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Blood Pact: Storming Throne of Four Winds as a warlock
Every week (when the regular warlock writer hasn't been eaten by a prince of hell or something, that is), WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket, for those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right, Blood Pact welcomes you and invites you to take a seat. Welcome back, darklings. I hope the previous week has treated you all well, or at least that you didn't sustain too many injuries in your attempts to wrangle down a new demonic slave. Those things can be so tricky at times. Why I remember once when ... oh, I'm rambling again, aren't I? Anyway, now that we have raided yet another dragon's lair -- and it did seem familiar, for some strange reason -- it is time that we commit ourselves to a true test of our magical prowess. Dragons are all well and good, but taking down an elemental lord? That takes finesse. Throne of the Four Winds is another of the three raid instances availible on the first tier of raiding in Cataclysm. In it, you find yourself face to face with Al'Akir and three of his strongest servants. Fortunately, none of them have any minions of their own, which is why this must be my favorite instance of all time. That's right, there is absolutely no trash here -- just two bosses waiting to be slain. So let's start up that felfire.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Protection Warrior 101 -- talents
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host. Tanking. It's what we talked about last week, and if not for a massive burst of gut rot that hit me Thursday like a hammer wielded by the Spectre himself, we would already have talked about it more this week. Better late than never, I suppose. To give you an idea of how sick I am as I type this, I didn't want to move all day, so I'm actually writing the column from the floor of my living room using my TV as my monitor. I'm so sick and exhausted that I find this screenshot of my worgen in his prot stance and gear standing on Anduin Lothar's shoulder to be hilarious. You see, Lothar was so badass, he had a werewolf for his conscience. Maybe you have to be extremely dehydrated to appreciate it. Anyway, this week, we're going to talk about protection's talents, which ones are niche talents and which are more generally applicable. Not all of the talents we discuss will be in the protection tree, as we'll also look at arms and fury talents that are well suited to tanking. It would be hard to justify talking about useful tanking talents without discussing Field Dressing, for instance. I had to tank those annoying parasites on Magmaw this week, and I was very glad to have the boosted self healing from Field Dressing for my Victory Rush heals.
The Queue: Super The Queue Alpha II Gold Turbo Tournament Edition
Welcome back to The Queue, the 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 am so hyped up for Marvel Vs. Capcom 3. I got my Tournament Edition fightstick, my Collector's Edition paid up and ready for pickup, my MvC2 downloaded from Xbox Live. Could not be more excited. Can't wait to repeatedly get destroyed by people running Magneto/Storm/Sentinel teams. It'll be like 2001 all over again. Chips asked: I just came back to the game after a long break and I noticed several things different about the male troll model. They seem to have a perpetual stubbed toe, some of their hair and shoulder armor clips, and the end of tabards curl upwards. I haven't been able to find much info about this, is this a recent bug, or a deliberate model change? Male troll models are indeed messed up right now, and the issues are at least partially fixed in 4.0.6.
The Queue: How much Keeffe is in this movie, anyway?
Welcome back to The Queue, the 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. So what if I'm on an MST3K kick this weekend? Is there any better kick on which to be? Hal asked: When Hand of Light triggers for my ret paladin, the icon for Divine Storm lights up on my bar. As far as I can tell, though, Divine Storm doesn't interact with Holy Power in any way. Is this a bug, or am I missing something? Divine Storm originally dealt damage based on the number of holy power charges you had, but that was changed. It just hasn't been removed from the spell alert list for Hand of Light yet.
The Queue: Huzzah!
Welcome back to The Queue, the 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. Thank goodness for MST3K on Netflix. "Trumpy! You can do stupid things!" Guilegamesh asked: Where do all the blues get their names from? I can't find any background on Bashiok, Lylirra, Wryxian, etc. Do they have a secret name generator that produces these unique names, and if there is, how can i get in on it? As a former blue, I can unequivocally state that they get to choose their own names. The names do have to be approved by higher-ups, though, and they must be "fantasy-sounding." Before I settled on Belfaire, I was also considering Inzmith and Carmagh.
Learning your role
One of the things that playing other MMOs can do for your WoW experience is get you to question how the game does things, and more importantly, how you do them. Recently I've been flirting with the latest superhero MMO, and it does tanking differently, to the point that I had to start unlearning my WoW habits to play it. This has me going back over the past six years and realizing I've had to relearn tanking four times now. I had to learn how to do it originally in order to start working on Molten Core for my then-guild, and then I had to relearn it in The Burning Crusade (and actually, I had to relearn it twice there, thanks to the awful implementation of rage normalization for warriors and our astonishingly bad AoE threat that whole expansion). In Wrath, I didn't so much relearn it as suddenly find it much more efficiently designed and fun. Finally, Cataclysm has me tweaking how I tank, but I can't really argue I've relearned it from the Wrath era so much as simply refined it. Meanwhile, I've also had to relearn the DPS side of my class every expansion, in much the same way. All of this learning has been done on the fly. To paraphrase a famous quote, World of Warcraft is vast and deep, and I'm swimming forever. Most certainly, there are sources to go to for players who want to learn a new role (one of them being this site), but there's only so much you can be taught before you have to hold your nose and jump in. This makes me wonder two things. First, is there more that the game could do to teach those roles, and two, would it be beneficial or harmful to immersive gameplay if it did?
