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Death Knight goes insane (in the membrane)
A Gnome Death Knight appropriately named Nutshell from Mug'thol reported on the forums that he had completed the requirements for the upcoming Achievement Insane in the Membrane. The Achievement, to be implemented in Patch 3.1, requires a character to gain Exalted reputation with the Steamwheedle Cartel (Everlook, Booty Bay, Ratchet, and Gadgetzan), Darkmoon Faire, Ravenholdt, the Shen'dralar, and Honored with the Bloodsail Buccaneers. Unlocking this Achievement also rewards the fitting title 'the Insane', arguably one of the cooler titles in the new patch.Most of the faction reputations listed aren't easy to grind, particularly the little known Ravenholdt faction in Hillsbrad Foothills. Most players who have been playing for years are unlikely to have considerable reputation with them nor the come-and-go Darkmoon Faire and the Dire Maul-based Shen'dralar. It's an impressive feat for any character, and even more impressive for a Death Knight -- Nutshell might possibly be the first one to complete it. Considering Loremaster Nutshell has 5870 Achievement points to date, it's probably not that surprising the player made the grind. To all of this, Bornakk simply responded, "you're insane."
The Queue: Close the floodgates again, please
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Hi again, everyone! I may be covering The Queue for the rest of the week while Adam Holisky flees from a righteous flood. We usually trade off days, but he's kind of a wuss and can't take a little water, so I'll spare him the tragedy of needing to toddle through a puddle or whatever.pants asked... "I know that they are taking away the proto-drakes for the raid achievements in 3.1, but will the title "Champion of the Frozen Wastes" be gone as well for it's respective achievement?"
Developers call for focused PvP testing on the PTR
The calls for focused testing on the PTR continue, this time with a focus on PvP and the arena. This Thursday, March 26th, the developers are asking volunteers to queue up for any rated arena bracket and give it a go. They'll be observing (and possibly participating?) throughout the day to see how things look on the PvP side of things right now. This appears to be happning both on US and EU test realms.The devs have stated repeatedly in the past that PvP is one of the hardest parts of the game to test and receive feedback on before a patch/expansion goes live. Not many people do Battlegrounds or queue for the Arena on the test realms. This looks like an attempt to get as much testing as possible in a somewhat-controlled environment, where normally they wouldn't get much useful data at all due to simple lack of participation.
The Queue: Glory of the Hero
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Hey, everyone. I just wanted to take a moment to remind all of you that Adam and I are not the same entity, even if we both have A names and contribute to the same column. There's been a lot of confusion over the last year, so let me repeat: Adam Holisky and Alex Ziebart are two different people. Adam is not Alex, Alex is not Adam. And when you throw Allison into the mix, Allison is neither Adam nor Alex and they are not she. Are we on the same page here? Great.Herumor asked... "As things are now without the Maelstrom, is there any point to adding the upcoming water mounts without a large water based area? I don't really see a use for them other than showing off, and even that's kind of difficult to do."
