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Breakfast Topic: Buggy memories
Some of my fondest memories in WoW are things that never really should have ever happened. I don't mean random happenstance taking the wheel of life from me, nothing like that. I mean glitches, bugs and things that the Blizzard devs really never intended to happen. Sure, some bugs are not so fun, like losing equipment you worked hard for or getting blocked in a raid because a boss isn't working right, but there have been a lot of really awesome ones, too.Take, for example, the screenshot above. It probably doesn't count because it happened on the Wrath beta and of course there are bugs there, but it was the beginning of a night that made me laugh for hours. If you can't tell what's going on... I'm piloting an airplane, my buddy tried to hop in with me but his chair is floating a few feet over my head for some reason, and someone decided to park their siege tank twenty feet up a wall, inside of the wall. That pretty much sums up the current state of Lake Wintergrasp, in case you were wondering.If that doesn't count, there's the time a few years back when some friends and I ran Zul'Farrak, and a basilisk we aggro'd threw us twenty feet backwards for some reason, into another basilisk that threw us right back. We cried tears of laughter through about twenty minutes of the two basilisks playing catch with our flailing bodies before we were coherent enough to try and figure out what the heck was going on.Do you guys have any memories like this? Do you ever wish you could go out and do them again for the nostalgia of it all, or are you pretty content keeping it a one time thing?
WoW Insider's Dalaran image gallery updated
Dalaran gets more shine and polish with ever beta patch, and the most recent is no exception. The Violet Citadel has had it's front doors opened, though it remains unpopulated. Many missing textures have been filled in, and a lot of the empty buildings have been put to use.We've updated our Dalaran image gallery to reflect some of these updates, and added a new batch of pictures including things such as the Dalaran Sewers. Click the link or thumbnails below to check it out. As always, if you want to see a Hi Res version of the image you're looking at, the button is in the upper right.%Gallery-28715%
Ask a Beta Tester: Of textures, turtles, and Tuskarr
If you're on a coastline in the World of Warcraft, encountering hostile pirates is always a possibility -- and Northrend seems to be no exception. I'm not sure what this intrepid crew intends to plunder, but if you meet up with them on the open seas, watch out -- I was nearly swallowed by an Orca trying to swim to shore. But enough about me: let's get to your questions!Warlia asked... Does the game really look more crisp and detailed like people are saying? Remember walking into The Exodar or Silvermoon City for the first time? I bet you immediately compared them to the other major cities in the game and suddenly all of those other cities looked a bit less impressive. Walking into Northrend is going to be just like that. Everything in Northrend looks so good that it makes previous parts of the world look a trifle dusty. Blizzard seems to be using textures in Wrath that have a lot more detail than anything they've done previously. And though I haven't gone and counted polygons, the architecture in Dalarn (especially the curvy tunnels of the sewers, which are much more pleasent than you'd imagine) looks like it might use more of 'em. And beyond the architecture of the place, the environment is tremendously detailed. For example, if you visit Dalaran's toy shop you'll find shelves packed with all manner of toy -- nearly all of which are constantly buzzing, whirring, or moving. There are reflections and real-time shadows. Everything looks fantastic. (Though I've seen some reports -- as recently as in the comments thread of the previous edition of Ask a Beta Tester -- of content outside of Northrend looking better, I can't say I'm seeing a difference, though it could be a hardware issue.) For more on the game's video quality -- and other questions! -- keep reading! But if you're the sort who wants to avoid spoilers, turn back now. We're aiming to avoid major story spoilers, but this feature is all about beta content and we can't talk about the beta without giving things away here and there.
Lichborne: PvP, grinding, the Unholy tree, and you
Every weekend in Lichborne, Daniel Whitcomb will take you through the ever-changing (Beta) world of World of Warcraft's first hero class, the Death Knight. With a new Beta Build on the test servers, Death Knights have received a massive amount of talent changes. Many of them have been hinted at on the test servers for eons, and I've covered much of them in last week's Lichborne. The new disease changes are in, as is the changing of Chains of Ice's Snare component to an undispellable physical effect. You can check out the full list of changes here. Among the new changes is a very extensive revamp of the Unholy tree, which features quite a bit of talent consolidation and quite a few new and interesting mechanics and abilities. In fact, I'd have to say that the current build may very well mark the rise of the Unholy Tree, with the changes making it an amazing tree for grinding and PvP. As a disclaimer, there's still lot of bugs in this build. Many abilities don't seem to be working quite right, especially Blood Caked Blade (which only hits for 1-4 damage based on the number of diseases instead of 60% weapon damage per disease), Raise Dead, and Night of the Dead. Because of that, it's often hard to say how or if an ability would be better or worse if it actually worked. Therefore, I'll be discussing the abilities based on if they actually did work, backed with some feel for them from Death Knight play on the Beta Servers.
