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Phat Loot Phriday: Glaive of the Pit
So I was thinking about what to do for Phat Loot this week, and it occurred to me that we've never done a Polearm. The reason is probably because most polearms suck (they tend to be faster than most 2hands, and what you really want with a 2hander is high damage and slow speed), but if you really want a polearm, this one's not bad. I kind of wanted to do Vendorstrike, because I think it's a cool idea, but I know none of you hardcore guys would let me get away with calling it "phat."Name: Glaive of the PitType: Epic Two-Hand PolearmDamage / Speed: 330-497 / 3.70 (111.6 DPS)Abilities: Three red sockets, with a socket bonus of +4 crit rating Chance on hit: steals 238 to 262 life from enemy (although the word on this proc is that it doesn't happen that often) It's a polearm, so chances are no one will really want it (hey, at least I got to post that picture, right?). If you're a Mortal Strike warrior who doesn't yet have an epic weapon (which isn't very likely, considering where this comes from), or you just really, really, really want to wield a polearm sometimes, it might be the phat loot for you. Just throw some gems in it, and then wait a bit, because something better will come along pretty quickly. How to Get It: Then again, there's lots of item tweaking going on, so maybe things will change-- who knows? Anyway, this is a drop from Magtheridon, one of the first 25 man raids in Outland. If you've ever run the Blood Furnace, and looked down through the grate after you've killed the final boss, you'll see Mag (he's also the voice yelling throughout the instance). Mag, of course, is a Pit Lord, hence the name.Drop him and hope for about an 8% chance, and this baby will drop. And hey, think about it this way-- if you really want it, you'll probably get it. Because no one else does.Getting Rid of It: I feel so bad for polearms now. I guess The Eye of Nerub isn't so bad for hunters at 60, but I can't seem to find a really amazing polearm. I guess the arena polearm isn't too bad. Anyway, the Glaive will give you 14g 58s and 33c from vendors, and will disenchant into a Void Crystal.
Forum Post of the Day: I have never looted an epic
I am impressed by EU forumgoer Yippi. Despite having two characters at level 70, one at level 69, two more at 60, and a host of lower levels, Yippi has never even seen a world drop epic. That's enough to make you wonder if the darn things even exist! Even though, in my experience, I have to say that they do -- while leveling, I've gotten Robes of Insight, an Underworld Band, a Jeweled Amulet of Cainwyn, and I've seen (though I didn't win) a Krol Blade. Maybe I'm as lucky as Yippi is unlucky? But, I don't know... like the guys over at Penny Arcade say -- green is the new purple. Maybe missing out on those world drop epics isn't that bad after all.Interested in more forumgoer opinions? Take a look at previous forum posts of the day!
Hunter Wiki is collecting hunter know-how
Eldariel on the EU forums has posted something cool for Hunters-- he's created a Hunter Wiki. Originally, it was created to just hold the lost stickied threads from when Blizzard cleaned out the forums a while back, but even though the wiki is still small, a little more loving care will set it on its way to becoming a one stop shop for everything you ever wanted to know about being a hunter.Right now there's only a few pages, but already there's lots of theorycraft, guides to hunter loot and quests, and even a round of hunter-oriented comics (well, some of those are better than others, but it's still a work in progress). They don't have nearly as much pet info as Petopia yet, but being a wiki gives them lots of room to improve.In fact, the wiki format lends itself very well to WoW info, just because this is a social game consisting of a lot of shared knowledge-- WoWWiki has been proving that theory for a while (and they've got lots of hunter info there as well, along with plenty of other necessary information). But it's definitely awesome to see a wiki dedicated to the ins and out of a particular class, and hopefully what Eldariel has built will bring lots more editors and contributors so more hunters can share what they know with at least a little privacy from the prying eyes of others. In fact, where's my Shaman wiki?
Breakfast Topic: DKP Systems
Love them, hate them, or love to design them over coffee, DKP systems are overwhelmingly prevalent in raiding guilds. I only recently learned to stop hating them when I saw a forum post that analyzed DKP vs. random rolls and proved that the relationship between number of raids and amount of gear gotten is pretty much the same in both cases, but with less random noise in the case of DKP. My guild uses a fairly simple zero-sum system, which seems to work well (even if I am almost always in the negative). What about you? Where do you stand on DKP, and what DKP system, or what way of distributing loot, does your guild use?
