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Cataclysm Zone Review: Dun Morogh
This article has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. Editor's Note: This post contains spoilers for the upcoming Cataclysm expansion. Read at your own risk! The upheaval in the snowy lands of Dun Morogh has been more political than geological, but there's quite a fair amount of new material for those rolling a brand new dwarf or gnome in Cataclysm. Starting Zones Coldridge Valley and New Tinkertown The dwarven starting zone hasn't changed much physically, but the troggs are more aggressive now, so there's no time for placid mail delivery quests. But there's always time for beer! Eventually, you kill a troublemaking fire elemental that seems to quell the threat here, but an untimely cave-in forces you to forego the tunnel and take an airlift to Kharanos instead. (Alas, this detour bodes ill for the popularity of the famous Dwarven Demolition Team.)
Cataclysm Beta: Handling Blackwing Descent's Omnotron defense system
Hey look, it's the Tron defense system! It is one of the initial roadblocks your raid will encounter in Blackwing Descent. These four golems will prevent you from advancing further until you neutralize all of them. This raid instance can be found on top of Blackrock Mountain. It's sandwiched between Burning Steppes and Searing Gorge. Read on to find out more about what to expect!
Cataclysm Beta: Testing Halfus Wyrmbreaker in Bastion of Twilight
Sunday afternoon, a couple of raid encounters in the Cataclysm beta were activated so they could be tested. I managed to get in on both of them, and I'll cover my experience and initial thoughts regarding Halfus Wyrmbreaker. He is the first boss that can be found in the Bastion of Twlight. The entrance can be found in the southwest corner of Twilight Highlands at the top of an extremely high pillar. I don't have much in regards to the lore and stuff, but something about this boss tells me that he controls and restrains drakes (or wyrms).
The Queue: Cathedral picture
Welcome back to The Queue, our daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. I'm completely out of witty intros. It's Sunday! Deal with it! DarkSpade asked: Was the WoW miniatures game ever officially announced as dead or is it still out there flapping in the breeze? Any chance of it coming back? The license for the WoW Minis game was originally held by Upper Deck, a company with whom Blizzard no longer does business. Cryptozoic, who picked up the WoW TCG license, did not pick up the Minis license. I think you can probably extrapolate the status of the WoW Minis game from there.
The Queue: Pebble
Welcome back to The Queue, our daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. Pebble: the most adorable non-combat pet. If you disagree, you are wrong. Missemilyblack asked: Will WoW Insider bring back the Class 101 articles once Cataclysm is in full swing? This may be pathetic, but I rely on those articles heavily when I'm trying out a new spec. It's so nice for a casual like me to get quick advice about rotations, glyphs and talents without much mucking around, and having them updated to include level 85 spells and the new talents would really be a godsend. Yep, we plan to have new 101 articles for Cataclysm once class balance has stabilized a bit. We really like the 101 articles and we're glad they help people who need it; we just need to make sure that the new ones won't become obsolete too quickly.
City tabards giving reputation in latest beta build
As of the recent beta build (13189) that went live earlier this evening, city tabards sold by racial factions (e.g., Thunder Bluff, Stormwind, Gnomeregan, Undercity) are now awarding reputation in dungeons. With the obvious exception of those offered by Gilneas and the Bilgewater Cartel, these tabards aren't technically new to the game -- you can get them at the Argent Tournament on the live servers right now if you want -- but the reputation gains are definitely a new perk. While you can still get the tabards from Argent Tournament vendors on the beta, each major city also has a faction quartermaster (usually close to the city's flight master and introduced in beta build 13066 in late September, I think) selling both the tabard and a set of level 40 cloaks. The tabards are available at friendly for 8 silver (even at the Tournament -- they no longer require Champion's Seals), but you can't get the cloaks without being exalted. Still, grinding reputation for one of your faction's races should be considerably easier in Cataclysm -- all you'll have to do is get to friendly, buy a tabard and run dungeons as you normally would. This is a great addition to the game. Not only will you have access to cool tabards even at a low level, but it should make getting other races' mounts and faction discounts much easier as well.
New Tree of Life form in all its video glory
The new Tree of Life form went live on last night's beta build, and I've shot a short video to show you what it looks like in action. As mentioned previously, the Tree currently shares the male orc skeleton and animations, so you won't see anything too unfamiliar here, but the new form is just beautiful. If anything, it's kind of depressing that it's now a cooldown. The new forms are colored by race, and here's the breakdown: Night elves get the purple form. Tauren get the brown and green form. Worgen get the dark brown form. Trolls get the light brown form.