Breakfast Topic: The titles of Patch 3.1
Patch 3.1 is a hefty content patch that will introduce a massive new raid zone, the Argent Tournament, as well as Arena Season 6. Of course, along with all those are new Achievements and consequently, titles. Some of the titles have been around since the Beta, where the realm's first Level 80 of a particular race was awarded an 'of the <major city>' title. This was widely criticized and Blizzard pulled the titles long before Wrath went live, but are now set to return with the Argent Tournament. Soon, dedicated players can append an affiliation with their favorite racial cities for all to see.Of course, there are more titles that are coming with the next content patch, and yesterday it was revealed that the titles for the Ulduar versions of Undying and Immortal were going to be Champion of Ulduar and Conqueror of Ulduar respectively. Is it just me or does Champion/Conqueror of Ulduar not have the same 'oomph' as being Immortal or Undying? First of all, Champion and Conqueror are both existing Horde PvP titles, which lessens the impact. Secondly, the cool factor of 'the Immortal' and 'the Undying' are just off the chain as well as being perfectly appropriate for the Achievement. There are also the Celestial Defender and Death's Demise titles for realm first Algalon and Yogg-Saron kills in their hardest modes. I think those are much cooler, but are about on par with, uh, Magic Seeker. Sometimes, titles just don't roll of the tongue very nicely. We usually ask for your opinion on these, and we're doing the same today for Patch 3.1's batch of titles. In fact, we're putting up a poll to get your take on all the titles of Patch 3.1. Click on a radio button to kick off your day! %Poll-28431%
Paladin changes in Patch 3.1 PTR build 9722
A new Patch 3.1 PTR build went up earlier and while there aren't any official patch notes, our data-mining friends over at MMO-Champion have dug up some goodies as usual. There aren't too many changes for Paladins in this build, but there are interesting stuff in there, not least of which was the unintended revelation of the internal testing on Crusader Strike. The more down-to-earth changes are as follows:HolyDivine Plea - now only reduces the amount healed by your Flash of Light, Holy Light, and Holy Shock spells.This properly reflects Blizzard's intention of nerfing Divine Plea for Holy Paladins. The change allows healing from Seal of Light and Judgement of Light to go unimpaired, the latter particularly useful to Protection Paladins and Retribution Paladins. Considering that Protection is now designed to have maintain a 100% uptime on Divine Plea, this is an important distinction.Aura Mastery - tooltip has been modified to properly reflect its 10 seconds duration. The excellent new ability confused a lot of players who thought it was a permanent, passive ability. Don't freak out, people! It's an activated ability that lasts for 10 seconds and has a two minute cooldown. The tooltip should help dispel the cloud of confusion.The rest of the changes after the jump...
Warrior changes in Patch 3.1 PTR build 9722
Well, the changes, they keep being incremental, but they are happening. This latest PTR patch has one change that proves even in these times of nerfing Titan's Grip damage that, some times, just some times, good things happen for fury warriors. Like what, you may ask? I'm glad you did. Improved Berserker Stance now increases strength by 3/6/9/12/15% instead of increasing attack power by 2/4/6/8/10%I honestly can't gibber at that change enough. It's flatly astonishing. If the change was merely AP to Str and the percentages didn't change it would make the talent twice as good. But by having it increase strength by 15% instead of AP by 10%, it's now nearly three times as good, and will be even better when raid buffed. (Note: without raid buffs, this will be an AP decrease unless you are very lucky with rings to have STR in both slots. Any AP gear you have will detract from the benefit of the talent, making it stronger when grouped/raiding but weaker solo.) I think I had a small squeegasm when I read this change. But wait, there's more! It's not all this good.The folks at MMO-Champion dug up the goods Let's take a look, shall we?
New Crusader Strike is in the works
I've said it before -- Crusader Strike is the most boring key talent out there right now. It's vanilla 110% weapon damage strike, a 41-point talent that all Retribution Paladins pick up. It's simply not optional. Despite its lackluster nature (its original seal-refreshing feature was utilitarian but ultimately boring), it has held a firm place in every Retadin's arsenal since its inception. Imagine the elation of Paladins everywhere when the latest PTR patch notes revealed a shocking change that made me run for new boxers: "Crusader Strike is now An instant strike that causes 110% weapon damage. In addition, if you strike a player while they are casting, their magical damage and healing will be reduced by 50% for 6 sec."The bad news is that this change isn't going to happen. Ghostcrawler was quick to prevent mass hysteria by saying that this change will not make it into Patch 3.1. This thankfully saves the world from an epidemic of Retribution Paladin players dancing naked on the streets in ecstatic celebration. He says that they are merely experimenting and that they wish to make Crusader Strike "more exciting," but ultimately feel that some sort of reverse Mortal Strike wasn't the way to go about it. Crushed Retribution hopes and dreams aside, the good news is that Crusader Strike is going to be improved. Blizzard is working on it, and the change sneaking unintentionally into the PTR gives players a sneak peek into the developers' thought process. Even if we don't see the change happen in Patch 3.1, I think it's safe to say that Retribution Paladins have something to be excited about. The rest of you who play another class, you can put down your pitchforks now.
