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Scattered Shots: Hunter tier 12 armor first look
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. Now that Patch 4.2 is on the PTR, the dataminers are working overtime to learn what goodies lurk within the new tier of raid content. As always, datamined content is not always 100% accurate and not entirely complete -- and this is just the PTR, anyway, and everything is subject to change. As much as I love all the datamined goodness, I have a sneaking suspicion that the dataminers are actually responsible for the whole Deathwing event. Like the dwarves of Moria, they dug too deep and awoke a creature of fire and shadow. But hey, we all make little slips from time to time. What matters now is that they've found our first glimpse of the hunter tier 12 set bonuses, albeit with a lot of unknowns. Unfortunately, a lot of hunters are filling in the information gaps with guesswork and trying to compare the T11 set to the T12 set based on those assumptions. I like to go out on a limb now and again with absolute statements, so here's one now: Anyone who says that the tier 12 set is worse than the tier 11 set is just plain wrong. Why? Find out after the cut.
Spiritual Guidance: Breaking down the shadow priest tier 12 bonuses
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Every Wednesday, shadow priesting expert Fox Van Allen rains sheer purple destruction down on all who oppose him. In stereo, where available. Historically, tier bonuses for shadow priests have been pretty boring. From tier 4 onward, we've had very little to look forward to beyond mana cost reductions, spell-specific damage increases, and extended spell durations. These bonuses were valuable, to be sure -- we could all benefit from an extra DOT tick -- but nothing was game-changing. Towards the end of Wrath of the Lich King, though, things began to change. The tier 10 four-piece shadow priest bonus, a .5-second reduction to the Mind Flay channel, was a literal game-changer. It put Mind Blast on the back burner. Some shadow priests only cast it to refresh Replenishment; others dropped it from their rotations entirely. Whether or not the tier 10 bonus was a positive thing from a gameplay perspective is debatable, but there's no debating what a powerful force it was. Now, after a relatively tame set of tier 11 bonuses to start off Cataclysm (damage increases -- oh boy!), game developers are dropping a pair of nuclear bombs on us. The tier 12 bonuses for shadow priests are compelling, controversial, and game-changing -- all at the same time.
Patch 4.2: Druid tier 12 revealed, new tier armor information and models
Wowhead has put up some excellent shots of the previously unseen druid tier 12 armor set called Obsidium Arborweave, as well as new information about the names of other classes' tier 12 sets. Also, we were anxiously awaiting the new molten giant model -- and lo and behold, it is awesome and is definitely the source of inspiration for the warrior tier 12 set.
Lichborne: Tier 12 set bonus preview for death knights
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. Patch 4.2 is on the PTR, and while we haven't seen any extensive death knight class changes, the one chunk of information we have is the tier 12 set bonuses. They are datamined, so it's certainly possible they won't look the same once we see them on actual gear -- and regardless, we do still have a whole test cycle for them to get changed -- but they're interesting enough that it's worth taking a look at them. Today, we'll take a look at the datamined bonuses to see how effective they are and just what they may suggest about the direction and future of our class in patch 4.2.
Spiritual Guidance: Holy and discipline tier 12 set bonuses
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for discipline and holy priests, while her archenemy Fox Van Allen fraternizes with cultists and buys Justin Bieber albums. Dawn also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast. Information about patch 4.2 has been coming in nonstop this past week, and our favorite dataminers at Wowhead and MMO-Champion have dug up a first look at the class set bonuses for tier 12 gear. As usual, the community has been chatting up a storm since the release, especially the priests. Today I'll be joining that discussion to examine what holy and discipline priests have to look forward to in the next content tier -- or not look forward to, depending on your perspective. Either way, let's take a look.
