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The pros and cons of raid IDs
Freya recently posted a plea on the forums: Please, Blizzard, get rid of raid IDs. Raid IDs were put in the game as a way to make sure the best loot in the game didn't flow freely: rather than just running endgame raids over and over (and over), Blizzard put a hold on just how much one player can run them. If you get saved to a raid ID, you're usually out of that raid until things reset on Tuesdays. But there are lots of issues -- at this point, agrees Zarhym, it's too easy to get saved to a raid. It's lame to jump in on a PuG where you do one boss and then the group breaks up for the rest of the week, and it's even lamer to have your raid ID ninja'ed by a few folks who decide they want to disband the group early. The mechanic is important to keep around, though -- if you think it's too easy to get endgame gear now, just think what things would be like if people could run Naxx or OS daily or even hourly.But the actual saving is an issue, and one that the developers are working on -- they're planning on making it so that you would only be saved to an instanced when it's partially or even completely cleared (though that too would likely spread a little more loot around than wanted -- people would run the instance until the last boss and reset it to do it all over again). We'll have to see how this pans out.
The Queue: Shoo fly, don't bother me
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.To kick things off today, I actually wanted to add something to one of Adam's responses yesterday. Spiraea was looking for a title that would fit their Priest. Adam suggested The Immortal, but me? I'm all about the Hallowed. You can't get it until October, which makes getting your hands on it tough... but it'll be worth the wait! It's my favorite title on my Priest. When I get a new raid title I switch to that for awhile, but always go back to Hallowed.realt asked... I have a question regarding in-game voice chat (or Ventrilo). Our guild has never used voice-chat when raiding. So far we have done pretty well with clearing all 10man content, including Sartharion+1D, without it. Now we are progressing into 25man. At which point do we really need starting using voice chat you think or isn't required at all? I haven't been in many other raiding guilds besides this one so I am curious how others are handling their communication.
The Queue: Slack-jawed daffodils
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.We have another appearance from Allison Robert today for you Druid players, so that's fun! Guest answers tend to be a lot more fun, no? I certainly think so, because it means less work for me to do! I'm kidding, I'm kidding, but it's definitely fun to spread the love around a little.Chas asked...Has there ever been any lore surrounding Thane Korth'azz and Lady Blaumeux from Naxxramas? The other horsemen seem to have back-stories but I can't find anything on them.
Crowd Control to return in future instances
This opinion probably isn't shared by everyone, but I have to say: I miss crowd control in PvE. Nowadays, thanks to Death Knights or Blizzard or whoever you want to blame, instance runs are more or less zerg affairs -- everyone runs in on a cue, targets whatever the most dangerous mob is, and then lets the rest die off from the incidental damage thanks to their glyph-ed up, AoE abilities. But I long for a more civilized time when CC was used as a more elegant weapon, when a successful group was based on teamwork rather than gear, and when you needed a sheep, or a trap, or a banish, or all three, to make it through the instance.Fortunately, crowd control isn't dead forever -- GC confirms that while Blizzard doesn't want every pull to take "months of planning" (and obviously they want you to bring the player, not the class, so requiring a Warlock or a Mage along isn't always the best policy), "there will be more CC in the future." Of course, whether that means raids only or future expansions, we have no idea. He does say that "Noxromulous" was made to be accessible, so you might think raids, but one instance players always mention in terms of 5-man difficulty is Magister's Terrace, and let's not forget that that one also came in a content patch.Despite the bad rep that CC has gotten in PvP, it plays a significant role in the strategy of PvE, and lots of that interesting gameplay has really been lost lately. Hopefully in the future, we'll see Blizzard able to bring back sheep and traps in a way that will test groups without leaving anyone out.
Breakfast Topic: Get off the #%&$#^$ stone!
My guild had Tuesday night off (our raid leader sensed the coming of doom on the wind, I think, and had canceled the raid as of Sunday), so Wednesday night I found myself at the Naxxramas summoning stone doing what I do every time I run Naxx: trying to right-click the ever-shrinking portion of the stone to be found under dozens of flapping wings and giant mammoth butts in a forlorn attempt to actually -- I don't know -- summon people.Now, it's no secret that a select portion of WoW's playerbase is comprised of people whom we might politely term "jerks," and the Naxx summoning stone is an almost unparalleled environment for them to practice their delightful skills. The stone is set on a very small ledge, servicing the summoning needs for a very popular instance, and no matter what the area was bound to be crowded. But the situation's made so much worse by the constant presence of players going /afk on top of the stone while conveniently perched on their largest or otherwise unnecessary mounts.