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Breakfast Topic: Hand of Ragnaros is a druid weapon
I have seen reports of druids winning the Hand of Ragnaros before. I seem to recall one raidleader handing off the Eye of Sulfuras to his druid girlfriend, but I could be wrong. Hey, it isn't like I committed the brilliant forum thread to memory. Well, now we have another report of a druid snagging the HoR, this time it's Napier, a druid from the Greymane server. As you can imagine, this thread is dominated by folks either calling Napier the most selfish player in the history of MMORPGs or defending his right to spend his DKP as he sees fit. And yes, Napier has a long-winded response to the haters, which contains his rationale for spending his DKP on the mace. All in all, a typical forum thread, but there are aspects to it which raise some interesting questions...Shouldn't any DKP system have some kind of priority list or mechanism which prevents warriors from bidding on a caster staff or a druid from, I don't know, snagging a legendary mace which serves him no purpose whatsoever? I have never been in a guild that employed a straight DKP system which didn't make allowances for class needs. There is no way, for example, a hunter could bid on leather, simply because he could wear it. Is a druid with the HoR the absolute worst example of misguided DKP use? Or have you seen worse? Does your guild restrict rolling on certain items to particular classes? Or is it a free-for-all? And at this point, so close to the expansion release, does it matter who gets what? I mean, we will be upgrading everything very, very soon.
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.
How to be lucky (or just seem like it)
shaw_na_na over on WoW Ladies has a problem: she's unlucky. She's been /roll-ing and /roll-ing in instances, but on a number of runs through ZF, she's grabbed nothing but an alchemy recipe. I've been on bad streaks before (mostly because of droprates, not rolls, actually), but never anything that bad.So how do you get better rolls? If you're going to be all scientific about it, you don't. Blizzard has gone to all kinds of trouble to make sure that random rolls are as random as they come. They've even put measures in the game to make sure players can't spoof rolls-- roll "emotes" are yellow, not orange, and rolls are generated by the server, not the client software.But if you want to be silly about it, there are a few methods. Some players swear by keeping Lucky Charms in your bag (while it would be awesome if that worked, it doesn't). Others say higher intelligence helps rolls, and have special gear just to use for good rolling (again, that won't work either, but it makes me laugh). And still other players believe the /rolls are set to a certain time-- they'll roll on the hour or minute just to try and catch the server on a particularly high random seed. Doesn't work either, but don't tell that to the players who swear by it.Here's what I do: whenever I'm on a particularly bad streak of rolls, I warn the group that I'm "clearing out my bad rolls," and then run /roll a few times. You'll get a few low numbers (34, 20, 52, 30), and then you'll get a higher number (something like 84 or 91). At that point, you stop rolling, and then the next roll, you'll win the loot roll. Again, according to science, that's not supposed to work (and it probably doesn't, except in my head). But believe me-- my characters have become better geared more than a few times because I "cleared out the bad rolls."
GuildWatch: To the Victor Go the Spoils
This week's GuildWatch is all about the loot-- to the victor, as they say, go the spoils. One guild finished off Nef, and gave out free loot to their guildmates. Another guild got a world first occurence-- not one but two Staff Heads of Atiesh from the same Kel kill (at least that's what their screenshot says-- I'll leave it up to you to determine if it's faked or not). And I even got some sweet loot this week-- my guild downed Ony, and I got our first Tier 2 helm for my Shaman. Yep, it felt pretty good beating Ony up for the first time, and now, I get the spoils: my eyes glow white with power.As always, if you have Drama, Downed or Recruiting news from your guild (or anyone else's), drop a note to us at wowguildwatch@gmail.com. This week's GW starts right after you click the link below.