Cataclysm hotfixes for Jan. 26
It's hotfix time! Blue poster Zarhym has posted with a whole mess of new hotfixes, and boy, are there some doozies this time around. The changes include loot table adjustments for all raid dungeons, adjustments to the Lunar Festival, and a handful of class changes as well. Some highlights from the list: Heroic set tokens in raid dungeons have been moved to earlier bosses on 25-player heroic difficulty (chest from Halfus, legs from Maloriak, gloves from Magmaw, helm from Nefarian, shoulder from Cho'gall). Elder Rumblerock is now available during the quest "Assault on Dreadmaul Rock" for both the Horde and the Alliance. In Deadmines, Glubtok's Fire and Frost Blossoms summoned during the encounter no longer grant experience or reputation. In Vortex Pinnacle, bosses will no longer respawn after a soft reset if players already have a heroic save. Follow us after the break for a full list of changes.
Blizzard on 2200 rating PvP weapon availability
Confused about when you'll be able to use your 2,200 arena rating weapons? Well, Blizzard has decided to clarify exactly when that will be, and the answer is not Jan. 25 (yesterday) but rather two weeks after patch 4.0.6 drops. Why, you may ask? Daxxarri - 2200 Rating Weapon Availability The decision to further delay availability of weapons requiring 2200 rating was not made lightly. Currently very few guilds are clearing PvE content that drops weapons of this caliber, which would make rated Battlegrounds and Arenas the primary source for top-tier weapons. We of course don't want players who are pursuing PvE content to feel as though they must engage in heavy PvP to obtain these weapons in order to be competitive or successful. source Understandably, some folks are upset -- probably the ones who either already have the ratings and points ready to spend, or the ones who managed to get the weapons during the brief window where there was a bug. Daxxari answers those concerns in a later post as well.
Taking out the trash
I always thought I would love a no-trash dungeon. I came up in raiding in the days of MC and BWL, raids that were absolutely chock full of trash. AQ40? Oh, so much trash. Trash to the point of absurdity. Going into the original Naxxramas meant dealing with a huge space absolutely stuffed full of rotting, slimy, or arachnid horrors. You spent far more time coordinating pulls on those annoying warlocks in Blackwing Lair and their dynamite-throwing goblin friends than you actually did on bosses. In The Burning Crusade, the 5-mans had trash galore. Five, even six packs in Shadow Labyrinth, constant streams of adds in Shattered Halls, complicated trash pulls in Karazhan and Serpentshrine. I still remember with dread being the tank standing there using spell reflection to get the attention of Hyjal caster waves. Dealing with trash has always been a part of the game, as it has been part of the genre. In fact, one of the reasons that Naxxramas 10/25 felt so empty to me was that it simply held less trash than it did as a 40-man raid at level 60, so huge stretches of the place were deserted, as if Kel'Thuzad had gone on a staff-cutting binge and pink-slipped half of the Scourge before you even got there. After we'd gotten Ulduar more or less on farm and moved on to Trial of the Crusader, I was pretty ready for a break from trash. I was very excited about a trashless dungeon where you just fought bosses. Wouldn't that be epic? Wouldn't it be awesome for every fight in a raid to be an epic struggle against a named, powerful adversary? Turned out, not so much.
Ask Creative Development Round II
Blizzard's creative development team is gearing up for another round of lore questions and answers from the players and fans. Last time, we had some pretty interesting answers to pressing questions. I hope this go-around we get even more awesome answers, especially to some of my own pressing questions, such as how the creative team is going to deal with Sylvanas, as well as what Deathwing's reaction to the now canonically dead Sinestra will be. Here is the thread where you can leave a question, and here is the official post. Ask Creative Development - Round II The members of our creative development department, headed up by Chris Metzen, are the creators, keepers, and librarians of our game lore and story. These caretakers work closely with the authors who write our licensed books and comics (or sometimes write 'em themselves), and collaborate with the game developers to ensure cohesive and correct use of characters and lore (Red Shirt Guys notwithstanding). Now they're ready to once again answer your Warcraft lore questions! Head over to the Ask CDev forum post to throw your question on the pile. Please be aware that we'll be using the forum voting system to help decide on which questions to answer. Before asking your own question, look through the thread and add a vote to any others that you like. Feel free to just vote, but if you do have a question, please limit yourself to one per post. source World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.
