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  Want fat purps from Ghost? Read on... if you dare. Table of ContentsContinue reading The Daily Blues Filed under: The Daily Blues The Daily Blues originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  If you're playing World of Warcraft -- and reading WoW.com -- I can't imagine you aren't looking forward to the oncoming Cataclysm, at least a little. New zones, new levels, new content -- and that razor's edge of fear where you're caught between the worry they're going to nerf your favorite class to the ground (baby) and the hope that the expansion will offer everything your virtual heart desires. It should come as no surprise that Cataclysm is on a lot of bloggers' minds... even when Blizzard isn't releasing very much info. So for today, some musing on Cataclysm and what the future of the game might hold.
Filed under: The Daily Quest The Daily Quest: Waiting for the Cataclysm originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  Originally this week's article was going to concern stomping Karazhan from top-to-bottom as a feral/resto druid, and then I got Big Bad Wolf for the opera event. Suffice it to say that the stomping took an abrupt U-turn, and I never got pictures or video of the other Kara fights that I've successfully solo'd on dozens of other occasions (though I grant they were all occasions that did not include humiliating wipes to an overgrown dog). If I weren't in the middle of a time crunch it probably would've been doable, but regrettably I will have to run a feature on how to make 1,000 gold soloing Karazhan on a later date. In the meantime, Alaron's managed to solo Big Bad Wolf successfully, but my main is in the somewhat sticky situation of not being a night elf. With the upcoming Icecrown raid buffs going all the way to 30% damage/healing/health/absorbs eventually, more and more raids are going to find their way to Arthas. Buffs aside, a lot of Arthas' difficulty lies in execution, and I started jotting down a few notes that I hope might be helpful to other druids likely to attempt the fight. We were fortunate to get both the 10- and 25-man version down, and I got astoundingly lucky on one 10-man attempt with back-to-back selections as a Harvest Soul target while I was running a video capture. I've seen a lot of comments online that caster druids aren't well-suited to dealing with this, and that's just not true at all. Continue reading Shifting Perspectives: Tree 1, Arthas 0 Filed under: Druid, Analysis / Opinion, (Druid) Shifting Perspectives Shifting Perspectives: Tree 1, Arthas 0 originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all-things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com's arena column.
Listening Music: Fix You, the author's favorite Coldplay song. The best part of this performance, the "crowd run," happens 3 minutes into it. Watch it, if just for that. Last Week: Last week, we discussed the racials of blood elves, undead, and trolls, oh my! The last two Blood Sport articles look at racial abilities from a perspective of effectiveness in the arena. This Week: We'll be discussing racials, for the third (and last) week straight. A lot of arena players would rather play without racials entirely. On ArenaJunkies, there are lots of people who subscribe to a nerf movement every few weeks and add a little signature or avatar in to say "nerf Will of the Forsaken" or "nerf Every Man For Himself." What if racials got removed? Would WoW be better or worse because of it? I have an opinion on it that I'm going to share with you -- hopefully you'll agree. So let's weigh some arguments for removing racials... Cons (removing racials would be bad): Identity The forsaken just wouldn't be the same without those three translucent exclamation points. Before I played WoW, I saw a video of an orc using Blood Fury, and I was amazed. The animation looks so cool, and you can get it at level one! Every time I see a tauren shaman run to me, I instinctively jump behind a pillar. It'd be hard for me to get it out of my system that he can't War Stomp anymore. Continue reading Blood Sport: Should racials be removed? Filed under: PvP, Blood Sport (Arena PvP) Blood Sport: Should racials be removed? originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration will show you how. Brought to you by Joe Perez, otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and the For The Lore podcast.