The Queue: Who cares about 3.0.8, where's 3.1?
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.The title above is only half-joking. Patch 3.0.8 didn't supply any real content which is what we're all waiting for, but at this point rolling out patch 3.1 too quickly would be a disaster. I think game quality is worse now than it was before 3.0.8, so I'd much rather see things working smoothly again before they throw patch 3.1 at us. Of course, I'm also pretty bored with Wrath already, so...Zoidberg asked...So, what do we know about 3.1? What do we know about dual spec? Anything about Ulduar? Anything about DK nerfs? Warlock buffs? Will I get any Silver Covenant rep?
WoW Insider's gearing up in Northrend guides
We probably have at least an hour (or seven) of maintenance and downtime before realms start coming back up, so this is as good a time as any to make a nice list of the Wrath of the Lich King gear guides we've done so far. Not every class and spec is complete, but progress is progress, right?If you don't see the spec/role you're looking for in our list below, never fear! Our columnists are always working on these things, and the best inspiration for all of our writers is knowing what everyone is looking for. Don't see what you're looking for? Just let us know. Don't be afraid to look at guides for similar classes, either. They might just have the information you need. For example, the Shadow Priest spell hit guide will work for most casters.But enough talk, on with the show!
Lichborne: Gearing up to tank Naxxramas
Welcome to Lichborne, The weekly Death Knight column, where your host is recruiting only the most pro critters for his raiding team. So by now, I'm sure many of you Death Knights have managed to follow our last tanking gear guide and have put together a pretty decent tank set that's gotten them through a few heroics, but now it's time for the next step: Getting ready to tank Naxxramas. You'll find that while a lot of your gear is probably "good enough," you'll still want to look for a few important upgrades to kick you up another notch so you can be at your best coming into Naxxramas to tank. Let's look at a few heroic upgrades that you can grab to be the best tank you can be heading into 10 man Naxxramas content.Before we start, there's two things you should remember: One, I'm pretty much following the logic I laid down in the Death Knight statistics primer a few weeks back, so if you want to know why I picked a certain item, the answer is probably there, and two, whatever you do, remember to hit 540 defense skill. You'll need that to survive against the bosses.
The Queue: Wrap me up, baby
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.In the comments of yesterday's edition of The Queue, Gilgamesh mentioned that you're actually able to attack the projection of Mr. Bigglesworth in Wintergarde Keep, or at least, you could for a long time. It's inspired me to... tell a little story.Once upon a time, The Queue was Ask a Beta Tester. We were still in the midst of exploring Northrend before every Joe and Jane could waltz in there, and I was a puny level 71 traipsing all over the world and taking in its beauty. Ohh! Dragons! Ooo! Yetis! Oh look, hehe, there's a kitty on the projector! Let's click on it!Oh no! Oh nooo! It's attacking me! Oh gosh, it's just a critter, I can just 1-shot it. Unfortunately for me, it was level 80, and I was a level 71 caster. It resisted absolutely everything. I ran around Wintergarde flailing my arms in horrified desperation, hoping and praying it would leash and leave me be. Unfortunately, it did not, but I had healing spells and managed to weather its furious paws until my Prot Paladin friend showed up to tank it for me. Not my proudest moment, that's for sure.
Gear yourself or gear your guild?
It doesn't sound like it should be a hard question, but once you get into the trenches of raiding you begin to understand exactly how hard of a question it is. Do you continue raiding with your guild, doing the same bosses over and over again when you know you aren't going to get anything for it while your guild-mates get the gear, or do you just worry about yourself, dropping out of the raids once your appropriately geared up?Tobold is tackling this issue over at his blog, balancing two posts from two very different gamers. On one hand you have Matticus, a guild leader who just lost a paladin because he was overgeared and wished to take a break from the game until a harder dungeon came along, and on the other you have Gevlon, the owner of "The Greedy Goblin" who defends the position of said paladin. It's an interesting and thought provoking discussion worthy of checking out, especially if you have any character in a guild officer position or are deep in raiding with your favorite MMO.
