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Insider Trader: Patch 3.1, profits and preparation
Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.Patch 3.1 is looming ever closer, and things are about to change in a big way. Today I'll be discussing how the patch is going to affect your professions, and how you can take advantage of this by maximizing your profits on the Auction House. Players have become increasingly bored with raiding because the content that was released with the expansion pack, Wrath of the Lich King, was too quickly conquered. Across the board, players are showing up to raids on an inconsistent basis, and many people now spend much of their time on the Public Test Realm playing through Ulduar. This has contributed to falling prices on the Auction House for raiding materials and consumables, because not only have many people stopped raiding, many others have decided to save their gold and raid without being buffed to the gills. What should you do in these tight times? Aside from the things for which you are currently saving, the patch will bring with it a 1000g bill to learn how to dual spec, costs to fund raid wipes, bring new consumables, and enchant and gem new gear. By learning what to sell and purchase and when, you can minimize your post-patch costs and make some gold while you're at it.
Ulduar achievements unveiled
Wow. MMO Champion, long trusted to datamine anything that's not nailed down to the floor, brings us the complete (to date) list of Ulduar achievements added to the 3.1 PTR, and yeah. It's long. Blizzard promised us some new achievements for Ulduar, but I wasn't expecting a list THIS long. Or this hilarious.There are the expected "kill these bosses" achievements, the inevitable "kill these bosses while doing something hard" achievements, silly achievements you'll get without trying, and more. Bear in mind that many of these numbers, and even some achievement criteria, are either incorrect or placeholders. Don't freak out. The full list is after the jump and is, of course, quite spoiler-heavy, so stay away if you want your Ulduar experience to be as pure as driven snow.The rest of you, though? CLICK. DO IT. COME ON.
Ulduar testing schedule updated: March 13th-18th
The last couple days of Ulduar testing have been a wash, delays and cancellations cutting things short. As mentioned by the developers when they announced the cancellation of the EU's Auriaya testing, recent tweaks and retuning hadn't yet made it to the PTR, they were contained in a future build that hadn't hit those servers yet. Really, it would be rather pointless to test those bosses. Due to this, they've pushed back all testing and changed up the testing schedule. Testing is now on hold until tomorrow, which means that either this evening or tomorrow morning, we'll be seeing a new build on the PTR.North American realms: Friday, 3/13, 4PM PDT: Mimiron Saturday, 3/14, 4PM PDT: Hodir Sunday, 3/15, 11AM PDT: Flame Leviathan Monday, 3/16, 4PM PDT: Ignis the Furnace Master Tuesday, 3/17, 4PM PDT: XT-002 Deconstructor Wednesday, 3/18, 4PM PDT: Kologarn European realms: Friday, 3/13, 19:00 CET: Mimiron Saturday, 3/14, 19:00 CET: Auriaya Sunday, 3/15, 19:00 CET: Flame Leviathan Monday, 3/16, 19:00 CET: General Vezax Tuesday, 3/17, 19:00 CET: Thorim Wednesday, 3/18, 19:00 CET: Freya Again, this is the new testing schedule for the upcoming week, and the one that was passed around yesterday should be disregarded.
Ghostcrawler on 3.1 healing team raid composition
Ghostcrawler has outlined the way in which healing teams will be chosen and organized for Ulduar in both 10 and 25-man raids, and it's very encouraging. In 10-man Ulduar, GC expects that we'll want to bring three healers, and claims that they "intend for you to be able to take any 3 healers." This means that even smaller guilds with only enough players to form a 10-man group will be able to work with the healers they have, rather than feeling the need to recruit specific classes.In 25-man Ulduar, Ghostcrawler mentions that there will be "more pressure to have every player in the role that most emphasizes their strengths" and that we'll "want a mix of healers." This sounds like a fairly flexible plan, allowing for groups to recruit different healing classes, and allow healers to spec into different roles, such as group healing vs. single target. It also suggests that Blizzard is not planning at this time to homogenize the healing classes any further, unlike the tanking classes.
Ulduar on the 3.1 PTR: Kologarn
Intrepid 3.1 PTR reporter Michael Sacco here, reporting for duty and giving you the skinny on all that Ulduar has to offer you. The developers have allowed players into Ulduar to test some encounters, usually one at a time, and they've been steadily gathering feedback each night. Prior to this engagement, the boss that was up was Flame Leviathan, but we've seen him a few times already. I was ready for something new.Flame Leviathan may give me guns, but I want to go to the gun show. What do you say, Blizzard? How about you give me a boss who exercises his right to bear arms?Kologarn? Why yes. This will do. This will do nicely. Let me grab Matt "Matticus" Low and my other, less important coworker Alex Ziebart. This writeup will be spoiler-heavy. If you don't wish to know anything about this or any Ulduar boss, don't click the link below. You've been warned.
