Mana-Tap
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New racial abilities for Wrath
It looks like Blizzard isn't done tinkering with everything for Wrath of the Lich King. This time, they've turned their attention to racial abilities, which many have pointed out to be imbalanced. Kalgan dropped by the forums to answer a good question regarding the Orc racial Hardiness, which grants a passive 15% resistance to stuns. It's been nerfed a long way from its original 25% resistance, but the poster made a good point about the game's direction towards reduced durations instead of resistances.Kalgan responds by saying that Hardiness was being changed into exactly that -- an effect duration reduction of 15%. He also goes over all the other racials, some of which were changed, others of which were buffed, and yet a few others of which were inevitably nerfed. The changes should make it into the next Beta push. Check after the break to see the complete list. [CLARIFICATION: This isn't the complete list of racial abilities. Abilities not listed here are unchanged or, if they will be changed, will be mentioned in the future.]
Ask a Lore Nerd: Orc plus demon blood equals hero
Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, the column that answers your questions about the story and lore of the Warcraft universe. Click the Comments link below (or e-mail us!), ask your question, and blogger/columnist Alex Ziebart will answer you in a future installment!Mizunie asks a couple of questions...On the WotLK website, the designers talk about the "Scarlet Onslaught." Who are they and where did they come from?The Scarlet Onslaught is the refounding of the Scarlet Crusade. Sometime after the events in Stratholme, Abbendis has taken complete command of the Crusade with a new band of lackies. She believes the Light has beckoned her to Northrend, so she rounds up every Crusader she has left and loads them on boats under the flag of the Scarlet Onslaught. There's other details to accompany this in Wrath, but they're way too cool for me to spoil this early.Do we know anything on good ol' Deathwing?Nope, not yet. I haven't seen much yet. It's possible we'll learn more in the Chamber of the Aspects raid zone coming in Wrath. It's been revealed that a Black Dragon is the boss inside there, though we don't know the details surrounding it yet.
The science of snagging a tag
WoWWiki defines the tag as damaging a mob, thereby reserving the monster or NPC for you and your party so that only you may loot or gain XP from it. It also turns the status bar of the mob gray to other players to indicate that it has been tagged by another player. Rufushonkeriv asks an interesting question over at LiveJournal, however, about kill stealing and how it can happen in World of Warcraft. The tagging mechanism, which isn't present in more than a few MMOs, is supposed to prevent kill stealing in the game.However, the poster asks how a mob he has tagged is sometimes tagged away from him and explains how, when attempting the same thing, he only ends up killing a grayed-out mob faster. It is quite possible that the poster uses a DoT spell to get a mob's aggro, only to lose it to another player who deals damage with an instant cast spell. Lag can also sometimes explain how a player might think she damaged a mob first, only to have it turn gray when another player hits it. Technically, the first player to damage a mob tags it -- it isn't the player who has aggro or the player who first cast a non-damaging spell on the mob (such as Mana Tap or Hunter's Mark). There is some confusion as to the amount of damage needed to secure the tag. For example, if a player damages a mob for 1 point and a second later another player hits it for 1,000... who tags the mob? In theory, it should be the player who hit the mob for 1, because she damaged the mob first. The mechanic is pretty straightforward but in some cases players are confuddled through a mix of lag, lack of understanding about the tagging rules, and just plain old bad luck. As a rule of thumb, when tagging, hit it fast and hit it hard!
Hands on with baby Blood Elves
I played through the first few levels as a Blood Elf Mage at E3 today. As a veteran of every other newbie land, I have to say that starting from scratch as a Blood Elf has a similar feel to the other races -- there's only so much you can do as a newbie, after all.However, the newbie quests have an interesting twist. Thanks to the Blood Elves' Mana Tap racial, levelling downtime is reduced, and quests teach you how to use the racial effectively. It's going to be a really vital get-out-of-jail card -- when you Mana Tap enemies, their mana is reduced and you receive a buff with no immediate effect. You can stack this effect up to three times, and then unleash the Arcane Torrent racial to restore your much-needed mana at a time when it really counts. The cooldown means you can't use this all the time, but I can see it becoming really vital for healers, for instance.