Three years ago if you had mentioned to anyone you were going to level as a healing spec, they would have scoffed at you and called you ambitious or question your sanity. It was not a very common occurrence and if someone mentioned that was how they leveled, it was often asked how long it took. Two years ago it was slightly more common to see people leveling as a healing spec. With the amount of quests and gear available for each dungeon in Burning Crusade, healers were in hot demand to go forth with a heroic party and clear these zones out. Leveling was still slow going when compared to DPS, but you could do it. When Wrath of the Lich King came out things were a lot easier for healers than in previous content if they decided to level in their healing spec, but it was still slower than if you were a DPS spec. Instances still were healer friendly, but while questing there were several NPC that you just couldn't kill without being DPS. Now things have changed and it is easier than ever to level as a healer! Continue reading Totem Talk: Leveling as restoration Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk Totem Talk: Leveling as restoration originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
I worked on a pitch and reached out to friends & family in "the biz" but I spent most of my time trying to explain concepts such as a "raid" or a "boss" or that when I said "guild" I meant a group of MMO gamers and not an actor's or writer's union -- which made for some very confusing conversations at first. Frustrated, I wasn't sure I'd ever convince anyone this was an idea worth doing. But I knew it was. Continue reading Big Crits, a new WoW reality series Filed under: Guilds, News items Big Crits, a new WoW reality series originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  We posted yesterday about some of the aspects of the mastery system, a new feature in Cataclysm that will allow players to obtain bonuses to whatever talent tree they choose to follow. Today Eyonix answered a few questions to clarify the system and how it will work with regards to specific classes and abilities:
Continue reading Updates and clarifications on the mastery system Filed under: News items, Cataclysm Updates and clarifications on the mastery system originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  With Patch 3.3.3 on the PTR and looking closer and closer to going live, the buzz around death knights is just about where you'd expect it to be, squarely on the frost talent tree. This is especially true of frost DPS. While it once reigned supreme as a cornerstone of the famous 39/32 builds, it's fallen out of favor, and even Threat of Thassarian hasn't been enough to keep it from being consigned to the status of third rate, a pariah from any raid that already has a shaman to provide Windfury. Blizzard's obviously dedicated to getting the tree properly buffed in Patch 3.3.3, but have they succeeded? Let's take a look at the frost tree thus far, and what we may be doing with our own builds and talents in a few weeks' time. Continue reading Lichborne: The rise of PvE frost DPS on the patch 3.3.3 PTR Filed under: Death Knight, (Death Knight) Lichborne Lichborne: The rise of PvE frost DPS on the patch 3.3.3 PTR originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  First, I want to apologize for being a day late, but my week was spent preparing for the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam. Unfortunately, the test was channeling Illidian. If I get a letter in a few weeks saying that I'm not yet responsible enough to be a lawyer, I will not be surprised. Anyway, on to this week's promised topic: European Contract Law. We'll be approaching the same topics we covered on my side of the pond: contract formation, contract termination, and unfairness. These concepts form the basis of players' relationship with Blizzard, just like they do in the US. Whether Blizzard has the right to publish information about your avatars, ban you from the game, delete your achievements, or force you to resolve disputes in a mediation are all affected by the laws of the country in which a player resides. The first challenge in this column is that there traditionally has been no "European" contract law; these issues were decided at a national level through the home country's common or civil law system. Trans-nationalism being all the rage, however, the politicos of the European Union have formed the Commision on European Contract Law which has drafted Principles of European Contract Law. A Common Frame of Reference "toolbox" to help various European legislatures standardize the various laws of contract across the continent to match these Principles. What this means, though, is that this law is in a state of flux -- and I am not a barrister, abogada, rechtsanwalt, advokat, or avocat. Take everything in this column with a big grain of salt. And possibly a margarita to wash it down. Continue reading The Lawbringer: Euro-ver my head, contract law edition Filed under: The Lawbringer The Lawbringer: Euro-ver my head, contract law edition originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  The Syndicate first came to our attention a couple of weeks ago, when we noted the meta-guild's 14th anniversary in The Classifieds. Its 600+ members (across both World of Warcraft and Ultima Online) enjoy ties to all sorts of intriguing gaming and charitable projects: writing strategy guides, beta testing, games consulting, raising support for military troops through gaming. A visit to their web site yields pages and pages on the group's history and projects. Considering such massive numbers inside such a sprawling organization, you might be tempted to conclude that these gamers must be very, very "hardcore." Not so fast. In fact, The Syndicate's in-game philosophy uplifts long-standing, person-to-person relationships and group fun above all else. Outside projects such as games consulting and strategy guides focus on material for the typical gamer - that's right, not the bleeding edge. We dug up what's going on inside this gargantuan guild in an interview with Dragons, its founding GM, president and CEO. Continue reading 15 Minutes of Fame: The Syndicate's 14 years of gaming Filed under: Guilds, Interviews, 15 Minutes of Fame 15 Minutes of Fame: The Syndicate's 14 years of gaming originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  Each week WoW.com brings you a fresh look at reader submitted UIs. Have a screenshot of your UI you want to submit? Send your screenshots, along with info on what mods you're using, to readerui@wow.com.
