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The Queue: Happy Winter Veil!
Welcome back to The Queue, the 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. Merry Christmas, everyone. It's very quiet in the proverbial WoW Insider offices today. I'm the only soul around, and the only sound in the air is the clickety-clack of my keyboard. That may seem a little depressing, but it isn't -- everybody is off enjoying themselves and grabbing some much-deserved rest and relaxation. It's a good thing. Today's edition of The Queue is a bit short due to the holiday, but I'm sure you'll all forgive me, right? Resurect asked: With the events of the dragon soul, its safe to say that lorewise caverns of time is just a lair of bronze dragons now ? This means we will never see another time traveling dungeon again ? Also Nozdurmu will now just grow old to be a nice guy without the risk of go "infinite" crazy ?
Totem Talk: Leveling a shaman in the Cataclysm era
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. This week, Josh Myers, the dean of DPS shaman, and Joe Perez, the Robespierre of restoration, do a Dragonball-Z style fusion dance and combine their class knowledge to bring you a concise shaman leveling guide. So, young padawan, you want to play a shaman. You're following in the footsteps of some of the greatest characters in World of Warcraft lore -- Nobundo Farseer, Thrall, and yours truly. Just know that you have the full support of myself and Mr. Joe Perez, and we'll only judge you a very small amount for not choosing shaman sooner. The shaman class has three distinct specs that each fulfill very different roles. Enhancement, which we'll talk about first, is a melee DPS class, which means standing very close to bosses and whacking them repeatedly with blades or maces imbued with flame and wind. Elemental is a ranged caster DPS class, preferring to stand at a safe distance while hurling balls of lava and electrocuting enemies. Restoration, the last spec we'll talk about, is a healing spec, revitalizing friends by creating super-soothing puddles for them to stand in. Seriously.
The Queue: Shoulder on
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. Anybody remember Orc Shouldergate? I was a GM at the time, and I can confirm that literally nobody ever shut up about those orc shoulders. Major Buzzkill asked: Has Blizz said anything about making the Therazane shoulder enchants BoA? I know this has been asked before, but I've yet to see a definitive answer from a Blue. I'd love the enchants for alts, but have little interest in grinding it again. Unfortunately, no, Blizzard hasn't said a single thing confirming that it's making those enchants BoA. I wish it would, though, because at this point in the expansion's lifespan, the odds of my going through Therazane's entire quest line again are pretty much nil. It seems odd that the change hasn't already been made. I just know it makes me sad to look at my alt's unenchanted Dragon Soul shoulders.
Shifting Perspectives: Balance druid guide to Dragon Soul, part 1
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send questions, comments, or requests to tyler@wowinsider.com or @murmursofadruid. Overall, the first four bosses of Dragon Soul are a fun lot that focus more on your ability to raid overall and less on your specific capabilities. There is a solid chunk of movement in them, so you should be prepare to deal with that. Practicing how to drop Mushrooms while on the move is a huge asset in this raiding tier. Styling this week's advice after McCurley's 5-second strats, I'll briefly detail the encounter and any tricks that you should know about heading into the game. Keep it simple, after all. Morchok Morchok should be tanked relatively where he stands. After each Blood phase, the tank can just pick him up where ever he happens to end up. No real positioning is needed unless you start to wander too far to the sides. The raid team should all be grouped up within 25 yards of the boss as often as possible. A dedicated group of ranged DPS should run out to every crystal that spawns. You need seven players for this in 25-man. Run and head behind spikes once they've spawned, positioning yourself either between two spikes or just at the side of one so that you can continue to DPS.
What the Raid Finder's success means for the future of accessible content
The Raid Finder is here to stay. It's rolled out to astonishing success, getting more people to see the encounters of the major raid of the Cataclysm expansion than we've seen since the days that Karazhan convinced Blizzard that 10-man raiding was an option worth exploring. With Blizzard explicitly intending to move forward with the Raid Finder so that every future raid will have a RF difficulty option, a few things are likely to develop. When we consider the Raid Finder as a tool, we have to consider it both as a tool for the players (us) and as a tool for the designers, a means for them to deal with a persistent and somewhat untenable issue with the raiding game -- a ton of work goes into raid design, and statistically speaking, almost no one ever sees it. People who got to see Kel'Thuzad at level 60, Illidan or Kil'Jaeden at 70, or even Arthas at level 80 are in the minority. Thanks to the Raid Finder, Deathwing may be the most accessible big bad any expansion's ever had. Looking forward, a few broad strokes may be discerned about the Raid Finder and where it will drive the game.