Profession News: Potion Sickness gone, Herbalists get new ability
It was perhaps one of the most unexpected and controversial changes to hit Wrath Beta: Potion Sickness, the debuff that spelled the end of chain-chugging by allowing only one potion to be quaffed per combat and no more. Some people loved, since it would cut down on pre-raid farming and perhaps allow for bosses to be balanced more around classes and roles and less around Haste, Ironshield, and Destruction potions. Some saw it as a major nerf to Alchemists and to casters who were used to chaining mana pots to stay in the blue.
Death Knights gain new rune set, new cosmetic changes
It's been said that Death Knights are supposed to be a specifically recognizable class, part of their heroic bearing coming in that distinctness. We've already seen some of it with the inclusion of glowing eyes, and now there's more implemented with these beta builds. All Death Knight Races have the option of taking on a selection of darker skins and gaunt, undead, or angry looking faces. In addition, the Death Knight's glowing eyes now look more more integrated and natural on almost every race, in my opinion. The changes look better on some races. Humans, especially, look very much changed, to the point where Human females can look a lot like Forsaken females without the hunchback or protuding bones. You can see some of the new looks in the Gallery below, courtesy of tipster Damir. %Gallery-29326% Death Knights also got another small cosmetic change in the form of new runes. The new runes are a bit bigger and more distinct, and I personally find them easier to keep track of. I'm glad to see the change. You can see the runes here (thanks to tipster chaud and wotlkwiki for that picture). EDIT: There are no Forsaken pictures in the gallery because there do not seem to be any new looks for Forsaken Death Knights. This is understandable -- They're already dead, after all. You can check our older Death Knight gallery for Forsaken shots, if you wish.
WoW Insider finds familiar faces in Wrath of the Lich King
While Northrend is a distant and strange land, there are a few friendly and familiar faces in Wrath to ease our pain. These range from joke appearances to lighten the mood, or more serious storylines being continued from WoW Classic and the Burning Crusade.These familiar faces are spread all throughout Northrend, and we've collected a lot of them in a gallery for you to look through. A few of the returning characters are missing from the gallery for various reasons (like turning in an unfinished quest despawning all NPCs in the area) but we'll get those when we can, too. There's plenty of spoilers in this gallery, though not many of them are massive plot points. Still, if you want everything to remain a secret, I'd be careful.Oh, before all of you spam the comments about it, no I did not forget 'the Scourge.' I thought that was a little obvious. Also, there are two massive zones and numerous dungeons not yet implemented. There are probably way, way more to come. We haven't seen Sylvanas yet.%Gallery-29137%
Arcane Brilliance: Forecasting Frost
Arcane Brilliance is a weekly column about Mages. It contains text. We promise the word "Mage" will appear with moderate frequency within the body of said text, possibly near such modifiers as "awesome" or "god-like." The word "Warlock" may also appear once or twice, sometimes in close proximity to such phrases as "ridiculously overpowered" or "I hate Warlocks." That's really the extent of what we promise, here at Arcane Brilliance: text, Mages, and Warlock-hating.Indulge me for a moment before we get to the Frost tree:I'm beginning to recognize a pattern forming. Each week, as Blizzard tweaks the talent setup in the Wrath beta, I'm becoming less and less inclined to complain. I know...I know. I'm a Mage. You poke a Mage with a stick, and QQ comes pouring out. We're all angry emo virgins, sitting at home blogging furiously with keyboards made completely out of tears about how the colors are too bright in Diablo III and writing free-verse epic poems about how Living Bomb caused our parents to divorce.That's just it, though: lately, I've found I'm all out of QQ. I've put my mascara-stained Sephiroth pillow back on my bed and stopped mailing locks of my greasy dyed-black hair to Kalgan, and have instead started to feel something very close to optimism. It's been building since I hit rock bottom after the WWI to the point where now I feel pretty good about the direction we're heading as a class. As you may recall, It wasn't that long ago that I felt far differently.Join me after the jump for more positive thinking followed by enough Frosty goodness to give you brain-freeze.