The Queue: Sheesh
Welcome back to The Queue, the 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. Why yes, I actually do know that Travel Form isn't castable indoors, not only because I was overtired and just made a mistake when I wrote yesterday's Queue, but also because 28 of you posted the exact same comment telling me that Travel Form isn't castable indoors. I even corrected the post, and people still posted the same "Travel Form isn't castable indoors" comment like the article had never changed. What the heck, people? My own fault, though. I'm never writing The Queue at 4 a.m. again. Well, except this time. Sapphyre asked: I've been wearing my heirloom shoulders on my alt priest for her entire life. It says in the tooltip "requires 1-80" yet I dinged 81 and it didn't force them off. Am i still receiving the 10% exp bonus by having them equipped or are they not working anymore and should be replaced with better stat gear? , Heirlooms are still wearable past level 80, but their stats will no longer scale and you will not receive the experience bonus from them either.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Protection Warrior 101
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host. Tanking. The role wherein you go and let very bad things do other very bad things to you so that they don't do very bad things to the rest of your party or raid, giving said party or raid time to do very bad things to them. I wrote a protection 101 guide almost exactly a year ago. We're revisiting the subject now for several reasons. Much as when we wrote the DPS warrior 101 guide, things have definitely changed for prot warriors over the past year. The addition of the mastery stat, the removal of defense on gear, the talent revamp and Vengeance have all had a cumulative effect on tanking warriors. So we're going to cover the basics and give as broad an overview as we can.
The Queue: Boats
Welcome back to The Queue, the 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. Boats! They float! In water. What the heck. crooked.wook asked: Are there any good cloth armor options for leveling or endgame casters, aside from dresses -- I mean, "robes?" I mean, there are shirts, tunics, jerkins, whatever -- is there any way for a serious caster to not be forced to don a robe? No, and there probably won't be, because tier 8 mage gear had a tunic and pants instead of a robe, and all mages did was bitch, bitch, bitch. This is why we can't have nice things.
Lady Sinestra, Paragon, and the cutting edge
Yesterday, <Paragon> got the world first kill of Lady Sinestra, the hardmode-only encounter in Bastion of Twilight. As you might have expected for a boss that only two guilds in the world have even reached, the encounter was not as well tested as it might otherwise have been, according to <Paragon> themselves. Today, in response to a forum thread about that, Zarhym chimed in with a response discussing the issue. Zarhym - Did Paragon enjoy their journey? I do think you have to take the tone of that post in the context in which it was written. Because Sinestra is a super-hardcore boss, they were pretty much the first ones to really push her mechanics to the limits. It's easy to see from their post that they were understandably frustrated. Not only were they trying to learn the mechanics and develop strategies, but we were watching closely, hotfixing several different issues as they stumbled across them. This meant they had to adapt to the changes we were making on the spot in addition to figuring out how to kill her -- and she's definitely no pushover. We do wish it would have been a cleaner fight for them, but we really appreciate them pushing the limits of hardcore raiding, and testing us to design new and compelling challenges. :) source Basically, what this means is very interesting for guilds and players who want to push content as hard and fast as possible. It means when you step into these fights that require unlocking and are intended for the best of the best, you're effectively going to have to accept that with great selectivity comes great unknowns.
Shifting Perspectives: Raiding early Blackwing Descent as a balance druid
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Triple moonkin! All across the sky! It can only mean one thing, that's right kiddies: It's raiding time. Strap on your big boy pants -- things are about to get serious. Seriously. OMG, OMG, OMG it's here! Yay, I actually did something that I said I would do. This is such a drastic change for me that I think I'll write a whole article on how important this momumentous event is, instead of actually writing about boss tactics and annoying things like that. No? Not feeling it? I suppose I can go ahead with the normal plan, although I think the other idea was much better. Raiding thus far has been rather hit-or-miss, in my opinion. Perhaps I'm jaded, but many of the encounters feel a tad ... simplistic, or at least far easier than they should be. Certain encounters, and especially the end encounters of all three raids this tier, are tough and fun, but the in-betweens seem a little weak at times -- but again, that's just me. For example, I spent more time wiping on the first boss of Grim Batol when it showed up as my first heroic ever than I did on Magmaw. Maybe that's just us; I don't know. Whether or not you agree, raiding is about being prepared. We've covered gearing yourself up for raids to death, so let's get on with the second part of those preparations.