This week on Reader UI of the Week, you, my adoring fanbase, get to indulge my minimalist side for one more week before I get to some quirky user interfaces. Nirayá of Proudmoore sent in this fantastic mage user interface that blew my mind, so I thought I would share. Sweet Baby Titans, is that ONE action bar? Let's find out. Continue reading Reader UI of the Week: Nirayá's UI Filed under: Add-Ons, Reader UI of the Week Reader UI of the Week: Nirayá's UI originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. We haven't kicked off The Queue with reading music in awhile, so let's change that. Once upon a time I posted some Rhett and Link for you, an internet-based musical comedy duo, and people seemed to enjoy it. So here's more! Behold, the T-Shirt War. T-Shirt War was actually my second choice behind the far more hilarious Butt Drugs, but perhaps Butt Drugs aren't as safe for work. Still, funny stuff. Butt Drugs. The Queue is actually a bit short today, since a majority of the questions we've been receiving require rolling bones and gazing into a crystal ball to answer. If you have a non-Cataclysm question for us, please ask in the comments below! busuan asked... "Why is there almost no sound effect for a warrior's shouts? In Diablo II, the similar shouts come with awesome sound effects. But in WoW, warrior shouts merely generate a visual cue. If Blizzard though effect were annoying to other people, they could have restricted the effects as self-only." Continue reading The Queue: Keeping it classy Filed under: The Queue The Queue: Keeping it classy originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. 
Continue reading MMO Roundup: Olympic medalists, Warhammer 40k, and more Filed under: MMO Roundup MMO Roundup: Olympic medalists, Warhammer 40k, and more originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. I actually think the sequel is better than the original Raid Eats. The camera work and storyline seems to flow a little more naturally, and the voice acting feels like it's stepped up a notch. The video is short and fun, and pleasant to watch. It's certainly not high-end story based machinima, but Raid Eats 2: Cake! is a lot of fun. I like the segmentation and pop-in work Bullworth is doing. He does a lot to add meta-commentary by dragging in recipes from the side of the viewing screen, and I appreciate that extra little emphasis it places on his plot.  Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.Filed under: WoW Moviewatch WoW Moviewatch: Raid Eats 2: Cake! originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments  We recently spoke to Sylvanas Windrunner, Banshee Queen of the forsaken, and she shed light on several key issues, including undieting, hunter training, building this city, and bouncing idly. In this installment of Ask a Faction Leader, we'll be sitting with Master Mathias Shaw, leader of Stormwind's SI:7, covert agents of the crown. Our first reader question... Hello Mathias, Can you describe the feeling you got when you found out that you couldn't beat your granny? Verenor, Warlock - Defias Brotherhood Mathias responds: Gahaha, that's what I like to see! Pullin' no punches, right from the get-go. Hard-hittin' questions. Continue reading Ask a Faction Leader: Master Mathias Shaw Filed under: RP, Ask a Faction Leader Ask a Faction Leader: Master Mathias Shaw originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  Do you have any unusual, beautiful or interesting World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see them on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next! Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word "Azeroth" in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing -- use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, Val'kyr on mounts, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran. Older screenshots can be found here. Filed under: Around Azeroth Around Azeroth: Dragons in the mist originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  Our bovine hero has managed to make a getaway -- those poor cows are going to miss oggling that strapping young bull...oh well. Stormwind awaits its unexpected plundering! Check out the full version right here, and tune in next Tuesday morning for a new page! You can also check out all the previous pages in the gallery below. Filed under: WoW.com's Weekly Comic WoW.com's Weekly Comic: Byron, the Tauren