Ask a Beta Tester: Do you not value your life fruit vendor edition
I can't say enough good things about Dalaran. It's the most beautiful place in the game -- the architecture and textures in the area are more detailed than any we've ever seen. If it weren't for the invisible holes in the ground that send you plummeting to the Crystalsong Forest below, I'd probably never leave! Now that I think of it, that's probably why we don't have more flying cities: health hazards. (Yes, at present, visitors to Dalaran may fall through the city to the ground below without warning.) However, it has its own fruit vendor, so it can't be all bad, can it? But on to your questions! Boowat asked....How do you actually get to Dalaran. It's really high up... can you only fly there?Earlier in the beta, anyone could reach Dalaran by visiting the Crystalsong Forest and using a crystal below the city to teleport up. However, more recently, transport has been further restricted. To visit Dalaran one must be level 74 and complete a quest. (As I'm not yet level 74, I can't give you details on the quest, I've only been told it exists.) Commentor Ktok also notes that Mages get a self-only port to Dalaran at level 71.The level 74 thing does seem a bit odd (can you imagine Shattrath with a level-restriction?), but we'll see if the restriction sticks around and makes it live.
New Jewelcrafting patterns in the latest Wrath beta push
The latest beta push introduced a lot of tradeskill recipes, including Jewelcrafting. Elizabeth took some time to check out what new gems we might be seeing in Wrath, pending they survive the horrors of beta testing.The effects on the gems you find on the trainers aren't incredibly mind blowing, but the raw stats they supply is pretty impressive. Of course, this is all scaled up for level 80, so we'll probably be finding quite a bit of the crafted gear impressive as we find more of it. If you want to see what the trainers have to offer so far, check out the gallery down below.%Gallery-29313%
A Holy Disc Priest's thoughts on the new Priest glyphs
A list of tentative Priest Glyphs have been released into the recent beta for Wrath of the Lich King. Since I am no expert in Shadow, I'll defer an examination of those Glyphs to the resident WI guru. All I can say for the most part is that these Glyphs show promise. I'll go over the Glyphs that affect the healing Priest (Discipline or Holy) and discuss their application raid environments, PvP environments and otherwise. Alex Ziebart published his initial review of the Shadow Glyphs earlier today so be sure to give that a read after this one. Glyph of Lightwell - Increases the amount healed by your Lightwell by 1 to 6% So here is Lightwell as it is currently in the Wrath beta. As you can see, a level 80 max rank unbuffed Lightwell offers 4620 health over 6 seconds. Let's assume that lady luck is with you today and you managed to hit a 6% increase. Your Lightwell now heals for a whopping, jaw dropping, fear inducing 4900 healing (give or take). Now is that really worth a Glyph? I don't think it's worth a Glyph slot. But before we judge too quickly, lets move on down the list.
A Shadow Priest's take on the new Priest glyphs
My Priest buddy Matt Low is going to cover the new Holy and Discipline glyphs later today, and I'm going to look at what us Shadow Fiends get so far. Let's leap right into the Shadow stuff, eh?Glyph of Psychic Scream - Increases the duration of your Psychic Scream by 3 seconds.Not bad, not amazing. You can argue that those 3 seconds will never, ever come into play in PvP, and you would be mostly correct. PvE, I've never said "Oh man I wish my silly fear lasted THREE MORE SECONDS" but oh well. Not all glyphs need to be drool-worthy. A Psychic Scream glyph might be something I would use while leveling. Reducing the cooldown by another 1-3 seconds would be far superior, though.Glyph of Shadow Word: Death - Targets below 35% health take an additional 5% damage from your Shadow Word: Death spell. Kinda counter-intuitive to the new talent Pain and Suffering, but more damage is more damage. I don't see anything really very wrong with this glyph. Should be good for PvP, good for leveling. Works against Pain and Suffering for raiding, but like I said, yay damage. EDIT: What I mean by counter-intuitive is that Pain and Suffering reduces how much damage we take, but now we're buffing that damage back up. It isn't a huge deal, more damage is awesome, but I would rather see that damage placed on a different spell for a raiding setting. It's quality everywhere else.
