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Are those 4.0.1 spells shiny enough for you?
Normally, WoW Insider brings me in to wax poetic (or at least punny) about elemental shaman -- but today, I had a grouch. I am dazzled by the new sparkles emitted by paladin friends, and I cheer on my mage friends as they try out Flame Orb and Ring of Frost. There is a gorgeous array of new spells on offer in patch 4.0.1 ... So why do I feel so underwhelmed by my new elemental rotation? The dust of patch 4.0.1 is not settled and won't be for some time if Deathwing has anything to do with it, but now we start to see the shape of things to come. I've had a chance to settle into the new abilities. I've annoyed more than a few fishers with my Earthquake. I've gleefully retrained my fingers to become reactive, in order to enjoy the full benefits of Fulmination and Lava Surge. My guildmates tell me I am too happy about Totemic Wrath and Rolling Thunder. Good times, all in all. However, I am still a grumpy shaman. I am mostly happy with the new spells, but the effects feel like an afterthought.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Kill Halion, take his stuff
The Care and Feeding of Warriors is about warriors, who hurl themselves into the fray, the very teeth of danger armed with nothing more than the biggest weapons and armored with the absolutely heaviest armor we can find. Hey, we're not stupid, we're just crazy. Never fear, we'll be doing more leveling posts and more report cards in the future. (I've been messing around with arms again lately on my night elf warrior -- having some fun with it, too.) But this week, we'll be talking about the Ruby Sanctum instance. The storyline of the Ruby Sanctum links Wrath of the Lich King's storylines with those of the upcoming Cataclysm, but the encounter mechanics and loot are still pretty solidly Wrath. First we'll talk about the minibosses and Halion himself from both a DPS and a tanking perspective. Since much of that work has already been done by Michael Gray, we'll then go on to talk about loot. Then I'm gonna go eat something. I'd invite you, but by the time you read this I will have already eaten. The bane of the internet: I can't share my jalapeno-flavored chips with you. (Nor, to be honest, would I. They're mine. MINE!) The first thing to talk about in Ruby Sanctum are the trash pulls. As a DPSer, you really just need to know what the kill order is and to stick to it, but I also suggest to be aware. Remember Ulduar on the way to General Vezax? Yeah, it's like that. There most likely will be CC, and it's a bad idea to Whirlwind/Bladestorm in the middle of it. So pay attention and use your abilities responsibly. As a tank, you should likewise watch your AoE threat moves and make sure only to break CC when you need to. Make sure to use Charge to get right back on the Charscale Invoker when it punts you, and in general, use your stuns and silences to keep the casters locked down as much as possible when tanking them. If you're tanking the Charscale Commanders, pull them out; don't let them use Rallying Shout. There's no reason to let a five-or-so-mob trash pull get a 25% DPS increase. Once you get done with the trash, it's on to the mini-bosses.
Ruby Sanctum is open [Updated]
Although several realms are still under extended maintenance in preparation for Cataclysm, Patch 3.3.5's Ruby Sanctum is currently open for business. Players can enter the instance at this time and kill the trash and minibosses, and Halion is able to be engaged. We've not yet received word on whether or not he's killable, or whether anyone has killed him. It's likely that this was unintentional. We'll keep you posted, though. Now would probably be a good time to brush up on the dungeon's final boss with WoW.com's Guide to Halion! Update 6:29 p.m. EDT: The opening of Ruby Sanctum might be a bug, but nonetheless, it's up and running. We have staff who are running it both on normal and heroic mode on the live servers. Blizzard is being coy about it, so who knows ... either way, the boss is up and can be engaged right now. Update 6:39 p.m. EDT: Nethaera confirms that this isn't a bug: Ruby Sanctum is open, despite several battlegroups being down for another day.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Wrath report card -- protection
The Care and Feeding of Warriors is about warriors, who hurl themselves into the fray, the very teeth of danger armed with nothing more than the biggest weapons and armored with the absolutely heaviest armor we can find. Hey, we're not stupid, we're just crazy. With patch 3.3.5 upon us and the absolute last raid instance of Wrath of the Lich King set to go live in a week or two, we're finally at the end of the roller coaster of class design for this expansion. Whether you love your class (i.e., play a warrior) or hate it (play one of those other classes like mages -- that one's for you, Dom), it's fair to say that barring any last-minute surprise redesigns, what you see is what you're going to get until Cataclysm. So where are warriors as a class right now? Since we're a tank/DPS hybrid with two roles and three specs (if you count PvE, anyway; if you include PvP, then we effectively have four roles and three trees to fill them), how well does the class do in each role, and how do our specs shape up? This week we'll discuss protection, the dedicated tanking tree for warriors. At the beginning of Wrath of the Lich King, warrior tanking saw a pretty significant shake-up in terms of its talents and abilities. Tanking in general was redesigned to be more fun, and a new hero class that was a tank/DPS hybrid was introduced. All of this changed the playing field for warriors pretty significantly. Warrior tanks found that for the first time, protection was possibly the most viable leveling build.