Rogue! originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  The Warcraft universe is full of names, some strange, some familiar. We have the parody names: Vana Grey, Xiggs Fuselighter (above), Linken. There are the homages to literature: Morgan Stern, the putative author of The Princess Bride, and Commander Falstaav, a joke on Shakespeare's Falstaff. There appear to be family names like Anduin. There are the cultural patterns that allow for easy guessing of an NPC's race -- who's the gnome? Bloodhoof or Mechatorque? So what names from the World of Warcraft would you a) be proud to name your own children, or b) refuse to inflict upon an innocent child? Calia or Jaina wouldn't sound too far out of place in the real world, but I can't imagine meeting a Garrosh or Brann. (Especially, God forbid, a Brann Muffin.) Leave your thoughts! Warning: This is not a raffle to name Gregg's baby, as Lyssa Rhiannon has a name. Filed under: Breakfast Topics Breakfast Topic: Favorite names originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  Of course, that's not to say we're completely out of Wrath yet. We have at least 2 more patches to go, and Patch 3.3.3 PTR news keeps rolling in, as does tons of other news. You'll have the usual maintenance break from WoW this morning, 5 AM to 11 AM pacific, so you have time to get caught up. As usual, here's our list of some of the major stuff from the past 7 days or so: Continue reading Tuesday Morning Post: Beginning of the end edition Filed under: Realm Status, News items Tuesday Morning Post: Beginning of the end edition originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  For a round up of all of the changes, big and small, coming with the patch, be sure to check our Patch 3.3.3 Info page.  Patch 3.3.3 brings about small but noteworthy changes to the World of Warcraft. From a faster CoT, to putting those old Frozen Orbs to better use, to changes to the auction house -- there's several things all WoW players need to know. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3.3 will keep you up to date!Filed under: News items Patch 3.3.3 background downloader active originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Want fat purps from Ghost? Read on... if you dare. Table of ContentsContinue reading The Daily Blues Filed under: The Daily Blues The Daily Blues originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. 
The entire announcement from Blizzard after the break. This includes some examples of the mastery bonuses for a few talent trees. Continue reading Mastery System Preview Filed under: News items, Cataclysm Mastery System Preview originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Perennial pariahs Goon Squad, Horde-side on Mal'Ganis-US, have really carved out a niche for themselves in the World of Warcraft. Well, two niches. The first is a rock-solid reputation of being the foremost trolls and griefers in the MMO market, period -- a reputation perpetuated by a community that operates mostly on word-of-mouth and lovingly crafted by the guild itself. The second is providing some of the best and most hilarious WoW videos on the internet. This one is no exception -- they managed to score a victory for the Lich King by defeating the dread paladin Fordring. It's a rare ability, possessed by Goon Squad and a few other community figures, to be able to take the building blocks of the game experience provided by Blizzard -- strictly compartmentalized and defined by sets of incontrovertible rules -- and then cobble together something wholly new and, frankly, ridiculous out of them. You're not supposed to be able to bring together two often-'shipped faction leaders for an impromptu date. You're not supposed to be able to blow the Wintergrasp fortress wall to smithereens in a minute's time. You're certainly not supposed to be able to kill the head of the Argent Crusade who, by the way, should learn to cast Consecrate. Continue reading Goon Squad downs Tirion Fordring Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Humor Goon Squad downs Tirion Fordring originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  If you don't see your favorite podcast listed, just let us know in the comments. Be sure to leave a link to it and we'll pick it up next week. All podcasts and content belong to their owners. WoW.com is not responsible for what you hear, and some of the content may not be safe for work.
