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Phat Loot Phriday: Antonidas' Aegis of Rapt Concentration
I'm a Resto/Elemental Shaman. I like shields. I especially like Epic shields. I especially like Epic shields with spell damage on them. And boy do I like Epics that have a nice tie to the lore.Name: Antonidas' Aegis of Rapt ConcentrationType: Epic ShieldArmor/Block: 6336 / 174Abilities: +28 Stamina, +20 Intellect Improves spell crit rating by 20, and increases spell damage and healing by up to 42 Antonidas is (actually was, because he was killed by Arthas, as all great Warcraft characters were) the head of the Kirin Tor, that conclave of wizards that you're hearing so much about lately. His pupil was Jaina Proudmoore (and it was she who he expected to eventually take over the Kirin Tor). When Arthas killed Antonidas (to claim the Book of Medivh), the Violet Citadel and Dalaran were both left wide open, and Archimonde moved in to finish off the job and destroy the city. Now, of course, Dalaran is being rebuilt, and it's soon going to be flying over Northrend. Until then, Antonidas' shield has found its way back into the hands of players. How to Get It: In fact, Archimonde must have grabbed it when he trashed Dalaran, because this is a drop from him at the Caverns of Time Mount Hyjal instance. In that instance, you fight Archi (as I like call him) fighting to gain control of the World Tree, and apparently he's been hauling this shield around with him ever since he sacked Dalaran-- drop him, and with a little rolling luck, it's yours.As a sidenote, apparently this was one of the drops on the world first kill of Archi as well. So not only can you get a shield that belonged to one of the greatest arch-mages the world of Azeroth has ever known, you can also get a shield that belonged to one of the best guilds in the game! Two for one!Getting Rid of It: Sells for 9g 55s 99c. Disenchants into a Void Crystal. Breaks my elemental Shaman heart.
Spectral Tiger card sells for $2000
Yesterday afternoon, a copy of the Spectral Tiger card from the WoW TCG sold on eBay for the astonishing price of $2000 (the starting bid was $100). Why so much? Well, for one thing, it's a loot card -- it gives you access, via a scratch-off code, to an in-game mount that you can't get any other way, called (surprise) the Spectral Tiger. It's available in both normal (60%) and epic (100%) speed, and it looks pretty sweet. Furthermore, the TCG set of which it is a part, Fires of Outland, has not been released yet; it debuts on August 22nd. This card was apparently obtained at pre-release event. Still, two grand is a lot of money; that would buy you over 11 years of game time, or (in my preferred money visualization scheme) 150 pounds of really good coffee.We gave away this very same mount not long ago (don't say WoW Insider never gave you anything) -- a $2000 value, apparently! But if you're not our lucky winner, and you simply must have a translucent cat to ride on, there are still a few more going on eBay.[thanks, Jacckk of Perenolde]
Spiritual Guidance: Priest sets (part two)
Every Sunday, Eliah or Elizabeth will bring you their thoughts on the Priest class with Spiritual Guidance. Whether it's keeping your fellow players alive or melting their faces, you can read about it here!The archaic stuff out of the way, in part two of this two-part series we turn to the hot new stuff: the Priest sets from the Burning Crusade. BC made one tremendous improvement in the way class sets were handled: raid gear for off-specs. For us men and women of the cloth, that means Tier 4, 5, and 6, as well as Arena gear, are available in versions befitting both healing and shadow priests. As before, I'll start with the epic raid gear, T4, T5, and T6, pictured above from left to right. They really went crazy with the shoulders, didn't they?
"Logical loot" not a new idea at Blizzard
Warcry's recent Zul'Aman preview didn't just introduce us to a new dungeon, it also introduced us to a new loot system. The so-called "logical loot" system promised that if the bad guy you were facing were holding a big axe, you'd be pretty likely to end up looting a big axe off his corpse later. However, Drysc has let us in on a secret: this design philosophy isn't really new.There have always been boss and item design goals to have bosses that drop loot they themselves are wielding. You can see this in Scarlet Monastery, Shadow Labyrinth, and Molten Core, just to name a few.So don't go off getting too excited about this particular looting philosophy -- examples of it are already in the game, and we have no reason to expect anything new to Zul'Aman's loot philosophy.
