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The Queue: The spirit of betrayal
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.Today, I'll cut the crap and not pretend to be funny, for your sake. Tomorrow, though? Tomorrow, the gloves come off. I will pretend to be absolutely hilarious until the cows come home.matthew asked... So I did a quest in Sholazar to kill Artruis and accidentally changed from Oracle to Frenzyheart. How exactly do I change back to oracle because I want to get the egg?
Lichborne: A Death Knight statistics primer
Welcome to Lichborne, the weekly Death Knight column by professor Daniel Whitcomb, who totally has a PhD in Death-Knightology from Ebon Hold University. It's the truth, I swear. I've seen a lot of people asking these questions as we've been getting into the expansion: Now that I am trying to gear by Death Knights, what stats should I get? What's good for a Death Knight? Which armor should I take. We've started getting in that somewhat in the last few columns, with advice on reputation gear and starting zone gear, but I figured today we should delve a little bit more into the why of Death Knight stats. Today's column will double as a little bit of primer on how Death Knights get their power, and what stats you should be looking for on armor in general to make your Death Knight the best it can be. It's not completely in depth, but it should get you well on the road to understanding just how Death Knights get all that awesome power and sexiness. We'll have 3 sections today. The Good are stats that are excellent choices for DPS, Tanks, or both. The So-So are stats which still do us some good, but are pretty situational or conditional in their usefulness. The Outcasts are those stats that you should avoid -- Well, I'd say avoid like the plague, but we're Death Knights. We like the plague around here. So I'll just say you should avoid them.
Phat Loot Phriday: Staff of the Great Reptile
I tried to find some great caster/healing staves for you to work towards this weekend, but they're hard to come by, and strangely enough I couldn't find a single caster staff as a reputation reward -- Druids get all the good ones I found. This one's from an instance you can run this weekend, though, and it should hold you up until you hit 80 and head into the endgame.Name: Staff of the Great Reptile (Wowhead, Thottbot, WoWDigger)Type: Rare StaffDamage/Speed: 148-269 / 2.10 (99.5 DPS)Abilities: +81 Spirit, which has been becoming more and more useful lately. It's really still the domain of Warlocks and Shadow Priests, but depending on the talents and other gear you've got, Spirit, especially this much of it, can be more helpful than you'd think. Improves haste rating by 66, which again, will depend on the other stats you've got to figure out just how much it'll help you. Haste gets more and more important as you head towards the endgame, but especially with the changes to Haste affecting global cooldowns, this could be really great for anybody casting instants as well. And increases spell power by 271, which is a no brainer. You'll definitely be able to get more spell power by the time you hit 80, but for the level, this is a decent place to start. And, I have to say, subjectively I admit, it's a badass-looking staff. %Gallery-33600%
Mio said to be prepping GPS-enabled 3.5G touchscreen handset for Q1 2009
Not that Mio hasn't pumped out a GPS phone or two before, but the rarely-heard-from handset maker is reportedly on its way to delivering its first 3.5G touchscreen-based GPS phone in Q1 2009. Undisclosed sources singled out at DigiTimes have it that the mobile will be powered by a 3.5G chipset from Qualcomm and will come loaded with Mitac's self-developed "Spirit" touch interface. Additionally, it'll pack a 3.2-megapixel camera and should launch ahead of Garmin's oft-delayed nüvifone. In related news, Mio is also scheduled to launch a GPS-packin' MID before Q1 2009 ends, though it's still unclear if it'll choose a 7- or 8-inch panel to accompany the 3G radio and Windows CE operating system. Riveting stuff, huh?[Via GPSTracklog]
Wrath of the Lich King: Priest roundup
Cheer up and be optimistic! Try not to be too worried about the Priest class. True we haven't changed all that much, we are still the most diverse healing class in the game. Even Elizabeth Harper and Phaelia agree that we still remain the best healers (for now). Don't be disheartened! But the challenge starts now. Hitting 80 will be a bit slower for us Holy specced players in comparison to other classes and specs. We can still hold our own against Arthas' minions! So where are we at then? State of the Game For the Priests that have just returned to the game, the biggest change is the fact that Priest racials have been removed. Hymn of Hope, Holy Nova and Devouring Plague are baseline abilities for all Priests . We'll be competing against Mages and Warlocks for gear since the three classes utilize Spirit to an extent. Circle of Healing is now a smart heal which could come with a 6 second cooldown as a penalty. Oh yeah, Prayer of Mending now draws threat for the caster instead of the target. The upside is that you can talent it to reduce the cooldown by 3 seconds with Divine Providence. Talent Trees Desperate Prayer takes up the 11 point talent slot where Holy Nova used to be. Discipline received a near complete overhaul. And guess what? It looks like it could be a raid viable spec! Check out Alex's Shadow Priest overview for a quick refresher. Dispersion: Great talent? Or greatest talent? General Tips A few notable Priest spells were covered in our Skill Mastery columns. Check out Penance and Guardian Spirit. Having fun is the most important thing you can do. If the quest givers or mobs are overloaded, find a few guildies and lock yourselves into Utgarde Keep for a while.