Continue reading Weekly Podcast Roundup: March 1st, 2010 through March 8th, 2010 Filed under: Weekly Podcast Roundup Weekly Podcast Roundup: March 1st, 2010 through March 8th, 2010 originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  Mounts and pets But first, check out Lil' XT! Doesn't your Lil' KT want a lil' company? No idea where this lil' guy will come from as of yet, but it could be a future purchasable pet joining the likes of the Pandaren Monk and Lil' KT! Both the Celestial Steed and X-53 Touring Rocket (screenshot) now have their own spells and have 310% flying speed. Icecrown Citadel There's been some issues with absorption effects like Power Word: Shield not benefiting from the raid buffs that Wrynn and Hellscream provide. That will be addressed shortly with patch 3.3.3.
These changes could be temporary and could be reversed at any time. They're not in the official notes. Death Knights
Other changes Warlocks
Patch 3.3.3 brings about small but noteworthy changes to the World of Warcraft. From a faster CoT, to putting those old Frozen Orbs to better use, to changes to the auction house -- there's several things all WoW players need to know. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3.3 will keep you up to date!Filed under: Priest, Rogue, Warlock, Analysis / Opinion, News items, Death Knight Patch 3.3.3 PTR: Build 11643 notes originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  Have you shown us your plushies yet? We have some really great entries already, but yours could be even better. You have until midnight, March 10th to send us your photos of your Plushie in the Wild and/or Plushie in Captivity. WoWTCGLoot.com has generously provided the loot codes for the prizes. All of the contest details are after the break. Continue reading Photo Contest reminder: Show us your plushies Filed under: Contests Photo Contest reminder: Show us your plushies originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  The "A Team" -- in WoW, it's not a bunch of guys in a van who help people by . . . shooting other people. Rather, it's your best players grouped together to the exclusion of other guild members. Most guilds don't have the numbers to fill two 25-player teams, so this issue usually relates to 10-player runs. The forming of a 10-player A team can be riddled with drama. This week's e-mail asks whether allowing an A team is the right choice. I enjoy reading your perspective on guild leadership. I'm hoping you can give us some ideas on balancing progression versus inclusion. We are an established raiding guild that works on the top tier of content. While we are not a guild that makes server first kills, we steadily progress through the content and see hard/heroic modes on 25 man difficulty. Our raiding core is pretty solid, although there are levels of skill, from very high to adequate. We typically complete the ten man content, and use the ten mans as a base to gain experience on the twenty five mans. Our problem mainly rests on the makeup of our ten man groups. One school wants to have the maximum number of people get in the ten man groups. This school spreads our best players among multiple groups. All of the groups have some success, but because there are weaker players included, these groups usually hit a wall on harder fights (Heroic Anub or the Wing Bosses of ICC). There is a lot of frustration on the part of our best players when this happens. Continue reading Officers' Quarters: The A team question Filed under: Officers' Quarters (Guild Leadership) Officers' Quarters: The A team question originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  Having been a raid leader for a long time now, I'm very keen for everyone in my raids to be aware of the strategy we plan to execute. I get pretty frustrated when people deviate from it. I'm also interested in the theory and maths involved in maximizing gear choices and spell selections. When changes to warlock spell mechanics come along I always try and calculate the impact this would have on my gameplay -- and then do some research to find out what I missed or miscalculated. I believe that entering a boss fight with these things prepared is the foundation of good raiding. You can't live on foundations though, you need a house. Being able to execute a perfect, DPS-maximizing spell rotation on a target dummy doesn't fully prepare you for dealing with a more chaotic situation. Knowing the strategy for a fight can still leave you floundering when something forces a change to your expectations. Today I want to have a look at how to prepare for the unscripted, how to be a raider and not just a robot. Continue reading Blood Pact: Be a raider not a robot Filed under: Warlock, Analysis / Opinion, Raiding, (Warlock) Blood Pact Blood Pact: Be a raider not a robot originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.