Ulduar testing schedule for March 11th-15th
We dropped the ball a little bit by failing to post about this week's Ulduar testing schedule yesterday when Daelo posted it to the official forums, but that's alright. We didn't miss much. Last night was just more Hodir testing. The rest of the week should prove more interesting, because they're re-testing a couple of bosses that were pretty widely considered much too easy, like Ignis the Furnace Master, which I hear received a little extra testing last night for some reason. Again, both the US and EU realms are getting their own testing schedule.North American realms: Wednesday, 3/11 (today), 4 PM PDT: Mimiron Thursday, 3/12, 4 PM PDT: Ignis the Furnace Master Friday, 3/13, 4 PM PDT: XT-002 Deconstructor Saturday, 3/14, 4PM PDT: Kologarn Sunday, 3/15, 11 AM PDT: Flame Leviathan European realms: Wednesday, 3/11, 19:00 CET: Auriaya Thursday, 3/12, 19:00 CET: Mimiron Friday, 3/13, 19:00 CET: Thorim Saturday, 3/14, 19:00 CET: General Vezax Sunday, 3/15, 19:00 CET: Flame Leviathan I don't believe we've seen anything about Auriaya yet, so that's what I'm looking forward to the most. We haven't seen much of Mimiron either, but we already know he's just another mechagnome. Gotta say, not a fan of the mechagnomes.%Gallery-45995%
The Queue: Procs and more on Patch 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. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Good morning, ladies and gents! Or afternoon for some of you. Probably evening for a few others! It's morning for me, though. That's all that matters, isn't it? Indeed. Adam is out of the office today thanks to a blizzard murdering his internet connection, so I'll be covering for him even though today is technically his turn to do The Queue. Lazy such-and-such, letting weather get in his way. Grumble.Ian R. asked...Do you think the first couple of bosses in Ulduar can be PUG'd on easy mode? Like Sartharion and Vault of Archavon?
The best of WoW Insider: March 3-10, 2009
It's PTR time in the World of Warcraft, which means we're all checking out the next content patch before any of the changes go live (or are actually finalized). So now's the time for crazy stuff, whether it be testing out brand new bosses, seeing Warriors get a chance to break open Pally shields, or any of the other patch 3.1 lunacy. WoW Insider's got up-to-the-minute news about all of it. News Full Tier 8 armor sets beginning to emergeGallery previews of the soon-to-be hottest armor in the game. Ulduar on the Patch 3.1 PTR: The Flame LeviathanWe walk you through the first boss in Ulduar, the game's next new raid instance. Ulduar on the Patch 3.1 PTR: Ignis the Furnace MasterAnother big bad in the Titan-built Ulduar. Patch 3.1 PTR Build 9658 Warrior changesWarriors can now remove Paladin shields? Yeah, that's a big change. Retribution DPS too lowGhostcrawler comes out and says what Retadins everywhere are already thinking. Features WoW Insider's Guide to Patch 3.1Everything you need to know about the new patch, all in one place, and updated often. Guildwatch: Ok, ready for summonBecause, sometimes, you just need to revel in how petty and childish guild members can be. The Queue: Hard mode is HardAmong the Q&A in our daily column, someone wants to know just how hard Ulduar really is. Time is Money: Selling your quest rewardsOur new column on making money fast in-game tells you how to get the most out of quest spoils. Shifting Perspectives: Tanks, Wrath, and crushing blowsEven Blizzard enjoyed this great column on how Tanks are handling the damage that gets thrown at them.
MMO-Champion's updated Tier 8 preview
MMO-Champion put up an update for its Tier 8 listings today, including some high res screenshots showing off the high res skins, and a video of all of the sets. Most of this is stuff that we've seen before, but some of it is new. New and wonderful. I'm really not a fan of the Paladin set this time around, but there also seems to be a robe version which I like much better. It's still pretty awful on Females, though. Again, I ask, why in the world did they bring midriff back on tier sets? Leave that to the greens and blues!We've also started to see stats for some of these sets on the PTR, but not many. A lot of the raid items that are becoming available on the PTR haven't actually had their stats adjusted from the Tier 7 items they were copy-pasted from. In this case, the Warrior set that we've seen is from Ulduar-10 and shares stats with gear from Naxxramas-25. That might actually be a pretty accurate indicator of what it will be on live, with maybe a little extra tweaking upwards to make the 10-man still useful for people who did Naxx-25 previously.
The Queue: Ulduar progression and more
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.Ah, maintenance day. The day where I finally get to go out into the world and suck some sunshine into my pallid flesh. I may even pick up some groceries! One can only order crates of Ramen off of the internet so many times before life starts to get a little bland. ...Wait, but if I leave the house... who will write The Queue!? Oh man, forget it, I'll get some sunlight next year. Maybe I can order some Pringles to add a little flavor to my noodles.Fargostar5000 asked... Don't know if anyone has asked this yet, but are groups going able to run Ulduar-1o successfully using only the gear from tbe other 10-mans thus far, or will heroic level raid gear be necessary/recommended?