Patch 3.3.5's Out of Storage error
While some players are happily playing with the new features included in Patch 3.3.5, many others are unable to do so due to problems that cause the game to crash. Blizzard has noted this situation and is working diligently on a fix to this problem. In the meantime, a thread on the Technical Support forums addresses this issue and what players can do to make the game playable again. The issue appears to pop up as an Out of Storage error for players running World of Warcraft on a 64-bit OS. What can you do while waiting for a fix? Simple -- turn down your graphics settings. Blue poster Datth had the following suggestions to make: Datth Extremely low view distance settings (177 vs 1277) is more than enough to compensate for the extra memory being used in this patch by a few factors. A lot of people are able to get by with setting View Distance from max to about halfway using that alone. Using d3d9ex mode (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=21723843232&sid=1) can shave off another ~100-200MB from what it's currently doing right now too. source Blizzard hopes to have the game fully functional for all players at any level of graphics quality soon; however, there is no ETA currently on when this fix will occur. Keep an eye on the thread in the Technical Support forums, as they are sure to post more information as they learn more about the errors.
Patch 3.3.5: Servers coming online
It looks like the long wait may be over, as US servers appear to be slowly coming back online from a lengthy extended maintenance. For now the list of servers up is small, and there's been no official confirmation from Blizzard as to whether or not the downtime is over -- however most servers that are up and live are experiencing queues in the thousands and are locked from further character creation at this time. We'll update this post when the servers are officially back up and running -- until then, why not check out the Tuesday Morning Post for reading material you may have missed? Update #1: The official Warcraft Twitter just noted the following: #WoWInfo - We are continuing the process of marking realms live. We will provide an update on our progress at approximately 7:00PM PDT. Also, all servers that are currently live appear to be locked. Update #2, 7:21PDT: The official Warcraft Twitter just noted the following: #WoWInfo - We anticipate all remaining realms will be brought online within the next hour and appreciate your ongoing patience.
Patch 3.3.5 known issues
Just released is the initial official list of patch 3.3.5 known issues... and it's a big one. Some of the major highlights: Performing the /eat emote while dancing as a male Blood elf can cause some very unnatural character movement. Pit of Saron - Scourgelord Tyrannus can remount Rimefang during the encounter. The last remaining player in a random instance group can miss out on Random Dungeon loot. Players from different servers can't trade dungeon items necessary to progress through the dungeon. The Twilight Orbs periodically disappear during Phase 2 of the Halion encounter. It is possible for a level 70 to receive the Wrathful Gladiator's Tabard. You cannot get the "Call To Arms" Achievement through the Looking for Battleground feature. Mage Summon Water Elemental does not fully function as a permanent pet when glyphed with Glyph of Eternal Water. It appears that this includes some unfixed bugs that were present in previous patches, such as Tyrannus remounting Rimefang. There is no indication as to when these bugs will get fixed. The complete list after the break.