WarCry on Zul'Aman and "logical loot"
The Zul'Aman preview information just doesn't stop. WarCry has a fairly in-depth rundown of the place which contains the following information of note that I haven't seen elsewhere: Largely or entirely outdoors Each of the first four bosses should take 45 minutes to an hour to complete, making the raid very modular in terms of time -- spend an hour, down a boss, stop for the night if you want. This makes casual raiding much more of a possibility. The last two bosses, the Witch Doctor and Zul'Jin, have to be done at once, though. No associated faction; instead, faster boss kills will yield better rewards. "Blizzard fully expects this to become a competitive sport." In non-Zul'Aman-related news, there has been a loot table design decision over in Irvine:We were also told about a philosophical change at Blizzard, namely logical loot. Previously, the loot tables were somewhat random. They're not going back and fixing years of content, but now, players can expect creatures to drop things that one would expect. If that bad guy is holding a big, shiny axe, then odds are his loot is a big shiny axe.This is pretty interesting. There have been some steps in that direction from the very beginning, with animal-type mobs carrying body-part vendor trash instead of coins, for instance, but I'm glad to see more attempts to make the game world coherent.
Loot hoping, and loot whining
Cryptos posts on the forums about a subject very near and dear to my heart: loot whining. It is one of my great flaws that whenever I get close to a boss that I know drops something I really want, I can't help but share my excitement with my fellow party members, and sometimes (more often then not, unfortunately for them) my guild members. I'm sorry to say that I'm the guy he's talking about-- I'm the guy that is about to fight Murmur telling the guild, "man I sure hope my pretty dress drops." And it's a sign of how amazing my guild really is that they put up with me talking about it all the time.But then again, loot is basically why we play the game in the first place. Shouldn't I, and players like me, be able to share with our fellow players what loot we're going for, to let them in on the stuff we hope we get? Is it right for this GM to actually threaten to disenchant a piece of loot, just because someone says they want it?I definitely agree it can go over the top-- one of my pet peeves is people who join a PUG and try to "reserve" not-yet-dropped items, especially when there are others in the party who would obviously roll on it. And for my part, I've already noticed that I should keep my loot hopes to myself-- my guild doesn't really care about me getting every little upgrade I want. But good loot is the reason why many of us play this game, and so it's only expected that we should be excited at the prospect of getting it, and want to share that with fellow players.
Spectral Tiger Mount video
Of the three rewards coming to the TCG loot cards, this Spectral Tiger Mount probably got the most attention-- not only is it a sweet looking mount (ok, it's a freaking amazing looking mount), but it'll also be the first time Horde characters will get to ride cats*, and we all know cats are the best mounts in the game, right?We don't yet know, as MMO Champion notes, whether it's an epic or a normal ground mount-- Boubouille apparently ducked into a private realm for the video, and apparently there are two spells (one 60% and one 100% speed) for the mount itself. So that could mean that Blizzard is still deciding, or it could actually mean that there are two of these mounts in game-- one at 60% from the TCG loot cards, and an epic mount yet to be discovered.At any rate, looks awesome. Will this entice you to grab a few TCG packs, or does the fact that Blizzard wants you to pay real money for a mount you probably won't get just disgust you?*Update: Of course Horde can ride the rare Tiger mount from ZG. My bad.
Three new loot cards for the WoW TCG
We actually heard from Upper Deck last month that there would be new loot cards coming in the "Fires of Outland" booster release from the WoW collectible card game, but now PHD Games has announced exactly what they'll be. Strangely enough, PHD is a distributor, and there's no word on Upper Deck's site about this, so this may actually be an unapproved leak-- wonder if PHD might face consequences for apparently telling us all of this early.At any rate, here's the random cards that will be showing up in Fires of Outland: Goblin Gumbo, which will make you "burp outlandish gas" A Fishing Chair, for relaxing while angling And the best one: A Spectral Tiger mount (!). MMO Champion has actual pics, which you can see above. Pretty! Also, all the loot cards will now be foil cards (which is a first for the WoW TCG), and they'll have a different design as well. Fires of Outland, says PHD, is coming in late August.Update: Commenter boulee points out there were foil cards in the Onyxia raid deck. Thanks!
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.
