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The Art of War(craft): Introductory guide to fighting warlocks
Warlocks are a pesky bunch. Warlocks. Well, this should be interesting. Perhaps no class has suffered such an ignominious fall from grace in PvP reputation as that of the warlock. Once a fearsome -- quite literally, in this case -- force to be reckoned with, the class has suffered a few bumps in the road that has led it to become less of a threat on the battlefield. Mostly, this has something to do with the ridiculous burst of the low resilience Season 5, which resulted in warlocks getting blown up in the opening ten seconds of a match, the rise of death knights, who are kind of like warlocks in plate armor, and the homogenization of caster gear, which meant far less Stamina for warlocks than they were used to prior to Wrath. As resilience built up in Wrath of the Lich King and burst decidedly went down, warlocks have once again taken a return trip to power. Well, at least respectability. While with the balancing of crowd control, players no longer cry about how OP warlocks are, they still have a powerful arsenal at their disposal. They've also never been more fun to fight. With the distinctiveness introduced in Wrath, warlocks are now (a little) more than just getting your butt feared into oblivion. After the jump, we'll take a look at the common tools you should expect from every warlock and how to counter them.
Patch 3.3.3 PTR: Build 11643 notes
MMO Champion's got the goods on an upcoming build of patch 3.3.3. Mounts and pets But first, check out Lil' XT! Doesn't your Lil' KT want a lil' company? No idea where this lil' guy will come from as of yet, but it could be a future purchasable pet joining the likes of the Pandaren Monk and Lil' KT! Both the Celestial Steed and X-53 Touring Rocket (screenshot) now have their own spells and have 310% flying speed. Icecrown Citadel There's been some issues with absorption effects like Power Word: Shield not benefiting from the raid buffs that Wrynn and Hellscream provide. That will be addressed shortly with patch 3.3.3. Strength of Wrynn and Hellscream's Warsong now also boost the effect of damage absorption spells. Glyph changes These changes could be temporary and could be reversed at any time. They're not in the official notes. Death Knights Glyph of Icebound Fortitude now always grants at least 40% damage reduction. Priests Glyph of Scourge Imprisonment now reduces the cast time of your Shackle Undead by 1 sec. (Up from 0.5 sec) Rogues Glyph of Feint now reduces the energy cost of Feint by 20. (Up from 10) Glyph of Expose Armor now increases the duration of Expose Armor by 12 sec. (Up from 10 sec) Glyph of Deadly Throw now increases the slowing effect on Deadly Throw by 20%. (Up from 10%) Other changes Warlocks Dark Pact now has a 100 yards range (up from 30 yards) and ignores the line of sight. Patch 3.3.3 brings about small but noteworthy changes to the World of Warcraft. From a faster CoT, to putting those old Frozen Orbs to better use, to changes to the auction house -- there's several things all WoW players need to know. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3.3 will keep you up to date!
Tom Chilton retrospective interview on Wrath of the Lich King
There's an excellent interview with Tom Chilton, the World of Warcraft lead game designer, up on GameInformer. Lots of stuff we've heard before, but there are some interesting talking points. For example: They are looking into extending the dungeon finder to 10-man content. Chilton hinted that we may see a new boss in the Ruby Sanctum before Cataclysm launches They have a "general philosophical approach of getting the hybrids to where they're close to the DPS classes when it comes to DPS roles. Otherwise, those specs just turn into joke specs." They feel warlocks could use a boost to their DPS. Tol Barad, the Cataclysm equivalent to Wintergrasp, will be more of a Isle of Quel'Danas style daily quest hub instead of a farming zone. Before settling on death knights for Wrath of the Lich King's hero class, they specifically debated necromancers and rune-masters. They feel that with all the accessibility work they did on end game PvE in Wrath, end game PvP has become harder to get into by comparison. It's a three page interview, so click through to read the whole thing! What really struck me reading this was that comment about hybrid DPS compared to pure. This "hybrid tax" concept has been harped on by posters on the official forums for a long time now, and this is a fairly straightforward way of putting it.