Officers' Quarters: The hard-mode mambo
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Arriving with the upcoming 3.1 patch, Ulduar will be ground zero for hard mode raiding -- complex encounters rewarding the best loot in the game, presumably a hardcore raider's dream. There's only one problem: Hard mode is hard. Some people don't like hard. They like easy. Easy bosses, easy loot, and everybody wins, right? But other players enjoy a challenge. This week, one reader wonders how he can get his guild to dance the hard-mode mambo with Ulduar's finest. Hey Scott,With the release of Ulduar on the minds of most players, I thought this might be a timely question that ties in a current issue our guild's been having with what I see becoming a serious problem for us in the new 3.1 instance.The current problem:After clearing all available 25-man content and having it on farm for over a month, a line seems to have been drawn in the proverbial sand. Half of our raiders consider multiple drake Obsidian Sanctum the next step in guild progression. However, the other half seem to be content farming the content that is "easy" for us and are happy not logging on when we schedule attempts.Furthermore, whenever we do get enough people for a "progression" raid, we run into the same problem. After a few attempts (I have seen as few as 2), we inevitably get the one or two raiders planting the seed of doubt."We don't have the DPS for this.""Our healing is weak."
WoW Insider Show Episode 80: Listen to your mom
We had a little bit of everything on this week's WoW Insider Show. We got down and dirty with Ulduar details, as Michael Sacco walked us through all of fhe bosses he'd done so far on the PTR. Turpster and I got a little silly for the fans (unfortunately, the song is stlll yet to come, but I'll reiterate: it'll be worth the wait), we told a kid how important it is to stay in school, and we even snuck in some good advice on how to make some money fast ingame.You can listen to last week's show, as always, on any or all of the links below, and be sure to send us an email at theshow@wow.com if you've got any feedback you'd like to share. Don't forget, too, that there is no show next Saturday -- instead, we're going to be recording the podcast live on Wednesday night at 9pm EST over on the Ustream page, so if you've never had the chance to hear the show before, this'll be your opportunity to tune in and listen live. We'll return back to our normal time on Saturday, March 21st.In the meantime, enjoy the show.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[Ustream] Listen to the unedited recording in Ustream.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
Spiritual Guidance: PTR loot and hymns that will never be seen in game
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. This week, Matt checks out some of the PTR loot along and a suggestion of Hymns that we will never see in game. Have you checked out some of the drops from the PTR yet? There's a great staff from Iron Council that I'm definitely eyeing. I know a lot of spellcasters favour main hands and off hands. I always had a soft spot for staves (because of their looks). But most staves just could not compete with their main hand and off hand counterparts. Rapture will be an upgrade I'll be eyeing. There's also the Ironmender which is an offhand complement for Priests. I haven't seen any spellpower main hands yet but I'm sure there will be some popping up soon enough.
Breakfast Topic: Blizzard's patch 3.1 goals
The blues have been very open lately about the direction that Blizz is taking and the goals that they're trying to achieve. Three, in particular, come to mind when considering patch 3.1 and its effect on tanks and healers in particular: Bring the player, not the class. Healing should be more interactive and interesting. The tanks need to be on par in order to satisfy #1, in terms of performance and stats, yet they do not want to further homogenize the classes. Obviously, Blizzard has not finished making the 3.1 changes, but we can already see the ways in which they are tackling these goals. Druid healing is getting a controversial overhaul, tanks are having their health and armor adjusted, and some tank talents even seem to be creeping across the board. This leaves some bears, for example, feeling like fuzzy, big-butt warriors. How are you feeling so far about the direction Blizzard is taking your main character? Even if it isn't perfect yet, are you excited about what you think your class will look like, or are you worried about your favorite spec/role?
WoW Insider Show live today (and next Wednesday)
Should be a fun episode of the WoW Insider Show this weekend -- and hopefully, Turpster's new song will be ready to play on the air for you all. Though it's not for certain, unfortunately -- I know he was planning a Wham! reunion just for the song, but you know how tough it is to get all the contracts involved on something like that. Anyway, even if the song isn't ready yet, we'll still have a show, and we'll chat about all the most popular posts of the past week, including our new Time is Money column (and how to make the most money ingame), everything we've heard and seen from Ulduar in the past week, and what else is new on the 3.1 PTR. Be sure to tune in live if you can -- it starts up at 3:30pm Eastern over on our Ustream page, or in the embedded feed on the end of this post.And we've got a special treat for those of you who can't make it to our usual Saturday broadcasts -- next Wednesday, March 11th, we're going to record the podcast at a special time of the week. We'll be starting up on Ustream around 9pm Eastern, which is probably a little late for all of you Europeans, but will hopefully let some people who've never heard the show before tune in (and hopefully we'll catch some WI bloggers who haven't been on the show before as well). This is only a one-time thing for now, so in the future, we'll be on Saturday as usual, but next week we're trying a new time just to see if we can mix things up a little bit.If you can't make it on Wednesday, don't worry: the recorded show will still be here on the site and on the feeds as usual, and in two weeks we'll be back to the normal time. This is just a chance to let people who haven't been able to tune in on Saturday afternoons come and check us out. Hopefully we'll see you there, either later today or next Wednesday evening.