Select Tier 8 set bonuses updated in latest PTR build
As I mentioned when the Tier 8 set bonuses were first revealed, some of them will probably change before patch 3.1 hits live realms. Better ideas come up, bugs are fixed, things are rebalanced, all of that. It's proven true so far, because tonight's PTR build has changed a few of them, most notably the ones that had incorrect or missing values in the tooltips. Here are the set bonuses changes we've seen so far in this build:Druid Balance 2Piece Bonus -- Increases the bonus granted by Eclipse for Starfire and Wrath by 15%. Paladin Protection 2Piece Bonus -- Increases the damage done by your Seals of Vengeance, Corruption, and Righteousness by 10%. Protection 4Piece Bonus -- Shield of Righteousness now increases your shield block value by 225 for that attack and for 3 sec afterward. Holy 4Piece Bonus -- Your Sacred Shield can now trigger its effect every 4 sec instead of every 6.
Making flasks in Patch 3.1 to give double the reward
There is a new build out on the Patch 3.1 PTR tonight (Build #9722 for those of you keeping track). MMO-Champion is already data mining the stuff, and fresh from this build comes a rather important change that everyone will need to know about:All flask recipes will now create 2 flasks for the same amount of ingredients, but flasks will only last half the amount of time. This means where you used to make one flask of awesomesauce, you now get two flasks of awesomesauce. That's a lot more awesome for the same amount of sauce.We can speculate that this change is in part to due to the difficulty ramp-up that will occur in Ulduar. We know that Ulduar is going to be harder, and so this change will help soften the time required to come prepared. And as someone who flasks and eats food religiously, this is a welcomed change.Of course the downside to this change is that flask prices will drop on the AH, meaning people will earn less money off them. But at the same time, raw materials will likely go up a bit since folks will be wanting to have their flasks made for them now more often. We'll have to wait and see to be sure, however.Edited on 3/23/09 at 9:40 p.m.: Updated with more recent information. Patch 3.1 brings us Ulduar, dual specs, significant changes to all the classes, and more! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.
Wowhead's 3.1 PTR site
With all this patch 3.1 PTR news and speculation flying around, it's useful to have a place that simply accumulates hard information on spells, items, talents, quests, and so on. Wowhead's new PTR site is that place. This is the first time to my knowledge that they've done a PTR-specific site; there was a site for the WotLK beta as well, which was very handy. On the PTR site you can find a page for basically everything as it is in the latest PTR build. I find the talent calculator especially useful. There is also a nicely formatted page listing everything new in patch 3.1, which some people may find helpful in building their Ulduar wish lists. My Ulduar wish list is something like "Please, oh great RNG, give me something without a ton of Armor Penetration on it for my Unholy DK" (actually, I'll probably just give in and respec Blood+MoG). We've been using the PTR site since it went up to provide tooltips for new and updated spells and items. If you need some 3.1 information, take a look. Patch 3.1 brings us Ulduar, dual specs, significant changes to all the classes, and more! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.
Ulduar testing schedule for Tuesday and Wednesday
There is another Ulduar testing update today. And since there will be testing already schedule for Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, that mean Patch 3.1 will not be coming out tomorrow. So don't ask. /smileFor the North American PTR: Flame Leviathan – Tuesday Night March 24th, starting at 7 p.m. EDT Hodir (Hard Mode) – Wednesday Night March 25th, starting at 7 p.m. EDT For the European PTR: Flame Leviathan – Tuesday Night March 24th, starting at 19:00 CET General Vezax (Hard Mode) – Wednesday Night March 25th, starting at 19:00 CET Also, the Shirt of Uber will be available from Ursula McWeaksauce for hard mode testing. Ursula will be making her appearance near the Ulduar entrance. The Shirt of Uber will give you stats that are equivalent to you having obtained Ulduar gear. We'll have some more information on the Shirt of Uber once we're able to get our unuber hands on it. Patch 3.1 brings us Ulduar, dual specs, significant changes to all the classes, and more! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.