Ready Check: Guide to Naxxramas (Construct Quarter, part 1)
Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, ZA or Sunwell Plateau, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. This week, we unwisely decide to give the column to Allison "Oops, I forgot my frost resist" Robert. Not that you actually need frost resist gear for the Construct Quarter...but that's about the time she generally remembers she left hers in the bank.Greetings, folks. Jennie's off for January, so I'll be writing Ready Check this month. Today's installment got a little long, mostly because Patchwerk tends to be a stumbling block to guilds still gearing up in Naxxramas, and Grobbulus is a little complicated to describe. So tonight I'll post on the first two bosses in the Construct Quarter, and tomorrow I'll finish with Gluth and Thaddius. Next week we'll take a look at Sapphiron and Kel'thuzad in order to finish off Naxx.The Construct, or Abomination, Quarter of Naxxramas contains two of the raid's most storied fights in the form of Patchwerk and Thaddius. It additionally contains some of the raid's most storied trash in the form of the Frogger Hallway directly after Patchwerk. As Jennie says, if you want to experience the encounters unspoiled, don't read any further!
Arcane Brilliance: Gearing your Mage up for Naxx
Each week, Arcane Brilliance commandeers a cannon atop one of the towers in Wintergrasp and launches flaming balls of explosive Mage content down upon the unsuspecting masses below. Deadly, deadly Mage content. You may not know this, but Arcane Brilliance gets a tenacity buff whether it's outnumbered or not. Suck on that, Warlocks! Patch 3.0.8, and all of its unabashed Arcane Mage love, is just around the proverbial corner. If you missed Arcane Brilliance's coverage of the changes, you can find it here, still preserved in its original state. We have other business to attend to this week, though. Last week, we finally rounded out our series of leveling guides by going from level 70 all the way to 80. Now comes the age-old problem: what to do once you've hit the cap?As it has ever been, hitting the current level cap--much like graduating from high school or college--only serves to show us how far behind the curve we really are. We go from the top of one ladder to the very bottom of another. No self-respecting raid-leader is going to invite a Mage to Naxxramas who is still sporting the mismatched greens and blue quest-rewards he had on when he dinged 80 somewhere in the middle of Zul'Drak. The good news in Wrath of the Lich King, however, is that the power gap now isn't as difficult to bridge as it has been in previous incarnations of the end-game.After the break, we'll go over some of the changes and list a selection of pre-Naxx gear and where to find it.
Latency fixes coming for Northrend, Naxx
Although I haven't experienced it so much myself recently (fingers crossed), many players have been complaining about high latency both in Northrend and in the various Northrend raids (especially the Heroic versions). I have had Grizzly Hills especially (for some reason) get so bad with the lag spikes that I just logged off for an hour, but that was back in the first few weeks of Wrath. Apparently, the outdoor Northrend lag has been caused by Wintergrasp battles. There is a "server-side fix" (which I read as hot fix) in testing on internal realms at Blizzard, and Eyonix tells us that they hope to be able to patch up the live realms "in the near future" (which I hope is sooner than "Soon™"). As for Naxxramas, we are informed that there are optimizations in the pipe for it, and that those will be coming in 3.0.8 (which I personally predict for next Tuesday). These optimizations will, allegedly, help both latency and disconnects. Are disconnects a big problem in Naxx? I'm not sure I've seen any.
Mage solos Naxxramas Military Quarter
WoW Insider's inbox has been absolutely flooded with tips about the video you see above. Yes, what you're seeing there is a Mage soloing the Military Quarter of Naxxramas. Not the 10-man Naxxramas, but Heroic Naxxramas.This crazy stunt comes from the same crew that pulled off the two-man Loatheb kill, and uses another pretty funny gimmick. This one uses a combination of Spellsteal on specific mobs, a talent called Incanter's Absorption, and a talent called Burning Determination.The Bone Armor that is cast by the Death Knight Cavaliers was able to be spellstolen, and it absorbs 1,200,000 damage. You could get up to hundreds of thousands of points of spell damage, in theory. In practice it probably comes out to much less than that most of the time. Still, as you can see from the video, 100,000 spell damage was completely possible. Burning Determination was necessary because those same mobs like to spam Strangulate.