WRUP: Cheating on WoW edition
Another week, another weekend, another WRUP! You may presume that we, being writers for a site called WoW Insider, must spend all of our hours immersed in World of Warcraft, playing, reading, researching, and writing. And I must admit, most of the time, we do. But sometimes, we cheat. Maybe we need a break or a change of pace, but for whatever reason we run off from our beloved WoW to play something else. (Everyone is doing it! Even Ghostcrawler tells us that we should play other games.) This weekend, the cruel siren's song of Diablo II seems to have caught us in its thrall. (And, no, despite the lovely logo above, we don't have access to Diablo III any more than the rest of you poor souls.) After all, none who have heard it can resist.... and for those who can resist, well, that's what waffles are for. Or perhaps pancakes. We can't quite decide.For more of what the WoW Insider team is up to this weekend -- or to tell us what you're up to this weekend -- read on!
The Queue: Hard mode is hard
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.Good afternoon, ladies and gents! Before we get started today I just want to thank everyone for participating in my Hawaiian Pizza poll. It was a silly, spur of the moment sort of thing, and it really made my day to see it creep up to around 11,000 votes! Thank you all very much for humoring me.Again, there are a few Ulduar spoilers in this post, but only minor. Be warned. Also, vote Alex.Adrexani asked...This has always puzzled me, Arthas is a Death Knight, Death Knights are dead, yet no where in lore do I see that Arthas died, so did he die or is he still alive?
Why too many currencies actually helps progression
Badges of Justice, Battleground marks, Marks of Honor Hold and Thrallmar, Spirit Shards, Stone Keeper's Shards, Emblems of Valor, Emblems of Heroism, and now Emblems of Conquest: Ulduar will add yet another currency item into the game and Cypruss of Draka wonders, rightfully, if it's all just too much. The good news is that since the currency system was introduced, all of this stuff is out of our bags, but wouldn't it just be easier if instead of creating a whole new token system, Blizzard just charged a lot more for the gear?Bornakk says no -- he says that if they just kept the same tokens and charged more per item, people would end up doing Naxx, Ulduar, OS, and any other instances that dropped that token every single week rather than actually moving up through the content, which is what Blizzard wants us to do. He also says that the Emblem exchange mechanic is designed to help this -- you can do Ulduar and go backwards for the gear, but you can't do Naxx ten extra times to get Ulduar gear.Which, we have to give it to Blizzard, is actually pretty smart. Yes, it does keep players from farming up the tokens (Blizzard knows that if you could run all the instances per week just to get one kind of token, there'd be lots of players who would), but it also keeps people progressing to get gear they can upgrade to. As Bornakk says, they've been trying to improve the Badge system ever since it was introduced in BC, and this method of introducing new currency to send players up the ladder is a result of their work there.
Watch Ulduar's Hodir live on the Patch 3.1 PTR
Streaming live video by UstreamSymbolic Logic of Area 52 is streaming their live Hodir raid tonight via the Patch 3.1 PTR. You can check them out above and at their UStream page.You can read more about this patch at WoW Insider's Guide to Patch 3.1 (including the latest patch notes), and read some impressions of Ulduar fights. We've also covered the initial release of Hodir last week.
Ulduar on the 3.1 PTR: Ignis the Furnace Master
Coming back to my post as official 3.1 PTR raid reporter after an offensive usurping by my dubiously sentient coworker Alex Ziebart, it's time for a new roundup of tonight's PTR Ulduar testing events. Last night we got a taste of the Flame Leviathan fight, which brought us motorcycles and tanks and floating pyrite containers, but tonight ... tonight we got a taste of a good, old-fashion player vs. comically gigantic dude raid encounter with Ignis, the Furnace Master. Matt "Matticus" Low, the aforementioned plantlike Mr. Ziebart, and I formed a 10-man raid. As usual, Lead Encounter Designer Scott Mercer, a.k.a. Daelo, was around for the fun. Making travel considerably easier was last night's addition of a teleporter to different areas of the dungeon. Our trip past the large gate guarding the end of the Iron Concourse to the Colossal Forge was instant and uneventful. Then we waited for our barrel-chested braid-bearded friend to spawn. This writeup will be spoiler-heavy. If you don't wish to know anything about this fight, don't click below. You've been warned.