Patch 3.3.2 patch notes on official Korean WoW site
Blizzard, perhaps jumping the gun a little, has posted the patch notes for the upcoming Patch 3.3.2 mini-patch on the official Korean site. We've translated them for your convenience. Lots of changes to heroic dungeons, some class buffs (warlock, shaman, druid), and some class nerfs (prot warrior). All this and more, after the cut. Disclaimer: Translation is hard! Some of these notes, especially more complex ones, may be slightly off. We'll post the official English notes when they're posted as well. Update! Warbringer change clarified (again). Ghostcrawler chimed in about it. Dungeons and Raids Icecrown Citadel The Frostwing Halls, the last stronghold of the Lich King and the Scourge, has been added, but the Ashen Verdict must break down the door first. (Does this mean we have to wait some additional time to fight Arthas?) Halls of Stone Brann Bronzebeard has been working out, so he'll run faster during the escort event. Forge of Souls Devourer of Souls will cast Mirrored Soul less often. Trash mob Spell Reflect abilities have been changed. It now has a casting time, and will proc only twice at a rate of 75% instead of 100%.
Warlocks to get a new pet in Cataclysm?
Coming out of the Twitter developer chat tonight was this question and following answer, given by Ghostcrawler and J. Allen Brack: Q. With the new skins for druid forms, what is the chance that warlocks might see race/faction specific demon skins or maybe a new one? A. When you look around, there are a lot of say imp or voidwalkers we could use. It's something we talk about quite a bit. As for new demons, I hear warlocks are going to be getting some new spells for the next expansion... While it's not a direct confirmation that warlocks will be getting a new pet in Cataclysm, I think it's safe to read into this and maybe get a bit excited about this one. I doubt they'd mention warlocks getting "new spells" in relation to getting a new demon if such an addition to the warlock class wasn't planned. So, new demons for warlocks? Probably. My guess is that it'll be a pet lava monster or something related to the elemental plane. Just the perfect kind of thing to pop up into the evil hands of warlocks from the sundered land in Cataclysm. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it. Nothing will be the same. In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion. From Goblins and Worgens to Mastery and Guild changes, it's all there for your cataclysmic enjoyment.
Better pet scaling promised in Cataclysm
Hunters and warlocks were given something to look forward to during the Blizzard developer chat on twitter this evening. The question was asked: "You mentioned pet scaling being added for patch 3.3 but due to time constraints, was delayed. Will this be in the next patch?" This is something that has been mentioned throughout the course of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion and hasn't been implemented yet. The reason? It is a fairly complicated procedure. We'll try to do what we can. Technically it's just more challenging than you might think. For Cataclysm, we have on our list that 100% of stats scale. If they don't then certain stats just won't be as valuable for pet classes. At the very least, we can do stuff like convert your X into damage for the pet so every stat is valuable. Getting everyone to scale with every stat better is a major goal for the class team for Cataclysm. With hunters, warlocks, and unholy death knights, there are a lot of talents and glyphs that affect the scaling of stats to your pet. If you allow certain stats to scale too well, you suddenly unbalance the class. If the stat scales poorly, then the class falls in the other direction. Every talent and ability that taps into these has to be checked to make sure it doesn't throw things out of whack. Considerations on diminishing returns on certain stats scaling would also need to be checked. Overall, there is a lot of number crunching and statistical analysis involved in trying to find the right balance between all of the knobs that they need to adjust. However, the frustration of out-gearing your pet will hopefully be behind us either in an upcoming patch or (more realistically) when Cataclysm hits. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it. Nothing will be the same. In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion. From Goblins and Worgens to Mastery and Guild changes, it's all there for your cataclysmic enjoyment.