Ask A Beta Tester: Spirit, AoE, and raid loot
I'm going to start off this AABT by stealing a question that Alex actually took last time, mostly because I started laughing when I read it yesterday. I have, oh, conservatively, billions of Wrath screenshots on my hard drive at this point, but there's one I remember all too well.Marathan asks... Some time ago, there was a talk about new player character models for Wrath - and even some bugged pictures. So the question is, are they going live? Are we finally going to get improved graphics on our characters?As Alex wrote, Blizzard used one beta build to test the ease of implementing new skins and some of them...didn't turn out too well. Imagine you're me and you get a beta key. Budget a few hours of anticipatory excitement while your main copies over. She's a 70 Tauren Druid who has been with you since day one, your sole 70, and you think she's the most beautiful thing in the game even if to everyone else she's an ungainly 8-foot heifer. Now imagine booting up the Wrath beta for the first time and being horrified to see your beloved character with a Glasgow smile, like the developers had seen the Joker in The Dark Knight and thought, "Hey! We could make that work!"Holy water did nothing. Neither did crucifixes, garlic, a wooden stake, waving the Bible in the direction of the laptop, or sobbing quietly in a corner.On the plus side, here was finally something in the game to which Tauren cat form was an actual graphical improvement.
Patch 3.02 for Restoration Druids, part 1
The single biggest change for most restoration Druids with patch 3.02 will be the disappearance of at least four commonly-used PvE and PvP specs: 8/11/42 (the traditional resto PvP spec) 11/11/39 (Resto PvP with Insect Swarm) 13/11/37 (Resto PvP with Insect Swarm and Nature's Reach) 11/0/50 (PvE Tree of Life with Insect Swarm). The first three are kaputski because Feral Charge is now a 21-point talent in the feral tree, and the last three are bye-bye because Insect Swarm is now a 21-point talent in the balance tree. If you still want talents from the balance tree especially, you'll have a ton of stuff to play with (frankly I ran out of space here to discuss the new restokin specs but we'll cover it as soon as we can), but for the moment we're only going to concern ourselves with stuff squarely in the Restoration tree. Shifting Perspectives later today will have a full run-down on moonkin in patch 3.02 and Wrath. Otherwise, there's still a ton of new stuff for tree Druids in this patch, including a resurrected Tier 3 set bonus, a vastly-improved Tree of Life form, an out-of-combat rez, and an insane +haste buff to two of your most-used spells. If you also want a look at what early 5-man healing in the beta is like as a resto Druid, head here.Read on for a comprehensive look at the new healing and mana regeneration mechanics, Restoration abilities, talents, and glyphs!
Navman intros slimline S100 GPS unit
It looks like those wanting a GPS unit that's a bit more stylish than the usual fare now have a new option to consider from Navman, which has just introduced is IDEO-designed S100 model. In addition to being shiny, this one measures just 13.5-mm thick, and packs a 4.3-inch "super flat" touchscreen, all the usual PMP features, 3D maps, Navman's trademark NavPix photo navigation, and SirfStar's InstaFix II, which promises to deliver a GPS fix five times faster than normal. It also uses Mio's new "Spirit" software with Glide Touch, which provides "simple tap and slide functionality," but apparently not full multi-touch. No word on a release 'round these parts, but folks in the UK will be able to pick this one up in November for $199, or roughly $340.[Via NaviGadget]
Well Fed Buff: Warp Burgers
Well Fed Buff serves up tasty dishes to boost your HP, stats and appetite – with that special WoW twist, of course. Sorry Well Fed Buff is a little late. The burgers kept warping off the grill. But here they are in all their glory. I'd like to dedicate this week's WFB to my mom. Congrats on Level 40! I remember when I first wandered into Terokkar Forest just after the release of the burning crusade. I have to admit the Warp Stalkers creeped me out just a little bit. I found a wee bit of revenge I creating these tasty burgers. The in-game version yields one Warp Burger per cut of Stalker Flesh. This recipe restores 7500 health over 30 sec. If you spend at least 10 seconds eating you will become well fed and gain 20 Agility and Spirit for 30 min.