The evolutionary design of Arena gear
When we reported on MMO Champion's sneak peek at the new Furious Gladiator gear, you might have found that new Arena sets were somewhat familiar. They should be. Arena Season 6 item sets are slight variations on a theme. Most of the pieces are recolored versions of the Season 5 multi-tier sets, but the head and shoulder pieces are entirely new models.What many players who don't like the sets seem to miss on is that this is something entirely new in the game. Blizzard has always done recolored versions of armor, but this is the first time by my reckoning that they have done evolutionary tier gear. [EDIT: This isn't entirely true. Reader Suzaku pointed out that the leather armor from Level 60 PvP sets evolved. My bad on missing out on that.] When I first encountered Blizzard's new multi-tiered PvP gear system, I was apprehensive about the next season's gear because I was afraid it would be difficult to match pieces visually. Arena gear had, prior to Season 5, been mere recolors of PvE raid sets, so there was no contuity from the one season to the next.The problem with that was upgrading from one season's set to the other created visual clashes. As much as we like to min/max, PvPers like to look good, too. Enter Season 5 and the multi-tier gear system. There were three different sets of gear but all of them melded seamlessly into the other, with minor discrepancies in color. The introduction of an entirely new set of gear with completely different designs in Season 6 would have invalidated not just one but three sets of gear. However, the new design philosophy builds upon the older models, evolving -- as Alex put it -- like Azerothian Pokemon.
Ulduar items and why they look the same
Players will whine about anything. No, really. A thread started by some Level 6 troll (actually, he's a Gnome) whines about how the non-tier pieces that drop in Ulduar are merely recolored versions of the tier models. The poster goes on to define Blizzard's goal of "class homogenization" as including appearance, as well. He points out that the non-tier items in Naxxramas were He also accuses Blizzard of blatant laziness and lack of effort. It's a pretty tough argument, and players throughout the thread have weighed with their thoughts on the matter. This is an issue that has been apparent since the launch of Wrath of the Lich King, where many armor pieces have largely shared the same models. Take, for example, the Spaulders of the Giant Lords, a plate shoulder piece purchased from the Sons of Hodir at Revered reputation. It shares the same model as 22 other rare plate items, from drops to crafted pieces. That's a lot of similar-looking gear. This design direction ensures that players will find an easier time finding non-set pieces that match instead of looking like a clown. This was one of the criticisms hurled at the leveling items in The Burning Crusade, and Blizzard seems to avoided it in Wrath.
Priest T8 set bonuses clarified
As of the latest PTR build we now have access to most of the set bonuses for the tier 8 gear that's going to drop in Ulduar, including the bonuses for both priest sets, shadow and healing. In case you haven't seen them before, the bonuses are as follows: Healing: Two-piece: Increases the crit chance of your Prayer of Healing by 10% Four-piece: Casting Power Word: Shield also grants you 250 spell power until cancelled. Shadow: Two-piece: Increases the damage done by your Devouring Plague by 15%. Four-piece: Your Mind Blast also grants you 240 haste rating until cancelled. The parts listed in bold up above are new; these numbers are just placeholders in the PTR client right now, but Ghostcrawler has clarified that the intended values are somewhere along those lines. No word yet on what "is cancelled" is supposed to mean, as far as I know.
The Queue: Item level, attunements, and more
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Good morning/afternoon/generic time of day, everyone! I don't have anything funny or interesting to say here, so let's skip that part and pretend that I did it! Yay! Now imagine there's a silly poll for you to vote in! Exclamation points! More exclamation points! Not enough exclamation points yet! We need more!Okay, that's enough of them.Erogroth asked... "How exactly does item level work? From what I gather its almost like talent points for an item. So any item that is the same level should be about equal in how good it is. However often items of the same item level are no where near equal. So what's the deal?"