The Queue: An epic battle, how exciting!
Welcome back to The Queue, the 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. An alternate answer to our first question today is yes, please. @AndreaBrusetti asked: Do you think ethereals will ever be playable?
Raid Finder vs. Normals: The Siege of Wyrmrest Temple
Previously, we've made explaining Raid Finder fights easier by showing you how to tackle the Raid Finder mode bosses of Dragon Soul in 5 seconds with our handy guides. You guys responded positively to those descriptions, so we're going to take it a little further. If you're a Raid Finder player who's gearing up to hit the normal mode version of Dragon Soul, here's how each encounter differs and what you need to look out for. The Raid Finder calls the first four bosses of the Dragon Soul encounter "The Siege of Wyrmrest Temple," accessible as the first wing of the raid. In normal mode, there is no distinction between the two wings, as the whole place is just one instance. For the sake of understanding and what most people in Raid Finder are accustomed to, we'll split our explanation into two wings as well. Before we begin, here are a few general points to make about the jump from Raid Finder to normal difficulty. There will be more damage. Everything hits harder in normal and heroic mode Dragon Soul. Everything. Every ability will require more healing, and every player will be required to mitigate as much damage as they can to make the healers' jobs easier. There will be more healing. With more damage comes more healing. Healers will need to know what cooldowns they have and where they are best used. Tank cooldowns are good for periods of high tank damage. Raid cooldowns are good for periods of high raid damage. Your raid leader will most likely be in charge of letting you know what cooldowns to use where, so listen closely.
Korean guild KIN Raiders scores world-first heroic Madness of Deathwing
After more than three weeks of intense strategizing, planning, fighting, scandals, and more, the race to world-first heroic Madness of Deathwing kill is over. KIN Raiders, the group that swept by Paragon, Blood Legion, and the rest, for the world-first heroic Spine of Deathwing kill took their time advantage and pressed on. Only one other guild, the Korean team In extremis, has downed the Spine of Deathwing on heroic mode, so not many people were even currently working on the fight of the instance. KIN Raider's kill happened in 25-man mode, an interesting departure from many of the world firsts now happening in 10-mans after being forced to raid light when raiders were banned for exploiting the Raid Finder for extra loot. Blood Legion also rounded out the list with many top kills on 25-man mode, but in the end, it was a 25-man Korean guild that swooped in and took the top spot. Congratulations to KIN Raiders on their first kill of heroic Madness of Deathwing. Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
The Queue: Donksliders 2
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 expected the body type slider in The Old Republic to maybe increase my female character's muscle mass, but it turns out I could have just removed "muscle m-" from that phrase. Meanwhile, guys get wholly different body types, including a huge, muscle-bound one. Just because it's sci-fi doesn't mean we're free from fantasy body type conventions, apparently. Lillyth asked: So my question is: would running organized betting on 1v1 Duels, /roll, lotteries, etc. violate the ToS / EULA so long as any gold earned was used for in-game purposes only? As Mat McCurley explained recently, running a gambling operation of any kind is against Blizzard's policies. Doesn't matter if it's a lottery or a straight-up bet on the outcome of a duel -- it's still against the rules.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Proc weapons and the future of itemization
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. For the first time since the brief period following the launch of the pre-Cataclysm patch, arms has achieved parity with fury as a PvE DPS spec. Granted, this required a painful mauling to fury's DPS output and relies heavily on arms' ludicrous AoE potential as well as getting your hands on a Gurthalak. The proc on the weapon can add as much as 15% of your current DPS; in raids and on heroics, I've seen the Tentacle of the Old Gods put out more DPS than Rend and Deep wounds combined. Even on a high-trash dungeon where you can use Blood and Thunder to spread Rend around, Tentacle can still put out a respectable 5% to 6% of your total damage. The sword is just as good for fury (I did in fact try out a fury build with it off-hand to test if it procced, and it did, quite frequently). While it won't make up for the nerf fury took, it does put me in mind of weapons like Bryntroll and Shadowmourne, proc weapons that did excellent damage in a warrior's hands from the end of the ICC era. I'll admit it's unfair to use Shadowmourne as an exemplar here, as the weapon was a legendary, but that's OK -- this isn't meant to be a pure comparison. Proc weapons have a long and storied tradition in World of Warcraft but they've also somewhat fallen from favor, since they're never as reliable and predictable as pure stats. People would argue the Blackhand Doomsaw vs. Arcanite Reaper into the small hours back then. But I think Dragon Soul's two proc weapons (Gurthalak and Souldrinker) have me thinking a lot about where weapon itemization has been and where it's going, and what that means for us warriors.