Totem Talk: Tier 12 through an enhancement shaman's eyes
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shaman. On Saturdays, Josh Myers tackles the hard questions about enhancement. Can we tank? Can we DPS with a two-hander? How does one shoot web? The answer to the first two is "no," and roll a hunter for the third! Enhancement is a spec that has struggled with its tier bonuses in the past. Back in The Burning Crusade, we had such gems as tier 5's Your melee attacks have a chance to reduce the cast time of your next Healing Surge by 1.5 seconds, a bonus that provided absolutely no benefit to DPS beyond allowing us to live through a sticky situation. In Wrath of the Lich King, tier 8 gave us one of our best bonuses of all time: Increases the frequency of Maelstrom Weapon being triggered by your melee attacks by 20%. A patch later, tier 9 saw us unfortunately dropping that bonus for the overly boring and terribly mediocre An additional 3% chance to proc your Static Shock talent. Cataclysm hasn't been significantly better so far. On the one hand, our current two-piece bonus is amazing. It gives us a 10% increase to Lava Lash, our hardest-hitting and highest-priority ability, as well as slightly buffing Stormstrike. At the same time, our four-piece bonus is 10% critical strike chance to just Lightning Bolt. This bonus isn't terrible in and of itself, but it's coupled with terrible itemization on both the legs and the chestpieces and bad itemization on the gloves. Most enhancement shaman will find best in slot is heroic tier 11 helm and shoulders, Heroic Tunic of Failed Experiments, Twilight Scale Leggings, and Heroic Proto-Handler's Gauntlets. Four-piece tier 11 need not apply. Wednesday night, set bonuses for tier 12 were discovered on the 4.2 Public Test Realm. In an awesome twist, Blizzard themed all of the set bonuses around the raid they will drop in, the Firelands. Classes like death knights that don't already have fire spells to work with receive passive bonuses like Your critical strikes with melee abilities deal 15% additional damage as Fire damage over 4 sec. Specs like elemental, which already have fiery moves to work with, get set bonuses like Your offensive spells have a chance to reset the remaining cooldown on your Fire Elemental Totem, seamlessly weaving the theme of the raid with the class' abilities. Enhancement, which uses a surprising number of fire abilities itself, falls under this second category.
Raid Rx: Analyzing tier 12 healing set bonuses
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading on the Matticast. Good news, everyone! Patch 4.2 information is heating up! I've already fired up my PTR client, and I'll be eagerly testing any new encounters. Some of the new information that has been released includes the new tier bonuses, which I'm sure you're burning with desire to know more about. I'll see if I can help stoke the flames of your anticipation. I suspect we'll have some players returning to see if new content is going to rekindle their interest in the game. Too many fire puns? Okay, let's just blaze on through and look at healing tier bonuses.
Patch 4.2 PTR: Warrior tier 12 and recolors
Though it hasn't had an official preview yet, the tier 12 set for warriors is available in the patch 4.2 PTR files, and Wowhead dug it up along with recolors for all of the other already-previewed tier 12 sets. You can even model them on the race and gender of your choice with the 3-D model viewer. If you can't see from the above picture, yes, those are molten giant heads on your shoulders, which is fitting, given the set's name of "Molten Giant Battlegear." When you're done modeling your set on your character of choice, be sure to check out the preliminary tier 12 set bonuses to go along with it. The news is already rolling out for the upcoming WoW Patch 4.2! Preview the new Firelands raid, marvel at the new legendary staff, and get the inside scoop on new quest hubs -- plus new Tier 12 armor!
Patch 4.2 PTR: Tier 12 set bonuses
While the tier 12 sets on the patch 4.2 PTR aren't even technically sets yet, their set bonuses were still buried in the game files for observant folks. Blizzard told the truth -- these bonuses are pretty unique and a lot of them seem based thematically on Firelands, designed to fix some raiding spec issues, or both. Check them out below and after the cut! Death knight DPS 2-piece Your Horn of Winter ability also grants you 3 runic power every 5 sec for 2 min. 4-piece Your critical strikes with melee abilities deal 15% additional damage as Fire damage over 4 sec. Death knight tanking 2-piece Your melee attacks cause Burning Blood on your target, which deals 800 Fire damage every 2 for 6 sec and causes your abilities to behave as if you had 2 diseases present on the target. 4-piece Your Dancing Rune Weapon grants 15% additional parry chance.
Spiritual Guidance: Shadow priests react to patch 4.1, look forward to 4.2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Every Wednesday, shadow priesting expert Fox Van Allen takes you down the only road he's ever been down. You know, the one that takes you to the places where all the veins meet, yeah. Shortly after patch 4.1 went live last Tuesday, I got the chance to raid Bastion of Twilight. I tried out Mind Sear on the first pull, and the numbers were absolutely luscious. Instead of weak, ugly, sub-2,000 ticks, I was seeing ticks twice that size. Before long, I was gaming my trash rotations, trying to proc Empowered Shadow and keep it up through the pulls. It was terrific practice for Cho'gall -- I finally felt like my AoE was making an impact on that encounter. Overall, I got praise for the improved numbers I was putting out (thanks, Mind Sear!). But that praise got me thinking -- how is the rest of the shadow priest community faring in the post-4.1 world? And with patch 4.2 around the corner ... is there anything about shadow priests that Blizzard still needs to fix?