Kisirani calls for focused testing on the Argent Tournament
The Argent Tournament has been overshadowed quite a bit by Ulduar in patch 3.1, it hasn't been talked about a whole lot since the first thrill of finding out it was actually there in Icecrown. Since that rush a whole lot of things have changed with the Tournament, but beyond the dedicated few, I have my doubts it was receiving as much testing as it needed. That's probably why Kisirani has put out a call for focused testing on the Argent Tournament, asking for as much feedback as you can supply.Kisirani's thread on the official forums lays out a few things: First, a lot has changed since the early PTR. This means that if you only did the quests in the first week or two of the Tournament, you should try them again before submitting feedback. If you've never been to the Tournament before, Jean Pierre Poulain awaits you on Krasus' Landing in Dalaran. He'll send you out there for free. If you want to do it yourself, the Tournament is just north of Sindragosa's Fall.%Gallery-45851%
Totem Talk: When things go off the rails
Yesterday, a new PTR patch dropped with changes for shamans. We'll be covering them. But first I wanted to talk about the change to the Windfury Glyph that I've frankly been avoiding discussing for weeks now. I've avoided it because, frankly, I haven't wanted to discuss it until I could come up with something to say that wasn't a lot of cursing. Amazingly this change was so extreme that the highest damage an enhancement shaman can get right now is to use the Torch of Holy Fire in your mainhand and a fast offhand with flametongue on each weapon.Yes, that's right, a healer/caster weapon is the highest DPS an enhancement shaman can get. This is the sound of me banging my head against the desk. My forehead's got splinters. Honestly, I still don't know what to say about this. When the attack power was taken out of WF glyph they might as well have just removed it from the game.In the above post Blizzard hightlights their intention for the class (slow MH/slow OH with WF/FT), the problem here is not what they intended but what they did. By reducing the WF glyph and removing the attack power bonus it was giving, the glyph became inferior to double flametongue with a caster MH/fast OH, due to how Flametongue Weapon works.Right now, the base damage on each Flametongue proc scales with weapon speed, but the percent of spellpower that affects the damage that the imbue does is always a flat 10%, meaning that until 3.1 flametongue does more damage on a faster weapon. The enhancement playstyle that takes advantage of this is an anomaly, in that we know it will be much less effective in 3.1, but as of right now we know that if you are an enhancement shaman, you will do more damage with a caster weapon and a fast offhand.
Updated Ulduar testing schedule
The Ulduar testing is continuing for at least another week, and the blues have posted the testing schedule along with a few other tidbits. And since those tidbits are going to be of more interest to most folks than the testing schedule, let's cover them first: All trash will now be in place – that means we'll get to see the trash we have to deal with when Ulduar goes live. All loot should be in place, except for some trash loot – that means look for updated and complete loot tables soon. Many achievements are active and functional – many placeholder achievements have been removed, but a few are still there. Since things are being finalized, keep an eye out on WoW Insider and around the internet for more Ulduar information.The complete testing schedule for this week is after the break. We'll continue to carry live streams when we can (or when the PTR cooperates with us)
Arena Season 5 mount is a Frost Wyrm
This one has been in the game files for a while -- the screenshot above has been with MMO Champion since November of last year -- but the latest PTR Build reveals that the Arena Season 5 reward mount is a Frost Wyrm. Just as the otherworldly Armored Nether Drakes were representative of Outlands, the Deadly Gladiator's Frost Wyrm is the perfect symbol of Northrend. As with past seasons, the mount is expected to be a 310% speed flyer awarded to the upper 0.5% of Arena participants in each of the three brackets. With Arena Season 5 expected to close soon, perhaps as early as the release of Ulduar, players now have a small window in which to earn that Gladiator title and what might arguably be the coolest-looking mount in the game. In mount-related news, the Coralshell Turtle was renamed to Sea Turtle, whose tooltip reveals it as the first aquatic mount in the game: "This mount can't move very quickly on land, but she's a great swimmer." Better practice that fishing...
