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Level requirements changed on some enchants, items
Ishh over at Twinkinfo has some pretty big news for lower-level players: the enchants, librams, and even jewelcrafting trinkets that used to work for almost everybody ingame have gained a few level requirements on the PTR. Twinks especially love these items, as they can be used to give big buffs to even low-level players, but Blizzard isn't down with that any more, apparently. Even applied enchants and Leatherworking leg armor will apparently stop working if this change goes out to the live realms -- they have pictures, as you can see, of enchanted stats turning red due to level requirements.Most of the time, when Blizzard makes changes like this, they aren't actually targeted at twinks -- they're just designed to keep the game from becoming extremely easy at a given level (I'm still bummed that my Leatherworking drums have no effect after level 70). But obviously twinks are affected by these changes, and as you can see from the comments on that post, they're not very happy with having even more limits placed on how they can buff up.But then again, as I said a little while ago, twinks have always dealt just fine with limits. Twinkinfo has a poll up on what twinks will do if these changes go live, and the majority of votes say that they'll just keep twinking. They've gone around level restrictions before -- a few more won't be the end of the world.
Warrior class changes in patch 3.1 PTR build 9684
From our friendly official patch notes for the PTR, we now have some news on new talents for Arms, which I complained about this morning: Improved Intercept and Weapon Mastery have once again swapped places in the talent tree. New Talent: Juggernaut: Grants the warrior the ability to Charge while in combat. Unrelenting Assault: Now also increases the damage of Overpower and Revenge by 10/20%, and causes Overpower (when used to attack a casting target) to decrease the effectiveness of all the target's non-physical damage and healing by 25/50% for 6 seconds. Tooltip and visual updated. Pretty obviously they switched Imp Intercept and Weapon Mastery because arms will not be expected to use intercept at all now that they'll be able to charge in combat, similar to the protection ability Warbringer. We've basically now seen two out of the three warrior specs given the option to dispense with Intercept altogether. In addition, fury warriors have lost the only 'expertise compensation' talent they had. While for warriors with sufficient expertise this is a non-issue, if you were using Weapon Mastery to fill a lower than necessary expertise stat, get some exp gear fast.Unrelenting Assault sounds like a promising buff. I won't know how promising until I get back onto the PTR tonight, but a damage buff and an anti-caster function? Yes please. It does PvP and PvE duty, can't complain about that. All in all, it's a trickle, but a trickle is better than nothing. Not too thrilled about the loss of Weapon Mastery for fury warriors, but it's survivable. 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.
Live Mimiron testing on the Patch 3.1 PTR
Tonight on the US Patch 3.1 PTR Mimiron will be tested, and we're bringing you the live stream of Alliance guild Symbolic Logic on Area 52. You'll be able to watch them (hopefully) down the boss. Mimiron is a mechanical boss with a slew of abilities for players to deal with. He has two phases: one where he's in his Levianthan MKII tank, and one where he's got a VX-001 Anti-personnel Assault Cannon.While in his tank Mimiron will toss napalm out dealing AoE damage, fire a plasma blast, drop some mines, and chuck about rockets all while causing a blast wave. With his cannon he will deal fire damage to players within 80 yards of him, do some frontal cone damage, and charge up his lasers for a big ol' blast that puts the BFG to shame.You can read more about him at WoWWiki.I should be a fun fight to watch!Edit: Comments are disabled for this post. 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 Queue: Eight
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.In yesterday's edition of The Queue, my partner in crime Adam Holisky did some speculation about Battlestar Galactica that was taken as a huge, massive spoiler. As far as I know, it wasn't actually a spoiler. I'm here to fix that. I'm here to give you a real, true spoiler. Are you ready for it?They shoot Old Yeller.hold up asked...Is the Realm First Ulduar Achievement based on completing Ulduar on Easy Mode or is it based on clearing the entire place including the optional Algalon "the Raid Destroyer"?
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Arms waits and waits and waits
Remember those arms changes we keep hearing about? They still haven't dropped yet on the PTR.In fact, the whole state of warriors on the PTR is pretty static. They've decided not to change stances and how rage interacts with them although I can attest that yes, they've added armor pen to battle stance (I was running around Un'Goro on my tauren looking for the Ravasaur trainer) and they've already fixed the potential TG bug I mentioned so that there's no way you can switch specs and have both 2h weapons equipped. Shattering Throw is indeed fun in mass PvP: I haven't had a chance to test it yet outside of a few melee's around a summoning stone, though. I did get to make that one ret pally very unhappy, so yes that's nice. But all in all, I'm still waiting for arms to get, well... buffs. Yes, all three stances got small to medium buffs, and there's talk of removing the penalties altogether on stances. I won't pretend I won't welcome the day where stances don't have penalties aside from the rage dump aspect of switching, but that's hardly a buff to arms warriors.We've been told repeatedly that arms warrior DPS is too low in PvE. And I know that they can't think that changing Taste for Blood to a 100% chance to proc with a built in 6 second cooldown is going to do it. Buffing Blood Frenzy? Not really enough. There have to be arms changes somewhere at least going internal testing.So when do we get to test them already?