WoW Insider's guide to Yor'sahj the Unsleeping
Ready Check helps you prepare yourself and your raid for the bosses that simply require killing. Check back with Ready Check each week for the latest pointers on killing adds, not standing in fire, and hoping for loot that won't drop. Questions, comments, or something you would like to see? Email me at tyler@wowinsider or message me on Twitter @murmursofadruid. Welcome back to another exciting WoW Insider strategy guide. This guide will detail how to take down Yor'sahj, the Unsleeping in the Dragon Soul raid. Previously, we have gone over how to kill Morchok and Warlord Zon'ozz as well; marking this the third encounter within the raid. Yor'sahj is an amazingly fun fight, in fact it's my favorite encounter in the whole zone. That's because it's never quite the same fight twice, there's always something a little different about it that makes you think on your feet and adjust to the situation. I only wish my bosses gained random ability combinations instead of always going through the same ability list on a set pattern. Oh well, dreamers can dream I guess.
The Queue: Setting sail, coming home
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. Quick reminder that Bastion has new DLC and is available to play in your Chrome browser window. Hal asked: Is the Silver Hand still around? There was a disagreement about this in the KYL article yesterday. Nope, it was officially rolled into the Argent Crusade, along with the Argent Dawn. Note that argent is another word for silver (as an adjective).
5 ways to improve the Raid Finder
I'll admit it: The Raid Finder feature has been a lot more successful than I expected it would be, and for the most part, it works not only better than I had thought but better than I could have ever hoped. I've run multiple alts through both halves of the Dragon Soul via Raid Finder, and while it's easy to tell that the fights have been reduced in complexity from the raid, they do still require some coordination and execution to get through -- enough to make a full PUG of the Raid Finder a hair above just showing up and getting loot, which is nice. The Raid Finder does the job of making complex raid content accessible for players who might otherwise never get to see these fights and it does it well. That being said, there have been some issues with loot, player behavior, and even the way the Raid Finder selects players in my runs that I wanted to address, aspects that could be improved or streamlined to give us all a better Raid Finder experience.
Raid Finder items reclassified for intended classes
Many items in the Raid Finder have been able to be rolled on by classes that might not get the best use out of them -- for instance, mages rolling on spirit cloth or warriors rolling on one-handed agility axes. Blizzard has confirmed that it has updated many items' classifications in Raid Finder to only be rolled on by the classes for whom the item is intended. Now, classes that can use the item the best will apply the roll bonus correctly. I am very glad that Blizzard is changing these items' classifications and making the Raid Finder even more fair for players. So far, the Raid Finder has been an enormous success, and with some tweaks and changes down the road, it's here to stay in a big way. Hit the jump for the announcement and full list of updated classes that can roll need on many Dragon Soul items in the Raid Finder.
Lichborne: Hour of Twilight tips for death knights
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. With End Time and Well of Eternity down, the last dungeon we examine is the Hour of Twilight. This dungeon technically takes place in the present day, acting as a precursor to the Dragon Soul raid. Unfortunately, you do have to escort Thrall through the dungeon, but if you turn off the sound on the voice acting and squint, maybe you can pretend it is a cooler shaman like Nobundo or Mylra. For now, though, what we're most interested in is getting through this dungeon as a death knight, be that tank or DPS. It's a short, sweet dungeon, but there are a couple of tricks and gimmicks you'll want to know to make the fight as smooth as possible. As with the other two dungeons, the loot here will be mostly sidegrades to Firelands stuff, a great way to catch up an undergeared death knight for Dragon Soul. (For a more complete overview of the dungeon from all angles, be sure to check out WoW Insider's guide to Hour of Twilight.) Trash for Arcurion, the first boss, isn't too annoying -- just some run-of-the-mill elementals. The second pack comes at you from both sides, so you may either want to wrangle the single dude in with Death Grip or have one of your DPS CC it.