The latest blacksmithing patterns from Wrath
Blacksmiths received a happy surprise in the latest beta build that launched tonight in the form of a bunch of new craftable gear, including the ability to add a socket slot to belts, bracers, and gloves and some nice new epic items. So far, we're seeing epic helms and boots of three different playstyles: With defense: Tempered Titansteel Helm, Tempered Titansteel Treads, With crit: Spiked Titansteel Helm, Spiked Titansteel Treads With spell power: Brilliant Titansteel Helm, Brilliant Titansteel Treads The epic weapon options also have good variety, though they're missing an obvious tanking weapon. There's the Titansteel Bonecrusher (a one-hander with stamina and AP), the Titansteel Guardian (a level 80 spell power weapon with less spell power than what I'm wielding at level 70 -- open to guesses on who Blizzard expects to use this one), and the Titansteel Destroyer (the two-hander every Death Knight wants).That's all the epics, but if you want to see all of the recent additions, check them out in our blacksmithing gallery!%Gallery-29308%
Ask a Beta Tester: Death Knight-free edition
Have beta questions? We've got beta answers right here on Ask a Beta Tester! Today I'm going to start out with a few questions that we've answered before -- but people seem so desperate to know, that I feel I have to at least point them in the right direction.Aracross asked: Is CoT3 (old Stratholme) in the beta?The outer instance is, but the you can't zone in yet. It's supposed to be a level 80 instance, though, and the level cap is set at 77 right now.Samman asked: Is the epic flying mount training 5,000g?There are currently no changes to any mount training costs in the beta. Sorry!Now, on to the questions of the day! (Surprisingly Death Knight free!)
Scattered Shots: The dev team takes on PvP
Welcome once again to Scattered Shots, WoW Insider's spot for all things Hunter, except for the stuff Big Red Kitty covers. Daniel Whitcomb will be your host today (a day late, for which he apologizes) as David Bowers tries to shake off some extra aggro. The state of Hunters in PvP is perhaps one of the most debated subjects in WoW PvP. Some call Hunters overpowered for their dispelling Arcane Shot (which is going away in Wrath, to be sent to the non-damaging Tranquilizing Shot), while others point to their low Arena representation and the ease of using line of sight to negate most of their DPS and Abolish Poison to get rid of their main PvP utility as proof that they need buffs. Regardless, even the devs acknowledge that Hunters probably need some help in PvP, and class designer Koraa recently spoke on the subject on the Beta forums. In his post, he covered the problems he sees Hunters having, and how Blizzard will be helping with those moving forward into Wrath. Unfortunately, his solutions seem confused in and of themselves. They involve giving Hunters more melee attack power (instead of more way to break from melee so they can use their ranged weapon) and a variety of talents scattered around many trees in such a way that it will be difficult for a solid PvP build to get them all. And, as I mentioned in a post yesterday, they still aren't giving pets resilience. Other Hunters such as Megatf have done an excellent job responding to some of Koraa's points in the thread itself, but I'd like to address and respond to the post myself in this week's column, and see how they stack up to the problems Hunters face in small scale Arena PvP.
Pets Scaling in Wrath: Hit percentage is in, resilience and xp bonuses are out
A while back, class designer Koraa told Warlocks that their pets would be getting their master's hit percentage. Today, he confirmed the same for Hunter pets. This should definitely be a godsend for raid level DPSers of both classes. Conventional wisdom is that reaching your personal hit cap is pretty much the single best way to increase your personal DPS total, and being able to do the same for pets should only provide a noticable increase to DPS, as well as keep any special buffs or debuffs said pets apply coming in with a minimum of interruption. Unfortunately, something else Koraa said on the same post is a little less exciting -- resilience is nowhere on the table for being shared. They believe that they currently have the right amount of survivability for pets. In a group situation, you or your group should be healing the pet, and in Arena play, any time spent killing the pet provides a benefit in the form "crowd control" while the DPS is focus firing your pet. Unfortunately, as the player of a level 70 Hunter and Warlock who have both seen extensive 2v2 Arena play, I'm not sure it's that simple.