Death Knight class and item changes changes in patch 3.1 PTR build 9684
A New build went up on the PTR this afternoon, and as expected, there were another handful of Death Knight adjustments. Overall, not as many of them are nerfs as you might think, and some of them seem more adjustments in philosophy rather than straight up buffs or nerfs. We also got a handful of Glyph changes and even a sneak peak at our tier bonuses. Let's look at the changes after the break, courtesy of MMO-Champion:
Totem Talk: PTR Build 9684 undocumented changes
Well, I had a long rant about the Mana Spring change and some more about the leveling process and then Blizzard chose to drop a new PTR build on us, so we'll be talking about that instead. Some of these changes are holdovers from previous PTR builds and some are totally new. We'll be covering them step by step here and discussing them all as they are the state of the art for what's coming for the class, but to avoid deluging anyone with information they'd prefer not to see yet (since it is all of course subject to change before going live) we'll do so behind the jump.
New Spirit Beast discovered on the PTR
Beast Masters around the world, rejoice! A new species of Spirit Beast has been tracked down on the Patch 3.1 PTR, which should alleviate the hunt around Sholazar Basin. This is a real Spirit Beast, by the way, and not the wooden (albeit wonderful) pull-toy that BRK has available through his site. The white tiger-skinned Gondria is a Level 77 rare elite that can be found in Zul'drak, presumably as difficult to pursue as the leopard-like Loque'nahak.According to Beast Lore, Gondria will have Spirit Strike, the Moonfire-like ability unique to Spirit Beasts. Personally, I didn't care much for the spotted Loque'nahak, although I'm sure Matthew's wife disagrees vehemently. This ghostly (spectral?) white tiger looks much sexier, I think, and would go right along with the game's most expensive mount or its aspirational knock-off. So Hunters, you had all better get a lay of the land in Zul'drak, because as soon as Patch 3.1 comes out, the game will be afoot...
Ulduar testing schedule updated: March 13th-18th
The last couple days of Ulduar testing have been a wash, delays and cancellations cutting things short. As mentioned by the developers when they announced the cancellation of the EU's Auriaya testing, recent tweaks and retuning hadn't yet made it to the PTR, they were contained in a future build that hadn't hit those servers yet. Really, it would be rather pointless to test those bosses. Due to this, they've pushed back all testing and changed up the testing schedule. Testing is now on hold until tomorrow, which means that either this evening or tomorrow morning, we'll be seeing a new build on the PTR.North American realms: Friday, 3/13, 4PM PDT: Mimiron Saturday, 3/14, 4PM PDT: Hodir Sunday, 3/15, 11AM PDT: Flame Leviathan Monday, 3/16, 4PM PDT: Ignis the Furnace Master Tuesday, 3/17, 4PM PDT: XT-002 Deconstructor Wednesday, 3/18, 4PM PDT: Kologarn European realms: Friday, 3/13, 19:00 CET: Mimiron Saturday, 3/14, 19:00 CET: Auriaya Sunday, 3/15, 19:00 CET: Flame Leviathan Monday, 3/16, 19:00 CET: General Vezax Tuesday, 3/17, 19:00 CET: Thorim Wednesday, 3/18, 19:00 CET: Freya Again, this is the new testing schedule for the upcoming week, and the one that was passed around yesterday should be disregarded.
Ulduar testing schedule for March 11th-15th
We dropped the ball a little bit by failing to post about this week's Ulduar testing schedule yesterday when Daelo posted it to the official forums, but that's alright. We didn't miss much. Last night was just more Hodir testing. The rest of the week should prove more interesting, because they're re-testing a couple of bosses that were pretty widely considered much too easy, like Ignis the Furnace Master, which I hear received a little extra testing last night for some reason. Again, both the US and EU realms are getting their own testing schedule.North American realms: Wednesday, 3/11 (today), 4 PM PDT: Mimiron Thursday, 3/12, 4 PM PDT: Ignis the Furnace Master Friday, 3/13, 4 PM PDT: XT-002 Deconstructor Saturday, 3/14, 4PM PDT: Kologarn Sunday, 3/15, 11 AM PDT: Flame Leviathan European realms: Wednesday, 3/11, 19:00 CET: Auriaya Thursday, 3/12, 19:00 CET: Mimiron Friday, 3/13, 19:00 CET: Thorim Saturday, 3/14, 19:00 CET: General Vezax Sunday, 3/15, 19:00 CET: Flame Leviathan I don't believe we've seen anything about Auriaya yet, so that's what I'm looking forward to the most. We haven't seen much of Mimiron either, but we already know he's just another mechagnome. Gotta say, not a fan of the mechagnomes.%Gallery-45995%
The Queue: Procs and more on Patch 3.1
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, ladies and gents! Or afternoon for some of you. Probably evening for a few others! It's morning for me, though. That's all that matters, isn't it? Indeed. Adam is out of the office today thanks to a blizzard murdering his internet connection, so I'll be covering for him even though today is technically his turn to do The Queue. Lazy such-and-such, letting weather get in his way. Grumble.Ian R. asked...Do you think the first couple of bosses in Ulduar can be PUG'd on easy mode? Like Sartharion and Vault of Archavon?