Certain mounts and items no longer available in patch 4.0.3
As promised, Blizzard has provided a list of the mounts and items that will no longer be available as of patch 4.0.3, The Shattering. The brief list is below, followed by the full Blizzard statement after the break. Swift Zulian Tiger and Swift Razzashi Raptor are no longer available. Razzashi Hatchling is no longer available. Tome of Polymorph: Turtle will continue to be available through other means. Mounts from Trial of the Crusader will no longer be available. Reins of the Blue Drake will return to their place as a 10-man rare drop from Malygos. The Azure Drake will continue to be available in 25-man mode as normal. Mimiron's Head and Invincible will be rare drops from their respective bosses on hard mode.
New Tree of Life model datamined
Boubouille at MMO-Champion has datamined the long-awaited new Tree of Life model from an upcoming beta build (click the image above for a high-res version), and commentary's already starting to fly on the forums. Some players are really enthusiastic, others are not (Cirocco of Rexxar's notable soundbite: "Hunchback of Notre Lame"), and others think it's a little too masculine-looking in comparison to the older treant model. If the posture looks a little familiar, it's because the Tree apparently shares the male orc's skeleton and animations (at least for the moment), although I'm having difficulty locating the YouTube video that a player claims to have seen of this. The new model isn't yet live on the beta, so unfortunately I can't yet get a video for myself. EDIT: Thanks to our readers, it's been located -- go here. I really like the new model, but I'm surprised that Blizzard thought it was a priority for an update given the Tree of Life's new status as a Metamorphosis-like cooldown. Bears and cats finally got their update in patch 3.2, so I'm hoping that Moonkin, Travel and Aquatic Form are next on the list. At any rate, it's a spot of good news (well, to me, anyway) in a patch where cat DPS has nose-dived, bears are going crazy trying to hold aggro in 5-mans, and trees are ... well, no longer trees. Past the cut you'll find a quick note on the WoW Insider team's take.
The Queue: Patch 4.0.1 bonanza
Welcome back to The Queue, our daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Today is our first full day with patch 4.0.1 on live servers. In today's edition of The Queue, we'll be tackling a few frequently asked questions about the patch. Some of them will be aimed at people who haven't been able to log on yet, and some will be aimed at those who have but are still unsure of the answers. Some of the questions were taken from the What is Patch 4.0.1 post yesterday rather than the comments of The Queue. As a warning, most of my answers are very short because that's all that's required. Enjoy! Cortland asked: Is the built-in Power Auras that shows procs around your character in this patch?
Officers' Quarters: Leveling as a guild in Cataclysm, part 2
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press. Last week, a reader wrote in to ask about some dos and don'ts as a guild leader during the character leveling process of an expansion. Obviously, we're focusing on Cataclysm here, but many of these tips will be relevant for any expansion with a raised level cap. Part 1 provided four tips: Have a plan. Organize group activities. Don't rush anyone. Set a date for the endgame. This week I've got five more.
The Light and How to Swing It: Hot talents and glyphs for holy paladins
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered. The holy paladin talent tree has historically had issues with its filler talents. While many of the talents and abilities were spec-defining, there were other talents that literally had no purpose and were never taken. I'm talking about Sacred Cleansing, which actually didn't work at all throughout most of Wrath. How could we forget Purifying Power, whose usefulness was completely negated by the Glyph of Holy Wrath, which itself was only used to exploit a difficult encounter? Even with all of these junk talents in the tree, we also had a distinct lack of DPS talents, leaving holy paladins nearly helpless when left to fend for themselves. Cataclysm's new truncated talent trees resolve many of the issues our previous talent tree had, as well as providing several DPS talents to give us some flexibility when we need to up our damage output. Exorcism has finally become the spammable attack we can use from range to nuke our targets, and Crusader Strike gives us some DPS presence while we're in melee range as well. The core focus of the holy paladin will always be healing, but it's nice to see that Blizzard created talents and glyphs to support both the healing paladin and the pseudo-shockadin that's emerging in Cataclysm.
The Queue: Pop
Welcome back to The Queue, our daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. Speaking of pop, Bejeweled 2 is free on PopCap.com today until 10 p.m. PST! Go get it! Liam asked: What is the difference between major and prime glyphs? I thought a tier of glyphs was supposed to be more fun and cosmetic now, but they seem the same to me, just changes to our spells. Prime glyphs are no-brainer DPS/effectiveness increases. Major glyphs offer new utility or changes in your rotation that are hard to "math out." Minor glyphs give fun or cosmetic changes.
The Queue: Legendary heavy glow
Welcome back to The Queue, our daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. I saw Gorillaz last night at Madison Square Garden. 'Nuff said. Masalar asked: Do the profession changes, such as multiple skill ups for making a blue item, come into play with 4.0.1? Because my hunter is waiting for that change to become an engineer ... Yes, those count as system changes, so they should be in with 4.0.1.
