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Arcane Brilliance: Level 80 mage gearing roadmap, part 1
Welcome to another installment of Arcane Brilliance, the weekly mage column of choice for mages who hate warlocks, warlocks who secretly want to be mages, and everybody else who likes their mage discussion sprinkled lightly with random and inappropriate references to Lost, Flock of Seagulls, Lufia, and KFC's new "Double Down Sandwich," or as I like to call it, "population control." I mean, seriously? Who greenlit this? "I have an idea, guys. Let's offer a bacon and cheese sandwich where we remove the bun and replace it with two slabs of fried chicken! Ooh, and then, instead of offering drink sizes, let's work on a way to allow customers to hook themselves directly into our soda machines intravenously. They'll be mainlining Dr. Pepper! Because if there's anything America needs more than ever during these tough economic times, it's more ways for people to kill themselves via food!" Lately, a lot of you have been asking for gearing advice for the new level 80 mage. It seems that a good number of people (myself included) have been making good use of this pre-Cataclysm lull to level their alts, and I'm proud to learn that many of you have chosen to level a mage as one of your alts. For many of you, the gearing landscape probably looks very alien when compared to the way it looked when you were gearing up your last character. New opportunities abound, with the promise of epic gear dangling around every bend. What path should you take? Fear not, young magelings. This week, Arcane Brilliance has decided to draw you a roadmap. Now, a warning: Arcane Brilliance can't draw. Seriously, when Arcane Brilliance was 5, he drew a picture of a "horse" for his mother. As horse pictures go, it was apparently quite disturbing. Arcane Brilliance had to spend some time at a hospital for "special" children, and mom started drinking heavily. So, you're going to have to use your imaginations about the "map" part of the roadmap. It's mostly going to consist of words, something Arcane Brilliance can produce largely without upsetting medical professionals. Largely. So you've hit level 80 with your mage. Your gear slots are likely filled with a random assortment of quest rewards, heirloom gear that suddenly doesn't look so good anymore, and stuff that dropped in normal Nexus ten levels ago. You'd like to start running some of the level 80 content, but your DPS still hasn't cracked a thousand. You're not geared enough for a trip to heroic Ramparts, let alone heroic Trial of the Champion. So what do you do? Where do you begin?
Ashen Verdict strength ring in minor content patch
Bornakk popped onto the forums late Thursday to confirm that Blizzard is planning to add a +strength version to the Ashen Verdict rings in an upcoming mini-patch. The appearance of the four current rings with patch 3.3 caused a minor furor on the forums, with plate DPS being left out in the cold. While there are +strength DPS rings available elsewhere in Icecrown Citadel, there's no replacement for a reputation ring's valuable proc. One of the interesting things about the +strength ring's initial absence wasn't its absence per se, but the reason for omitting it. Apparently the Ashen Verdict choices were a reproduction of older reputation-linked quest items (e.g. Violet Eye and Scale of the Sands rings) that allowed only four choices, and Blizzard wasn't able to get past the programming issues to add a fifth option before 3.3 went live. Well, that's going to get fixed in the upcoming mini-patch, which will also see a few other class-related changes. The date of the patch is still anyone's guess, but we'll keep an eye out for you.
Breakfast topic: Faction fanboyism
It's not unusual to see player speculation on what we'll see when Cataclysm arrives, and most of us have our own private wish lists. I'm sure I could come up with my own if I thought about it, but while riding between Kamagua and Moa'ki Harbor last night on the Kalu'ak ferry lazily chatting with people, it occurred to me that one of the things I'd kill to have again is another faction like the Tuskarr. These guys are, for lack of a better word, awesome. Their emotes are fantastic. They sell an evil penguin pet and a cool fishing item (the Mastercraft Kalu'ak Fishing Pole) that probably won't be replaced for the duration of the expansion. Their ships are giant turtles traveling along beautiful coastline with a vendor on board (seriously, riding these at night = an endless series of Kodak moments). They get my vote as the faction that immerses you most thoroughly in what they need and what they're doing to survive in an increasingly hostile Azeroth, and I'm wondering if, given Northrend's various difficulties, they might be convinced to seek warmer climes just so we don't have to give them up. Agonizing rep grinds have plagued the game since classic, but the Tuskarr are such a well-realized bunch that even at exalted I love hanging around their villages. What's your favorite faction, and is there anything about them you'd like to see repeated with future reputation grinds?
Arcane Brilliance: Making your Mage raid-worthy, part 2
Welcome to the latest Arcane Brilliance, the weekly Mage column that believes there's no such thing as a wrong time to turn something into a sheep. Unless it was already a sheep to begin with. Then it would probably have been better to turn it into a pig or a rabbit or something. Or maybe just hit it with a Pyroblast. Mmmm. Lamb chops. What were we talking about again? If you missed last week, here's a link to click on so you can catch up. If you can't be bothered to read the first part of this column, let me summarize the idea here: we're discussing ways to get your Mage all decked out in epic, raid-worthy gear without ever actually entering a raid instance. Now, more than ever before, we have so many options for obtaining raid-quality gear that actually raiding for it seems almost...old-fashioned. Last week we talked about 5-mans in both their normal and heroic varieties, focusing on Trial of the Champion, because duh. But maybe you don't want to do 5-mans. Maybe your guildies aren't on, and maybe you hate pugs. Maybe you are a Mage, and because there are eighty-four DPSers looking for group for every one tank or healer, you threw your hands up after an hour of trying to get a group and went off to do dailies. Well good news, everyone! Doing those dailies can get you epics too! Yes, it is entirely possible--even if you happen to be the guy on your server who ninjas gear in pugs and sucks at everything to the point that nobody invites you to groups anymore--to fill just every slot of your gear with sparkly purples without doing any instances of any kind. Isn't that wonderful? It tends to take a bit longer, overall, but these alternative methods for obtaining gear can be perfect for those of us who simply don't have a lot of time to commit to a group. Simply log in, craft an epic cloak, do a daily quest or two, blast out a couple Arena matches, and then repeat for a few weeks, and eventually you'll have epics too. Anyway, nice talking to you, see you next week! Wait...what's that? You want details? Oh fine. Clicky clicky.