Warglaive of Azzinoth dropped
Previously thought to be a mere rumor, or possibly used in the Illidan fight (like the many legendaries used in the Kael'thas fight), Forte (A-Kazzak-EU) have looted the first drop of the (right) Warglaive of Azzinoth, from their world-third kill of Illidan. Here's the lowdown on the weapon: Name: Warglaive of Azzinoth Type: Legendary main-hand sword Damage/Speed: 214–398/2.80 (109.3 dps) Abilities: +22 Agility +22 Stamina Classes: Warrior, Rogue Equip: improves hit rating by 21 Equip: improves attack power by 44 Set: The Twin Blades of Azzinoth (2) Set: Your melee attacks have a chance to increase your haste rating by 450 for 10 sec. (2) Set: Increases your attack power by 200 when fighting Demons It has an ilvl of 156, and sells for (apparently) 24.3g. The other weapon in the set is also called the Warglaive of Azzinoth, and you can see its details here. It's a safe bet that it drops from Illidan as well. This is, to my knowledge, the first take-away legendary anyone's gotten in BC. The Twin Blades of Azzinoth are, of course, Illidan's own weapons.[via MMO-Gaming]
Ask WoW Insider: When is it fair to upgrade an epic?
Welcome back to Ask WoW Insider, where each week we publish one of your questions. Last week we had some fun imagineering new battlegrounds, and this week we turn our attention once again to an issue near and dear to our hearts: loot. This week's question comes from Chris, who wants to know about etiquette regarding rolling or bidding for an epic drop to replace an item in a slot that is already an epic: All DKP ideas aside, when is it fair to upgrade an epic over an epic? Here is the situation: We are running Karazhan and the Staff of Infinite Mysteries drops. I, being a mage, have the epic spell blade form Thrallmar and epic off hand I got from turning in badges of justice. In addition to my weapons I have dropped all money making professions to take up tailoring and enchanting and power leveled them up to get the best gear and enchants possible to make raiding easier. Everyone else has just started doing the same thing finally and are a bit slow in the progress. Now, every DPS squishy wants the staff because it's an obvious upgrade to their blue weapon and I want it because it's an upgrade for boss fights because of the +hit and secondary stats. Would it be fair to roll for the staff seeing as how I have worked hard to get where I am at and still consider the staff to be an upgrade? Or should I just let the people that haven't worked as hard to get geared out take it in hopes it helps out the raid progression a bit faster. My opinion is that passing on loot to help those less geared out is like taxing the smart to help the dumb. Perhaps you have a better theory. What say you, readers? What factors should you consider when bidding or rolling on an epic drop that will replace a piece of gear on your character that is already shiny purple? Should you gear up those in blues first to help your guild, or is your dkp yours to spend on whatever you like with a free conscience? How much of an upgrade does it need to be to justify taking it over the lesser-geared? Join us next week for another Friday edition of Ask WoW Insider, and don't forget that we need your questions to make it happen! Send us what you want to know at ask AT wowinsider DOT com.
Finally, no more loot click hunting
There's one little mostly unseen note in the 2.1 patch notes that has quietly been making players' lives easier for the past few weeks. Hidden way down inside the "User Interface" section, we find this: "Active corpses or objects (ones with loot on them) now can be selected and looted, even if they are underneath another corpse that does not have loot on it."We've all been in that situation before 2.1, where we were fighting, and had to deal with adds that died in almost exactly the same place, and then had to slowly move your looting cursor over the whole area, looking for that tiny little section in which it went from black and white to color, just so you could look that few silver and bit of trash from it. Nowadays, in these enlightened 2.1 times, we can simply loot at will, and life is good.Of course, it's not perfect-- I still can't target anything through walls, and that's a known bug. But it is very nice to see that one simple sentence in the patch notes, and know that I never again have to hunt around for a tiny point of contact just to loot a piece of junk.
Are loot drops really random?
If you've been to a few raids, there's no question that you've heard some interesting theories about loot distribution. The drops are determined by the precise time (to the second!) that the first player zones into the instance. Or perhaps the drops are determined by the class of the group leader. Or maybe by the first letter of the group leader's name. Does the current phase of the moon have something to do with it? Perhaps it's a little of all these things!Trust me, I've heard every theory that's tried to make sense of what Blizzard constantly assures us are completely random loot drops. However, EU forum-goer Rooted came across a post by Blizzard employee Issuntril which stated:There are many other variables which effect which items are going to drop. I'm afraid this is information not intended for the community however, and is not something I can comment further on.Other variables, you say? So... loot isn't random? The conspiracy theorists were right all along?!