Shorter Arena seasons in the future?
Bornakk announced over at the forums that Arena Season 5 is nearing its end. He notes that the current season is slated to end "with or shortly after" Patch 3.1 is released. Season 5 kicked off in December 16 last year and has run around 12 weeks to date. In comparison, the shortest Arena Season was the pre-Wrath Season 4, which lasted for 17 weeks while the extremely lengthy Season 3 dragged on for 29. Season 1 lasted for 20 weeks and Season 2 lasted for 23, so all seasons thus far except for the Wrath-preempted Season 4 have run for a good length of time.The reason for the extended Season 3 was because Blizzard had wanted PvP progression to match PvE progression, so were waiting for more guilds to gear up with Sunwell-level items. Considering how difficult Sunwell Plateau was, this took some time, delaying Season 4 considerably. PvE content in Wrath, on the other hand, was so accessible that by the time Season 5 started a month after release of the expansion, players were decked out in the best PvE gear -- which changed the balance of Arena play for the first few weeks.Blizzard is looking to address that by starting Season 6 simultaneously with the "first tier of raid content" or essentially make PvP gear more accessible to prepare for the next season of Arena play, according to Ghostcrawler. Although Blizzard hasn't given a starting date for either Season 6 or Patch 3.1, the new Arena seasons are looking to match the shortened Season 4 in length and might indicate a trend in PvP season progression. That is an exciting change of pace and a comforting message to PvP enthusiasts that Blizzard is committed to keeping PvE and PvP progression at a similar pace. And if the development of Ulduar is any indication, that seems to be a fast one.
Power Word: Barrier may not be coming
I may prefer Shadow as my Priest's primary spec, but the Discipline tree has also made a special little place for itself in my heart. When I need a change of pace, playing Discipline is really enjoyable. I probably pay attention to changes to the Discipline tree almost as close as the Shadow tree for that reason. Even if I don't play it a lot, I love it. When they announced a new spell coming for the spec, Power Word: Barrier, I geeked out over it just as much as Matticus, our resident Discipline Fanatic.Unfortunately, Power Word: Barrier has yet to make an appearance on the PTR, and it turns out that we may not see it at all. It's still a possibility, but that's the extent of it. I can sort of see why they would hold off on it, or even change their mind about it. Discipline has gone through a lot of changes in patch 3.1, most of it a really big numbers game. Discipline is a great tree, and while most players might not 'get' the damage mitigation/prevention thing, it's a really powerful mechanic and probably one they need to be careful with.
MMO-Champion's updated Tier 8 preview
MMO-Champion put up an update for its Tier 8 listings today, including some high res screenshots showing off the high res skins, and a video of all of the sets. Most of this is stuff that we've seen before, but some of it is new. New and wonderful. I'm really not a fan of the Paladin set this time around, but there also seems to be a robe version which I like much better. It's still pretty awful on Females, though. Again, I ask, why in the world did they bring midriff back on tier sets? Leave that to the greens and blues!We've also started to see stats for some of these sets on the PTR, but not many. A lot of the raid items that are becoming available on the PTR haven't actually had their stats adjusted from the Tier 7 items they were copy-pasted from. In this case, the Warrior set that we've seen is from Ulduar-10 and shares stats with gear from Naxxramas-25. That might actually be a pretty accurate indicator of what it will be on live, with maybe a little extra tweaking upwards to make the 10-man still useful for people who did Naxx-25 previously.