Blizzard releases Patch 3.3.5 Ruby Sanctum storyline
While you're waiting for Patch 3.3.5 to hit the live servers, you can check out Blizzard's latest preview of the final raid instance in Wrath of the Lich King -- the Ruby Sanctum. European Community Manager Wryxian just dropped by the forums to link the Under Development page for Ruby Sanctum, which contains some new images and (perhaps most importantly, for some) the storyline behind the instance. "Next to nothing is known about who might be responsible for the assault on the Ruby Sanctum: the black dragonflight is not known for forgiveness or patience, but its numbers in Northrend are surely limited. What force would be powerful or daring enough to assail the stronghold of these ancient wyrms? How could such an enemy sneak by the temple's guardians undetected? Surely an approaching air or ground force would have been caught by Wyrmrest Temple's defenders. For the moment, the members of the accord and their allies must assume the worst scenario that they can conceive of: that all life within the Ruby Sanctum rests on the precipice of extinction, and only immediate intervention will prevent the red dragonflight from being decimated. They'll find that the truth is far worse." I think some of us know the truth already! If you're raring to go for a trip into the Ruby Sanctum after reading this, prepare yourself by checking out our guide to Halion, the instance's grand poobah.
World of Warcraft patch 3.3.5 download mirror
WoW.com and our sister site Big Download have teamed up to provide you with some lightening fast mirrors of patch 3.3.5. These patches are for the Mac and PC versions, and will only work with North American versions of WoW. The European and international versions of the patch are not out yet -- they're coming next week. North American/U.S. PC Patch 3.3.5 North American/U.S. Mac Patch 3.3.5 We'll update this post once we get the international versions in next week. Comments on this post are disabled to protect your computer. We can only verify the integrity of files coming from our network.
World of Warcraft Patch 3.3.5 Patch Notes
Straight from the patch files we bring you the release patch notes for patch 3.3.5. As with all patch notes, please remember that Blizzard may changes these at any time, in which case we'll bring you the updates as soon as we get them. For the most part however, these patch notes are not much different from the ones that were on the PTR. Some of the highlights of patch 3.3.5: The Ruby Sanctum will be released (although not today, sometime in the future). Real ID is now in place, you can communicate with real life friends across any Blizzard game, server, and faction. Vote to Kick has been changed. The patch is dropping today for North American players, and next week for European players. After the break are the release patch notes for patch 3.3.5.
Arcane Brilliance: Ruby Sanctum preview - mage edition
You'll have to forgive Arcane Brilliance (the weekly mage column) this week. Arcane Brilliance is a little down in the dumps. You see, Arcane Brilliance just isn't sure it can live in a world where Duke is the NCAA basketball champion and the Lakers are the NBA champion. One was bad enough, but now both of those evil basketball programs are champs? Ugh. What's that, you say? I could always just give in and root for Duke and LA? I suppose I could, but that would be like giving in and rooting for warlocks to do anything but die painfully in a fire of my creation. In other words: not going to happen. All signs point to patch 3.3.5 dropping very soon. When it drops, it will bring with it a few fun UI changes and quests, but most importantly, it will herald the final raid instance of this expansion, the last raid boss we're going to get before Cataclysm erupts in a massive explosion of Goblins and Worgen and Tauren paladins and Wars of the Ancients and such. Soon after the patch hits, the portal to the Ruby Sanctum below Wyrmrest Temple will open, and the same heroes who ended to reign of the Lich King will enter and challenge the fearsome Black Dragonflight, led by The Twilight Destroyer, Halion. And I want my fellow mages to be ready. So fill your pockets with strudel, put on your best dress, and meet me at Wyrmrest, mages. We've got dragons to slay.