The Daily Quest: Mountain o' mounts
We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. OutDPS teaches you how to hunt Deathbringer Saurfang, and also has an episode of the Hunting Party Podcast you may have missed over the holiday. NoStockUI features an addon that every mount collector may be interested in. Oh gosh, whatever is a rogue to do with this bountiful mountain of Frost Emblems? Who will tell us their purpose!? Affliction warlocks and death knights, Killing 'em Slowly has a great enchantment guide for your raid gear. Click here to submit a link to TDQ
Blood Sport: Beginner's guide to arena, part III
Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all-things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com's arena column. Listening Music: Modeselektor's Tetrispack. Allison Robert offered a challenge to our most beloved columnist last week. Ms. Roberts has chosen a clever and palatable piece with Richard Shindell's On-A-Sea-Of-Fleur-De-Lis. And now we come to my retaliation. My wife recommended our musical selection today -- it just happened to be on the absolute opposite end of the spectrum. How fitting. We love this song, albeit mostly for the intro. Upon your first listen, if you correctly predict the timing and type of shift in the first thirty seconds, serious e-props to you. To wit, Robert: pan flute > no pan flute. Your move. Last Week: part two of our beginner's arena guide. We featured the cute ukulele kid who pretty much controls the internet right now. After that, we discussed frequently asked questions from new arena players. We talked about how to spec and what team composition to choose, with two different types of answers (easy and long). Today, we'll be talking some very basic class strategy. If you know your class inside and out, you'll know what I'm going to say when it comes to your class and arena. You can still learn about other classes here. I've written over 2500 words about individual class perspective inside arenas, that's a lot. Full article after the break.
Breakfast Topic: Make it all BoA
Gnomeaggedon happened to post something so interesting the other day that I thought it merited a bit more discussion. He actually posted it almost as an afterthought (I guess he's moving in RL -- good luck with that), but it's quite an idea just the same: "Make it all BoA," he says. Blizzard has added in some more Bind-on-Account items, and most recently made it possible for BoA items to go across factions. But Gnomeaggedon says it's time to stop messing around: mounts, emblems, tier and arena gear, currencies, vanity pets, reputation items, anything that would be useful across toons should be able to be traded freely between them. Why, he asks, should there be limits on which character you decide to play with? And actually, while the possibilities there might make some players' heads spin (imagine how many badges you could earn on your geared-out pally for your newly 80 warlock), I think that Blizzard is probably headed that direction. They may not want to open the floodgates completely, but look at where we've come -- we just heard Frank Pearce say the other day that faction changes are a direct result of Blizzard wanting to give players more choice of who to play with, so wouldn't it follow that we'd eventually get more choice about which characters we use? You have to think that we'll see more and more BoA items, so why not just skip to step ten and open it all up? What do you think?
The Queue: Introductions
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Good afternoon, everyone! As you can see above, I'm pretty much at a loss as to what to write as the intro today. When you write one of these things every other day for, oh... eternity, it gets pretty hard. So I'll pass the intro on to our Editor in Chief today. Elizabeth Harper wrote... Welcome back to the Queue, in which Alex is too lazy to write his own intro. So today we've decided to crowdsource it and take one random word from each member of the WoW.com team. Those currently online managed to assemble the phrase, "Delicious pants ibuprofen." Now, on with The Queue. Mordockk asked... "Do you gain Ashen Verdict Rep from the 10man instance as well as the 25? Any daily quests associated with it?"
Blood Sport: Patch 3.3, part III
Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all-things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com's arena column. We've come to a fork in our musical journey, where I'm going to start branching into genres and/or artists you might not have heard of (if you have, great, feel free to tell me what a giant douche I am for underestimating you). Today we'll be listening to one of my all-time favorite indie-folk tracks, Cold Cold Water, by Mirah. The Star Wars tribute video is a nice touch, if you're into that kind of thing (I am). Last time, we went over hunters, mages, and paladins. This week, we're going to round out the classes with the exception of rogues and warriors (they're not getting any high-impact PvP changes at all). We'll also talk about some cool glyphs and enchanting changes. Next week, we'll start doing stuff other than patch notes. I'd like us to throw around more opinion and less analysis. Read on to find out what's up in arena for priests, shamans, warlocks, enchanting and inscription in Patch 3.3!