Loot balance
Alright, this might just be me, but leveling my Rogue in Outland, I noticed one thing: there's a lot more Druid leather than there is Rogue leather, as far as quest rewards go. It seemed like for every Rogue piece, there were three Druid pieces, one for each talent tree. Never one to go with speculation where math would do the trick, I looked through 200 quests available to Alliance in any Outland zone to count the number of rewards for Rogues, Feral druids, Balance druids, and Resto druids. (I chose the first 200 quests in alphabetical order, which should be reasonably random.)If a reward seemed fairly viable for both, I counted it for both -- many pieces would work for Rogues and Feral druids, for instance. I'm only looking at leather armor here, not weapons, cloaks, or jewelry; arguably, this is a bit of a flaw, as weapons are a pretty big deal for Rogues (and a less big deal for Druids). But, well, let's see what the numbers say: Rogue: 11 pieces Druid: 21 pieces Feral: 11 Balance: 10 Resto: 1 So it seems my pre-math impression was a little off -- the ratio of Druid to Rogue is 2:1, not 3:1. But the point that really gets to me about this data is that Balance druids have almost as many rewards available as Rogues as a whole. That's one spec, as opposed to an entire class. Does that seem right to you?
Arena Season 2 item stats (Warrior) [u]
MMO-Champion comes through again with concrete details on new content. As listed in the patch notes, 2.1.2 on the PTRs contains the Arena Season 2 items. The set names are apparently "Merciless Gladiator's [Whatever]." Most of the sets do not seem to be activated yet, but we have the full stats and appearance of the Warrior set, Merciless Gladiator's Battlegear (pictured at right).Thanks to a helpful commenter at Wowhead, I have the following comparison between this set and the Season 1 equivalent, Gladiator's Battlegear. The new set has, as compared to the old one:+639 armor+36 strength+31 stamina+22 crit rating+18 hit rating+6 resilienceThe gem slots and set bonuses remain the same. It would be nice if you could mix and match between Season 1 and Season 2 sets in order to get set bonuses, but I'm not sure whether this is actually the case.Hopefully stats on the other sets will come to light soon; if that happens, I'll update this post.Update: skins and set bonuses for all the classes' sets are now available.
Ask WoW Insider: BC loot etiquette
Gather 'round for another Friday edition of Ask WoW Insider, where we publish reader questions for community feedback. Last week we looked at where the best class loot lists live, and this week we have a few questions regarding loot etiquette in instances involving a couple of popular BC drops. Jeffrey writes: I've recently come across a few situations where I'm not sure of the proper etiquette, even though I've been playing for a couple years. This is mainly because new items have appeared that have blurred the lines in my mind. 1) In an instance, we find a locked chest but have no rogue. I however have a blacksmith key/seaforium charge that can open it. Should I open the chest (spending the mats i used for the key/charge) for myself or for a group roll? 2) A primal nether drops. I can use it to make a BoE item which I plan to sell for a large profit, but someone else in the group can use it for a BoP item for themself. How should I roll? 3) An arcane tome/fel armament drops and the group says need if you're scryer/aldor. I belong to this faction but am already exalted with them. How should I roll? I'd appreciate feedback on what is the right thing to do in these situations, or if not necessarily right what is considered acceptable to do. Do you or your guild have any set rules regarding the above scenarios? If you've encountered these situations on past runs, how did your group handle them? Is there an optimal solution to any or all three questions? More Ask WoW Insider awaits you next week, but it needs your questions! Send us your burning conundrums to ask AT wowinsider DOT com.
Officers' Quarters: Keeping your hybrids happy
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. This week's question deals with a topic that another recent addition to the WoW Insider team, Jason Lotito, has been covering in his excellent Hybrid Theory column. Of all the classes in Warcraft, I find that the true hybrids -- Druid, Shaman, and Paladin -- can cause the biggest issues when dealing with loot. Sometimes you can really find yourself in the lions' den, and in Warcraft those feral kitties have sharp claws! Here's a common problem: Hey Scott, I stumbled upon your column, and I'm happy to see that someone is taking the time to address guild leadership. My original guild started on Everquest, and moved to WoW when it came out. I was an officer/raid leader in that guild for eight years, then they recently split up [. . .] I decided to pack up and start anew on another server, this time as Horde. A good chunk of players decided to follow me [. . .] So now we've leveled from 1 to 70, [ground] out our Karazhan keys, and blam-o, we're back to raiding again. We used to use the typical earn DKP/spend DKP system, but I haven't decided to apply it in Karazhan. I figured it's a 10-man zone, and 25-man is the greater goal. So I've done with just rolling 1-100. But the other night, I had a problem that, as Alliance, I didn't have to face before.