Reader Frank recently wrote me and asked for a bit of help with the "staple" products for each profession. Frank said, "Back in the days of Burning Crusade, I had a pretty good grip on the two or three raw materials that went across each of the professions. Are there equivalents to that kind of thing now in Wrath?" I assume that Frank was probably asking specifically about the crafting professions (like Blacksmithing or Tailoring), and not quite so much the gathering professions. A little surprisingly, he's not the only person to ask me about that this month.It's a little late in the expansion to do a basic guide to Wrath of the Lich King materials, but Cataclysm is going to mean one thing for certain. Everyone will rush to get their professions to a relatively max level, so that they can immediately roll over into Cataclysm recipes as early as possible. Put that together with Frank's request and the inbound patch 3.3.3, and I figured a quick tour of each profession's most sought after raw materials might give us a little boost. Let's take a quick tour of the crafting professions' common end-game materials. Continue reading Insider Trader: End-game crafting materials 101 Filed under: Insider Trader (Professions) Insider Trader: End-game crafting materials 101 originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  The WoW Insider Show podcast broadcast this Saturday, and your hosts Sacco and Rossi welcomed UI/addon columnist Mat McCurley on the show to talk about Cataclysm's big stat overhaul and the latest authenticator attacks, as well as answer some reader emails and talk about chest hair.
Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes. [RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator. [MP3] Download the MP3 directly. Listen here on the page: Filed under: Podcasts, Podcasting, WoW Insider Show WoW Insider Show Episode 132: The Chest Hair Insider Show originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  I don't know whether it's from charity or curiosity, but I often spend time talking with the sad and dispossessed members of WoW, which is to say, other classes. In one conversation I thought we had found a common ground: the trials and troubles of choosing gear. Any kinship I may have felt, however, shattered when they started complaining about having five (or only four) different stats to compare. Yeah, a whole five different stats on gear that matter to you? Cry me a river. Hunters have a lot of stats to juggle -- more than most classes. On any given piece of gear our DPS could be affected by attack power, agility, intellect, hit rating, haste rating, armor penetration rating, crit rating, ranged weapon DPS, and even stamina. Not only does each stat affect our DPS differently, but many of our stats have some kind of cap after which they become much less useful -- or no longer useful at all. Today we're going to head back to hunter school and take a look at the hunter stats that have caps: hit rating, crit rating, haste rating and armor penetration rating. We'll look at the hard caps and soft caps and how these stats change as our gear improves. Continue reading Scattered Shots: Hunter stat caps: hit, crit, haste, and armor penetration Filed under: Hunter, (Hunter) Scattered Shots Scattered Shots: Hunter stat caps: hit, crit, haste, and armor penetration originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. My favorite bits of this video actually highlights one of my personal issues with crafting. At the opening of an expansion, crafted items are really quite important. They help you bootstrap yourself into the new raiding content and give you a little bit of a leg up. Late in the expansions, however, crafted gear is rendered almost irrelevant to progression. (Or, at least, only mildly relevant, and even then they rely on getting raiding reputations to even make the better gear.) While I understand there are balance concerns around making profession gear as good as raiding gear, I'd still like to see more crafting items released as professions move on. Wrath was okay for that; here's hoping Cataclysm is even better. Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.Filed under: WoW Moviewatch WoW Moviewatch: How to Win at Professions originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments  If you understand what those numbers mean... then, well... it's time for a drink -- no matter what time of day it is. Zaak asked... "How do you think the new Cataclysm mobs while leveling to 85 will be affected by all the people who are getting geared through ICC? I mean there gonna have to make it a little easy for the new people hitting 80 once it hits, because they won't be wearing 264 pieces instead most of it under 200." Continue reading The Queue: 92 128 154 200 251 264 Filed under: The Queue The Queue: 92 128 154 200 251 264 originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  Do you have any unusual, beautiful or interesting World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see them on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next! Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word "Azeroth" in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing -- use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, Val'kyr on mounts, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran. Older screenshots can be found here. Filed under: Around Azeroth Around Azeroth: Will the wolf survive originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. World of WarCrafts spotlights art and creativity by WoW players, including fan art, cooking, comics, cosplay, music and fan fiction. Show us how you express yourself by e-mailing lisa (at) wow (dot) com with your not-for-profit, WoW-inspired creations. If your ticket to a heart-pumping raid soundtrack is MrVoletron's WoW-flavored remixes, then you'll undoubtedly be a fan of Vedrim as well. (In point of fact, MrVoletron's a fan, too.) Vedrim's "Bound by Bone" (above) weaves an irresistible combination of original music with Marrowgar's booming in-game commands. You'll never again fight Marrowgar without this song in your head. Follow our interview with Vedrim through the break, where we'll also show you his newest track, "The Maker's Fire." World of WarCrafts: We understand that "Bound by Bone" is in fact your very first remix effort. Bravo! What's your musical background? Vedrim: Music has always been a part of my life. I was surrounded by it from a very early age. My mother's side of the family has a strong musical history. She always played her own compositions on our piano throughout my childhood, and her father, Robert Harris, actually wrote the original theme music for the Spiderman TV show to go along with Paul Webster's lyrics. Continue reading World of WarCrafts: Vedrim's Marrowgar mix mayhem Filed under: Interviews, World of WarCrafts, Arts and Crafts World of WarCrafts: Vedrim's Marrowgar mix mayhem originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  We talk a lot about expansion gear resets, greens replacing epics to be replaced by blues we then replace with epics and so on. Frankly, I've come to see this as the great strength of an MMO and not something that holds you back. No matter how awesome your gear is now, no matter how epic the fights, no matter the towering evil you're defeating, tomorrow will bring new gear, new enemies, and new stories. Yes, it can be seen as a treadmill and us as hamsters running it, but it can also be seen as a ladder always going somewhere new. So what about you? Do you like the limitless nature of the cycle, or do you want an endpoint? And what would you want it to be? Filed under: Breakfast Topics Breakfast Topic: The Eternal Stairway originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  As my guild and I have been conquering Icecrown Citadel, I find myself with a glut of Emblems of Frost. While my rogue is diligently saving up for some of the sweet rewards, my holy paladin can't even find a use for the new libram. While I did stop for a minute to consider picking up some off spec gear, I also couldn't bring myself to part with these hard-earned Emblems for a non-holy piece. What are we to do with all of the excess? I decided to investigate our Tier 10 4-piece bonus, considering that I was already halfway there with my two current pieces. However, I was also skeptical about how valuable the 4-piece bonus could be, considering that cast time reductions and haste interact in interesting ways. Well, there's that, and the fact that our tier set was itemized by someone who clearly enjoyed watching us squirm. With a complete lack of a haste/MP5 piece and two crit/MP5 pieces, our 4-piece bonus had better be really amazing to convince me to drop my off set pieces. Read on to find out what I decided. Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: The truth about Lightsworn Garb Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It The Light and How to Swing It: The truth about Lightsworn Garb originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  Last week, Blizzard activated the first stage of the scaling raid buffs in Icecrown Citadel. When entering ICC now, you'll see either Varian Wrynn's hair (and the rest of him, attached) or the conglomeration of cliches we refer to as Garrosh Hellscream. Each NPC grants a faction specific buff to your raid party which increases your health, healing done, and damage done by 5%. Periodically, the strength of these buffs will be raised a notch by Blizzard, thus allowing guilds of various commitment levels to see all of Icecrown Citadel. So, what does this little news item have to do with priests any more than the next other class? Well, if you're a discipline priest and your Don't have a panic attack, disco priests. In this article I will be addressing the issue, particularly for non-priests who might have misconceptions about the validity of a disc priest. I'll also be rehashing some older arguments. That's right folks: it's that time again! When all of Azeroth asks! *Cue game show music* What good is a disc priest? Update: It's possible that Blizzard might already be looking to correct this issue. I'll