Midsummer Fire Festival loot updated
It seems pretty likely that fairly soon we'll be looking at a updated Midsummer Fire Festival. Why am I so sure, you ask? Well, as many tipsters have stopped to inform us, there's a plethora of new gear in the armory that looks likely to be iLevel 232 updates of Lord Ahune's loot table. We have the Frostscythe, of course, which people have noted before. But now we also have updated versions of his infamous cloak drops, in tanking, physical DPS, and two forms of spell cloak. The first cloak has spirit, meaning that classes like mages as well as healers that use spirit might like it, while the second has crit, haste and spell power but no spirit, meaning it's better for shamans and paladins than the spirit one. I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to farming my favorite frost lord all over again.
Zalazane's Fall official preview released
Many weeks ago we were given an Azeroth Bulletin about Operation Gnomeregan, the gnomes' imminent attempt to recapture their fallen city. Today, from the European community site, comes a preview for Zalazane's Fall. Vol'jin has put out a call to every man and woman capable of lifting a sword (or fireball) to assist him in retaking the Echo Isles. Embedded on the coast of Durotar, the tiny troll Village of Sen'jin is bursting with recent activity. In what some claim is a retort to the overblown assertions of the vertically-challenged High Tinker Mekkatorque, Troll Chieftain Vol'jin has announced his intention to "honor de ancestors 'n' take back da 'omeland, mon." The call has been given, and the scattered Darkspear tribe has begun to gather at the once-sleepy location. Now the primal rhythm of beating drums and strange clouds of acrid smoke drift aloft deep into the night, arguably a sign of celebration and preparation for an impending offensive. source Head on over to the official site for the full preview and the full, high-res version of the propaganda promotional poster above. It really is enormous. Fit to print, perhaps? In the inspiring words of glorious Vol'jin: "Zalazane will fall!"
Patch 3.3.5: Ruby Sanctum release delayed
In a somewhat startling announcement, Zarhym stated that the release of Ruby Sanctum, the dungeon supposedly available with Patch 3.3.5 is being delayed. While players were expecting the dungeon to be immediately available upon Patch 3.3.5's release to live servers, it seems this is no longer the case. Here's the full post: Zarhym Due to the fact that we will be delaying the release of patch 3.3.5 in Europe, Korea and Taiwan in order to ensure the patch process in all regions is as smooth as possible, the Ruby Sanctum will not immediately be available on North American realms upon the release of the patch. Once patch 3.3.5 has been released in North America and we are confident about a time when we can open up Ruby Sanctum, we will provide an update here on the forums. source If any updates to this change in schedule are posted, we'll let you know.
Patch 3.3.5: Changes to vote kick incoming
Zarhym hit the forums earlier this evening to announce a change coming to the dungeon finder in the upcoming Patch 3.3.5. For those who behave themselves, the cooldown for starting a vote to kick a player from your party will be removed. For those who kick players out of those parties more frequently, the cooldown will remain. The quote: Zarhym We have found that most players using the Dungeon Finder don't use the Vote Kick feature or abandon groups very often. For these players, we are removing the cooldown on voting to kick players from a dungeon party. In contrast, those players who tend to kick players or abandon groups more frequently will notice that the Vote Kick feature maintains its cooldown. The goal here is to make sure players who are generally patient can make use of the Vote Kick feature when they really need it, without giving a more powerful tool to those who try to kick others or abandon dungeon groups very frequently. This functionality will adjust itself as a player's behavior while using the Dungeon Finder changes. source You might remember that they started tracking this sort of information as of patch 3.3.3. They have been tracking the number of times you kick, the number of times you are kicked, how often you've abandoned a party and a few other things. While this change is a new one, they have been collecting the data for some time. There's a Santa Claus is Coming to Town parody somewhere in here, but I'm not musical enough to pull it off. Help us out?