Tier 10 armor set gallery
Blizzard finally released the last of its Tier 10 sneak peeks, the long-awaited shaman set, and it did not disappoint. Now that all of the waiting is over -- at least, the waiting for sneak peeks -- we've assembled a gallery of the Tier 10 sets for all classes. It looks like Blizzard really took their time on these sets. Some I may not like as much as others, design-wise, but they all have top-notch texture work and attention to detail. Check out the wool pattern on the shaman set, or the fiery brands on the warrior set, or the two-toed hunter boots. A lot of the sets are adorned with moving parts, too, like the druid shoulders, which snap and bite periodically. And most of them follow a very cohesive theme -- "stuff we've seen in Wrath up to this point." The warrior set should immediately remind you of King Ymiron, the rogue set is, well, a geist, and the death knight set might as well be called "Arthas Jr." So, check out what you've got coming in Patch 3.3. With the new Dungeon System, a week or so of heroics will get you a full set of Tier 9 gear and get you all set to face Arthas, if you're up for it. %Gallery-77820% Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
WoW Insider Show today at 3:30pm Eastern
Our podcast returns to the air once again this afternoon -- WoW.com writers Amanda Dean and newbie Dominic Hobbs will join Turpster and I to talk about the most popular posts of the last week. First on the menu, I'm sure, will be the 3.3 PTR and what's new with Icecrown. All the new info about Cataclysm will probably make an appearance, and as promised last week, we'll talk about Ghostcrawler's recent forum decisions and what it means for Blizzard's development in general.And of course we'll chat live with listeners, do a pre-show and an aftershow as usual, and answer your emails, which you can send to us anytime at theshow@wow.com. If you're around today, we'll start it all up around 3:30pm Eastern over on our Ustream page, or right after the break below in an embedded feed. See you then!
The Patch 3.2.2 Warlock bug clearout
Patch 3.2.2 has brought some new, or rather updated, content and seemingly a few initial performance issues for many. There's the usual smattering of class and item changes you would expect of a minor patch. You have to look pretty hard to find anything about Warlocks though. Every other class has its own little section detailing the tweaks and tunings of their class or even specs but what about us? True, it does go some way to bolstering our megalomaniacal nature -- we're just too good to mess with, let these 'other' classes change instead. I had to look all the way down to the bug fixes before I even saw the word 'Warlock'. So what has been fixed?
Breakfast Topic: The one-of-every-class club
A friend of mine just dinged 80 again the other day, and it put him into a community that we joked about: the "one-of-every-class" club. Like a few of our readers (including William B, who emailed us a while back), he now has ten 80s, one of every single class in the game. It's not something I'd ever do, or ever want to do, but certainly there are probably quite a few people out there who've gone all the way to the highest level with every single class.As Turpster would say, it definitely gives you a nice overview of how all the classes work and what their strengths and issues are. And of course it'd be handy to run instances with -- you can roll into endgame instances playing whatever role you want or your guild needs to have.
Day two of BlizzCon 2009: Round-up
Well, readers, BlizzCon 2009 is over and done, and our staff is slowly but surely beginning to make its way home in celebrated zombie-like fashion. In the meantime, we've outsourced article production to our household pets, so be gentle with your criticism of Toonces' efforts today (stupid cat can't even spell QQ correctly). Anyway, here's what happened on Day 2 of BlizzCon: SATURDAY'S PANELS: We liveblogged the panels on Breaking Into the Industry, the general World of Warcraft Q&A, WoW Game Systems, the Dungeons and Raids panel (which included information on both Icecrown Citadel and Cataclysm content) and the second WoW Class Discussion panel. NEW FEATURES ANNOUNCED: Blizzard announced a long-awaited feature in the form of cross-server instances, which should dramatically increase the pool of people available to run a 5-man at any given time. We won't have to wait for the expansion; they believe it should be ready to go live in patch 3.3. Another long-awaited feature will make its debut in the form of rated battlegrounds and arena points from wins. A beloved feature of the old honor system -- ranked (and faction-specific) PvP titles! -- will also return. WORLD OF WARCRAFT: WE'RE ALL &$#*%*^ED NOW: Cataclysm continued its storm through the con, and we've got in-depth looks at an array of the announced features. Read on for a look at the Cataclysm narrative, tanks and the removal of +defense, an explanation of the Mastery system and new talent functionality, what we know about the Path of the Titans, the introduction of guild leveling and talents, the known dungeons of Cataclysm, and what we can expect to see in patch 3.3's Icecrown Citadel raid and 5-mans. PATCH 3.2.2: On the subject of Wrath game patches, Matt Rossi takes a look at the most eagerly-anticipated part of patch 3.2.2, the return of Onyxia. LIVE RAID: The top-ranked U.S. guild, Premonition, did a live raid against a series of selected bosses, falling eventually to...Hogger? No one saw that coming. CLASS AND ROLE COMMENTARY: Zach Yonzon and Eddie Carrington respectively have you covered on Warlock and Hunter information from at the Class Q&A panels, Christian Belt's written his column on Cataclysm and Mages, and Matticus examines the information released on stat changes and their likely repercussions for healers. VIDEOS: We have additional video of the new Worgen and Goblin starting areas, the finalists and winner of the costume contest, and the Dance and Soundalike contest. %Gallery-70748%%Gallery-70706%%Gallery-70745%%Gallery-70746%%Gallery-70747%
