolt, and Wrath, three staple spells for the shaman, warlock, and druid classes respectively, all have new animations on the Public Test Realm. You can check out the new spell animations in the video above. Lighting Bolt's effect now leaves a blue trail and has more oomph than just the small blue ball that was fired from the shaman beforehand. Shadow Bolt's skull-headed projectile now leaves a greenish wake. Wrath looks completely different, eschewing the green lightning bolt effect for a more nature-based zap. [Edit]: Video was re-shot for some better angles/views of the spells. Sorry about that, guys and gals. Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
NASA's Cassini can hear it when lightning crashes on Saturn
Some folks can fall asleep to the calming pitter patter of gentle rain. Yeah, we're not those people. But we could be swayed into a somnolent stupor if those sounds came from epic storms -- on Saturn. Captured by NASA's Cassini probe last March, this 11-second clip of AM radio-like electrostatic is actually the agency's first glimpse into storm activity on the planet's Northern Hemisphere. Alright, so we admit the recording's more of a weak 'snap, crackle and fizzy pop' than outright terror-inducing awe, but still these are the noises of another world. Would it help if we told you this storm's been raging since December 2010 and hasn't shown any signs of stopping? Shocking, we know. It's not all doom and gloom, though as the folks behind Cassini think this is simply a sign of impending summer. So basically, it's spring break at the saturnine Señor Frogs. Check the source for a sample of otherworldly rumbles.
Totem Talk: Elemental shaman changes for patch 4.0.1
Get some Fulmination with your Lightning Bolts! Sort the shocks from the flames with Totem Talk: Elemental, brought to you by Sarah Nichol, otherwise known as Pewter. She can also be seen pottering around TotemSpot, trailing a pet dalek behind her. My name is Sarah, and I have a problem. The diagnosis is farsightedness, a result of focusing on Cataclysm to the exclusion of all else. The quests, the new casting priorities, the shiny surroundings, and the fact that I get to be a dwarf instead of a draenei ... So much to think over, so much to explore! There is nothing cuter that a dwarf shaman, except maybe those new armadillos. Where was I, again? Now, patch 4.0.1 is on the PTR, dragging in new talent trees and new hit numbers to consider and the removal of Sentry Totem. Time to start paying attention. We must not let the sacrifice of Sentry Totem be in vain! There should be no expectations of balance at this point, as all these new level 80 shiny things are developed with level 85 in mind. There are still questions pending on some of the details, so whether our flames are bright or storm clouds are on the horizon for elemental is up for debate. From hit caps to casting priorities, we've got a bit to get through in my inaugural Totem Talk, so sit tight, make sure you know where your towel is and everything will be just fine. I hope. Now, where to start? Oh, yes. Hit.
Totem Talk: Enhancement Cataclysm update
Axes, maces, lightning, Windfury, and wolves. It can mean only one thing: enhancement. Rich Maloy lives it and loves it. His main spec is enhance. His off-spec is enhance. He blogs about the life and times of enhance, and leads the guild Big Crits (Week 9 now out!) as the enhancement shaman Stoneybaby. With such a lame title, you'd never guess we have so much to talk about this week! Mastery bonus is all elemental damage, not just nature! Smarter Searing Totems! Four Ghostcrawler replies (11 paragraphs!) about Shamans, with four paragraphs solely about Enhancement! Longer Hex! New crit-increasing talents! Increased totem ranges! Well, okay, maybe that last one isn't as exciting as the first few. But there's so much news out there for us enhancers, I don't even know where to begin. The logical place to start is with the biggest news: Enhancement Mastery bonus "increases all elemental damage done by 20%. Damage increased further by mastery rating." This is a change from the first Cataclysm build that included mastery; previously our bonus was only increasing our nature damage. The nature-only mastery was great for our core spell, Lightning Bolt (LB), but with Maelstrom Weapon (MW) now including Lava Burst (LvB) we would not benefit from our Mastery bonus with LvB. This was a problem for two reasons: first LvB does more damage than LB, and second, LvB could be used to keep Elemental Devastation up. Lava Burst will automatically crit when Flame Shock (FS) is on a target, making it a smart choice to used to keep Elemental Devastation active. That choice changed. Mastery now affects all elemental damage, which includes Lava Burst. Hence, Lava Burst plus Flame Shock plus mastery equals happy enhancer. This is a great buff for us. Because LvB has an 8 second cooldown and LB has none, we'll still keep LB handy for when LvB is on cooldown.
Lightning strikes over Chicago captured in stunning slow motion video
Need a reminder of what the word awesome truly means? Follow us after the break to receive a liberal dosage of the stuff.
Elemental Shaman Tier 10 bug causes 7-day lockout
A nasty bug with the 2-piece Tier 10 bonus for Elemental Shamans reared its ugly head recently when a player attempted to use Elemental Mastery. The bonus, which is supposed to reduce the cooldown on Elemental Mastery by 2 seconds each time Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning is used, instead puts the 31-point Elemental talent on a whopping seven day cooldown. This is akin to the bug found with the Hunter ability Call Stabled Pet, which puts the ability on an even more staggering 25-day cooldown. Ghostcrawler immediately responded to the concern as raised on the official forums, stating that the problem happens only in cross-server instances and that raiding shouldn't be affected. Elemental Shamans sporting two pieces from the Frost Witch's Regalia would probably do well not to activate Elemental Mastery while in a dungeon using the Dungeon Finder until a fix is found. Ghostcrawler stated that Blizzard is working on the issue.
WoW Insider has you covered for patch 3.1
Blizzard is hard at work with designing all of the changes coming in World of Warcraft's patch 3.1, and WoW Insider is hard at work on documenting and analyzing those changes for you. Patch 3.1 will be introducing the long awaited dual spec system, which will allow players to switch back and forth between two talent builds, many class mechanic changes for all of the roles, mounts that are usable in water, and many more smaller changes.To quench your thirst for information, WoW Insider has set up a main repository post on everything 3.1 related. From that post you can find out if Blizzard is slapping the nerf paladin, buff warrior buttons again, or if perhaps the shoe has now been placed on the other foot.As for this blogger, I'm off to go celebrate being able to exorcise everything in existence -- a la lightning bolts.
NS and EM cooldown reverted on the PTR
In the interests of full coverage, we'll mention this one, but don't keep your hopes up: the latest build on the PTR has reverted the Nature's Swiftness and Elemental Mastery sharing a cooldown change, so Elemental Shamans will once again be able to crank out an instant Chain Lightning or Lightning Bolt crit. Unfortunately, they shouldn't count on it, as lots of changes have gone back and forth on the PTR. It could be that the next time the PTR comes up with a new patch, this change will be right back in.But it does serve as a reminder that no matter how bad some PTR nerfs may seem, nothing is finalized until it hits the live realms. The Test Realm is for testing, so we shouldn't be surprised when Blizzard does exactly that with it.Thanks, Giusepe!