Totem Talk: Enhancement's path to victory in patch 4.0.1
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shamans. Rich Maloy lives and breathes enhancement -- his main spec is enhance, his off-spec is enhance. He blogs about the life and times of enhance, and leads the guild Big Crits (Season 2 Ep 03 now out!)as the enhancement shaman Stoneybaby. Are you ready? Charge up your Maelstrom Weapons and dust off your Searing Totems -- Patch 4.0.1 is nearly upon us! Not sure what to do on your enhancement shaman? The quick-hit guide to enhancement in the cataclysmic world is below. What's not changing Let's start with some things that are not changing. Slow/slow is the way to go (for your weapons, I mean). Your weapons shouldn't be faster than 2.00 and ideally should be between 2.50 to 2.70 speed. Be wary of any weapon with a speed below 2.00; most likely it's been touched by a rogue and still has some residual poison on it meant to cripple your Windfuries and Flametongues. We're also staying with the same imbues: Windfury on the main hand and Flametongue on the off hand. With this patch (as with every patch, it seems), there was a little bit of banter about going full spellpower, with fast/fast and a caster weapon main hand along with FT/FT, reforging spirit, and otherwise doing crazy things like looking for the next Torch of Holy Fire. Don't do it. Stay slow/slow, with WF/FT. We're meant to be melee doing primarily melee damage.
Cataclysm: Guild cap revised, now 1,000 members
After a very vocal community outpouring and harsh response to Blizzard's announcement that guilds would be hard-capped at 600 members, the policy has been re-evaluated and the cap has been raised to 1,000 members per guild in patch 4.0.1. While there are not a huge amount of guilds that go over the 1,000-player limit, those multitudes of players came out in anger over Blizzard's decision to set a hard cap. Now, with that cap raised, these guilds may potentially fall under the new rules, keeping their organizations intact. Hit the jump for the full announcement.
Global cooldown rework in Cataclysm
There's a fascinating thread on the official forums about the way that Blizzard is changing the global cooldown. The long and short of it is that on live, we can spam our next ability to try and increase the number of actions we can get in per minute; however, if we change our minds, we have until the next ability is accepted by the server to decide to change the keys we're spamming. In Cataclysm, there'll be a completely different system. First, let's look at the blue posts, and then we'll talk about the explanation.
The Queue: What's that, Deathwing?
Welcome back to The Queue, our daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. Really? I thought the first thing you'd say when you emerged from Deepholm would be something about unmaking the world, not requesting the next installment of an admittedly daily feature. But who are we to argue with the Aspect of Death? Ilmyrn asked: When will we see the world changes from Cataclysm? 4.0.1? Later? I want to get the Wrathgate done on as many characters as I can before it's gone forever. Game systems change in 4.0.1. The world changes in 4.0.3.
WoW Rookie: Dungeon and world travel tips for Cataclysm lowbies
New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide. Classic WoW might have been pretty revolutionary for its time in terms of ease of leveling, but looking back, it was kind of terrible. It was just a lot better than what we had at the time. Thankfully, Cataclysm has fixed a lot of the original game's leveling issues, and I can say from personal experience that bringing a character from 1 to 60 is more fun than anything I've ever done in WoW before. And that's with no heirlooms, no gold from my main, no auction house, no nothing. Let's talk ways to maximize your fun while leveling in Cataclysm.
Totem Talk: Elemental mana management for Cataclysm
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Get some Fulmination with your Lightning Bolts! Sort the shocks from the flames with Totem Talk: Elemental, brought to you by Sarah Nichol, otherwise known as Pewter from The 'mental Shaman and the Obscurecast, and founding member of TotemSpot. Before I get stuck in this week, I'd like to take a moment to share some sad news -- Zamir has taken the decision to discontinue his elemental DPS spreadsheed, ZAP!, which has been invaluable for many of us for the past year. Zamir has been something of a catalyst for the elemental theorycrafting and blogging community, so please send him some good vibes. You can still find Zamir at his Planet of the Hats blog, and he is also involved in running TotemSpot. We salute you, Zamir! (No need to panic, though, there are several projects in the works to fill the void.) Last time, I discussed what the impending patch 4.0.1 meant for my beloved class. The original plan for this week involved heroics, sims and walls of numbers, but the issues with EU premades have rendered that hope a distant dream. Eleven-day queue, I bite my thumb at thee. As for changes to the class, well, every time I see a changelog, I scan for shaman blue and feel a faint twinge of disappointment. Our totems have had some minor edits, such as a reduced cooldown from 30 seconds to 20 seconds for Stoneclaw Totem and a needed mana cost change from 7 percent base mana to 5 percent base mana for Searing Totem. Does this mean elemental is largely finished, or are we in store for some focused attention in future builds? A lot can change in two months, but with patch 4.0.1 on the horizon, I think our spec is likely to remain static for now. So this week, I'm taking a quick look at mana management, something that many of us have not worried about since Naxxramas.