Phat Loot Phriday: Golden Staff of the Sin'dorei
Yup, that's it. This baby is pretty much tops if you are a healer who wants to max out Spirit and healing and all of those other good stats that help you keep others alive. This is the kind of staff that even makes Tanks go all Keanu: "whoah." Name: Golden Staff of the Sin'dorei (WowDB, Thottbot, Wowhead)Type: Epic Two-hand StaffDamage/Speed: 146-338 / 3.20 (75.6 DPS)Abilities: +60 Stamina, +54 Intellect, +57 Spirit. Yeah. Red and two Blue sockets, nicely fitted with some +22 healing gems and/or +10 Spirit gems and you're talking about some real power. +4 Spirit socket bonus. Improves spell haste rating by 32 +550 healing, +183 spell damage. Yes, you read that right -- 550 healing. Not since right before the last expansion has there been a staff this nice in comparison to other gear, and even if you could match the healing on a one-hand/offhand combo (you probably can, if you get the right gear and enchants together), the Spirit bonuses on this baby are going to give that duo a run for the money. Take a good look, because this is the kind of stuff that's going to be dropping in endgame raids at level 80. Sin'dorei, you should know by now (we're almost to the next expansion), means Blood Elves, or "children of the Blood" in Thalassian. And yes, the staff looks just like the one in the BC art, as seen above. This is very BC staff, if not the most defining staff of this expansion. Look for a lot less gold and green and a lot more blue and black in WotLK. How to Get It: This is a Kil'jaeden item yet again -- it drops from the last boss currently in the game. And since we've seen so few drops from Killy Jay so far, we're not sure of the drop rate at all. Not that it matters much -- so few players comparatively are going to get loot from the fight with Kayje, that odds are you'll never see it.You can drool, though. And in ten levels, when we're all working through Naxx again, maybe you can convince your raid to go back and help you get it.Getting Rid of It: Sells to vendors for 20g 54s 93s and disenchants into a Void Crystal. But look how shiny! Have a good weekend.
Combat stats and spellpower consolidated on Alpha
Sources are saying that a new Alpha build showed up on the WoTLK Alpha servers yesterday, featuring a few interesting changes. Kalgan's promised spellpower change we have mentioned, and it now appears to be on the Alpha servers. In addition, it looks like the dev team is working on consolidating even more stats. As of the latest build, all instances of haste rating, hit rating, and critical strike rating on gear will now modify both physical attacks and spells at the same time.
Zvue Spirit: love it or leave it
If there's one thing that could put a stop to terrorism once and for all, it's this DAP. Nothing strikes fear into the heart of an anti-American jihadist like this hideous MP3 player loaded up with Deerhoof b-sides and the entire Duran Duran back-catalog. The next time you snake under barbed wire and behind enemy lines, let them know where you're coming from by flashing this baby before you unload round after round of righteousness. Sure, it's only got 1GB of storage, but it's not about how many tracks you've got -- it's about showing off your American spirit with this Chinese-made product.[Via anythingbutipod]
A warrior and his spirit gear
For some reason on my home server, Eldre'Thalas, when folks see a tank standing around in Shattrath without anything to do, they immediately start sending tells asking if I want to go tank such-and-such an instance for them. I don't mind it when my friends or guild mates do it, but it does get a little annoying when complete strangers do it constantly.So I've come up with a solution: spirit and intellect armor. Whenever I'm doing anything other than fighting, I'm wearing bright yellow spirit and intellect armor that I got off the AH. I spent about a hundred gold on this dastardly set. It looks awful, it smells awful, and it's a great repellent for annoying unsolicited LFG tells.I got the idea from looking at people's gear who are apping to my guild. Some of it was just plain nuts – spirit gear on Warriors, "of stamina" gear on Priests, things like that. Of course, they might have just been logged out in that gear the same way I'm logged out in mine right now. But when you're apping to a guild and one of the requirements is to log out in PvE gear for the next week, well, too bad so sad for them.