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No plans to tweak the current raid dungeons after BC release
After our rather lengthy discussions the past couple of days about the viability of the current raid dungeons come the BC expansion, I thought you guys would be interested in this post from Tigole, that I discovered via Tobold (which he in turn snagged from Blue Tracker).To sum it up...there will be no major changes to the current endgame raid dungeons whatsoever come the Burning Crusade release. No new loot tables, no adjusting of current loot, no new caps and no new timers. Nada. Tigole hopes some players will be able to experience them for the first time with the new level caps,and others will be happy that they will be spared their umpteenth MC run. However, he does mention the possibility exists in the future for the raid instances to be overhauled, but that is not on the agenda anytime soon.In a sense, I am disappointed, but at the same time I would much rather have them working on the new BC content (and getting it into our hands ASAP) than spend time re-balancing C'Thun and redoing his loot table for a group of 70s or 65s or whatever. But he does leave the door open just a crack, so maybe those dungeons will be redone at a point when the new BC content starts to become old hat. Heck, maybe a patch eight months down the road will turn those raid dungeons into really awesome 25 mans, or maybe even 10 or 5 mans. That would certainly be interesting. What do you guys think? Are you a little disappointed? Or could you care less about the old stuff?Oh! I almost forgot...for a lighter look at the current raid loot vs. new BC gear debate, check out our friends over at Not Addicted.
Breakfast Topic: Am I a ninja?
Many of us have come across "ninja looting" -- the practice of taking loot that isn't yours, usually through dirty tactics such as rolling need on "bind on pickup" items. While this can be excusable at lower levels, by the time you hit 60 it should be a long-forgotten experience. Sadly, it isn't.Everyone hates ninja looters, and yet many players are swift to accuse others of ninjaing, to see ninjas where none exist. Recently I was accused of the dreaded N-word; as a feral druid I was acting as off-tank, and rolled on a +defense trinket. The rest of the group agreed I could roll, but the warrior only spoke up after I had rolled, calling me a ninja. He rolled need too, but I won the item. Shortly after that he left the group; I tanked the rest of the instance, and nobody complained.Of course, stories like this are all too common, with hybrid classes complicating the issues -- even at level 60. Most people I've grouped with acknowledge that if a hybrid class is taking on a particular role then he or she can claim items for that role. However, imagine a druid who switches between forms a lot in an instance. Can she roll on strength, defense, agility, intellect and +healing gear? Technically, yes; but wails of "ninja" would result. The solution? I've learnt to carefully spell out before entering an instance that I will be taking on role X, and rolling on gear accordingly. A better solution is to group with players you know, and good ones at that, who give you a chance at whatever you can use.Have you encountered a ninja that wasn't? Do you hate being out-rolled by greedy hybrids?
C'Thun's Loot Table?
No, C'Thun has not been killed yet, but there are already rumors floating around as to what he might drop. Sure, there's no proof of any of this, but news of this nature seems to inevitably leak early - from Nefarian's loot tables to every set of patch notes. Casters will immediately be drawn to a new legendary item - a trinket dubbed The Piercing Eye of the Abyss. It gives an underwhelming bonus of 2% spell crit but also has the following interesting effect...Upon death, you have a chance to be possessed by the spirit of the Old God for 20 seconds. While possessed you cannot be attacked or targeted by any spells or effects and your damage spells deal bonus Shadow damage. When the effect ends, you die.While certainly interesting, I'm not entirely sure what to make of this item, or any other item that requires your death as a pre-requisite for usefulness.
Loot Locations: 0-20
To accompany our Levelling Locations series, here's a rundown of the instance loot you might want to angle for in your first twenty levels. This will be of particular interest to anyone trying the Test Realm Honour Competition, of course, as gear is a vital differentiator at these levels.Key: Weapons and armour in bold are blue, all others are green. Due to the low number of available blues for this level range, they are especially desirable. To help you sort through the information, we've divided it up by type (weapon or armour) and proficiency (weapon category, armour material). Check out the blue items if you are looking for the best available.WeaponsRagefire Chasm (Horde 15-20): 2H Axe - Axe of Orgrimmar obtained from Hidden Enemies quest 1H Sword - Cursed Felblade dropped by Taragaman the Hungerer Staff - Staff of Orgrimmar obtained from Hidden Enemies quest 1H Mace - Hammer of Orgrimmar obtained from Hidden Enemies quest Dagger - Kris of Orgrimmar obtained from Hidden Enemies quest; Chanting Blade dropped by Jergosh the Invoker