Patch 3.3.5: Regional release schedule
While we don't know when the 3.3.5 patch is going live, community manager Slorkuz has posted that the North American realms will be getting a week's head start on Ruby Sanctum as well as Operation: Gnomeregan and Zalazane's Fall. This is due to issues that are likely to pop up with the Battle.net upgrade and chat system so that the kinks are worked out before moving on to the rest of the regions. While those of us in North America are excited, this likely means that patch 3.3.5 will have some issues at the start. Be prepared for hotfixes and realm restarts until things are ironed out. Slorkuz In patch 3.3.5, we will be introducing our new Battle.net system, which opens up new communication options for World of Warcraft players and lays the groundwork for integration with future Blizzard games, such as StarCraft II. In order to ensure that the implementation of this major new system goes as smoothly as possible, we plan to release the patch to North American realms first, with Europe, Korea, and the region of Taiwan following approximately one week afterward. source
Real ID security concerns
Ever since the Real ID friend system was announced, players have voiced concerns about hackers and phishers exploiting this system. They're worried that hackers will move through a group of Real ID friends like a wildfire during a drought. While it is always good to have concerns about account security, sometimes paranoia is a bit too much. Yes, you do need your friend's email address to add them as a Real ID friend. However, that is the last time you'll ever see that email address in your game client -- once you hit the "Send Request" button, that's it. There is no way to look up that person's email address from the interface again. The only personal information in the client after that is your friend's name. Just remember that this system is meant for your real-life friends and family and not for some guy who was a good healer in your ICC PUG last week. If you don't know where to go to knock on the person's door if something happens to your account, then don't share your email address.
Operation Gnomeregan and Zalazane's Fall available now on the PTR
Blizzard has big plans for gnomes and trolls, with brand new starting areas and questing experiences available for those races when Cataclysm launches. But before that can happen, they need your help! There are some awful baddies that've been crashing on their couches, and they've been kickin' around for far too long. But all that's about to change! With the upcoming Patch 3.3.5, new world events and quests will kick off that will allow players from their respective factions to help their allies reclaim Gnomeregan's surface and the Echo Isles. Players who want to test out the new quest lines and events need only log into the Public Test Realm starting today, Blizzard has announced. They want tons of participation and feedback to make these events fun and memorable, so copy your character over and hop to it! It's just embarrassing to let low-level mobs control your territory for four years. Help your buddies save face.
Icecrown Citadel raid buff to 20%
The Icecrown Citadel raid buffs, Hellscream's Warsong and Strength of Wrynn, just went from 15% to 20% with today's maintenance. As always, this means a bunch of raid groups will be able to progress a lot farther in Icecrown Citadel, and we're two thirds of the way to the final 30%. Assuming the schedule remains constant, the last Tuesday in June, the 29th, is when we can expect to see the next 5%. Adam Holisky: I'm doing 10k single target dps right now on my huntard in ICC. today I'll magically do 10.5k. that just doesn't seem right. Basil Berntsen: It's better than suddenly reducing the health of the bosses by 30% like they did in BC While this might cheapen raiding rewards for many hard core players, I'll take a slowly increasing, optional buff against a flat out 30% HP reduction any day. Also, I suspect we might see some new achievements or rewards for players choosing to not use the buff once it finishes hitting 30%.
Where is patch 3.3.4?
For the past several weeks, people have constantly been asking where patch 3.3.4 is. Right now we're at patch 3.3.3, and Soon™ we'll be basking in the Ruby Sanctum with patch 3.3.5. We seem to have missed an entire numeral! Clearly this is a sign of the end times, shows how Ghostcrawler is really slapping us all in the face and how the "B team" is so special that they can't count to five without screwing things up. Or ... Blizzard just skips numbers all the time. For instance: Patch 2.2.0 lead directly into patch 2.2.2 Patch 2.3.0 lead directly into patch 2.3.2 Patch 3.0.3 lead directly into patch 3.0.5 Patch 3.0.5 lead directly into patch 3.0.8 Patch 3.2.0a lead directly into patch 3.2.2 Patch 3.3.0a lead directly into patch 3.3.2 So why was 3.3.4 skipped? Your guess is as good as mine, as long as your guess is that they've left 3.3.4 open in case they need to do an emergency client patch to fix some major error. Just like they have in the past.