2.4 leaves hunters low on mana
Since patch 2.4, hunters have been having some problems. Aside from the outrage over the fact that our traps are now announced, we seem to be having issues with mana. On the forums, hunters are not seeing much love from the non-hunter crowd, but I suppose that is to be expected. It is important to note however, that our mana efficiency is an intended attribute of our class. We are useful, not solely, but arguably primarily, because we can provide sustainable, long-term DPS. No, we don't crit like mages. In a boss fight though, we can keep going after mages short out.Why are hunters all of a sudden having issues with mana? There are a few theories floating around, but we have yet to be graced with a blue response. Take the jump to learn more about why this might be happening.
NASA won't dampen exploratory spirit of Mars rovers
Back in November, we knew things weren't looking up for the twin Mars rovers, but it seems that both Spirit and Opportunity will still be doing their respective thangs after a letter foreshadowing their doom was rescinded. Reportedly, the entity was tasked to slash $4 million from the project's budget just yesterday, which would have forced Spirit into hibernation and limited Opportunity's opportunities by mandating that commands be sent up every other day (versus everyday now). As it stands, NASA has issued a confirmation that neither creature will be affected, but given the apparent belt-tightening, we're curious as to whether Scarecrow will still see liftoff next year.[Via Physorg]
Raid boss simulator for Teron Gorefiend
The European Horde guild "Ferox" has designed a flash-based simulator to help assist with the Teron Gorefiend raid boss fight in the Black Temple. I've never been to the Black Temple myself, but according to Bosskillers, Mr. Gorefiend will debuff a random player every 30 seconds with "Shadow of Death," which basically gives you a 55-second countdown till you die. But your death isn't the end of the battle for you yet, in fact it's just beginning: four "Shadowy Constructs" will spawn around you, and as a ghost you will get special abilities only you can use on these constructs -- other raiders will be helpless against them.The flash game based on this fight does a great job at letting you practice the strategies to success, and it even makes for an interesting puzzle for people who like to figure out how to do things on their own. For those of us who are never likely to actually get to go to the Black Temple, simulations like this help convey a taste of what it's like to be there for real, too, so I hope more and more players develop these sorts of simulations in the future. If you want to figure out the simulator from scratch, go ahead and check it out; otherwise I'll explain the basic tools, and then after the jump I'll explain how to win.The constructs will spawn from the point where you die as the Shadow of Death countdown finishes. From there, they will make their way to the rest of your raid. To win, you have to kill them before they get there. Some of the basic controls are explained in the game itself, but the 5 spells you can cast as a ghost are not clear at first. The first and last abilities, "Spirit Strike" and "Spirit Shield" are useless in the flash simulator, so you can ignore them here. The important abilities you'll be using are the three in the middle, "Spirit Lance," "Spirit Chains," and "Spirit Volley" (which you can use by clicking, or pressing 3, 4, or 5, respectively). Spirit Lance will damage a construct within a certain range and also slow it down, Spirit Chains will freeze nearby constructs in place, and Spirit Volley will do AoE damage to all the constructs around you. Continue reading for the secret cheat codes to give you super-extra-strength and +1000 damage!