Shifting Perspectives: The Druid of 2008
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting Druids and those who group with them. This week, our author is completely spaced out on cold medication, and is somewhat concerned that her raid performance has improved under the circumstances.The time has come (the Allie said)To talk of many things.Of Roots and Bash and Travel Form,And Strength (which scales with Kings).Why Tauren cat form sucks so hard,And whether trees have wings!And, yes, before anyone asks, I'm tripping on too much cough syrup and ibuprofen after receiving a belated viral Christmas gift from a relative. So I'll just put this out there right now; this column's probably on the weird side. I took a long look at all three Druid specs over 2008 and saw a few sad things, a few happy things, a little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants, and now I'm channeling the famous Mary Tyler Moore episode "Chuckles Bites the Dust," and that has to stop because I do not believe Mary Tyler Moore ever played a Druid.If you're completely uninterested in reading an account of any spec that's not your own -- although that would make me weep into my little cup of generic label cough syrup -- here's a set of quick links to each: Balance Feral Resto
Guildwatch: Farming instances for the holidays
Lots of guilds were off for the holidays, but we still had a surprising amount of news: lots of drama, plenty of downs to report, and a few more guilds recruiting for a serious run at the new endgame.Hope your holidays were happy -- here at Guildwatch, we got exactly what we wanted: angry forum threads, tips from all over the realms, and even a few very offensive vent recordings. If you've got news of guild drama, downings, or recruitment, send it to wowguildwatch@gmail.com. And hit the link below to see this week's GW.
The Queue: Frost resistance, hot or not?
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.We're very light today, as most Mondays are. Coming off the weekend when everyone is playing instead of reading we're pretty short on questions that aren't repeats! No need for elongated excuses, though. Let's dig into the few questions we do have.Phyalt asked...As a healing Priest should I be worried about frost resist going into Naxx?
25-man Razuvious mage tanked
Instructor Razuvious is the first boss of the Military Quarter in Naxxramas. The typical strategy on the 25-man version of the the fight is to have a priest mind control one of his four adds and use that add to tank the boss, because Razuvious hits far too hard for normal tanks (hundreds of thousands on plate). But who needs a traditional strategy, right? A Team, of Stonemaul, decided they would do this fight with no priests. The trick was to have a mage constantly spellsteal Bone Armor off of the trash leading up to Razuvious. The mage then tanked the fight, the healers kept the mage up, and all went well. The mage that had been tanking did die around 40%, but another mage hit the spellsteal, picked up the boss, and the fight went smoothly from there. There's a WWS available, if you're curious. The reason the mages don't come out on top for damage in is that it's all absorbed by Bone Armor (otherwise you'd have some very dead mages). Let's hear it for creative methods!
Why "easy raids" are a good thing (for now)
I really didn't expect to be writing this. Like others, I was left a bit nonplussed at the seeming ease of early raiding content in Wrath, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like an interesting intersection of prudence, circumstances, and quite possibly some residual discomfort on Blizzard's part over how awful early BC raiding was. I don't think that the current "ease" of first-tier raid content in Wrath is a bad thing -- and I also don't expect future content to stay that way. My guild cleared all of the 25-man raid content in Wrath within two weeks of the expansion's release. Naxxramas was easily the biggest non-surprise. Doing Naxx-25 in the company of people who know the place inside and out is a pretty straightforward and -- dare I say it -- easy process. This is even more true with players who learned the original Naxx at 70, with a much greater margin for error than they would have had at 60. Honestly? Most of the fights haven't changed to the point where you'd have to toss out your previous strategy and start all over again. A raid that saw Naxx at any point between 60 and 70 is effectively an old dog that doesn't have to learn a new trick.
Spiritual Guidance: 17 trinkets for healing raiders
Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of PlusHeal, a new healing community for all restorative classes. How do you feel about trinkets? This week Matticus will examine a wide variety of trinkets in the game obtainable in Northrend for healers! Trinkets are interesting items. They have different abilities and uses best suited for the situation at hand. Here is the majority of trinkets that I believe us healers would be interested in the most and my initial thoughts on them. I've even recommended a few of them for us Priests!