Ask WoW Insider: Best class loot lists?
Welcome to this week's edition of Ask WoW Insider, wherein we publish your burning questions for your fellow readers to answer. Last week we looked at how to get into role-playing, and this week we turn our attention to something near and dear to all of our hearts: loot. We've got questions in the same vein from Bodah and Cynthia, who both want to know about the best sites for class-specific loot. Bodah writes: I have a Feral Druid, and I was a happy as all get-out when you guys posted an article linking to a feral gear site that ranked all the endgame gear. One of my friends in particular, a mage, is jealous of my ability to immediately identify what loot is better for me than others. My question, then: Where do other players/classes go for that kind of detailed info? Kaliban's lists are great for finding gear, but he doesn't rank them, and one of the joys of the Druid lists was finding greens that were better for me than hard-to-get blues and purples. I have a suspicion that the same is true for other classes, as well. Cynthia mentions the same article and asks "Anything like this for rogues?" The answer to that question is Shadowpanther.net, and we want to know if there are equivalents for other classes -- where do you go for very class-specific information and ideally explicit rankings of gear for your level? Tune in next week for another episode of Ask WoW Insider, driven by your questions -- send them to us at ask AT wowinsider DOT com.
Method Man and Vashj
As a society we are not always interested in seconds. We prefer firsts, the first man to walk on the moon, the first man to swim the English Channel, heck even the first woman got plenty of notice in her day. And yes, Nihilum did managed to down Lady Vashj first, but I have been following the story of the second guild to kill the snake-headed wench, and I am happy to report their day has finally come. For those of you not obsessed with minutia the way I am, the guild Method from the Sylvanas (EU) realm killed Lady Vashj on May 5th. Something happened though that makes this kill more interesting than just any old world 2nd. The encounter bugged out and the guild, after all their hard work, lost the chance at looting the corpse. That's right folks, imagine watching Lady Vashj's corpse despawn in front of your very eyes. I know I would cry wet, salty tears. Naturally members of the guild contacted a GM, but to no avail. It was a whole day before the guild finally got resolution. They did get a mail message though that told them that their loot would indeed be delivered. World of Raids says Method received a Krakken-Heart Breastplate and Gauntlets of the Crestfall amongst other things. Congrats to them for getting their just rewards. If you're interested in learning more details about the fight, Method will be interviewed by WoW Radio on May 13th at 12:30 EST. I'm sure they'll have some fascinating insights. [via World of Raids]
PTR notes: Mass quantities of epics retuned
It's a common complaint that level 70 epics are too marginal of upgrades over dungeon blues; heck, I've even kept some quest reward greens over Karazhan epics. It looks like a lot of that is set to change with patch 2.1. According to reports from the PTRs almost every 70 epic has had its stats buffed in tonight's PTR patch, and fairly considerably, too. World of Raids is reporting that Tier 4 gear has had its item level ("ilvl" for short) bumped from the current 105 up to 120; Tier 5 has gone from 120 to 133; and the rest of the epic loot has been increased a corresponding degree -- T4-level stuff has gone up by 15 ilvls, and T5-level stuff by 13.What's all this ilvl nonsense, you ask? Well, the math is pretty complicated (1.5th roots are involved), but in short, ilvl represents how "good" an item is. An item's equip level is used to be determined by its ilvl, back before BC (specifically, it was ilvl minus 5, with a cap at 60), but other than that there's no way to directly see ilvl in the default UI (mods can show it). Items that are supposed to be comparable have the same ilvl: all T4 gear has the same ilvl, every Jazeraint Helm, regardless of suffix, has the same ilvl, and so forth. That is all to say, ilvl is a way of measuring "how much" stats a piece of gear has. For more details on ilvl calculation, see the WoWWiki page on the subject.So, getting back to the subject at hand: level 70 epics are getting better. Their ilvls are getting boosted, which means they get to have more stats. And for examples of specifics, head over to World of Raids, where they're keeping a constantly updated directory full of new item tooltips, in alphabetical order. Edit: MMO-Champion also has a very good listing of new stats. There are also a few reagent changes for some craftables. World of Raids reports:Blacksmith changes (5-7-07) - Tier 3 weapons require 5 nether vortex. - Tier 2 weapons require 8 primal nethers. Engineering changes (5-7-07) - Goggles now require a primal nether.(Image courtesy of the International Mountain Bicycling Association)