New Cooking recipes coming in patch 3.1
I was excited to hear the other day that leveling cooking will be a little easier, as more recipes are likely to go grey a little later, but Bornakk has more good news for cooks after patch 3.1. He confirms that new recipes are going in as well, and he can think of two off of the top of his head (so hopefully we'll see even more than that).That will, as he says, make the Chef de Cuisine achievement that much easier as well -- it'll probably still be a pain, but at least there'll be a few more options to pick up new recipes. And I'm curious to see what the new food does, too: I like cooking the usual stat food as much as the next culinary expert, but I'm almost more interested in the fun stuff like Last Week's Mammoth (what a bummer) and the good old Delicious Chocolate Cake. Those cosmetic items make cooking much more fun than just the usual stat buffs that most food give.So we'll keep an eye out for new recipes. Completists will have at least two more to grab with the new patch.
The Queue: Ulduar progression 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.Ah, maintenance day. The day where I finally get to go out into the world and suck some sunshine into my pallid flesh. I may even pick up some groceries! One can only order crates of Ramen off of the internet so many times before life starts to get a little bland. ...Wait, but if I leave the house... who will write The Queue!? Oh man, forget it, I'll get some sunlight next year. Maybe I can order some Pringles to add a little flavor to my noodles.Fargostar5000 asked... Don't know if anyone has asked this yet, but are groups going able to run Ulduar-1o successfully using only the gear from tbe other 10-mans thus far, or will heroic level raid gear be necessary/recommended?
Aotona tameable on the PTR
Just a little tidbit (and possibly a bug) for Hunters on the PTR from our friend Mania. Aotona, a parrot-esque Bird of Prey rare in Sholazar Basin, is apparently tameable in the latest 3.1 build. It's not that big a deal -- apparently the bird is just a bird, with the usual skills of that family, but it makes a parrot sound instead of the other birds that you can tame right now (not to mention that it's got some striking coloration that's pretty cool and unique).There is a chance this may be a bug -- we all know it's not the first time that something has appeared tameable on a PTR when it isn't on the live realms. And the parrot sounds could be placeholders or simply just an option that's not toggled the right way. But Hunters could have a new friend to make if Aotona keeps the tamable flag up until the patch drops.
WoW, Casually: What 3.1 means for casual players
Robin Torres writes WoW, Casually for the player with limited playtime. Of course, you people with lots of playtime can read this too, but you may get annoyed by the fact that we are unashamed, even proud, of the fact that beating WoW isn't our highest priority. Take solace in the fact that your gear is better than ours, but if that doesn't work, remember that we outnumber you. Not that that's a threat, after all, we don't have time to do anything about it. But if WoW were a democracy, we'd win.As you are no doubt aware, content patch 3.1 is being tested on the PTR. There is the new dungeon of Ulduar, which really isn't going to affect most casual players for a while. And there is a long list of class changes that are ever evolving and that you can check our 3.1 Guide for the latest about your favorite class(es). Professions are getting some balancing, so keep an eye out for what's going on there as well. Players with limited playtime should also be aware of new features and functionality that will affect your daily play sessions, regardless of class or profession. Following is a list of what I think is most interesting for the casual player.
Lichborne: Dual Wielding and Tanking on the 3.1 PTR
Welcome to Lichborne, where Daniel Whitcomb is ready to help you roll with the punches (and Death Knight changes) coming from the PTR.We had a new build hit the PTR this week, and with a week gone by, now's a good time to take a deep, focused look at the changes and see how they're shaking down. They're mostly pretty solid nerfs, and a lot of Death Knights aren't too happy about them. Still, beyond people concern about the fact that they are nerfs, the question remains: Were they merited, and where do they leave us? Let's discuss.
Sprite Darters and Westfall Chickens for the Horde
When it was mentioned that Dig Rat Stew is becoming available to the Alliance, our Horde readers quite nearly rebelled and marched to Irvine to kick over Blizzard's statue. Where was the Horde love? I can tell you where! It's coming in the form of pets. In patch 3.1, two of the Alliance exclusive non-combat pets are being opened up to the Horde: The Westfall Chicken and the Sprite Darter from Feralas.The Chicken quest (CLUCK!) can now be picked up by Horde players as well, via spamming /chicken at chickens around the world. While Alliance players buy the Special Chicken Feed needed for the quest from Westfall, the Horde can now buy the feed from "Westfall" William Saldean in Brill. Technically the Horde had access to this pet before, but it was a real pain. You had to wait around for an Alliance player to do the quest, then steal their egg off of the ground before they could loot it. Harsh. Now you can do it on your own, in your own town.The Sprite Darter quest is still exclusive to the Alliance, but there's another way for the Horde to get their hands on it now: Killing the Sprite Darters of Feralas. We don't know how low the drop rate is yet, but it's safe to say that the Horde is going to drive the Sprite Darters to extinction. Alliance players, note that you cannot kill these Darters. We still have to do the quest(s).See? Blizzard loves you, too. They love all of us equally. ...Usually.