MP5 replaced by Spirit on Druid Arena S3 gear [Updated]
Resto4life is reporting on a fairly significant change to the Arena season 3 gear on the PTR with Patch 2.3. Evidently the previous mana regen stat MP5 is being tossed over for Spirit, and this has some players howling. Now, I know there is some debate as to the utility of Spirit for priests in a PvE setting, but as they mention in the article, there appears to be little use for it at all in Arena PvP, at least where Druids are concerned. The Restoration druids in particular are unhappy about this change, especially when taken in context with the recent change to the game that will allow everyone to see what magical buffs you have placed upon you. What this means is that just about every time a druid casts Innervate -- the spell that would benefit most from the change to Spirit -- there is a high probability it will be immediate dispelled. Now we have heard tell that Spirit as a stat will be changed somewhere down the line, that it will begin affecting spell damage as well as mana regen, so perhaps this is the first step toward that change. It's tough to know for certain.What we do know, however, is that the change makes the PvP gear more attractive for use in PvE, where Spirit does help with the longer battles. But I have to wonder, exactly why would the developers, who have professed that they want to create two separate gear sets for PvP and PvE, make the Season 3 Arena sets more PvE viable? It may be that they want more people to participate in Arena battles, or it could be for some unknown reason I'm not seeing. Help me out here. Do you think the change from MP5 to Spirit is a buff or a nerf?Update: Another patch just pushed through on the PTR, and this change to the Druid healing S3 set has been reverted. The gear will retain its MP5 stat bonus.
Spiritual Guidance: The spirit debate
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!This week, we've got a special episode co-authored by your two Spiritual Guidance writers, Eliah Hecht and Elizabeth Harper. In the course of emails around the WoW Insider bullpen, we noticed that there were some differing perspectives on the utility of Blizzard's favorite Priest stat, Spirit. So we decided to sit down and hash it out the old-fashioned way: an IM debate. Both of our mains are priests in a similar situation. We're Holy-specced and raiding somewhere around the middle of Karazhan. So considering how similar are gameplay niches are, it's interesting to note the differences in our opinions. On with the show, and do let us know what your take is.Eliah Hecht: So. It's going to be a complicated issue, because you've got a lot of different kinds of priests to worry about...Holy vs Shadow, leveling vs raiding vs PvP...My take on it is that Spirit is paramount for all leveling specs, and for raiding holy priests, and not so much for the other spots on the grid.Elizabeth Harper: See, I'm of a couple of minds on it for leveling. On one hand, you get more benefit from less spirit at lower levels, so leveling, I think you get more out of it. But it's still an issue of practicality -- leveling up, i'll grab spirit if it happens to be on something I otherwise want. But the size of mana and health pools is still more important. (And if you have spirit tap, a little bit of spirit can go a long way)
Mage's evocation: working as intended?
Over on the European forums, there's been some question over the Mage ability Evocation. High end mages are saying it's just not restoring enough mana to be useful. CM Aeus comes to the rescue with an answer -- though not the answer most Mages want to hear: We feel evocate is working as it is intended: it's simply highly dependent on how much spirit the mage has. Unfortunately, many mages seem not to like spirit that much and would rather spend their gem slots and enchants on other stats. This is fine, everyone has the freedom to choose what stats they want to focus on. Whereas in the past we forced a lot of spirit onto the mage's tier sets so that they would have good mana regen, to leave more room for flexibility and choice we have replaced a lot of that spirit with gem slots in recent gear.Mages, on the other hand, say that to maximize their DPS and justify their use in a raid, they're required to stack gear and gems that eschew spirit and add to their spell damage, thereby rendering Evocation useless. But if they want decent returns from Evocation, and enough mana regeneration to keep them going in long fights, they have to sacrifice their spot on the damage charts in order to equip more spirit gear. To this Aeus responds:No one's asking anyone to gimp themselves; just making it clear that choices have to be made when it comes to certain aspects.So, Mages, what do you think? Is Evocation working as intended -- or does it just not give Mages these days enough staying power if they're trying to keep to the top of the DPS charts?
WoW Rookie: All you needed to know about stats, part 1
I don't know about you, but when I first started playing World of Warcraft, I couldn't have told you the difference between strength and spirit. I equipped every piece of gear I found without regard for what statistics it had. Intellect for my rogue and strength for my warlock -- why, yes, that sounds almost exactly the way I must have started my adventures in the land of Azeroth. But, yes, I did learn eventually. I read my class forums a lot, took advice from fellow players, and finally figured out what all of those funny numbers meant on my gear -- and whether they were good for my class and playstyle or not. But I imagine there are some new players in the audience who haven't gotten to that phase yet -- and this is written to help them out. Curious to see what the five base statistics -- agility, intellect, spirit, stamina, and strength -- actually mean? (Note: there are many more statistics to consider than these base five, like attack power and critical rating, but all of the other statistics are influenced by the main five -- so we'll discuss these today and the rest later this week.) Keep reading to find out all about them!