The truth about datamined WoW data
Right now I'm playing World of Warcraft as more of a pinch hitter than I am used to, in part because I also do things like make the calls for our raids and help plan out raid times. In essence, I find myself a guild officer in a guild just getting off the ground, so I don't have the luxury of gearing for only one role. I have to be ready to tank or DPS based on what's needed. This isn't a problem, exactly. But it means I find myself having to really pay attention to what either role demands at a moment's notice, and so the patch 4.0.6 changes are constantly on my mind. As such, I found this forum thread interesting not for what it contains but in what it reveals about how people use datamined information. The original post is based on information that is datamined, and as such, is not always fully in line with what is intended. In this particular case, as Zarhym points out, the Heroic Strike changes aren't new but are the same HS changes we've seen in every version of 4.0.6 that have been discussed to date. Datamining can be an awesome tool, to be sure. I've salivated over weapon models and reacted with consternation to class changes over and over again in the past, just like everyone else. I still remember sitting at my computer trying to will Ulduar into existence; got a heck of a nosebleed. But please, when dealing with datamined information, you have to keep in mind that it often (purely due to the limitations of the process) comes up short or deals with information that may have no bearing on what ends up in the live game. So when you see a tooltip change or hear about an ability going up or down in power based on it, it's best to wait and see a confirmation of the change from Blizzard before you panic. Datamined changes can be a good heads up, but they're not to be considered the same as officially released information. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.
Cataclysm hotfixes for Jan. 18
What with all the buzz about the PTR and the upcoming patch, it's been a while since we've seen some good old-fashioned hotfixes. Fear not, for blue poster Zarhym has posted with some new goodies for us all. Today's list of hotfixes seems to run the gamut from class tweaks to quests, but there are a few notable changes for raids and dungeons: In Blackwing Descent, Atramedes will no longer despawn when his tail passes through the area trigger in the entrance to his room. He will no longer despawn randomly during the fight. Pulling him out of his room will now cause him to reset. Also from Blackwing Descent, the damage of Chimaeron's Caustic Slime has been reduced for both raid sizes and dungeon difficulties. Over in Tol Barad, "The Leftovers," "Swamp Bait" and "A Huge Problim" can now be shared between members of the Alliance. In addition, these quests now award the correct amount of gold and faction for the Horde and Alliance as well. Follow us after the break for the full list of hotfixes.
Blood Pact: Warlocks in Blackwing Descent, part 1
Every week (when the regular warlock writer hasn't been eaten by a prince of hell or something, that is), WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket, for those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right, Blood Pact welcomes you and invites you to take a seat. There will be no silly wand-waving or worthless incantations in my class. The curse of the warlock writers on WoW Insider strikes once more. Your normal master of darkness, Adam, is still lost in the Nether, presumably off hunting some new, rare, malformed demon-spawn. The last fill-in, the dark conjurer Zach, has also become lost to the void. I assure you that both situations are merely a setback. For the moment, that leaves you with me -- a minor power in the demonic struggle, but hopefully with enough tricks hiding up my proverbial sleeves to share a trick or two. Warlocking (or is it warlockery?) is rough stuff. People expect a lot of you! You have to kill things, summon people, provide glowing hell-health fragments, command a vast array of demonic forces. Then there are the fight mechanics to worry about as well. You've gotten the first part of all that down, but each new raid brings new encounters with new mechanics to learn. It's a daunting task, but that's what I'm here to help with. Well, hopefully. It could also be that I'll just wind up getting you killed a horrible, gruesome, if not glorious, death. Either way, I'd say your prospects look good!
The Queue: That's "Famous Titles"
Welcome back to The Queue, the 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. Don't ask me why I was looking for pictures of Alex Trebek, but it was a fruitful search. Look at this picture of him and Zsa Zsa Gabor! What a weird combination. Smart dudes get all the ladies. Haha, well, no, that's not true at all. But dudes with rockin' 'staches definitely do. Crispn asked: Question, I remember reading about a feature that lets you view a boss abilities, loot, etc. Is this in game? If so, how do you use it, and if not, is it coming? That's the Enhanced Dungeon Map, and it's coming in patch 4.1, according to the devs at BlizzCon.
The Queue: All aboard the knuckle train to Fist Planet
Welcome back to The Queue, the 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 really hope the rest of you guys caught the Adventure Time marathon on Cartoon Network yesterday, too. There is no better time than Adventure Time. Darasen asked: Do items like Mithril Spurs and Carrot on a Stick make a worgen's running wild ability move faster (where level-appropriate, of course)? If so, am I the only one that finds the idea of kicking yourself to go faster or dangling a carrot in front of yourself humorous? I'm not sure mount speed enchantments or items even exist anymore, especially the Carrot; but if they do, yes, they would affect Running Wild. Crusader Aura does.