WoW Rookie: Level 80 - now what?
New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the resources they need to get acclimated. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic.Ding ... you're 80! So what are you going to be when you grow up? Don't get us wrong: levelling your first character to 80 (especially if this is your first massively multiplayer online game) is a not-insignificant accomplishment – but you're not quite ready for prime time yet. Hitting level 80 in WoW is less like being a graduating senior than it is being a new sophomore. You've finished WoW 101; now it's time to make sure you've covered all your core classes and start taking a stab at some electives and specialized coursework.If you've just hit level 80, consider this basic checklist a graduation gift of sorts from WoW Rookie. It'll help pointed you in the right direction for whatever type of game play you're interested in pursuing. Your game's just beginning. Dig in!
Kalu'ak reputation rewards
The only way to increase your faction standing with the Kalu'ak is to complete the numerous tasks at the various quest hubs in the Borean Tundra, Dragonblight, and Howling Fjord. After all those quests are done the only way to further increase your standing is to work on the various daily quests associated with the faction.But what are some of the goodies you can get when you're exalted?The hottest item is the Mastercraft Kalu'ak Fishing Pole that has the double whammy of allowing underwater breathing and increasing your fishing skill by 30. It's a must have for any master angler, and will come in handy as you fish off the cold icebergs of Northrend. You can get pole for just over 100 gold when you hit exalted.Another must have is the pet penguin that you can get when you reach exalted. The little guy is cute and is someone that wants to sit next to you as you use that big purple fishing pole you got.You can pick up these rewards from quartermasters in either Mora'ki Harbor in Dragonblight or in Kamagua in the Howling Fjord.Read on after the break and see what you can grab from these fun loving Wilfred Brimley looking folks.
Lichborne: Reputation rewards for Death Knights in Wrath of the Lich King
Welcome to Lichborne, WoW Insider's weekly column on the Death Knight, written and named by a guy who actually doesn't have that talent. How does this keep happening, seriously? So by now, I'm sure a lot of Death Knights are, like yours truly, getting into the level 80 home stretch and trying to figure out which of the Wrath factions to grind first. If you've already read our Wrath 101 guides to reputation and to the Oracle and Frenzyheart tribes, you're off to a good start. In this week's Lichborne, we'll take it a step further by looking at the purchasable rewards for each faction with the eye of a Death Knight. As with our previous gear guide, I'm operating on the assumptions that haste and armor penetration are less desirable for Death Knights and that expertise is primarily for Death Knight tanks.
Breakfast Topic: Is the ring worth it?
The spiffy Dalaran rings:Band of the Kirin TorSignet of the Kirin TorAre they worth it?When I hit 80 it was the first thing I picked up. The powerful ability to teleport myself to a major city is, in my opinion, invaluable as I conquer the end game of Wrath of the Lich King. But after I right clicked to buy the 8,000g ring, I paused.I felt a small twinge on the back of my head.Was that the tingling of buyer's remorse? Did I just buy the Sega Dreamcast of rings?Will my ring fade away to soon be vendored? No ring to control them all, and no ring to in the darkness bind them?
2.4 PvP sets: Gold and rep requirements
There's a lot to get excited about in patch 2.4, without a doubt. A lot of raiders will be looking to the Sunwell to provide new content and those addicted to daily quests will certainly find a lot to do as well. I'll certainly appreciate these things, but there was one new item that piqued my interest as an altaholic: the new blue PvP sets available from reputation vendors. While a lot of players will likely overlook or outright dismiss these new sets, they are a godsend to someone, like me, that has a ton of high-level alts. While these sets are clearly geared towards PvP, they'll definitely help fill out some of my alts' PvE sets. Additionally, they'll make good starting sets for anyone that wants to get more involved in the arena or battlegrounds.
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Patch 2.2 on the PTR: New Violet Eye Recipes
New recipes have appeared on the test server with our Karazhan-related friends, the Archmages of Kirin Tor sect known as The Violet Eye. Some of these recipes are very nice indeed, including a high-end crafted leather chest for rogues and feral druids, a +20 agility enchant to weapons, a Flask recipe granting +35 to all resists & +18 to all stats and another high end leatherworking recipe, this time a cloak with a boatload of strength and melee crit stats.For those of you unfamiliar with the Violet Eye faction, reputation is gained through the key quest for Karazhan as well as a quest within Karazhan and killing mobs in the 10-man raid zone. Reputation rewards they currently provide include the Violet Signet Rings (through a reputation gaining quest), the Iceguard frost-resist, plate recipes for blacksmiths, a crafted frost-resist ring and an Inscription granting +7 to all resists on a shoulder item.Read on for exact details on the new recipes.