BlizzCon 2009: Class Discussion Panel - Warlock
Yesterday's Class Discussion Panel at BlizzCon 2009 didn't go over all the classes like previous years, but instead focused on major changes to two classes. One of those classes is the Warlock, which finally gets its long promised Soul Shard mechanic overhaul. The change, as Ghostcrawler had mentioned before, is extremely cool and wasn't something that could be implemented with a minor patch. The revamp is huge -- it overhauls the entire Soul Shard system in two significant ways: Soul Shards are no longer items in the inventory (at last!) but are part of the Warlock UI Soul Shards are not consumed by any Warlock spell other than the empowering ability, Soul Burn I'll let all you Warlocks have a moment to digest that. When I first saw the changes, I was completely blown away and completely stoked -- the Warlock class will play completely differently from Mages, and indeed from any other class. Soul Shards will become a new resource mechanic akin to Death Knight runes except that they aren't used for spells but for "power moves". It makes a visual impact to playing the class, with the UI showing the Soul Shard resource.
Out with the old
In response to a what I'd call a troll on the forums, Zarhym gives some thoughtful insight to a problem that's been raising its head more and more often as the game gets older and older: items and achievements that once required lots of time and/or skill to obtain are becoming easier than ever to get. Usually, when this topic comes up, we're talking about epics, but that's not always the case. Here, the item in question is the Warlock mount. It used to require a long quest chain to obtain, but after a series of decisions on Blizzard's part, you can now train it right away from the trainer as soon as you hit the required level.Zarhym says that it's just part of the game's evolution -- originally, the dreadsteed quests were part of the endgame, and just like the Hunter Rhok'delar quests, were designed to show that players had reached the pinnacle of the class. But nowadays, level 60 isn't what it used to be, and the best way to do those quests is to have a higher level character tag along with you. That's not how Blizzard designed it (and it definitely doesn't fit within the "lore" of the quest), so they ditched it.That questline is still in, just not required, but some questlines and rewards are obviously removed from the game completely -- their achievement no longer represents an equivalent challenge, so Blizzard decides to take them out. And that really seems the best way to do it -- though it's always a shame when today's players can't experience the quests the same way veteran players did back in the day, the alternative would be to have them play through content that makes no sense, and no one wants that. As Zarhym says, there will always be new challenges to take on.
World of Warcraft Patch 3.2 Warlock Guide
WoW.com has covered patch 3.2 extensively. Everything from the surprising changes to flying mounts, to the latest and greatest loot, and all the changes in between. In our patch 3.2 class, raiding, and PvP guides we take a look at exactly what changes and how the changes will affect your playing. With patch 3.2 here, it looks like Warlocks can officially start celebrating. It seems like its been far too long since we've seen a patch which has more pros than cons in it. Of course, it's also true that Warlocks aren't going to see quite as many changes as most other classes will. Not even enough to warrant any real changes in the popular talent builds. However, among the changes we are getting are several which can only be described as buffs, and for that we can be thankful. Since we do have so few changes which really affect us in a meaningful way, we may as well go over them one by one.
World of Warcraft Patch 3.2 Mounts Guide
WoW.com has covered patch 3.2 extensively. Everything from the surprising changes to flying mounts, to the latest and greatest loot, and all the changes in between. In our patch 3.2 class, raiding, and PvP guides we take a look at exactly what changes and how the changes will affect your playing.Patch 3.2 is here, and there is a whole herd of mount changes stampeding into your stables. Here's a quick rundown of just what's changed about all the things you ride in patch 3.2, from updates to when you can buy mounts and for how much, new tweaks to old mounts like the Ulduar Proto-drakes and the TCG items, and brand new mounts like the hippogryphs from the Argent Tournament and the long-awaited Ravasaur.