post an update as soon as I see something official. Here's hoping! *crosses fingers* Continue reading Spiritual Guidance: Discipline and ICC raid buffs Filed under: Priest, Raiding, (Priest) Spiritual Guidance Spiritual Guidance: Discipline and ICC raid buffs originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 07 Mar 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  This week, WoW.com had the pleasure of interviewing Diziet of Lightning's Blade, a healer who plays a 2500+ rated druid-warlock-death knight 3v3 composition. He also balances competitive road cycling and a PvP blog on Elitist Jerks on the side! Diziet had a lot to say about arena and WoW PvP, in addition to some other things that might surprise you. WoW.com: Why do you play restoration druid? What is it about the class's toolbox that appeals to you for competitive arena? Diziet: I started playing a druid late in season three. I was overwhelmed by the extensive mobility and flexibility of the druid and warlock classes, having played a mage. The concept of playing a flexible class with a seemingly never ending repertoire of abilities was a very different experience than that of playing a mage during late season 3. Druids provided, and still provide, a great and easy to use amount of 'raw power', an amazing amount of healing output usable on the move. That was a very different and powerful play style rewarding basic and strong gameplay. Back then, and still now, druids could just stand in the open and out heal any kind of caster without casting a single spell, based on hots alone. I always stuck with a very defensive style of gameplay on my druid, utilizing tree form even in The Burning Crusade days. I would try to watch for any kind of hints of target switches or incoming crowd control spells from my opponents and I would try my best to prevent or negate them by doing simple things such as moving away, out of LoS (Line of Sight), or by putting hots before damage came. Back during TBC, druids had the ability to either play a more control based playstyle with feral charge (a tool I utilized a lot) or with a restokin spec to provide damage (something similar to what priests might do now). I enjoyed those play styles quite a bit too, especially in the 2v2 and 3v3 brackets. With the talent tree changes in WotLK, I was forced to play a more one-dimensional but effective play style. So, in a nutshell, I was attracted by the raw power of the class (in terms of heal per second, heal per global cooldown, and heal per mana), and used it to build a very defensive healing style. Continue reading The Colosseum: Diziet, Brutal Gladiator druid Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, PvP, The Colosseum The Colosseum: Diziet, Brutal Gladiator druid originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 07 Mar 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.  Rogues. The one class that everybody can truly agree to hate. Or maybe that was the paladin... I forget. Anyway, today we pick up where we left off in this introductory guide on how to deal with those sneaky little scoundrels. In the first part of the guide, we took a look at the most commonly used abilities of rogues in PvP. Today, we'll talk a little about how the class works and why this defines their limitations and playing style. A deeper understanding of how the class works should give you a better idea of how to handle them. Combo points Rogues have a unique class mechanic called combo points, with two sets of abilities that either grant them or consume them and scale according to how many combo points are on a target. The more combo points on a target, the most devastating the effect of their finishing ability. This means that rogues are basically single-target killing machines. Once a rogue chooses a target, they have tunnel vision on that target until that target is dead or are forced to change. What does this mean for PvP? This essentially means rogues can't switch targets as easily as other classes. It penalizes them. They won't lose the combo points when they select another target, but combo points are lost when they apply even a single point on someone else. A rogue focusing on one of your allies is a great target for you because you're sure to get a lot of free damage in with little fear that she will switch quickly. Rogues are trained through their leveling to keep at one target until it's dead before moving on to the next one, with very few AoE options, Fan of Knives notwithstanding. After the jump, I'll break down a list of builders, or strikes that grant combo points, and finishers, or abilities that consume them. Continue reading Introductory guide to fighting rogues, Part 3 Filed under: Rogue, Analysis / Opinion, PvP, The Art of War(craft) (PvP) Introductory guide to fighting rogues, Part 3 originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 07 Mar 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. |
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look were i am in a dead server just pvping.. Friks at grizzly hills , with a lol guild so.. 