Ask A Beta Tester: Will we ever run out of Death Knight questions?
It's 11AM... do you know where your beta testers are? Right here, answering your questions, of course! We're exploring the Wrath of the Lich King beta so you don't have to. Just leave us your questions in the comments and we'll track down the answers and report back! But, really, will you ever run out of Death Knight questions? There's an office pool going and I'm starting to worry... tal* asked.... Will school specific spell power increase healing? I have Drape of the Righteous from Kara, which only increases holy damage right now. Will it increase healing done by holy spells in Wrath? I have one of those too! And, no, it does not increase healing in Wrath -- school-specific spell power seems to be damage-only.
Death Knight tanking undergoing tweaks
The latest announced changes for Death Knights are out, and this time, they seem to be mostly concerned with tanking. There's two major philosophies that Blizzard seems to following for Death Knights: First, any tree should be able to excel at tanking at least to the 5-man level, and Death Knight tanking should be at least somewhat interactive. In that vein, they're introducing two revamped late tree tanking talents to the mix. In Frost, Unbreakable Armor will be a usable ability that costs 1 frost rune, but will only increase armor by 25% and Strength by 5%. In Blood, Vampiric Blood (previously mentioned in last week's Lichborne) will be a 1 blood rune ability that increases healing received from all sources by 50%. Both abilities will not trigger the GCD, will last 20 seconds, and will have a 2 minute cooldown. Blizzard aims to balance these 2 abilities with Bone Armor (which will have an internal cooldown of 3.5 seconds, like Shaman shields) to create 3 viable late tree tanking abilities.
Ask a Beta Tester: Healing, now with 100% more spell power!
Good morning, everyone! It's another day to answer your Wrath of the Lich King questions in Ask a Beta Tester. For as long as you have questions, we'll be here finding answers. In the image above, we see a Zeppelin leaving Orgrimmar heading for Northrend -- so let's go with them!Verodio asks... How well does healing gear transform into spell power gear? I want to know if my priest would be better served by holding onto epic items with high healing stats or by blue items that are +damage for grinding in Northrend. For example. Would a pair of pants that are +90 to have higher or lower spellpower than a pair of pants with +40 damage?It is not a direct one to one conversion and some of the changes may be surprising -- or at least they surprised me. Let's look at a couple of examples from the gear my Priest is wearing right now. My usual healing pants, Whitemend Pants, on the live realms, have +62 healing. On the Beta realms, the same Whitemend Pants have +33 spell power. Alternately, my DPS pants, Trial-Fire Trousers, have +49 damage and healing on the live realms. On the beta realms, the Trial-Fire Trousers have +49 spell power. I've seen a similar pattern across the board -- healing numbers significantly reduced, with spell damage numbers staying about the same. I'm sure it will work out fine in the long-run, but when you first enter Wrath, you may find that your DPS gear gives you more overall healing power than your healing gear!As several commenters have noted, though your healing numbers drop, your actual healing ability does not. I personally feel my heals are hitting somewhat harder on the beta realms than on the live realms, despite a huge drop (really, massive -- my beta +heal number is sort of depressing) in the healing number on my character sheet.
Around Azeroth: Someone to watch over me
Holy moley, it's the skeleton of an Octorok! Or possibly Birdo finally realized how universally mocked he was and swam out to the bottom of the sea. Our submitter, beta tester Gormmad of Coldarra-EU, doesn't know the exact origins of this underwater skeleton (located just south of the Emerald Dragonshrine in the Dragonblight.) However, he believes that it's the second-biggest corpse in all the Dragonblight, coming in only second to the bones of meta-dragon Galakrond. I'm not in the beta, so I'll have to take Gormmad's word for it. This image came to us straight from the Wrath of the Lich King beta -- and we'd love to have your beta screenshots, too! If you have anything our readers might like, beta or not, sharing it is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next! Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. We prefer full screen shots without the UI showing -- use alt-Z to remove it. And, please, no more sunsets! Unless it's a sunset over Arthas's grave.%Gallery-1816%