Patch 4.3 hotfixes for Dec. 12, 2011
A big batch of new hotfixes has just been released for patch 4.3. Some of the more notable ones include: The Mass Regeneration effect from the druid tier 13 bonus now heals 25% of the healing received by the druid from Frenzied Regeneration, down from 50%. The tooltip will be updated in a later patch. Damage done by Forgotten Ones, Void Bolt AoE, and Searing Blood has been reduced on 25-person heroic difficulty. Yor'sahj's health has been reduced by 10% on 25 person heroic difficulty. The health pools for Burning Tendon, Corrupted Blood, Corruption, and Hideous Amalgamation have been reduced by 6% to 11% for 25-person raids on both normal and heroic difficulty. Damage done by Deathwing's Elementium Blast, Corrupted Blood, and Blistering Heat have been lowered on Raid Finder difficulty. Blizzard makes it clear on Twitter that several of the raid hotfixes will not be active until after tomorrow's realm maintenance. So don't expect to see them if you're currently engaged in the encounters. The full list after the break.
Dragon Soul: Fall of Deathwing Raid Finder bosses explained in 5 seconds
The Raid Finder has more people than ever filling World of Warcraft's raiding zones with players, adventure, loot, and fun. With more accessible dungeons comes the potential for explanation issues -- raiding is still about communication, even in the Raid Finder. Here is a quick look at the last four bosses of the Dragon Soul raid that you can use for great success in the Raid Finder. For tips for the first four bosses in the Dragon Soul raid, The Siege of Wyrmrest Temple, please check out our first guide. First, here are some quick Raid Finder facts: No lockouts. Participating in the Raid Finder will not lock you out from doing the raid on 10- or 25-man with your guild or group, nor will it lock you out from loot for these instances. You only get to roll on loot once per boss per week. You can fight bosses multiple times but are only eligible for loot on the first kill. Get 250 valor points for completing the raid wing. Two tanks, six healers, 17 DPSers are needed for a Raid Finder raid. You can queue up in Raid Finder with your Real ID friends across servers.
The Queue: My power, my pleasure, my pain
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. We like this song so much that we sang it twice at karaoke tonight. techno-warrior6 asked: Correct me if im wrong here but did ever add the role roll bonus in LFR and if they did do you ever think we are going to see anything like in 5-mans? it dosn't have to be a big advantage just one that stops me getting out rolled by a huntard, everytime the end time tank shoulders drop. A CM did recently say that Blizzard wants to roll out the Raid Finder loot system to 5-mans, too. There are obviously some kinks to work out first, though.
Totem Talk: Mastery vs. haste for elemental shaman
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shaman. Josh Myers once only tackled the hard questions about enhancement but has recently expanded his sphere of responsibility to all shaman DPS specs. (And no, two-handed enhancement is still never coming back.) Those of you following my Twitter feed might have read how I managed to go an entire content patch without ever getting tier 12 shoulders for the main spec of my main class. So when I heard that Blizzard's amazing idea for getting people tier gear more quickly was too entirely remove tier from valor point vendors, the part of me that saw something like two or three protector shoulder tokens drop in five months of raiding was very skeptical. That said, there are already people running around Orgrimmar with full sets of tier gear. Between weekly Raid Finder and a weekly run of Dragon Soul, you have four to six chances to see your token drop, with even higher chances for gloves and legs due to Baradin Hold. This is really good news for elemental, because our newly lackluster tier 12 needs to be replaced as soon as possible with the very shiny Spiritwalker's Regalia. The bad news? Everything you knew about elemental gearing in Firelands is gone, just like your permanent Fire Elemental Totem. Those of you who played elemental at the start of Cataclysm may remember a time when mastery was as good as haste and balancing the two stats was ideal. With Firelands, mastery fell by the wayside. It was still a good stat, but it couldn't compete with haste. Now that 4.3 has hit, we're starting to see mastery coming back into the limelight. It's like the Neil Patrick Harris of elemental stats -- starts off strong, fades into the background for 10 years (or five months), and comes back to outshine everything around it.
The Queue: Kickball
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 helped a friend celebrate the end of his kickball season tonight. He's 29. Thundrcrackr asked: How is Dragon Soul split up for the raid finder? Which bosses and in which order? I haven't had a chance to run it myself yet and haven't been able to find this info on wowhead yet. It's split right down the middle. Siege of Wyrmrest includes Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, and Hagara. Fall of Deathwing includes Ultraxion, Warmaster Blackhorn, Spine of Deathwing, and Madness of Deathwing.