Patch 4.2 Preview: Tier 12 armor sets
Blizzard has been on an information release kick this week for Rage of the Firelands, the next content patch for Cataclysm. World of Warcraft has been known, for better or for worse, by its armor design choices. Some of the armor sets in WoW actually have transcended the game itself, becoming part of a healthy nostalgia for players old and new. Firelands is not going to have any shortage of cool raid gear. The tier 12 armor preview has just been released and contains images of the paladin, mage, rogue, hunter, death knight and priest sets. Warlocks, warriors, shaman, and druids are currently absent, though we can bet druids will also have a fire motif, considering Fandral Staghelm's role in the Firelands raid. %Gallery-122557%
Patch 4.2: Firelands information features coming soon
Blizzard has released a schedule of patch 4.2 information related to the Firelands, armor tier previews, dungeon journal teaser, and more! Here's what we're expecting in the next couple of days, so stay tuned to WoW Insider for all the information and our commentary. April 27 "Through the Fire and Flames" 4.2 Video Teaser. April 28 "The Firelands" raid preview "A Legendary Engagement" legendary staff preview "The Regrowth and Molten Front Quest Hubs" BlizzCast 16 April 29 "Elemental Bonds" quest preview Tier 12 teaser May 2 Dungeon journal teaser Stay tuned! WoW Patch 4.1 is live, and WoW Insider has all the latest news for you -- from guides of the revamped Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub to new valor point mechanics and new archaeology items.
Ask the Devs round 5 achievement questions answered
Ask the Devs, Blizzard's developer community question and answer feature, continues with round 5, an in-depth look at achievements detailing the difficulty of changing achievement, making certain rewards account-wide, and whether removed content is ever going to be a part of the game again. Check out the full question and answer session after the break. Quote: Q: When will achievements finally be awarded account-wide? – Larosh (Europe [German]), Eneia & Payasos (Europe [Spanish]), Rageudder & Kellgros (Europe [English]), ??????? (Europe [Russian]), Nyn (North America/ANZ), ?????? (Korea) A: Making achievements Battle.net account-wide is something we'd like to do, but it's not a goal we could provide a current timetable for. All of the original World of Warcraft coding was done with the expectation that the data on every realm would always be independent. Now that we are trying to make as many things as possible account-wide, we're having to rebuild all of those systems. It is absolutely something we want to do, but it will take a lot of time away from other features. source
Ask the Devs Round 4: Weapons and armor questions answered
Ask the Devs, the ongoing, in-depth Q&A series focusing on specific aspects of World of Warcraft, continues with round 4 answers to your questions about weapons and armor. As in the past, the devs hand picked user questions and gave detailed answers, shedding new light on some of the design intricacies that go into creating the World of Warcraft. There are some interesting questions this time around, as always, and even some more interesting answers. Highlights include the need for more armor models, a cool idea about buying quartermaster outfits, the drop rate of the legendary shards for 10- and 25-man raiding, and an interesting fix to prevent players rolling need on items in the random dungeon finder only to throw them up on the auction house. The full Q&A is after the jump.
The Queue: The one with the fashion-forward warlock
Welcome to your daily dose of The Queue. With Mike Sacco quite literally powerless, his precious Queue was left unguarded and captured by Fox Van Allen. All members of the Van Allen faction shall enjoy a 5 percent buff to damage and experience for the 24-hour duration, and Spirit Shards may now be collected. Ladies and gentlemen, I have returned to host The Queue once more. I know you've missed me. You're probably saying to yourself, "Oh man, I wish Fox could do The Queue every day of the week, four times a day!" This, of course, would be folly. You can indeed have too much of a good thing. Remember when Who Wants to be a Millionaire first aired on TV? It was on maybe once a week. And then it got so popular that they started adding extra shows. Turn on your TV on Wednesday and -- boom -- there was Regis. Turn it on Thursday -- Regis. Friday -- Regis. Sunday -- Regis. Sooner or later, you couldn't even take a trip to the mens' room without seeing Regis Philbin staring back at you from the urinal, asking you who the father of quantum physics was. It's Niels Bohr, OK?! Niels freakin' Bohr. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm trying to go to the bathroom here. Man. Sharvis asked: How has trade chat been since the last patch? Now that you can't spam in it, it seems slower-paced to me at least.
